Hey guys I got myself into some more trouble the other night at the commerce 5/10NL. This hand took place about 30 minutes or so into my session. I had been playing fairly laggy since I sat down and therefore villain in the hand knows I'm capable of bluff raising flops with garbage. He's a late 30's asian unknown who seems to know what he is doing, but I wouldn't label him as that much of a thinking player. I had just showed down a fairly large bluff about an orbit ago against another player at the table just to note. Effective stacks are $1800

Onto the hand, I am in seat 9, villain is in seat 7 and on the button. One limper in late position, Villain limps as well on the button, SB calls, I check my option in the BB with 3 2 .

Flop (40) - Q 2 3

SB checks, I lead out for $35 fairly quickly, everyone else folds and villain on the button makes it $150 total. SB then folds and its back to me. I think for about 20 seconds or so and I make it $320 total. He then looks over at me and in only 5 seconds or so pushes out 7 stacks of yellows and makes it $700 total. Hero? He has about $1100ish behind.

Don't 3bet, now snap fold.

tsojojo what hands are you exactly afraid off?

you played it well now ship

22,33,Q2s,Q3s.

What other would he valueraise and not fold besides maybe 32?

Our valuerange is pretty damn strong when we 3bet, so it's imo v unlikely villain tries to bluff us off them. Our 3bet is also rediculously small, so he'd prob just flat even with combodraws.

He's not very much of a thinking player, but he probably thinks you can bluff raise flops with garbage (even if so you led, you didn't raise flop.. doubt he'd think you're bluff bet/3betting even if villain WAS thinking). I wouldn't 3bet flop. If I did though, it'd be to get allin. I don't like 3betting flop though because how often is he gonna have and not fold Qx? I doubt it's a huge part of his range.

well..im no experienced 10/9 max player...and live im even more unexperienced...but i still doubt ppl limp buttons w/ Q2/Q3...so basically were afraid of two combos..22/33...considering the board this is just a small part of his range...which could lead from incl. gutters, oesd, oesfd, gsfds...i mean only thing is ..button gotta give us some respect for having at least 2pair here since were in the bb and it wasnt raised or anything...but beeing afraid of basically two combos isnt enough for me. and as for limping b w/ Q2/3..i think hed rather limp w/ AA/AQ/KK/KQ than Q2/Q3...

well w/e. after 3betting im stacking off here.

I'd much rather add Q2o to his range than remove Q3s.

Yeah, the a priori propability to him having us beat is small, but it's the posteriori probability that matters. Him raising over our strong lead, and 4betting over our ridiculously strong 3bet is a rare event. Why couldn't that rare event happen due to him having a rare hand?


Sunk costs thinking imo. No reason to make a bad call just because you made a bad 3bet.

You guys have clearly never played in LA before.

i havent played more than 5k live cash hands :>...so im very careful with what i say here since i could be veeeery wrong...but from what ive seen / read about livegames its just beyond bad...and therefore he could well enough have AQ imo..basically there are much much more hands we have beat than the other way around..therefor its an offstack in my book. but as ive said...i have no clue about fullring live games.

and penelope...you have never played in european cardrooms, have you :>?

nope but at commerce ez stackoff here

Very tough spot ... Not saying what my action would be ... However, if I decided to continue with the hand, I would be more inclined to flat the flop 4b instead of shoving. My reasoning is that the only hands you're ahead of are the big draws, so if you get to see a safe turn you can shove into the button and if the turn is a heart then you either 1) get saved vs. his set or 2) can just c/f and save your remaining $1,100.

Wahoozle

ummm...i really dont think this is a easy stackoff.

but given the game dynamics...you have to stack off after the 3bet. i wouldnt three bet though. and i would definitely include Q3s in his button limping range.

yes, i do play in commerce.

i didnt see that we were 180bb deep.

i would fold

I fold... If he has you beat he has you totally boned, and if he has a Q or draw he's got pretty good equity. 100 bbs I probably get it in but this deep and with his scary sizing I think you gotta let it go. Curious to hear results.

ARRRRRRRRR INNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

did you seriously stop and think about this?

easy snap call in that game

I don't get the hate for the flop b/3b line at all. Given his image, his hand, and his position, this seems like the best way to get your chips in the middle as quickly as possible. You are ahead on this flop 93% of the time.

Imagine he just calls the flop raise. Now the turn comes x....how is he supposed to get bets in? If he leads it looks fishy betting right into the flop raiser** and if he checks the chance of a check behind is very real. Now you have given a free card, got minimal value from your hand and can't even guarantee getting paid on the river (especially if he was flushing). I'm not a fan of slowplaying a hand when I don't fully have control of how the bets go in.

Use your aggressive tendencies to balance the times you are full of it and watch him trap himself for his stack with a hand like KQ.

**Calling and leading the turn can be an effective line vs some so it shouldn't be discounted but it is very player dependent as to whether or not it is optimal in a given situation.

The few times I have seen a 40 pot escalate into a 3200 pot on this type of flop, if I had a choice between bottom 2 and the other hand I would always take the other hand.

Call flop for starters

Once you 3 bet, I don't see how you can not get it in. I'm assuming villain isn't limping Q2o or Q3o, so there are 3 combos he can have to beat you that way. Having a 2 and a 3 also greatly reduces the chance of him having 22 or 33.

Not having the 3h means he can have a handful of 3hXh combos, naked NFD, A4hh, A5hh, 45hh, 46hh, 56hh. Throw in a couple other random naked flush draws too probably. Can somebody stove 23 here vs that range?

EXACTLY

why are you 3 betting flop if u have no idea what to do if he puts another raise in?

How else can he see where he's at?

Thanks for all the responses guys! So basically after I bet 3bet the flop, the way he kinda looked over at me and then basically min raised me to $700 didn't really make that much sense for him to do. He did one of those "what are you doing there guy" kinda looks after I made it $320 and to be honest I thought he had a marginal strength hand at that point. If he had a higher 2 pair than I did, usually most people in this game would have just flat called my raise rather than put in another raise. If he did have top 2 in this spot, they usually either shove or fold in this spot and never just call or put in a small raise after a bet 3bet, so I kinda dismissed those types of hands from his range.

I thought about just calling the extra $300ish and shoving any non heart/Q/straight completing turn, but I felt that the number of bad turn cards that could come would pretty much leave me in the dark (all those mentioned including any picture cards are pretty much death).

Anyways, I thought for a good minute or so and decided to shove. If he did have me dominated with a higher 2 pair, I didn't think he would call off his whole stack here unless he had top 2 (and even if he did have Q3, I still thought there was a good enough chance that he might even fold that given the way the hand played out). Surprisingly, he only thought about it for less than 10 seconds and mucked his hand saying he had KQ.

edit: Also because this guy was on the button was another reason for my shoving. He definitely is bad enough to limp here with AA/KK in order to trap his prey.

Also, if he did have a higher 2 pair than I did is another reason that he would raise more after I made it $320. In his mind he sees the 2 hearts/straight draw therefore I think he would raise me fairly large in order to protect his hand.