Edgewater Casino, Canada
1-2 $300 max buy-in

Hero: mid 20's white male wearing glasses and a hoodie. Been at the table for about an hour, no real hands of interest. Been playing pretty ABC poker, cbets and taking it down without showdown. Stack $360

Villain 1: mid 20's white male. Got to the table about 15 minutes after me. Seems solid, opening for 15 and putting on the aggression. A bit loose in limp/calling but tightens up post flop. Stack $180

Villain 2: mid 30's asian male. Sat down about 30 minutes ago to hero's left. Seems to be a reg, kept saying how nice it was to have a fish at the table (while he was gone ofc). Has built up his stack through PF raises and cbets. I'd say TAGish but on the tighter side. Stack $365

Fish: just some bad fish who calls with anything and has been just donating money.

On to the hand!

UTG+1 limps, MP Villain 1 opens to 12, Hero in the HJ calls with 99, Villain 2 in the CO pops it to 25, BTN fish calls, folds to Villain 1 who calls, Hero calls.

Note this is the first time he had made any small 3bet like that, let alone a 3bet.

Flop: ~$100
K94

Villain 1 leads for 60, Hero pauses for ~10 seconds and makes it 140, Villain 2 takes <5 before announcing "all in," Fish folds, Villain 1 folds, Hero...

Thanks in advance

Snap calls...sorry you ran into KK

Easy easy easy call. 100% of the time. Every time. Coolers happen.

Hero *fistpump* calls.

As much as I expect to find out that you ran into KK here from the fact that you made the post ... your 10 second pause might have looked weak to the villain, like you were on a draw. What does he do with AK or AA here? Might be shoving too. A sufficiently aggro asian could also have AQdd or AJdd, 'reg' or not.

I prefer a call initially on the flop, to keep V2 and the fish into the pot.
As played, snapcall.

I like a flat too as it lets V2 continue with a way larger range than if he has to cold call our raise and hes very likely to ship his value range for protection anyway.

OP, be honest. how long did you take to call at the table?

hero *fist-pump, high-fives dealer* calls

Finding a fold here is challenging. What do you think villain 1 has that he leads that flop after raise-calling pre-flop? He could have a K and is betting for information which makes it less likely that villain 2 has KK. Could villain 2 have AdAx or AdKx or AdXd or KxXd? Does villain 2 read your slow play as weakness? Would you read your reaction, ~10 seconds of thinking, to villain 2's donk bet as weakness? With the information you have and holding a middle set calling seems correct. If it's set over set reload and keep working.

Snap call. I prefer a call of the initial flop bet to keep the bad players in. Look at it this way, even if villain 2's min 3betting PF range is kk+ (which it proably is lol) you are still a big favorite against that range post flop as there is 3 combos of kk but 6 combos off aa. Not to mention villain 1 proably folded a K....

You are 61% favorite post flop against a super tight range of kk, aa (how many villains do you think are capable of folding aa here when u raise flop???). Against kk,aa,ak you are 81% favorite. Only fold against the nittiest of nits and even the nits I know wouldn't fold aa here

A flat wouldn't be bad because you are likely to trap some more of the fish's money in the pot when he calls OTF as well. But I think I'm being results orientated (knowing he folds OTF). But I usually prefer to just play ABC and raise here anyways. I'm 100% happy getting it all in OTF against V1 though. Definitely NOT laying this down for 150BB. Snap calling here.

The K most likely helps us too. Slightly less chance he has KK here for top set and it increases his value/get it in range.

Even if he shows me 1 king here, I'm still calling.

If he had KK, it sucks, but you just committed over a third of your stack with middle set on an unconnected board. The call here should be automatic. Tons of players are dumb and will play AA to the felt here, and plenty more decent players will treat 44 like the nuts too.

This is spazzing AA WAY more than it's KK

All of this ( the last one made me laugh. )

If he wakes up with KK here, it's just a cooler. everything else you got him nailed to the wall. It's results oriented thinking if you are thinking that you can find a fold there. Call, if you get coolered, reload, and on to the next hand.

as for the flop line i do agree with the call line, not to say the raise wasn't bad, but i think you could have gotten more money in with a call the re, like others have said.

I think the big question here is what Villain 2 is doing with the click back PF and the AI on the flop. As far as preflop goes, I was under the impression JJ+/AKs. Maybe not even as low as JJ. It just seems so strong to click it back like that, I'd even think with AKs/AQs/AKo that he'd make a real raise to take down the pot there, instead of 'sweetening" it with a big PP like JJ+.

After the flop when he goes in, I'd say his range consists of AA, KK, and AKs/AKo, and AKs seems unlikely given the K on the board. Perhaps he would be doing this with AKx but at the time I didn't think this very likely. I was under the belief he'd take longer, as it'd be more of a decision with the action in front of him, before going AI.

As far as my thinking time goes, I don't think I gave off any signs of weakness.

you even gave him a range you are crushing.
sorry, this hand is extremely basic, and you will not get another answer than "call" in all (un)useful rhetoric variations. you should really do nothing else but snap calling here, didnt make a mistake at all and just got unlucky (at least i assume you got coolered). snap it off, but sorry, this hand doesnt deserve a thread. you played it well and got unlucky.

Thanks for the responses

nah, tanking won´t do you any good in that kind of situation. firstly you are never gonna fold anyway, secondly you might get labeled either as a slowroller or a nit which isn´t fun either (unless you are sitting on the table only to make money and give a **** about others), and last and most important you might actually level yourself into folding by tanking...

fwiw, given your other posts you don´t seem to be neither a nit nor a slowroller, but a decent player, so if you smelled something fishy in this hand, i have to respect that imo and try to understand your thinking process. in that particular hand, a call is your best option by far though.

That sucks, but you can't really fold here unless he literally flips over his hand before you call.

Take a deep breath, say call, then muck facedown when he flips over KK's. Yell-reload and hope you get AA or a big hand in the next 2-3 hands!

Yep, ez call, ainec.

Yes its an obvious call...but how is V2 shoving this flop with AA or someone getting it in with 44 'dumb' or spazzing?? As if anyone here would ever fold AA or bottom set on this board...AA is only losing to 99 and 44 whereas 44 is obviously only losing to 99...super nit if you're NOT getting that in with these stack sizes. Other players could both have a K, combo draw like QJ diamonds etc

I know what you mean here, but you simply are not deep enough or know enough about your villain to say that it absolutely must be KK. A lot of people, especially unknowns at 1/2, will say "OK, I 3bet with AA, now I have an auto-shove on the flop no matter what". I remember calling a min-3bet once with 22 and the flop came K32. I check-raised him and he shoved over me, and like you claim in this hand, I thought it was KK, but I did call and it was AA (and I held up).

You have to have WAY better reads than you had in this hand to be able to lay down a set on the flop.