$2/$5 NL

A 30ish guy who said he lives in Vegas and seems semi solid opens to $15 from UTG+2. Im 2 to his left and 3 bet to $50 and take it down. The very next hand......

He opens to $15 again. I 3 bet again to $50 with AhQd. Im in the LJ. The HJ just sat down about an orbit ago. I doubt he knows my game. I think Ive only played with him once before. I only know that he seems like kind of an arrogant erratic rec fish. He looks at me like "O'rly?" and cold calls the $50. Vegas guy calls also this time.

Vegas Guy ($350)
Hero ($450)
Rec fish (covers)

Flop ($155) Qs8s4s. Vegas guy checks. What do you do here?

Im not crazy about betting or checking, but I decided to check. Rec fish bet $100 and it folded back to me.

Vs 1 player i would bet $100-$120. Againsr two opponents I would just check here and bet/call turn if it's non spade


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Check/evaluate, but it would be tough to fold to one bet.

Just read bottom part. I call and evaluate turn vs. rec fish.

Why are stacks so short at 2/5?

We cant really call here and fold ui on 90 bigs but we hate folding top top in a 3b pot. Im really torn here between calling and leading every turn, shoving now, and folding

I know that i probably just call here and lead/call every turn but i bring several bullets to the game and always top up, so rarely in this spot

Its a 100B capped game.

??? It could easily be a 100bb buy-in game. I almost always buy in for 100bb, regardless. Not really short except for Vegas who folded.

Ok 100 bb cap. Yeah this makes it a tough spot. I am not folding. I can understand and get behind a fold because when we are ahead we arent far ahead and when behind we are hopelessly behind, but i think im going down the rabbit hole here and flatting, leading all turns. Its hard to flop a flush. If we call and lead a spade we can make it like 125 and prob fold to resistance. I just think we can rep a spade when it comes and vbet blanks. Call imo

This might be nit picky but i think we should always 3b for pure value at this stack depth. 40 pre. Dont let him fold pre too easy.

I was torn between calling and leading most turns and crai now. Im not sure I would lead a spade turn though.

Fold pre unless you think Vegas is raising pretty wide. AQo is fairly marginal IMO.

This is a decent flop for you though. Bet with the intention of folding to a raise.

As played it depends on the fish. Is he aggressive? Straightforward? Trappy? Passive? If he is weak tight I fold. If he is aggressive enough to bet 1 card spade draws or hands like KQ or QJ, I'd consider shoving. It isn't too likely fish has a flush (if he plays all suited hands there are 45 combos out of well over 1000), there are no likely 2p on this board, and sets are possible but only 7 combos. On the other hand there are 24 combos KQ - QT plus quite a few combos of like Q9 or Q7s are possible. 18 combos 99-JJ also possible. And if he plays all Aces he could have as many as 38 Ace of spades flush draws (I'm doing this in my head so that might be slightly off). Similar number of King of spade draws but probably fewer he would play that way. Also combo draws like JsTx, Js9x, Ts9x, and possibly 7s6x, 7s5x, 6s5x (3 combos each), depending how loose the fish is preflop. So he can have a lot more strong draws than flushes. At most there's 45 flushes and if he's not playing suited trash like T4s it might be half or less of that.

I don't think you should fold unless he's particularly weak/tight. I think shove if he has lots of draws and weak TP or worse in his range. He may fold his weaker draws and TP hands and if not your equity is probably decent. If fish is unlikely to play draws like this I think flat call and x/f turn if he bets again.

Against the right opponent I might shove on any spade turn. But you would need to be pretty sure villain has mostly non flush made hands in his range.

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Yeah, we can check spades too since it usually slows him down and it turns our hand into a bluff, tho that bluff should work a lot

Call now tho. Turn?

When a guy opens to $15 (playing 2/5) fairly often, hes gonna have to prove to me he has a real hand before I worry about AQ being behind his range.

I had JJ the previous hand...not that it really matters. It only matters that he may have called preflop lighter this time and that the rec fish may think Im full of it since I did it back to back.

$85 with your whole continuing range

Bet $65 with everything (check jacks if you want to). Plan for rest of hand is to play passively for showdown. If facing aggression, I don't think it matters much, do what you are comfortable with-use what info you have picked up.

If plan is to overfold vs aggression on the flop, then become more aggressive/showdown inclined on later streets.

Now here I come again (LOL)

I'm not saying your AQ is not a quality hand. It is, but the situation you are in it's not the ideal for TP. He may be bluffing or not. You don't know and it will cost you a lot of money to find out if your hand is the best in order to win. I said before many times and this is one of the cornerstones of winning at poker: Just because you know there is a fairly good chance that you have your opponent beaten early in the hand does not mean you should call his bet. You can’t stop more cards from coming. And if your hand has little chance to improve significantly, you may very well be in an untenable situation. Namely one where your only hope is that you have the best hand now and that it stands up. Not taking into account the possibility your opponent can draw out on you as well as have you beat already will have you playing many hands you should throw away. For instance, if your hand has a 45% chance of being best now, but there is a one-third chance he will improve his losing hand to a winning hand or he may have a made hand + a draw to beat you, your actual chance of winning the pot is 30% or even a little less.

