Here's a hand I was involved in and found quite interesting. The game is $2/$5 w/a rock live game at Aria. Eight players at the start of the hand, I'm on the button with AT64. I have everyone who will be involved in the hand covered. (about $5k) Have been playing at the table for quite a while so familiar with the other players in the hand.

One player limps to me and I make it $25. (I am not interested in the preflop action) The SB makes it $100, BB flats, everyone else folds. Three of us will go to the flop.

The SB player started the hand with about $1,000. He is a fairly straightforward player.

The BB started the hand with around $2,800. He is a player who will definitely pay to chase. Loose but not really aggressive.

My table image has to be decent as it looks like I have a chip stack (I'm actually only even at this point in time) I'm a solid player all around.

The flop is QJ6.

The SB leads out for pot ($3xx). The big blind calls. My action?

I should point out I read the SB for being very strong leading into this pot and will have no hesitation putting it in should I happen to raise here. His manner of betting with the obvious of betting pot into multiple opponents with a short stack says as much. (combined with the type of player I read him as being)

I should also mention if I raise, even min. raise, the SB can not reraise enough to open up the option of me raising again. His stack was slightly too short.

I prefer to take this discussion one street at a time because I think it's interesting enough to merit it. Thanks for any discussion.

Difficult decision here. First instinct is to flat with all of our draws to the nuts and the ability to fold on a Q/J turn.

However, I think I easily like potting and going for it. We have >45% even against a range of QQ, JJ, KKss, AKT. I'm happy to play for stacks against both of them. There's some merit to flatting to keep in worse spades or something, but really that's the only hand we want to keep in, and we do so much better pushing him off his equity with naked QJ, T98 hands, etc...

I would call here. There are cases for raise but im not seeing enough evidence for them from op. Hero equity may also be worse than it appears after card removal.

I would call the flop. Being in position without the initiative going to the turn gives you a lot of freedom. The BB is stuck in the middle and might be able to fold to your raise on the flop(unless you want BB to fold), I don't let BB off the hook. Give the SB a chance to bet the turn and have BB call again or put in a bad raise if a non board pairing spade comes on turn and he thinks his spades are good. BB probably has a lot of Broadway cards in his hand, a non spade King on turn has you free rolling him. And if a different broadway card hits turn you can decide what to do based on actions of SB or mainly BB. Your bag of tricks for turn is huge if you...

Call flop.

Shove flop.

Given the game is no longer 2/5, I dunno about the accuracy here

Why are you opening to $25? I don't get this, especially with a limper. I play in this game daily and if you're opening to $25 you're pretty quickly labeled a fish. So I don't know if your views of your image are accurate.

That being said I would call the flop. I don't see the need to raise, you have the nfd so its not like you don't mind other people in the pot. The 6 is nice to give you potential 2 pair draw that can beat top 2, but almost would be nice if you had some draws to work around your bottom cards. At this point you really just have AT in holdem, with a gutter and nfd. You raising is going to get stacks in against sets, wraps, and sure some dominated fd, but the fd isn't going to be why they stack off. I'd peel another street and re-evaluate

fold pre, no point in raising with such a marginal hand especially against a field of limpers. overlimp is fine too.

you seem confused about stack sizes. does SB have $1000 or less than $800? call or raise pot are fine on the flop, I'd probably just call and take advantage of our position.

I'd pot it to try and get the BB out. SB likely has AAxx or KKxx so your 2 pair might be good against him if you hit one of your other cards, in addition to your nut outs. Would suck if you let BB in with something like top pair and a straight draw with no flush draw and lose to him hitting 2 pair or his straight. If he doesn't have spades he may fold if you pot it.

I was not fishy enough to know to put in my original post the stipulation that I don't care about the preflop action because I knew someone like yourself would speak up and say something similar. If you can't tell from the details I include in the hand and the hand analysis I do during the hand who the fish is then I can't help you.

