We are playing 1-2 live, nine handed. We are midway into the session and already have two massive losers and a half dozen winners. This has all the hallmarks of a epic session.

Cast of characters:

Hero has the Big Blind with $550 in play. So far everything is going Hero's way. Even his bluffs are going unquestioned (a rare thing). Showdowns have been strong.

In middle position is Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde with $1,100. Those are not winnings, he is in for $2,000. This is one of the most curious guys I have played with. In Jekyll mode he is a thinking, solidly profitable ABC TAG. In Hyde mode he is a thoughtless LAGtard who makes stupidly conceived bluffing raises. The mix is hard to play against, but he ends up being a modest loser.

Next to Jekyll/Hyde is out ultra loose, sticky calling station with $700. This guy is the prototype calling station. As perfect a villain as you might wish for at your table. Hard to bluff.

In the small blind is one of the profitable LAGs on a month long sad sack losing streak. He has $600 on a $1,500 buy in. You can see his confidence is shaken. He is more passive and more fatalistic. Much easier to play against. Notable, this villain plays big preflop hands backwards - he might raise with QJo or 74s or 99 but limp calls with KK until he gets a chance to 4-bet / 5-bet.

The hand:

Jekyll/Hyde raises to $10, in his normal raise range. The Station and Sad Sack LAG call.

Action on Hero with :ac: :qc: Hero judges he is ahead of the table's range but might not get folds even with a raise to $50+.

So what do we recommend for Hero? Fold, call or raise? If raising how much? And if raising, what is the plan post flop? (IE how many c-bets with air, are we stacking off with a draw etc.)

DrStrange

I don't like my position. I also don't like to just call with AQs. I raise to $30 and see what follows (especially from SB). Post flop play certainly open to internal debate. So much depends on how many folks call my raise (or whatever) and what the flop is.

I could go either way here. I might raise 50% of the time, call 50% of the time.

Let's say call this time and hope to flop gold.

Bad position so let's see what a raise to $30-35 will do.

I'm leaning towards just calling here. We're OOP and as you said, unlikely to get the folds we'd like. This hand can flop really big, and if not, can be easy to get away from as well.

I don't like bloating the pot OOP here.

Curious idea - our position is bad, so it is time to raise. Would someone offer their thoughts about that? Does that mean Hero should be raising this from the blinds but just flatting from the button?

Personally, I'd be more eager to raise from the button than the big blind but then I am one big chicken playing out of position.

DrStrange

Well, I think the idea of raising from OOP here is to:

1. take it down pre without having to play at a positional disadvantage
2. narrow the field to increase the likelihood that our hand (if it's the best hand at the moment) holds up

Unfortunately, as you mentioned, you aren't sure you can narrow the field even for $50. If that's the case, what does raising accomplish, except bloating the pot OOP with multiple opponents and making our job that much more difficult.

This hand highlights a difference between short- and deep-stack play.

We're up against a lineup where we can't expect to take down the pot preflop with a raise, and with a couple villains who may well pay us off post-flop if we hit big. AQs may be a favorite against our opponents' ranges, but it's not a super-significant favorite against anything but a weaker Ax or Qx hand.

If we had $150 or $200, we could often reraise and plan to shove a large percent of flops. But with $550 left to play, that's crazy talk. We're way out of position with a hand that needs to improve to stand any real action. Raising would be setting us up for tough decisions in a bloated pot. If we're beat, we'd likely end up paying quite a bit to find out.

Meanwhile, flatting closes the action and lets us see a flop multi-way in a raised pot, with a hand that does well in that kind of situation. I'm calling here almost every time, and checking most flops to Jekyll/Hyde. What happens next depends on the remaining action and the flop cards. We may have poor absolute position, but we have the best position with regard to the likely flop bettor, and I think we should take advantage of that.