Even he's got 22. You are 1.4:1 only. But for sure he's got better and not an underpair (LOL). I would say, you have a small hand on a bad flop with two opponents that have called your preflop 3! That's not a good situation. That's a semibluff setup, bad flop for TP because that hand is one of the most costly and loser of money for weak players. TP is not the motherload hand most people think is. It's not. You cannot keep pot control in a 3! preflop being the aggressor. How in hell the aggressor can have in this situation of monotone board pot control? You can't .. wtf?

Out donked is right and wrong as usual and is pretty much stating the obvious except he forgot one thing. Top pair will beat the draw more often than not. Its actually where most of your money comes from in poker since it will hold up more often esp in a 3bet pot.

Tough hand and i dont mind a fold but there are hands in villains range that we crush, and there are hands in our range that crush him too.

I want to call here because i have just as many spades in my pf range as villain and the betting can quickly slow down. I want to jam here because villain has to fold so many hands. Can he even call here with KK without a soade? I want to fold coz our effective hand strength isnt good. All are arguable

Also betting bet betting a lot less than this with all of it.

Yes, ... yes of course

Yes, TP will hold most of the time against a pure draw only. But our TP will be a very small favorite against a draw+pair. Also in some situations where the flop has a possible flush draw with two to a str8 or one gap to a str8 that give an opponent a gutshot+flush+pair, even our AA are behind.

For example
hero AA
villain KQ
flop QT9

AA are behind at 40:60 dog. I'm not saying this is the situation. But what I'm trying to say is that I'm not happy at all with TP in THIS situation (hero's situation that we're talking about with a monotone flop). Also my situation with AA, I'm playing in the dark. I'm in wtf situation there. How you call that? - when we have two flush cards with a T9 and QT, the joint of a str8 and flush .. where any two Broadways in the universe will get a big slice of it. ...., Oh,... mama! . . I have AA at the wrong time

You might be reading too much into the raise size. I've read on Vegas standard raises at 2/5 are like 3-4bb +1 per limper, with ed Miller and Jonathan Little both suggesting opens this size in such locations. So to Vegas guy his 15 raise might seem super standard and he thinks you guys are nuts opening 25+.

Anyway, AQo should be at the bottom of your 3-bet range even if the guy raises pretty wide for low stakes. If he is raising like 15% I 3-bet it. I don't think the previous hand has anything to do with it. I've made that mistake before. A guy donks a flop against me as pfr. I have a hand but not great so I give him credit and fold. Couple hands later, same guy donks into me on like TT4. I have JJ so we get to showdown. He has a T. A couple hands later I get AA on QQ3. Same guy donks into me again. I decide he's full of it, flat, and shove the turn. He snap calls and has a Q of course. Point of all this... our brains search for patterns where there aren't any. The fact this guy raised twice in a row is likely random. Could be raising light but why would he if you're frequently 3 betting him?

"Rec fish" is pretty vague. What are this guys characteristics? I like shoving against most fish here...I think typical fish will slowplay a flopped flush. There should be lots of Kx and Ax flush draws plus some combo draws as well as quite a few combos weak top pairs he wants to "protect"

@outdonked

Why would you fold AA with 40 percent equity?

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Yeah he thinks you're nuts. Even the trash 2/5 regs know to equally size their entire opening range. It's usually 20 but in a 100cap gamble fest he likely decided to use 15.

Not reading the essays but regarding sizing you typically want to go larger here. This isnt a heads up 3bet pot its 3 ways and 3 ways you are more concerned with the "collective equity of the field".

Also a smaller sizing typically induces a ton in live poker and we generally dont want to induce with medium value hands.

Finally, you want to set up stacks in such a way that you can shove blank turns. $85 achieves this nicely.

He already checked (in OP) and is now facing a $100 bet from rec fish.

Vegas guy very well may open all his hands to $15. That's a huge mistake IMO, but he still could be doing it and could have a big hand here. But he could also have any number of other hands that are way behind my AQ. Some players like to open to $15 with premium hands because they also want to open to $15 with JTs, 55, KQ ect. Those guys are opening $15 quite often so my AQ is ahead of his range.

If AQ is at the bottom of my 3 betting range, Im going to be very transparent just like all the other 2/5 regs.

I dont have a better read on "rec fish". He plays recreationally and hes a fish. Meaning there's no way he wins. I only played with him once before that I remember and he had only been at this table for about 10-12 hands so I have no real read as to how he plays overall. I just remember from last time that hes a fish. Not too mention his mannerisms and his table talk about the tournament he just busted out of tell me hes a fish. So thats my read. Hes a "rec fish".

So if I bet $85 and he calls. You're shoving pretty much all non spade turns?
And you're folding to a flop raise?

Not saying there's anything wrong with that. Just asking.

What about spade turns? The pot is going to be $325 with about a pot sized bet left.

I think check shoving > betting >>> check calling flop. Don't wanna play this board oop.

Check/shove is what I did