Got myself into an interesting spot at 5/10/20, and looking for some feedback (please see my questions at end of post).

5/10/20 (5k max) Cash Game - 8 Handed
SB - Whale (5k)
BB (3k)
Live Straddle (4k)
UTG (Double Straddle -NOT live) (5k)
Hero (9k)
Rec (LAG) (6k)
Reg (TAG) (8.5k)
BU is TAG Pro (+$5m in Live/Online Tourneys) (4.5k)

Action
Pot
Hero limps with KK (40)

Reg Tag makes it (165) to go

BU Pro flats (165)

SB tank flats (and visibly insinuates he had a big hand/decision), and both Straddles flat (165)

Hero 3-Bets to (900)

Reg Tank calls the (900)

BU Pro tank shoves AI (4.5k) after eye balling both me and Whale in SB for 30 secs
POT now 6805


Folds back to Hero?

Background
· SB Whale is super LAG both pre and post flop, and has stacked off on 4 flops in the last two orbits (including with K5 on a 5 high board after being 4-bet big by AA, and AK on a 7 high board vs my JJ after check calling my AI).
· LAG in the double straddle isn’t as bad, but not far off – the game only started approx. 1.hr before, to accommodate both whales who wanted to play higher (was 5/10 before).
· Both Whales are not far off 100% VPIP and SB Whale is certainly around 80% PFR when he is on Button/Blinds/Straddle.
· I’m a semi-regular competent REG, definitely below the level of the two Regs who were involved in the action
• Double straddle (which isn't live) for last 3 hands only.

My questions
· With both Whales involved in the blinds/straddles, and the other Regs playing fairly snug/inactive up to this point, I elected to limp the KK pre in the anticipation that either/both would show some aggression pre (as they had done every time up to this point). Is limping pre here far too speculative (and ever correct) even in this specific scenario (where the whales don’t necessarily care about facing a limp raise)?
· What range do we put the Button on in this scenario (AKs, KK+?). My limp 3-Bet is of course very strong, particularly when facing the original open from the Reg, and he is aware that the SB Whale has something he is likely to continue with.
· When it folds back to me in this scenario, is it a Flat / Shove / Fold (and in what order)?
• My 3-Bet to 900 was too small?

Appreciate the feedback ( and roasting ),
Cheers

i'm not sure what interesting decision is.

True, I have perhaps grossly mislabelled this spot.

Being more direct with my question(s), is the limp as described above ever ok?

And once action gets back to me is it almost always a flat vs reshoving (other player left in hand has 400bb).

I personally don't l/rr but theres tables where it's fine. It's only 150bb, gii with kings imo

Not sure there is much difference between flatting and jamming, since BTN's push is for 55% effective. That said, flatting probably looks more like Aces to the TAG reg, so you probably want to just jam and hope he tilts off with QQ here. Realistically though, it will be hard for him to continue without Kings or Aces.

I'm okay with the LRR. You're just trying to get the fish to put massive amounts of money in pre, and it doesn't matter much if your hand is faceup to the regs. As an alternative, you can just open raise like 8x.

Actually the shove is only 100bb, my bad. What's your question here? Are you considering folding or considering calling vs shoving? Calling vs shoving is a moot point with all the money already in there...

Folding is ridiculous. Go all in

Yes with the double straddle in play it technically was only just over a 100bb shove.

I was slightly put out by the BU 4B shove after originally flatting the original raise, especially as I know he plays a pretty solid Game. Anyway, I shoved (thought process in line with above, hoping other Reg makes a mistake with QQ), Other reg folded (he had 10s) and button of course flipped over AA (and held)

I felt play was fine, but a few decent players have subsequently expressed that it should have been a pretty clear fold in that exact spot.

Anyway, I'll just chalk it up as super standard ��

Getting away from aa with kk is never easy but folding in this spot vs a pro does not seem realistic; my main concern in the post-mortem would be if villain all-ready suspected you were going for a limp/raise or check/raise line and that is why he flatted the first time around.

It's a fold ..and you would have to pay me a lot of money for me to explain why.

Hint 1 : go back to the drawing board and find out exactly why does kk make so much money in nl holdem.

Hint 2 : where's my money?

What's your bank account details?

After a lot of reflection (standard KK<AA postmortem "could I have folded"?)it does feel that in this exact spot he does show up with AA a huge % of the time , so if I could play the hand again I think I make the fold

You need him to play qq or AK like this a lot to show a profit with kk.

I am certain qq will not play it like this.

AK is a serious possibility. Comes down to how often he plays AK like this.

You are uncapped.

The original raiser is capped at qq or ak.

It would not be easy for the average midstakes live player to shove $4k here without aa or kk.

Online kids are a different breed. They play a lot of 100bb poker in aggressive shorthanded games.

Also just because this is a 100bb game now with the double straddle doesn't mean everybody realizes it or adjusts their game to it or has the bankroll for it.

If you are rolled for 5 10 and suddenly play a pot of 20 40..it is hard to think of $4k as just 100bb. Logic does not always prevail. Emotions exist and frequently dominate our decisions.

In live poker, a high level of empathy is a huge asset. What do you really think he is trying to accomplish here with this backraise? If the answer is he is going after what he perceives is dead money, then of course stack off.

Yeah this isn’t really 100bb. Peoples ranges change drastically when there’s straddling and double straddling going on.

That being said, I don’t fold here in real time vs a pro.

This is where our understanding of GTO and unexploitable poker fails us imo.

In a pure heads up battle, if you decided on a mathematically correct stack off range as a fraction of your 3 bet frequency and the opener's open raise frequency, you would be unexploitable. And if your opponent plays too tight resulting in your stack off hands being dominated, it's not a big deal since you will win a lot of other pots from your opponent because he is only waiting for aa or kk to stack off.

