1-2 NL 300 max

H: Should have a TAG ABC image tonight. Have not gotten out of line. Mostly raising IP and winning with aggression post with very few showdowns. Only big hand I stack a pretty bad player with QQ. I 3bet pre V called. 3/4 pot bet OTF. He calls. He donk jams turn. I call on 889J board with flush draw, QQ is good. I have ~650

V: Rec-fish. Saw him do something really weird when he first sat down. He opened to 12 LP, bad player from above hand 3bet to 35, he calls. Flop AQx no fd. Big bet and a call by V. Turn a blank. Bad player jams V calls. Both about $300 deep and they chop it up with QJ... Maybe he has played with the bad player before and knows how bad he is, but even still, call is pretty bad. After this he has been relatively ABC rec-fishy. ~410

V open limps MP. Hero raises 55 to 11 in the CO. Button calls, BB calls, and V calls.

Flop:$40

Flop458. Checks to hero who bets 30, folds to V who makes it 80 total.

H?

Never thinking of folding obv. Weighing calling vs 3betting. I think calling keeps my range wide, while 3betting may allow him to play perfectly by folding hands I'm crushing like fds, sd, maybe some 2pair. Flop 3bets 200+bb deep are so scary and I don't want to scare this guy, especially with a solid/winning image. While calling in pos allows me to see a safe turn card cutting the equity for his draws in half then start shoveling in money. It also leaves him OOP with the iniative and keeps my range wider. V could think I have an overpair and feel committed with 2pair hands and 44.

I think V has a ton of draws here, def more draws than value hands, only scared of 67 because I think V raises 88 pre. He has been pretty active raising pre so I think he is never limping 88. So 88 eliminated. Planning to go broke to 67. So preferred plans of action to get the money in here and reasons for doing so?

bet more on the flop

clear ship it in after he raises to 80

you can get called by 44, diamonds, draw + gutter + pair, 85... tons of worse hands and this guy doesnt seem to like folding anyway

I probably just call being IP & play pokers from there

what makes you think he has a "ton" of draws?

rec-fish aren't typically draw heavy here with c/r's vs clear strength

I think he is very draw heavy here because this is a super wet board, it smacks a rec players limp calling range.

I expect him to have lots of fd, sd, pair+draws here. I ruled out 88 because he limp called pre, he was fairly active raising often pre so I'm assuming he is pretty much always raising 88.

I block 45, and 85 2 pair, 84 not super likely, most will fold this pre. This leaves a lot of drawing type hands and not so many value hands

Why are you trying to iso a sticky calling station by raising 55 preflop?

I don't like the preflop raise. You have virtually no fold equity vs the described villain so you won't be able to be awesome post flop and fold him off hands on scary boards. Whenever you have super aggro sticky spewy villains you don't want to inflate the pot with hands like SCs and baby pockets. You want to keep your implied odds as high as possible so you can draw post flop, hit your hand, then stack the spewtard.

THere are two lines here based on villain description and I'm fine with either.

We can click it back and leave him enough room to hang himself. I click it back to $150-ish. This allows V to make a host of mistakes:
--He can call
--He can reraise
--He can ship it
Once he calls the flop raise I think V will play for stacks on most turns because pot will be so big and he will have less than a PSB remaining.

I feel based on the description V should call the above 95%+ of the time

Other line is we can just ship it. Based on OP V may call this around 80% of the time.

both lines are fine, I think you could almost flip a coin between which line to take...

How on earth can you advocate just calling here based on the OP. We have a villain with a history of spewtarded ships and calls. This villain has shown strength by raising us after we raised preflop and continued with a near pot sized c-bet.

Sorry to be critical, but I think you may have a leak here and are leaving money on the table if you think flatting in this spot is the best line. I mean, what type of villains are we raising here? This villain is the freakin poster child for re-raising.

The only argument at this point is whether we just click it back and raise or if we ship. But flatting his raise is just leaving so much money on the table..

Thanks for the response dgi.

I'm trying to experiment more with clicking it back in certain situations, but is this one of them? If I make it 150, it's 70 for him into a pot of 270 giving him roughly 4:1. Wouldn't 4:1 be proper odds if he were on a flush draw?

My reasoning would be I highly doubt he limps 66+, so I feel I have the best hand, position, and a skill advantage + deep stacks is a bonus. Whenever I feel I have the best hand, pos, and skill advantage I'm isoing. Bad?

