1/2 $300 max buy-in
Saturday night

Hero: late 20's male. Just sat down 30 minutes ago. Called a flop and turn bet and folded on river after my draws busted, no other hand played. I have some history with V1, but just that I probably have a TAG on the tighter side image. Stack: $255

Villain 1: 30's male. Three to my left and seems to be grinding as usual. Reg I see all here all the time, TAG game. Can get crafty, but mostly plays upfront. Good player in my book. He hasn't had any hands since I've sat down, but his standard raise is always $12. Stack: $410

Villain 2: 20's male. Sat down and the first hand GII with KK with a 15 pfr and AI of 200 4bet and lost to AQ. Limped a few hands sense. Seems relatively loose but aggressive with hands. Stack: $215

Villain 3: older 60s+ male. Bad all around, calls with any piece of the board, bets huge no matter pot size with good hands. Just a fish at the table.Stack: $155

On to the hand!

UTG+1 Villain 1 raises to $12, UTG+3 Villain 2 calls, Villain 3 next to him calls, folds to SB Hero calls with AJ, BB folds.

Flop: A3J
Pot: $50

Hero checks, V1 checks, V2 bets 25, V3 calls, Hero..?

I'm willing to hear arguments for donking out too, but I felt checking a board like this would net me the best chance of getting stacks in with what I think is the best hand

Charge draws and make it 125.

Fold pre. It's hard to win a big pot when you flop a pair against a worse hand but you lose a big pot when outkicked or up against an overpair when you flop a pair. And SPR is tiny if you flat so not much room post flop. I would 3bet pre as a bluff sometimes in right spots but it's rare.

As played, donk bet $35 all day. SPR is only 5 so you get stacks in easily. Checking here only to have it checked around (very unlikely someone bets without a big draw or TPGK+) is a disaster and will happen a decent % of the time. In fact, PFR is more likely to have a hand like KK, QQ, TT that will check than AK combos wise. Any K, Q, T gives gut shots a straight or KK-TT a set, and that is an absolute disaster for you. And any club is bad too.

Bet $35 and hope someone raises. Check raise also looks super strong and may get AK, AQ to fold. As played, CR to ~$110 and shove non club turns.

As played I'm making it 115 or so, however I like donking this flop for about $40. Villain 3 calls you with a large range that includes Ax and most flush draws, the PFR is also calling and peeling a card with AK and AQ

With a TAG, a LAG, and a fish all in the hand before we have to decide to put $11 into the ($40-rake) pot, this is a pretty easy flat with AJss.

We can make up for all the times we have to X/fold because of the implied odds we are laying here with that type of a lineup of villains in multiway pot.

Getting over 3.5:1 direct odds and a minimum of another 14:1 from the shortest stack (who is the table fish), this is the type of hand we can speculate with just fine. We do have to be mindful of post flop scenarios where we might be folding top pair to barrels or heavy action on a flop, so you need to have some good hand ranging skills post flop here.

As played, Xing to allow the TAG to c-bet (or X and play pretty face up) and to be able to have a LAG and a fish react to the expected c-bet and put $ into the pot (or for the LAG to lead when OR Xs and again to allow the fish to put money into the pot) is optimal so we can maximize our implied odds we used to help consider playing this hand in the first place.

Once the action gets back to us it's a pretty easy X/R and sizing is simply dependent upon how big the pot got and how many are still in the hand.

We are happily gii right now, or if anyone flats, we can then shove most turns with a decent SPR bet.

I would have folded AJs out of position. What do you do on A-high or J-high boards? It just gets you in trouble. You also might not get paid with a flush. Just not a great hand here imo.

As played, easy raise now to $125 or so. I like the check/raise better than a donk because a donk might let the draws in cheap. Definitely raise now to charge them more.

Grunch:

At ~100bbs, I generally hate playing the vast majority of hands from the blinds. If I'm playing hands like AJ+/KQ+ from blinds, I'm 3betting for value and betting initiative, or just folding.

Here I think it's closer to a fold. You have a solid TAG reg raising from EP which is very strong. Playing an easily dominated hand multiway in a bloated pot is a big no-no in my opinion.

