Some strong players always 4bet or fold here, others have a call range. I think I call range is entirely reasonable with mid pairs, AK, AKs, maybe AQs, AJs if it's an apparent iso. High card strength is much more important in a pot like this. I'm usually mucking AJs, but I may 4-bet or call 88-JJ depending on how lag fish the original raiser is, and how much the second player is willing to exploit this. 22-77 you'll very likely need to hit your set to win, and it's 2.5 small bets to speculate on hitting a set. It's a slippery slope with the pre-flop hands, so there are times where the KQs, and the AJs maybe be worth, and the smaller pairs, but not usually. From MP, re-raiser can be re-raising either very light to iso, or conservatively with ATs+.

K9s is much too weak to call pre-flop, but I do not think you can get away with it after 4-bet turn and river, though it's very likely a loser.

short answer yet with a but, long answer no with an if.

first, AK is a clear 4b, there's no solid player that would just call 3 cold here with any AK, especially not suited.

AQs is also a clear 4b, which brings me to the whole long answer of no thing with an if.

sure, it seems reasonable to call hands here. specifically 88-TT as i mentioned in my post. BUT, this assumes that nobody of consequence is thinking about what your call here MEANS. if they are, then the answer possibly changes.

88-TT make logical sense to get in there for sure. opener is laggy and fishy and at higher limits this equals sometimes crazy looseness/aggressiveness preflop but not as crazy postflop (or sometimes it's just plain crazy) and therefore the strong lag player is going to iso3bet this a LOT. like i said, possibly as low as KTo if he or she (i've seen julie do this to roland which shocked me supremely as i always pegged her as a TAG to end all TAGs. but then again, roland was especially nutty that day and she was losing so i doubt it was a regular thing) is feeling their oats.

therefore, lots of hands fare well against that range. even a more narrow range of KJs+, A9s+, 77+, maybe QJs to iso3bet here as the strong laggier player still has 88-TT doing great.

the problem becomes when you 4b w/ those middle pairs, you're definitely facing at least 2 other aggressive (and one good) player, so you're not going to be able to get to showdown for 1-2.5 bets when you like the runout and you didn't flop great (overpair or a set). that sucks balls, AND they'll check to you on the flop often with the intention of raising on QT7twotone so oftentimes they'll have a draw and your 99 is good in this monster pot.

on the other hand, when you call, you have perfect relative position to isolate the laggy strong player (not ideal, but you'd want to on some flops) in a smaller pot exacerbating your opponents' mistakes and making better players possibly behind you fold.

so calling is good on its face.

IF, again, you're playing a constant game against the same people, you're either a) sacrificing optimal play with big aces if you plan on calling those to keep them from knowing what you're doing, or b) telling your opponents your hand. that's a SUPER narrow range to be just calling here. so unless i'm in the blinds, and unless the conditions are perfect, i'm not calling 88-TT here, which means i don't really have a call 3bet range and ceteris parabis, nobody i think really should (Again unless conditions are perfect) b/c it's not worth it. JJ is definitely a 4b here. AK and AQs and even AQo can be easy 4bets (depending on how lagfish and how laggy the first two are).

in HPFAP, mason and dave make the point that 88-99 are folds in these games for many of the reasons i mentioned above (hard to hold your best hand w/ 2+ players other than yourself, plus it's an aggro game). can't fold TT so move that to your 4b range and that's that.

that piece of advice is still valid today i think.

now, none of that changes the fact that K9s only 2 beers in is still a fold here. just wanted to correct your post.

Good to see 80 holdem at Borg is still full of regfish

I'd rather 4 bet everything rather than narrow a call range to 18 combos oop with a sophisticated player who can take a free one off when missed w a T high or less board w AK,AQ,AJ,KQ, or bluff, but can't say I've done the math. You'd need to have a flop lead out range/%. We can't expect the 3bettror to just play along and cbet 100%. I think all things considered, 4bet all seems a little better. If I'm giving up 88-99, I'm 4betting QdJd as well as AA. Two schools of though. Play strong hands weak, or play weak hands strong not to give too much away. I can understand flatting w AA, but I prefer not to.

