V1 (MP) is an improving house reg. Still will do things like open limp, but has been raising more preflop lately, so her limp range is kind of in flux (but assumed craptastic)

V2 (LJ) is a skilled winning pro and site lurker whom I've loads of history with. Plays a TAG style and isn't looking to make hero plays against me. I'm fairly certain he thinks I'm a skilled player, albeit spewy in weird ways

V3 is BB. Unknown, but seems loose, passive, and bad.

Action:

V1 limps, V2 raises, I look down at the mother of all marginal holdings in the SB: 7 7. I reluctantly three bet. V3 folds, V1 calls and now V2 caps (). We call.

Flop (13 SB): J65r w/ 1 club.

Checks to V2 who bets. I now...?

I count 42 overpairs (to us) and sets in his range, but let's say he won't cap pf all his p55 and p66, leaving 39 hands that beat us. If he'd cap pre AK and AQ but not AJ, that leaves 54 combos of overcards that we beat.

Now leaping into guesswork, it seems to me we have enough equity that we should protect it by raising and drive out V1. We also have four outs (two 7s and open backdoor) which discounts the cost of being wrong.

We'd really rather call down, so that third player really mucks things up. Maybe calling is better. Do we really want to raise when calling is so inviting?

I raise

i raise too.

"Craptastic". Jdr You are the undisputed king of word descriptions!! Absolutely love new words u keep using !!!

Is there any merit to preflop call here?

it adds to the range of hi PF pot equity hands that can smash nondescript flops.

That crossed my mind, and I actually did make a call here with this exact hand earlier in the session, versus a pro EP raise and a cold call

yes.

if it's a raise and a cold call in front, then calling is best. in this case, 3betting is tons better for reasons of creating dead money and because your post flop position when you call sucks.

Preflop seems like a fist-pump 3bet to me. I call flop.

{AK, AQ} -> 16+16 =32 combos.

I would not raise the flop.

I also call flop

i don't think pre flop is a fist pump 3bet. we barely have more than our fair share of equity vs. villain's combined ranges and we have to play the rest of the hand with the worst absolute position.

i agree with just calling the flop.

To me, this seems like a spot where we should be raising the flop to protect our hand in a large pot, even though we often do not have the best hand.

V2's capping range here is likely strong so we are probably behind his range, but I think that we REALLY want V1 to fold a 6 outer here. She is a relatively cautious player who is capable of laying down hands when she feels that she is beat. Remember, from her point of view, with this action it appears as though we have a very strong hand. We reraised pre, we were capped by a pro, the pro came out betting and we are STILL raising? Now she also has to worry about the pro behind her as well and she could be getting whipsawed by two monsters. I believe she folds her entire limping range for two bets that does not include a Jack or an open ender. So, hands like Q9, T9, T8 and possibly even 98 are probably going into the muck, all of which is great for us. She might even muck hands like 33, A5s and so on, all of which have enough outs against us that it would be nice if they were folded.

Suppose that V1 folding all of these hands improves our chance to win the pot from, say, 25% to 35%. Isn't investing one more small bet to make this happen in a pot that will now have 15+ small bets in it a +EV result?

On the other hand, if she does call two bets or reraises us, we can use that information very effectively by simply giving up / folding our hand which is clearly the bottom of our range that takes this action.

Similarly, if V1 does fold and V2 calls, we can easily bet / fold a safe turn card since, again, we are at the bottom of our range and a raise by V2 after all of that action shows considerable strength. Also, we don't HAVE to bet the turn. If the turn card is an ace, king or queen we could just check / give up. In fact, we have been seen screwplaying on an ace turn card often enough that we might even get a free shot at spiking our set on the river!

The point being, we can confidently respond to further action after we raise the flop since we are at the bottom of our range, and it would be significantly better to play this one out heads up if possible.

By the way, my feeling was that this is probably the top of my preflop calling range. With $10 already posted in the small blind, we are really only contributing $30 out of $160 into this pot assuming the big blind calls and it goes off 4 ways. Not terrible odds to just play it as a set-mining hand (or overpair, straight draw, etc) and get out cheaply on a bad flop. Furthermore, if the read on the big blind is that he is bad, we shouldn't mind playing more hands with him post flop where we could flop a set and he could put all kinds of money in drawing dead. If the big blind folds anyway, we've invested $30 out of $140 in a 3 way pot, and we could still checkraise favorable flops.