As played, a check/raise to $100 sounds good.

Only decision preflop is whether we're flatting or squeezing for semi-value + all dat dead money. I'd mostly squeeze, but against described villain opening UTG+1, he's going to wake up with a 4b too often and we will have spoiled a perfectly playable spot.

You don't *have to* lose big pots on A- and J-high board. In fact, it's really bad to commit any more than 1 bet when Villain 1 bets in a 4-way pot, and even calling the cbet isn't mandatory.

Other players are like the perfect makeup for playing TPGK hands against with a short SPR, and given our relative position + general playability of our hand + PFR's likelihood to play straight forward in a 4-way pot OOP to two loose players, there are plenty of avenues for profit on a wide range of flops.

As played, the merits of leading out since V1 is never cbetting this flop light, and he's not going to commit a ton of money with AK/AQ when we x/r because it's *very* easy to put us on exactly what we have. That being said, it's unlikely this flop checks through given the strength of one player's range, the aggressiveness of another player, and the general coordinatedness of the board. Given our good relative position, we have a good chance at squeezing a player or two between a bet and a raise just to help build the pot even more. If it checks through, you probably weren't gonna get much from them on the flop anyway. x/r is preferred in general since I'd like to get money in before a K, Q, or club spoils the party, and half the villains are bad enough to pay us off with many worse combos.

Fold pre.

CR an amount that he will not fold AK. Your judgment there.

As played, C/R to $120, the remaining stack of the fish. I think leading may be an even better option with that board and a fish in the hand.

Pre - fold. The PFR is in EP and solid. If we out flop him, he will not pay. If he outkicks us, boom! In position may be a different story.

It seems the general consensus is fold pre, which I'd agree with. I was blinded by good cards and the fish in the pot.

Flop: A3J
Pot: $50

Hero checks, V1 checks, V2 bets 25, V3 calls, hero raises to 110, V1 takes 10 sec and cold calls, V2 folds, V3 goes AI, both hero and v1 call.

Turn: A3JK
Pot: ~$504

Hero...?

Is this a close our eyes and shove spot or check and evaluate?

Wow, am very confused as to wtf V1 has, and now the second worst card hits the turn. Legitimately very tough spot, but given stack sizes, you have no choice but to just close your eyes and get money in. Probably best to just shove yourself in case V1 somehow has a KQcc type hand.

RE: Fold Pre - Don't.

C/F ... we are beating AQ (V1) which is likely not betting the turn, nor calling the flop imo.

Gross turn card. Hero has only $133 left, right? I think we have to shove - c/c is terrible, letting it check through is terrible, I can't ever bring myself to c/f given remaining stack and the pot size. Might as well stick it in and hope clubs or AQ come along and whiff.

check raise to $105

as played, once your check raise is called, and then you get the tag to shove I think you have to gii now. I want all the money going in on the flop.

-I can't remember what the sizing was so if you couldn't reopen the pot, I'd lead all non club turns.

Not donking

if you expected v3 to gii otf, meaning once he calls v2's bet he isn't likely to fold to your raise, I would consider a smaller raise sizing so that you could jam over his all in.

Or bet/3bet to start. At the end of the day, based on game flow, player tendencies, and stacks, I'm doing whatever it is I have to do to get my stack in on the flop.

oop multi way w/ 2 broadways and a flush draw being on board, there is a great chance to get called by worse. On the flip side, there's a fair amount of turn cards that you don't want to see. K,Q, club, even a T or 3 aren't awesome.

In the pot-commitment thread, you're being used as an example of someone who doesn't believe you should be committed to a pot. You said this: we've given ourselves the freedom to fold when folding is correct

I disagree that you're committed to a pot the second you have <1 PSB left. I also disagree with planning your entire hand around the fear of leaving yourself with 1 PSB with a single pair hand, or even for fear of getting in 0EV GII spots. I also disagree that whenever you've gotten yourself into a "messy" spot, like only having $45 left in a $350 pot, that you've *necessarily* done something wrong (though you can *generally* plan better, especially in HU pots).

