trying to brush up on my $1/2 NL live play. i thought up a few hypothetical situations that might make me think. let me know your thought process please. assume players are fairly standard live TAGs, everyone 100bb deep unless otherwise noted. my thoughts are in spoiler boxes.

Hand 1
$1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 10 players

Pre Flop: ($3) Hero is BTN with A K
5 folds, MP3 raises to $15, CO raises to $80 all-in, Hero ?



Hand 2
$1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 10 players

Pre Flop: ($3) Hero is BTN with Q Q
4 folds, MP2 raises to $15, MP3 raises to $80 all-in, CO calls $80, Hero ?



Hand 3
$1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 10 players

Pre Flop: ($3) Hero is SB with A J
6 folds, CO calls $2, BTN calls $2, Hero raises to $15, BB folds, CO folds, BTN calls $13

Flop: ($34) A J 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $20, BTN raises to $60, Hero ?

I think I post them in a strat Forum.

Fold the ak
Fold the qq
All in with top two.

In either case, all of these situations depend on table image of villain.

HAND 1--How badly does the villain want to leave? If he has been looking to "check out" for a while, I am likely shoving here, myself, to isolate him and hope that he does this with a weaker ace. You are likely coin-flipping, though, if you do this.

Without a read that the player is wanting to leave and will shove AQ-, I likely fold.

HAND 2--Completely depends upon your reads, there are situations when I shove here, call here, and fold here with regularity.

HAND 3--Call flop and re-evaluate turn. There is a very good chance you are up against a set here if the player is inexperienced, but why the heck would he be in such a rush to get the money in if this were the case with a dry flop?

ya i see what you mean. once players get short enough they often push pre with a very weak range facing a raise (K8s and the likes). i guess flatting AKo against anything close to a standard preflop shoving range for a live TAG would be bad, so even though he's only 40bb deep, i might lean towards a fold here unless i have the read you speak of. interesting.

hm. true. i guess a better player might flat KTs pre and then raise his straight draw, depending maybe on my table image. obviously QT and maybe AT/AQ are also possibilities for this type of player. including these scenarios inclines me to shove unless i have a read that villain is pretty tight. sound like good reasoning?

There is now a Live Low-Stakes NL forum that you might consider posting these in.

I could give my thoughts on each hand, but my most immediate thought is that "fairly standard live TAG" is an oxymoron in a 1/2 NL game. So I must be playing in much different games than you.

Actually.....I'll just give my thoughts anyway.

Hand 1: I probably fold, but I call with AKs.

Hand 2: I think this is an obvious shove. You have a great chance here to force the CO to get the rest of his money in here with a very dominated hand...I doubt he's flatting with AA or KK. And if CO somehow folds, his dead money gives you the right equity to shove even if MP3's range is QQ+, AK.

Hand 3: Well, I'm certainly not folding, and you have some time to get the money in. Shoving is fine. But against a typical 1/2 player, I might be inclined to call and donk bet any turn for like $75, and shove the rest on the river. It's kind of a cutesy play, but I think it works well at the lowest limits.

Hand 1:

I could see an argument for either shipping or just calling. It probably depends on my image of the original bettor: If I think he'll call $80 with weak-ish holdings, but will fold to my all in, I'll just call. I'll win slightly less often, but I don't mind the added variance if it means I've got a guy tagging along with AQ or AJ or whatever.

Hand 2:

This depends on my view of the players. If the CO is a tight player, I'm folding, if they're a total drooler (I've seen players call 90% of their stack then fold the flop ), then I'm coming over the top all in. You really don't mind being all in vs. two mediocre players with QQ, they could easily show AK, KQ, 88+, or less.

AK vs. QQ is a coin flip of course, but if the third player gets involved, your equity vs. your odds to win only improves (unless the third player has AA or KK). As long as no one has AA or KK, you want as many people all in in that pot as you can possibly find.

Hand 3:

Get it in as soon as the villian will lelt you. Don't forget, it's quite possible that AK and AQ are part of his range too. I'd say his total range of A4, AK, AQ, and air vs. his range of JJ and 44 leaves you in good shape generally speaking. He could also have just about any AXs here and is trying to figure out if his ace is good.

