Casino game at Beau Rivage. Tough lineup. Couple of obvious spots at the table not playing horribly but definitely splashing around. Anyways this specific hand doesnt have the fish in it, rather two of the best players at the table. Im in the game for 5k and have 19k in front to start the hand. The mp preflop opener in the hand has 9300ish, button has 14kish.

9 handed 25-50 plo 100 on the button. Blinds fold, mp opens 400, i call with AAJ8ss, button raises to 1100, mp calls, i reraise to 4400, button calls, mp folds.

(Pot 10k) Flop: T83ccd, i bet 7500, button jams 2100 more, i call. Ill post results in a few days for those who care about results.

Cool story?

I play microstakes and this reads like a micro hand.

Standard play,not much to discuss.Can not fold this flop with spr 1.

trying to think of a more standard hand

The biggest pot Ive ever played so I thought it was worth posting. Guess I played it fine if it sounds standard.

I mean you got what you wanted when someone squeezed behind and you got to resqueeze and get it in. T83 isn't great but it's far from a flop I'd consider not getting the $ in on.

Where are the results?

Button says you call it. I say I dont mind winning a big pot and I dont mind winning half a big pot so you call it. He says twice.
First runout 2c, 8h.
Second runout 4c, 5c.
He shows AKK9ccc and scoops with flush on both boards. Not at all salty I think he played his hand well.

Std hand. DNT see any decisions to be made

3bet pre?
effective stacksizes are less than 100bb beetween you and mp so why call

Bet call with AA at SPR ~1 is super standard. Nothing more to see here folks.

merit for <psb cbet on flop?

I am not sure that this line is "standard" (see below), but the way you played it is certainly one way to play the hand. If you play it the way you did preflop, getting it all in on the flop is inevitable. That said, I think you made some plays that warrant some consideration based on your ranges.

1. Why did you flat to the first raise? It's one potential line of play, but what are you hoping to accomplish with that call? The obvious answer is "see a flop and play some poker", yet that's not what happened. A less obvious answer is "let someone else raise the pot and then I can get in a huge 4-bet raise". This is also OK, but it's sort of conditional upon who makes the 3-bet (see below). A third answer is "disguise my range". Again, this is OK, but you need to keep your flat-4bet range healthy (i.e., not just AAxx) as well as your 3bet range. Given how deep you are and with almost no reads on the table, I would be more inclined to 3bet here because I will 3bet with a healthy chunk of my playable range in late position, and I want my AAxx hands just to look like one of many hands that I 3bet with. Note that I assume that you are CO or HJ, and in those positions, I want to have a range that can literally hit any flop. If button flats the 3bet, you get to play some poker on the flop. If he 4bets you, you get to 5 bet all in with in what will likely be a +ev situation versus the button's hand.

2. Once it got back to you, what were you hoping to accomplish with the 4bet? If button is "one of the best players at the table" AND he is sitting to your left (i.e., harder to win back money from due to position), then I think you have some serious soul-searching to do. If he flats your 4bet in position, you will be pot committed with what I guess was highly likely to be read by the button as AAxx, and you let him dictate the terms of whether he puts more money in the pot or not. This is actually not a good position for you, imho -- basically you win a smallish medium-sized pot, or you play a huge pot as a profitable button flip or as a dog. Gross. As I mentioned above, I would have preferred an initial 3bet, and then you can 5bet all in if he 4bets (assuming that you put him on a range wider than AAxx that is better than yours). As played flatting the initial raise, I would consider just flatting the 3bet. To be clear, I think this line is suboptimal, but since I think you misplayed the first time around, I think you should follow it up in a way that tells the same story. Specifically, that story is that you have a drawing hand, and you want to see the flop. You can reasonably play a wide range of hands with this line. The potential silver lining of the dark cloud of your betting line is that flopped aces would probably be well-disguised.

3. In general, one key to success in poker (esp. PLO) is to minimize the value that your opponents get from you when they are in position. This is mainly done by adjusting your bet/raise ranges as well as your betting lines (e.g., skillful trapping).

4. Minor issue, but why not pot the flop? Given the stack sizes, any reasonable further action would commit both of you to an all-in. What would you have bet with a high wrap? A low wrap? A wrap with a flush draw? You generally want your range to merge.

5. You should always go to a poker room with a plan for how many times you want to run something. If you have the bankroll/income to handle it, I like the Barry Greenstein way of only running it once. This can give you a lot more respect with folks who only have a small number of bullets and/or degenerates. If you play in a "friendly" place and you need to keep a good reputation or if you don't have a healthy bankroll/income, then I suggest determining in advance exactly how many times you will run it.

tl;dr -- I think your betting line probably telegraphed your hand and let a skilled and deep-stacked button make +ev decisions in a huge pot.

Thanks for the time you put into that one ecv.

1. I flatted bc I didn't want to announce my hand. I had been limp calling everything in this game. Disguise AAXXss as well yes. Not bloat the pot and find higher edges postflop yes. Basically for a bunch of reasons I had been trying to keep pots small preflop. I did consider flatting twice. Then I 4 bet.

2. I 4 bet because I was able to get a good chunk of our stacks in preflop. Don't forget about the preflop opener as well who was sitting on a 9kish stack and definitely considered 5bet shoving after the button flat, which would have allowed me to put my entire stack in preflop. I did make the mistake of not eyeing the buttons stack closely enough to see that he had 14k to start the hand. I thought it was closer to 11, which would have shallowed effective stacks up post flop.