I do obviously think there exist spots where the pot is so large in relation to your stack that it's hard to imagine a scenario where it's -EV to get stacks in. In this spot, we'd essentially be making a "crying shove" (if such a thing exists) where we don't have the advantage of the fold button, so the only thing checking does is allow villain to skate by a little cheaper when we have him beat (and still make exactly as much when we bet).

The thing that annoys me most about the PNL-inspired pot commitment approach isn't so much the idea of pot commitment itself, but the fear of 0EV GII spots. This is a cash game; not a tournament. There is no inherent value in our stack; if we lose, just reload. We should only fear -EV spots. I think there are exceptions, like making sure you don't commit yourself with a bluff (especially a preflop 4b) because while GII is EV, the fact that you are committing so much more money when villain has it makes the EV of the play as a whole drop. Similar type EV considerations happen when making thin vbets on the river with ugly stacks.

None of that last paragraph is really relevant in this hand though.

If you listen to the post below, our goal was to get called by hands as weak as AK. All the hands we wanted to call us, on the flop, are now ahead of us.

Pot commitment has never meant you did something wrong if you fold somewhere in the hand. The book NEVER says that. It acknowledges the cards matter. We've gotten unlucky.

The action didn't go as AintNoLimit expected. V1 check/cold-called, and I, quite frankly, can't think of a single hand to put him on for that line. It's a very odd (borderline ******ed?) way to play AK; he might have the 1 combo of AA because people play topset weird, especially when OOP to spewy players; he might have the one combo of royal-FD just 'cause I don't know why (maybe he figures his FE sucks when he bets, and he'd rather x/r?!); I don't know, I really have to reach to come up with anything.

And when I'm confused, I'm not inclined to fold a hand this strong getting 5:1 odds.

That might be bad, and I wouldn't be surprised if a better player came along and devised a perfectly plausible range for villain and that we do not have 17.3% equity against that range, and I would acquiesce. Anyway, I think the only point you were really out to discuss is whether I simply think we're shoving just because we've reached some magical line in the sand with SPR, and as you can see, my argument for shoving goes beyond that (even if not far beyond it and even if the argument is flawed).

This post seems to best follow up my thought process as well.

Couple of things here: we are not playing a tough TAG player who opened EP in a HU pot. This is much different scenario. Had a LAG and a fish not flatted, then of course it's a fold pre. Because of the added pot/implied odds now, we are getting a great price to play a strong hand that we should be able to play just fine post flop.

In addition, the TAG EP openers range isn't simply AQ/AK here, so the times we flop an A we can evaluate and reevaluate street by street, and there is no reason we are necessarily just stacking off or just folding to a bet. Some TAGs still have too wide of an EP range in fact, so just defaulting to a fold here is a mistake unless we have compiled enough evidence to the contrary. Even a good range still has 77+, ATs+, KQs, so it's not like we are just snap dominated by the TAG when we do make the call. Have some confidence in our ability to hand range correctly, and having a X/call range to a single bet with 1 or no callers here is just fine.

If there is no fish in this hand, even 3 way, I'm fine with a fold pre. Passing up on spots where the fish are in the pot is just passing up on +EV with a hand like this. The times we hit the flop good with strong equity or smash a monster flop, we are getting paid so often.

lol @ fold pre

well played so far, definitely not folding now based on pot odds, im putting the rest in ASAP. yes turn sucks though

are people really folding a premium hand like AJs live pre when so many players play atc like q2. why are we assuming everyone else is going to have a premium hand

I don't assume everyone else has a premium hand, but I do assume a TAG raising from EP has a better hand than AJs and it is so easily dominated. Plus, a lot of our outs are bad or gone based on callers. We got lucky here (maybe), but there are so many flops that are horrendous for us and cost us money. It's just not a hand I want to play for a raise out of position.

As played, the turn sucks, but I don't see how we can get away from it. If I were a better player, I could check/fold, but I'd need a really good read on my opponent. I just don't see anything we beat except AQ and a flush draw that didn't hit a straight.