Generally speaking you are correct. Any raise preflop that isn't pot is basically a donk move. There are several reasons to raise something other than pot though. The most obvious being if you want to raise an amount that will allow another short stacked player to get it in while also reopening the betting to you so you can come back over the top of any other players who may have called.

Another reason is you have player(s) at your table who will perceive this type of raise as always 'weak' and that player is a 'fish'. That's not the reason I did it here but imagine if I sit at your table and in the first few hands you see me raise to $25 in this spot. I make one tiny odd action and in your head you label me as a fish. My equity from that raise couldn't get any better having you and anyone else like you flip that fish switch because of one non standard preflop raise.

Last reason I'll list here, which is the reason I did it, I am in position the entire hand with people who will stick in their money in big pots when they shouldn't. Position in PLO is by far the most important factor and I play many 'trash hands' or perhaps raise when I should flat or maybe even fold due to position. We need to take steps to make sure that we're closing or near closing the action preflop and not calling too many monster 3 bets and that our post flop play is solid. This is why I did it. I do it rarely. In fact, if you must know, it's the _only_ time I did it in a 12 hour session was this hand. All the criteria need to align perfectly. If it's a limped pot it's hard to make it a 'big pot' and these players won't go chasing after $40 to the flop. You get a few hundred out there though and now there's a bet all of a sudden they want to hit to hit a big one, especially if they're chasing being stuck.

I'm sorry, I honesty don't know what you mean.

Sorry if I mislabeled a stack size somewhere as they were estimates. All that is important really is that he didn't have enough that if I min raised flop he could reopen the betting by shoving but he had enough to pot the flop and bet $5xx on the turn.

Pot it -- or the min-raise is interesting, but I just pot. SB is never folding and BB will pay to chase -- make him pay.

You just meant that the game is 5/5. Yea, it was. Not that it hardly makes a difference I have just been so used to quoting it as 2/5 over the years in talking about it.

you are playing against BB here, SB doesnt even matter because the money is going in anyway.

i would call to keep BB in the pot with his draws you are dominating
we dont want bb to fold to your shove

lets be honest, you wont fold anyway and we have 2 nut draws 3 way which is giving us enough equity to stack off anyway

but to get max value we have to keep BB in the pot
there is a chance BB will fold to your jam being deep although you wrote he is chasy i dont think he is dumb enough to chase 2nd or 3rd flushdraw for 500BBs

when the turn flushes you will get BBs stack, and an insane amount of value, which will make up multiple times when you dont hit in situations similar to this
given the potsize to his stack ratio he wont be able to fold with 2nd/3rd nuts and you underrepped your hand a bit because a lot of NFDs would just jam to this action - deception value

in my opinion call > shove
any way shoving is not a big mistake, close decission but i find calling better

I decided to flat the flop. My thinking was what others have mentioned. Basically SB is shoving most if not all turns (Again, read him for strong. He's not the type player who would 3 bet pre then fire pot into two players with an over pair and a gutter for eg) Then BB, aka the chaser, is almost certain to call so all of this money is going in anyway. What I'm hoping for is that BB is chasing a worse flush and it comes in then I should get most if not all of his stack. If I repop it now I risk chasing him away.

Also flatting allows me to get away from the hand when a J or Q comes on the turn. One of the reasons I played the hand was having position for the entire hand. I think it's important that I use it here rather than trying to get it in just because the flop is decent for me.

I will continue this hand in another thread.

Are you a guy in your late 30's or 40's, taller, wears athletic/golf attire and use your ipad at the table? I'd like to say you have a european accent but are more or less a plo reg at aria yr around? I think you're this one guy but could be off on my read.

As for your reasonings for $25, wouldn't the all in stack need to be like $40 for them to jam and it not be reopened? Therefore a pretty irrelevant factor. As for the instantly labeling you a fish part, I think anyone strong enough to even be able to pick up on that and be able to utilize the info would know they cant derive their entire player profile for you off one decision like that. It's just one piece to the puzzle of who you are that other players are trying to put together

??? You have a thread for this hand.