In a full ring game, this is not that easy.

If you say I am going to stack off with qq+, ak no matter what because lol 100bb poker, in a spot where multiple players are involved, you are probably getting screwed over.

When you limp reraise, the entire field still in the hand shares the responsibility to prevent you from bluffing. One of these (the original raiser) players took action and called your raise, this should increase the barrier of entry for all other players involved.

For the btn to then backraise all in, now you, the original raiser and the original callers all have to prevent him from bluffing.

So it's no more a case of only you having to defend your limp reraises in a heads up pot. And the actual math behind how many hands you should stack off is far more complicated.

Of course. Me neither.

if this is a fold to some dirt bag back raise effectively 112 bb deep hold em is even a more worthless game than i thought

if he's doing this with aces he's at minimum doing this with queens and ak, and if people are folding kk to him lots more hands

"oh nos i only has the kings must fold wait for a better spot"

I don't understand your point.

It shows frustration and inability to understand how tight full ring no limit holdem is supposed to be played.

Disparaging the back raise (calling it dort bag) achieves nothing. The reality is it happened and we have to deal with it.

Just because you want full ring nl holdem to be an action game worthy of playing, doesn't change the dynamics of the game.

I already addressed the 112bb point.

Stacking off with kk may still be correct here. But it is not because of the "if we have to fold kk, then this game is worthless" argument. That is an emotional response to a mathematical puzzle.

The backraiser is a TAG pro millionaire, so the above posts suggesting he will be too shook to get 4.5k in without KK+ are just nonsense. Even if Villain is a tighter live reg, you are getting the correct price if Villain has a range of KK+ and 2.5 combos (of eight possible) of AK.

Also, these guys are voluntarily playing 5/10 with a double straddle with over a hundred double straddles in their stacks. Why is the starting assumption that they're afraid to gamble?

ETA: Oh yeah, forgot to mention: look at the table dynamics described by OP, people with 100 VPIP stacking off with top pair 5 in 4bet pots. Looool folding KK for 112 effective blinds at this table.

dort bag is a typo but i kind of like dort bag.

From here on out, when someone limps utg, and the button flats a raise then back raises after a utg limp raise it shall be known as a dort bag raise.

and you're right we do have to deal with it- and the way to deal with it is by calling off your 112 bigs with KK but try to show a little class about it and not dance on the table.

As for the bolded- you're right it doesn't. But if it's correct to fold KK here then it's incorrect to even sit in this game. With straddles and double straddles and whales as described it doesn't sound like these boys are afraid to gamble and it's definitely wrong to fold KK here. It sounds like a good game actually.

The fact this post was made means there's about a 90 pct chance the guy had aces. For years a lot of the strategy posts have basically been glorified bad beat/cold deck stories disguised as strategy posts. So people come in biased basically knowing the other guy had the nuts so the advice becomes biased.

It kind of frustrating actually. People get that they're playing hand ranges and not just specific hands, but because of the nature of these threads give advice that often is applicable to specific hands.

Thanks mate, appreciate the response - particularly around the empathy angle. An hour after I left the table that's all I could think about, and felt like a complete fish for even questioning why I stacked off with KK here

Anyway, I have some other factors now to consider next time I face the cold 4 bet Jam from the button in a juicy game

There is only one problem with the autostackoff here vs a decent player and it comes up occasionally in narrow range spots. Our LRR looks exactly like KK/AA and mostly like AA. We basically shout to the casino "hahahaha mother****ers we tarped you." When someone then backraise jams a large amount of money even if it isn't a lot of BB they are shouting back "lol that's a big mother****ing hand. You tarped me, must be AA/KK, I'm all in."

Agree with disko. Live players are not going to think that effective stacks are immediately halved every time a straddle is on. The frequency of the straddle and (dead) double straddle are really important here. Seems like the straddle is mandatory since OP refers to the double straddle guy at utg. But I'd still consider this to be 200 bb deep more so than 100 bb deep, unless everyone is putting out a dead 40. Iamallin has some good thoughts on this too.

As for the hand, whenever I do something really stupid like this I usually just call. If I win, great. If I lose, I consider it karma for playing poorly.

edit:
Ya this. Incredibly unlikely OP posts this hand if villain showed up with worse than KK

unlucky paul.

That's the ****ty thing about limp-reraising KK/AA here. I can't imagine you ever having A5s here. If you're doing it strictly to get into a pot with the fish and isolat light cold caller money, then I get it, but you better hope you're lrr/folding 88-QQ as well, and also some suited broadway and Axs hands (basically majority of your range), since the presumption would be that the villain PFRs literally 80% (dubious, people way exaggerate these things) and you can squeeze out dead money from overly loose cold callers, get a call from the spot, and play bloated HU pot with a superior range of non premiums.

Since you're probably not doing that, your strategy is absurdly lopsided, so you must see it exactly as that, and continue as such (and assuming that it is somewhat transparent to other regs too)

Basically, I can't imagine the pro backraising here with anything except AA, certainly not KK. I think AK would be horrible too, to be honest. It's not like your lrr is a small sizing and he has a backraise/fold frequency, and flatting is soooo attractive with the fish in the hand that there just aren't many hands villain would want to use as a risky bluff into a nutted range instead of seeing flop with presumably very high chance of getting implieds from 2 players.

That said lol I don't like to exploit this hard so I don't fold.

The button limping with AA here is surprising. He can't love the idea of going into a pot with up to 6 opponents, so he has to have a lot of confidence that someone in the blinds/straddles will 3bet.

When i read this hand that's why I discounted him having AA.

It makes a lot more sense when we know his hand a retrospectively realize he is a tourney pro.