Besides simply being personally adverse to calling out of position with AQs ,I raise a small amount as earlier posted also to see what the SB does. By Docs description he maybe could be strong and trapping. This hand can flop very strong or of course whiff. My small raise is not a large % of my stack, certainly, so I don't worry about missing or being reraised big by SB. Folding later is easy if things go sour.

Calling or raising is viable. You do have AQs, btw, against a row of clowns.

That makes absolutely no sense unless you are trolling.

I'm raising to try and thin the field or get someone to revel the strengthen of their hand. Even if one person folds, I'll be happier. What I don't what to do is play AQ against three other players. What am I going to do with a flop of Axx against three others? Or maybe one of the MP's reraises in which case, I can walk away cheaply.

lol if you think that is trolling.

This is why it's a coin flip as to what to do. If OP is correct that everyone will call, we haven't thinned the field. But if that isn't necessarily true, then raising more than 50% of the time would be warranted. And showing that we might raise with AQ, which could help us down the line.

Deep stacked, I'm calling this most of the time. I want to win a monster pot, not lose one.

I get to disguise the strength of my hand, and not get punished by AK when I hit TP2K. If there are draws, you have both nut flush and nut straight draws. Worse draws in my games are likely to call a standard raise, and go crazy when they hit.

I can't think of a flop I would check, but I may check raise a few that get cbet and called in 2 spots.

What reason is there for raising to $35? Being out of position is precisely why we shouldn't do this. I'd be fine with that play if we had position..

For what it is worth, none of the villains can be expected to fold to a raise. Of course they might fold to a big raise but the three villains are calling stations or stuck big time and quite loose. Let's make an unscientific guess that there is a 65% chance they would all call {or 4-bet} a 3-bet $40 or less.

Remember the most money made here is value betting not bluffing because people call down quite light. It is quite possible that AQs is best and a 3-bet is for value.

DrStrange

Yeah but you're fk'd on any board that you miss against these guys. So the hand isn't good enough to raise for value OOP IMO. You want to make a hand or dominating draw first, then start getting money in.

Unless they are so bad that they'll call a huge 3bet with complete garbage. If they're bad enough to call a $100 3bet with weak holdings then do that, but a $35 3bet! is just dumb. It just bloats the pot, makes you're opponents acurrately put you on big cards, and re-open the betting which just opens a whole ugly can of worms against tilted loose players.

Think about how you would play a pair of 6's. There's no reason not to take the same approach here.

Maybe I should change that to 65% call, 35% raise, but no matter, I'm sticking with call on this hand.

I've already explained my position.

I would only call the open $10 with 66 because I consider my stack deep enough to set mine. But AQs has much potential so I want to get some more money in early, but not a large 3 bet. $30, It is a small fraction of my stack and I consider it building the pot and not bloating it. I expect calls. AQs flops well and I can reconsider my plan if SB reraises big. I just like to play aggressively OOP with a very decent hand. I don't consider other views as "dumb" BTW, just different styles and preferences. This is a friendly forum.

With these opponents, this hand, this position, the depth of the stacks, this is a call. There is no advantage to raising in this specific position. If you change the hand, position, stacks, there is a reason to raise, but not in this specific case.

Do we really need to overthink a hand in the top ~4.5% of our range? Is raising for value really hard to do against a bunch of inferiors?

Because we're going to whiff the flop 2/3rd the time, right? And if our raise is just going to cause us to play a hand that will miss the flop 2/3rd of the time OOP against multiple opponents in a bloated pot, I think we just create more problems for ourselves.

If we felt we could narrow the field, then raise away. But if we can't make a reasonable raise and narrow the field, then I feel like we're just putting ourselves in a difficult spot.

As someone else mentioned, our hand plays alright in a multi-way pot where we can make some nut holdings that weaker players may pay off. I still lean towards calling here.

That's a nitty argument that does not hold up. Why raise at all when unpaired hands 'wiff' most of the time? The entire table is going to call a $40 raise, according to OP. That's a gold mine, and an opportunity to build the pot preflop against bad hand ranges in order to get more of your stack in on the flop when you do hit.