If the villain will get the money in now, get it in. Against a thinking player, I'd likely call here and then check to them on the turn, allowing them to fully hang themselves with AK or AQ, and give a weaker ace as many chances as possible to catch up to a weaker two pair. Checking the turn may also get someone with Ace-junk suited to pay off a small value bet on the river.

thank you all for the in-depth responses!

cool. didn't know that

ya i see your point. maybe what i mean is a "non-maniac" player. your average casino player can't really be described as a standard TAG haha.

hand 1

is this because of the equity of AKs in a 3-way hand, in the event that the initial raiser is tempted into calling with a weaker Ace of some sort? and the fact that we are likely coin flip at worst? (i think this is what starvingwriter82 was getting at, although with AKo. see below)

hand 2

i can see how Hand 2 depends highly on reads on both villains, but especially CO, who is bizarrely flatting a 40bb all-in. if CO is a drooler (which is likely even in the event of no reads or just sat down, given his call here i'd say?) we shove b/c his calling range is weak and he may actually fold. i can't imagine why any decent player would flat with AA or KK here but i suppose the only case in which we are folding is if we have such a read on CO (or in some very unlikely, totally weird case we put both MP3's and CO's ranges as QQ+, AK, obviously)

hand 3

i guess my instinct is to assume JJ+, AK, and probably AQ would not be played like this pre by all but the worst of players. if he's a drooler i'm happy to push here since he likely has one pair. the situation is more interesting if he's a thinking player.

i guess i didn't consider Ax. Ax suited in particular is not unlikely i guess given the preflop action. if we add Ax to his possible range it seems we have very good equity to call looking to get it in on further streets or perhaps shove the flop. i guess on such a dry board, there is little to fear by calling the flop, and it allows Ax to maybe hit two-pair. interesting.

i think i'm sold on a call and a shove on turn or river.

I should amend my response to say I am shoving with AKs. It's mostly because of the slightly improved equity of the hand in coinflip situations. That extra few percent you get against pairs (QQ or less) and AKo (which constitute probably 90% of the guy's range) goes a long way to offset those few times he has KK or AA. I'm not really concerned with what the original raiser has...he's not calling unless he miraculously has KK or AA, and again, being suited helps offset these fluke situations when it comes to overall equity.

Right. He's not calling a shove without a huge hand (probably AK and QQ+). But that means if you shove, he's folding all the hands that are worse than yours, and calling with all the hands that have you killed. So what's the purpose of the shove? We want him calling with weaker hands. He most likely won't anyway, but shoving over the top here doesn't gain us anything, since we then won't get calls when we're ahead, but we won't force out any better hands, either.

hand 1) all in

hand 2) all in

hand 3) all in on flop, or call and hope he fires again on the turn, then get it all in.

Anything other than sticking your stack in in all 3 of these situations is missing out on tons of value.

christ, the fact that there's any discussion of what to do in these hands (other than shove flop or wait until the turn in hand 3) just shows how awful live players are.

EDIT: actually, a case might be able to be made for calling in hand 2, but I like shoving way better.

i think this is what my conclusions were moving towards. after some consideration, i think we simply beat most of villain's range in all 3 hands.

Hand 1: Fold, no TAG will call less than QQ+ (mp3 will reshove if they have QQ/KK/AA btw), co has at least AK or PP. I don't feel like doing the math here, but unless you have been seeing lots of bluffs from late-position preflop, you're most likely behind.

Hand 2: Shove, probably best hand unless you know CO is good. Most people know cold-calling is terrible and the guy in front raised way over pot. Thus, CO could be trapping with a monster.

Hand 3: Against thinking opponents, check/call unless you have shown a very bluff heavy image. If you raise here, you will only get called by a set and possibly A4 (even TPTK should be able to lay this down against a shove since it's such a dry board). I doubt villain has ak/aq... why would they decline the chance to get a much better SPR in position, esp. if they took the risk of going for a back-raise? Most likely holding is Ace-rag suited or possibly just a raise thinking you have a continuation bet with air (in the latter case, you won't get any more money unless you bet something small on the river).

The problem with this exercise is the assumption that all the opponents in multiway pots are thinking players. This has not happened to me once in a casino. If they were the ak would definitely be a pass and maybe the qq but if they are the usual overtly loose live 1/2 players then u r missing a ton of value by passing in 1 o2 2. 3 i like call and c/r ai on turn.