soooooooooooooooo, turns out the OP didn't give all the info in this post. spoke w/ him and he told me who was who and the correct reads are:

1. lagfish can be INSANE sometimes. not ordinary lagfish. he has the capability to open atc from any position if he's in that mood, which apparently he was this night. not sure if everybody knew that, but def the laggy expert knew (and i guess almost surely tight solid, so actually everybody probably knew)

2. laggy expert is not an expert pf. i don't even think he's an expert postflop, BUT, he has done some *SUPER* impressive high level thinking sh*t postflop that i have seen and that others have relayed to me. he gets into bad spots b/c he's overly agro and loose *SOMETIMES* pf but he gets out of bad spots b/c he reads the situation well, knows what people think of him, knows what he is representing not just in general but to specific people at specific times. he once got me to toss JJ on a board of T65hh8 on the turn to his raise of the other guy's bet. he had 43cc and correctly read me as having a pair and the other guy of having a flush draw so he cleaned up his 6 outs pretty well. he hit a 2 and "saved" me money, but i made the wrong read b/c he read me better. buuuuut, he was in there with 43cc for 2-3 bets pf not in the blinds in a 3way pot. in fact i think it went, i raised, other guy 3b, he capped lol. so he's capable of loose ass sh*t pf but again, not usually. he can also go hours w/ barely playing a hand. that's the thing. he can be a really really good player a lot of the time, puts immense pressure on correctly, but when faced w/ lagfish from this hand, he can get way too loose in his 3bs.

3. tight solid is indeed tight solid...USUALLY. but he has weirdo tendencies like rarely/never caps AK in this spot. and he can call suited connectors here (again, not often but enough to mention). i'm not sure if it was him but i recall either him or somebody else saying they don't cap anything in this spot unless it's like aa/kk. might nota been him though. also, he can tilt a bit. especially at these stakes. anyways, his STANDARD play is indeed tight solid. but in a game like this, at these stakes, with him apparently tilting a bit, this call of 3cold doesn't mean 88-TT only at all.

so with all that info, i don't mind K9s in the sb here. lagfish is opening SO much that it's rarely getting capped unless he has a "premium" (top 10%?) hand, but he can be opening 60-80%+. laggy expert knew this and 3b down to only god knows what. tight solid probably knows both of those things and could have 98s type hands as well as KQs type hands and maybe even QQ/AK (bad for us here, but still a wider range than, say, foxwoods jared or freddy, who ARE INDEED tight solid around the clock).

sooooo, this shoulda been a shorter thread w/ the correct info. i'd still probably fold K8s here, but K9s could easily be a call. i'm NOT folding KJs in this spot and am calling KTs, sooo K9s is right on the boarder, but prob still a call given lagfish and the tempo/type of game.

the only downside is that other than lagfish, the other two play pretty damn well postflop and can put pressure on to iso-reiso lagfish. this makes playing hands from the blinds harder, so maybe i do fold up to KJs or KQs just to make my life easier since i don't get to realize my equity as much as i might otherwise.

either way, it's close. OP can post results if he so chooses.

Thank you for your help to develop the reads Uphill. Appreciate it and appreciate the feedback from the crew! Lagfish (Insane ) had 10 2 here and went crazy. We got the check raise in on the river.

I agree that K9s should be folded here preflop, but completely disagree with everyone saying it's awful. Imho, it's not winning but it's definitely not dumping. I mean cmon guys, if we're in the big blind i'm literally never folding this hand in this spot pre. (my worst suited king to call in that spot w\ this action)

as played on the turn, i feel pretty strongly xr is better here to allow the lags to bet + the field to call before we put in the raise, rather than donking + allowing the lags to face the field with 2 bets often.

as played on the river, i xc here unless laggy fish is a special animal who we are happy to call 3bets vs.

Wow. I'd yell for a waitress and order a double corona no lime plz before 5 betting the turn next time.

Honestly I think raise river. If he is a laggy fish and didn't cap pre he can still have 89s and sets. We definitely still get called by worse imo but thats just me. Also i don't play 80 I play 20 so idk about these types of games.

Nice hand, corner.

4 bet pre

LMAO!!

(And NH. No mistakes.)