3. Agreed

4. Again I hadn't eye'd his stack closely enough and bet my stack of purples assuming that it was enough to cover.

5. As far as running it twice, I like to let the other person call it. in the words of Guy Laliberte, "the pot means more to you than it does to me, so I want you to call it." If they insist that I call it then we run it once.

tl;dr -- thanks for the post, in posting the hand I was hoping for this level of response

First thing ,,telegraphing`` your hand would be very bad if you are very deep,

but when you managed to reduce spr to 1 on the flop there is nothing your

opponents can do to exploit you even if you confirm them you have aces.

Second thing deep stacked button is all but not skilled:calling 4bet with akk9ss

against ,,telegraphed`` AA hand is big mistake and -ev play: 3479 raibow
would be significantly better candidate to call, although both hands are clear folds.

mp opens to 375*

fyp

The small blind was rounded up to 50.

If OP telegraphed his hand (played like Aces) as you say then button has one of the worst hands to continue preflop (AKK9). That doesn't sound like a +ev decision to me. Full Pot or 3/4th bet sizing doesn't matter on flop because hes getting it in regardless.

1. I agree that button did not play his hand well. Note that hero is the one who considered button a good player in the original post -- maybe hero was g ood in other hands, or maybe it was a really good table. That wasn't really the focus of the review. I personally think that the button 3-bet was not ideal precisely because he would be in an awkward spot if he sees a 4-bet. The call of the 4-bet is interesting -- if he 3-bets, he pretty much must call or shove since a 3-bet-fold line is extremely weak. Again, this points to to the initial 3-bet being a bad raise.

2. The potential +ev button decision was that, despite what others have said, button should have some small number of hands in his call-4-bet range in which he can fold the flop. A wrap that totally whiffed the flop is a good example of that. The hand that button had with no flopped flush draw is probably another one (depends on the exact cards). Note that as it was, button made a -350 ev or so call pf to enable a wide range of flops that he is +ev to continue in, with some of those being +++ev.

3. The bet sizing may not have mattered in this specific hand, but the issue needs to be considered over the series of hands that will be played during the session and/or with these same players. If hero always 3/4 pots when he cbs, then that makes a few marginal hands more playable pf for various villains. I think hands like this are great for signalling and/or mixing signals since, as you mentioned, the pot-sizing doesn't actually matter for this specific hand. That said, the signalling does matter.

1. Agree that telegraphing by hero is bad. I think hero mentioned that he didn't care since he could get so much into the pot. I sort of disagree with that given the stack sizes (which hero says that he had not estimated correctly at the time).

2. The button being "skilled" was something the hero said. Based on this hand, I would question that assessment. That said, I think that button's hand was not necessarily easy to play pf -- the 3-bet is tempting but is ultimately a questionable play since it doesn't want to see a 4-bet.

Ecv are you suggesting flat twice preflop then check fold flop?

I think it's very clear that double flat is not my preferred line.

That said, if you flat once, then I think flatting the second time in this hand seems like the strategically consistent play given the stacks and your assessment of the button.

You said that you made the first flat for the following reasons:

- Didn't want to announce hand.
- Disguise AAxx.
- Limp-called everything (this is a substantial leak, imho).
- Not bloat pot / keep pot small, so that you can...
- Find higher edges post flop.

These are all viable reasons to flat. In fact, it can be a very profitable strategy in a soft game.

When the 3-bet comes around, I think all of the reasons you mentioned above for flatting still hold. What ended up happening was that you announced your hand, you bloated the pot, and you guaranteed roughly a crooked coin flip (i.e., not a "higher edge") for your stack.

This strikes me as being an inconsistent strategy.

As I mentioned before, I prefer a raise here. Why is that? Assuming that someone is willing to take crooked coin flips for their stack (I usually am), I want to be able to make a raise to somewhere in the 5-10% range of effective stacks. This will effectively allow me to shove on any raise. A raise to 1100 would have been about 8% of effective stacks... perfect.

The only catch is that hero needs to raise more hands in late position in order to disguise his AAxx hands. That's a topic for a different post.

Lastly, if the pf line is double flat, would I fold flop? Folding with an overpair and no draws on a semi-wet board with 11bbs invested in the pot isn't bad -- it doesn't feel good, but it's consistent with a strategy that looks for bigger edges. If you put more money in this pot without a solid read, then you're flipping against ranges. If your willing to flip, then don't double flat pf. If you're looking for bigger post-flop edges, I don't think this is your spot.

I guess my overall summary is that hero should have a consistent strategy within a hand, and I didn't see that.

FWIW, I feel like I am rambling a little bit here, but it's tough for me to speculate about what I would do in situations that I rarely/never find myself in. For example, the small-pot line described above would only be something I do in early position, and I am ok playing small pots from out of position with marginal hands. In late position like the original hand, that's when I want to use my position to build and play bigger pots (e.g., 3-bet 8% effective stacks pf).

What would you have done on a double flat pf line?

Im Check folding and fist pumping I didnt bloat the pot preflop. T83cc is **** for my hand in a single opened pot, **** for my hand in a 3 way 3 bet pot, but I thought it wasnt horrible for my hand in a headsup 4 bet pot. Im sleeping fine over here. Thanks for your input though. Its clear that you thought out the hand thoroughly.

Yeah. Your hand was definitely not horrible for a HU 4-bet pot.

Please post more hands from your sessions. It sounds like you play in an interesting game. I've heard stories about the Beau, but as a Californian, I don't find myself in that area often.