Villain is playing 19/17 over 300 hands. So far folded to 2/5 3bets pre. Cbets 8/8 times OTF and seems quite passive turn/river.

UTG is a fish.

$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($58.97) 59bb
UTG+1 ($176.12) 176bb
CO ($164.95) 165bb
BTN ($41.30) 41bb
SB ($103.38) 103bb
Hero (BB) ($101) 101bb

Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BB A J
UTG calls $1, 2 folds, BTN raises to $4, 1 fold, Hero ???


Flatting kinda sucks since the fish is likely to come along and we'll have terrible position. 3betting is also awkward since villain has such a short stack. And folding sucks because we have a pretty strong hand here. Thoughts?

Flatting here is the worst option. You'll be OOP with offsuit ace vs. a nit.

3bet (blockers, perceived range) >> fold >>>> call

3b as a bluff

If you do 3-bet you have to call a shove since villain looks like a SS pre given stack and stats.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

116,436,672 games 0.031 secs 3,756,021,677 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 32.861% 30.45% 02.41% 35453370 2809297.50 { AcJh }
Hand 1: 67.139% 64.73% 02.41% 75364707 2809297.50 { 77+, AJs+, AQo+ }

Assuming you 3-bet to 12,13 or 14 it's a call.


I really don't know. I actually think folding in the first place is best.

a 19/17 has a wider range OTB than just AJ+ ....

flat to keep the other fish in the pot is perfectly fine, so is a bluff/value-3b against a F3b of 40%. folding seems bad / like a mistake

3bet+get it in vs the likely shortstacker: yep
flat: yep (leading every single flop can't be horrible imo...obviously can do better than that)
fold: no

Why not fold when every other options are not more than at best slightly +EV (imo we don't even know that since it's close if my range for the SS's range is corrcect)?

I think both 3bet and flat are +EV thus I don't fold. Even if your calling range for villain is correct his iso range is so wide that 3bet is fairly profitable.

I'm assuming the plan is the same for KQo as well.

How about something like KJo or QJo?

Can't believe people are saying it's bad to flat here. It's definitely the most +ev line unless you are completely clueless postflop. There will be a variety of board textures where you will be able to lead as a bluff so it's not a spot where you have to play fit or fold. I'd go as far to say that 3betting here is terrible (it could be +ev but flatting is so much more +ev considering the fish limp). It's very profitable to 3bet bluff villain's iso, but there are a ton of better hands to do this with. AJ is a hand that will play very well postflop against both the regs and fish's ranges even OOP, so I wouldnt waste it by turning it into a bluff.

Also, even though his stats indicate he's somewhat on the tight side, his iso range on fishes will be a lot wider than his opens.