30/60 Oaks

EP limps, HJ raises, CO folds, BTN 3bets, sb folds.
Reads:
EP - terrible. Loose-passive type. He has hands like 76o here.

HJ - has been pretty active preflop. History hand: raised AhTh in MP, I defending QhJh. Flop came: Kh5h3x. I c/raised, he 3bet, I called. Turn: Jc. I c/c. River: blank. I c/c.

BTN - winning regular. Decent hand-reader, tough all around. His preflop 3betting % for the last 30-40 hands seems on the high side, and his range will include hands like 98s here in addition to better.

My image: tight shot-taker but with some bluff frequency.

I'm in the BB with QJo.
Questions:
1. call/fold/cap
2. Do I / should I have a cold-calling range?
3. What range should that look like and/or how do I determine it?

I muck QJo here without thinking too hard about it. You have serious domination issues and two of your opponents here are non-terrible with one being described as possibly better than you?

I would call QJs, but muck QJo. I think we can probably rule out some 98s type hands form Btn and shift his range to more pure value hands given EP is probably never folding?

1. Fold, and enjoy the show as the hand plays out.

2. If we're in, it's four ways unless EP can find a fold (but that's not the way to bet). So we're well out of must-play-GTO territory, and we can split our range in two safely, if it is wide enough. But it might be fairly narrow to begin with. Depending on the size of the playing range we come up with, we might want to cold-call with all of it, never four-betting, unless we aren't concerned if a four-bet means KK+ or something like that.

3. We want hands with showdown value that play well multiway. My seat-of-the-pants thinking is bigger pairs, say TT+, KQs, maybe QJs, AQo+, maybe ATs+. I wouldn't mess with other offsuit hands.

As for how to determine it, assign some ranges and play around with Poker Stove or Equilab. Figure that we need >20% equity if EP folds and >17% equity if they call. Maybe pad the minimum equity with a margin of safety to account for the possibility of HJ capping.

ETA: Remember, in stoving, to see how changing villains' ranges affects our own range.

1. Snap fold. QJo isn't even the best hand I'd snap fold here either - I'd snap fold KJo and think about AJo and KQo.

2-3. I have a capping range here, and fundamentally disagree with the "never reraise OOP ever" camp. As the pot gets more MW, you pay more lost bets for less benefit of having a wide range (since it is increasingly likely you have to show down the best hand). Cold-calling depends on EP's calling tendencies (will he ever limp-fold?) and HJ's capping tendencies.

easy fold. and i also don't balance in these situations, even though i think a lot of good players do (such as cold-calling everything you'd continue with including aces and kings). i just think that balance multiway isn't as important, because in the cases where you get AA or KK, when you cap, you can get the pot hu or get 3 or more more bets in, be able to cbet flop, maybe get some calls and have the btn raise, letting you 3bet. if btn is savvy and flops tptk, with a multiway pot, he still has to raise even if he puts you on AA.

If you're only going to cap AA and KK, you should probably just go ahead and call them. Because KK+ is a ridiculously narrow range even for a 4-way pot.

i'm capping at least tt+, aqs, ako.

is QJo really that bad to play here? We pretty much have some dead money coming in from EP. I'd consider folding, but I wouldn't consider snap folding.

QJo is like the worst hand that looks good. Vs a competent raise and a 3bet you're dominated a TON. Like, all of the time. It doesn't really matter that someone has some random ****ty hand in there. You're OOP, too.

I don't really care if our hand is dominated. We have a little over 20% equity against a 65% EP range, 25% HJ range, and 12% BTN range.

With the description given, we can be sure that EP is going to call here. The question becomes whether or not HJ decides to cap or not. We're either paying 2 sb into a 12.66 sb pot or 3 sb into a 16.66 sb pot.

I don't see how it can be that horrible.

If you don't really care if our hand is dominated then I don't know why you're playing cards. 20% hot/cold equity isn't the worst, sure. But we're OOP and we have bad RIO. And there are a lot of boards where we won't even get close to realizing our full equity.

if using an unbalanced strategy, what would you guys be cold calling with and capping with (no reads)? i'm thinking for a cold call range of 66-99, JTs, AJs, AQo, and KQs. i'm not so sure about AJo, 9Ts, 44-55, but i'm definitely folding KQo, ATo. any thoughts?

I'm not folding AJo. I'm capping like TT+, AQs+, AK, maybe like JTs for fun. Calling QJs, KJs, KQs, 66-99, I probably call ATs, AJs, AJo, AQo as well. I'm folding 55-, and might fold 66 actually. I think i might call KQo, but it's close. 9Ts seems okay as a call, really you could talk me into calling a number of SC's.

Reverse Implied Odds. OOP, you need a large AI equity edge, IP you can get away with even an AI equity deficit.

That is, if we had posted from the CO and faced with the same ranges, calling is way more attractive than from the BB.

Muck city here, IMO.

Sidenote: I've always wondered if calling 100% of our continue range here is a good strategy. I know some people do it.

you're such a nit

imo folding any pair here getting essentially 5 to 1 would be a mistake. Plus the c/r or c/3 that's going in on all connected flops.