I really prefer calling pre-flop here immensely. And as played, once the cap comes in, I really, really don't think we should start playing like we have the nuts on a board with a face card on it. I don't think our equity is that great on the flop. Remember, it's not just that we are crushed by a lot of this guy's capping range, but that even the hands that we are not behind have 6 outs twice against us in a big pot where we likely have no fold equity. It seems really marginal.

op outa control for sure..

77is doing pretty poorly against villains' ranges. A non-maniac capped PF -- I would respect that raise and call down. Moreover, if we are x/r'ing 77, then our flatting range will have no pairs. This makes our flatting range VERY weak and exploitable.

Equity 3-ways when we call. Assume limper peels 100% of the time when hero just calls flop:

[PHP] equity win tie pots won pots tied
LJ Capper: 54.806% 54.81% 00.00% 2718452 0.00 { TT+, AQs, AKo }
Hero : 27.450% 27.23% 00.22% 1350750 10827.50 { 7d7s }
MP Limper: 17.744% 17.53% 00.22% 869322 10827.50 { 55-22, A7s-A2s, KJs-K9s, QTs-Q8s, J9s-J8s, T8s+, 97s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A9o-A5o }
[/PHP]


Equity 2-ways when we c/r and get hu:

[PHP] equity win tie pots won pots tied
LJ Capper: 64.848% 64.85% 00.00% 27606 0.00 { TT+, AQs, AKo }
Hero : 35.152% 35.15% 00.00% 14964 0.00 { 7d7s }
[/PHP]


Equity 3-ways when we c/r and don't get hu. Assume limper calls 2 bets cold with any pair (excluding 22-44) and any GS or OESD, and otherwise folds:

[PHP] equity win tie pots won pots tied
LJ Capper: 48.073% 48.07% 00.00% 900753 0.00 { TT+, AQs, AKo }
Hero : 24.193% 23.98% 00.22% 449254 4050.50 { 7d7s }
MP Limper: 27.734% 27.52% 00.22% 515617 4050.50 { 55, A6s-A5s, KJs, J9s-J8s, 97s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A6o-A5o }
[/PHP]

Why? The reason I ask is that I read you other post where you overplayed ak I think. Or so it seemed to me. Villain 2 has capped pre. What do you think his range is? I realize there is a potion of it that you're beating but how badly. What's your plan if you get three bet on the flop? What's your plan if a scare card comes on the turn? How much do you want to put in right now knowing that you have back door outs whose realization could become expensive now that you've seized initiative and perhaps face turn raises?

Not saying I know how you would proceed with the hand from here but with the line you're advocating the future looks tricky and expensive. And that expense is not offset by the profits you would gain by check raising flop now and going from there.

I think V2 range is probably something like ATs+, AJo+, KQs, 99+

I don't expect most solid players to 3 bet the flop here without having me beat, regardless of whether the other player calls. I think he will play his hand pretty honestly from this point forward. I realize I 3 bet AK in that other hand but I still do not expect a solid villian to because:
-In my head I was going to be able to narrow the field and I felt like that was something I would like because I had been playing too much Stud recently.
-After that thread, I now realize some of the shortcomings of that play and would not be likely to make it again.

I think there is great value in facing V1 with 2 bets in this spot. He is going to have 6 outs against us a lot of the time that we are ahead. I think this trumps the fact that we are going to unbalance our calling range by raising w/77. If V1 had folded preflop and we were heads up, I would check-call my full continuing range here.

Because I think V2 will play honestly from this point forward, I feel very comfortable bet-folding the turn unimproved.

If I get 3 bet on the flop, I feel comfortable calling and check-folding turns where I don't improve.

Obviously, we also get maximum value the times (and there are many) that we are ahead.

If Preflop capper bets twice with AK/AQ UI with us calling and limper calling along with a worse hand then we win 3BB. If limper folds turn this line gets us 2BB.

If we c/r flop and get hu and villain calls down AK/AQ we win 3BB. I think capper folds AK/AQ on the river UI a lot though, netting us 2 BB. IDK in terms of extracting max value it feels close between the two lines.

I'm just kinda talking out loud as I haven't analyzed these spots in depth and I'm just waiting for someone to explain to me why I'm an idiot haha.

I raise flop because I disxount the chances of him having exactly AA & KK. I've played with lots or ok props that will never cap AA here but almost always cap AK just because they are bad st playing without the lead posflop (unless they have AA/KK because how cns you mess that up). I'm not saying that true of villain but at a minimum we know hat he doesn't flat his entire range here which leads us to make some conclusions about his general strategy in these types of pots. Without knowing him more my guess it his rnage contains more 9/10s type hands then you guys may believe, and we benefit greatly when tthose hands fold turn unimproved.