You should reread djiharris' post above.

I hear what he's saying. Although I respect dgi as much as any poster here, I'm not sure I 100% agree. I'm probably wrong tho, as I usually am. Feel free to rip my thoughts

I don't like limping a value hand like 55 (am I overvaluing my hand against his limp range?) behind a lose player who we have position on. If we limp we are likely seeing a flop 4-5ways minimum and might not have position on everyone. I will have no idea where I am in the hand. I don't like my pair as a value hand anymore against 5 players, it is now a drawing hand and will be much harder to win. Although this is fine, I want to play heads up with V if I'm given the chance, and play my hand for its value. If there were 2-3 limps or more ahead of me then I agree limping is probably the best option.

Normally my 11 iso is going heads up with V, unfortunately this time I got 3 callers, with the only player who has position on me (not worried about him) in the pot. I would say this was rare at this table, I was definitely a favorite to get it heads up.

With only 1 limp from a lose and weaker player I want to iso him and play heads up where I am much more likely to win with 55 against his wide limping range. Also when I smash the flop like I did and he hits as well, now I can set up to stack him 200+bb deep. Stack size definitely had a lot to do with the iso, if he has $150 or less, probably limping.

Btw not sure how much this matters, but V was not very aggro or tricky. He made the weird play I posted in the OP, but he was the one calling not betting.

So all in all, I like my hand enough to iso a lose limping range in position. I am likely to see 4 free cards for $11 if I choose to, against a wide range. And I did suspect I had some FE on later streets say if the flop came 3,4,6 and I wanted to barrel twice or more. He didn't seem to be a super donkey who was never ever folding, although he was a drooling station in the OP hand. He was the agressor in 1-2 hands where he slowed down on later streets and had to fold to pressure. Although this wasn't my intention. I wasn't planning on bluffing V, I was isoing for value.

Feel free to post your thoughts if you want Dr, I'm definitely here to learn.

Sorry so long

This is where i think you are running into problems.

There are a lot of competing principles in poker that seem contradictory until you gain a better understanding of the concepts involved.

Having the "best" hand preflop does not necessarily mean that you want to inflate the pot and isolate. Why? Well, because that "best hand" preflop might not hold up well post flop.

Baby and middling pairs do not do well post flop simply because 80% - 90% of the post flop boards are going to have overcards on them. Not only that, but you will also have tons of flushes and straight possibilities post flop as well. Combine that with an aggro or sticky villain in which you have no fold equity against, and playing baby/middling pairs for value is barely breakeven. Then throw in fold equity villain has against us (i.e. he bets on a J 9 8 6 K board) and playing our underpairs for value becomes -EV.

There are two paths to value in poker:
--#1) Direct odds and direct value
--#2) Implied odds and indirect value

In regards to #1, we want to value town our opponents with value hands ahead of their range. So TPGK, 2p, straights, trips, flushes etc are ways we can achieve value directly.

In regards to #2, we want to keep our implied odds high enough so that when our draw or big hand hits (i.e. set mining, flush draw, etc) we can THEN extract value from our villains. The bigger the gap between our calls and the eff stacks behind, the greater our profitability with this line (i.e. if we are calling a $20 bet but have $500 eff stacks and a villain that will stack off, that is much more profitable then calling a $90 bet in that same situation...)

I think the mistake you are making is you think 55 belongs in category #1 when in reality it is a Cat #2 hand.

I'm wondering that too. dgi wanna explain?

this is where you are having problems, firstly you are thinking of 55 as a value hand when it is not, it is a set mining hand. 2nd, that is the kind of hand you WANT to play multiway because that increasing the probability of you stacking someone if you bink a set. You need to google "set mining in poker" as you do not understand the concept and why set mining is profitable...

As with "having no idea where I am at in a hand". With baby pairs in multiway pots you know exactly where you are at. Either you hit your set and you are monster or you missed and you fold. Easy peezy...

I have no idea what universe you play in, but an $11 bet in 1/2nl or 1/3nl is peanuts and that isn't isolating anyone. Seriously, you think someone has QTo or 98s or A4s or 88 or JTo and faces an $11 bet and thinks, "Man, I better fold..." HELL NO!!!!

Fish didn't drive 35 minutes to the casino on their one night off for the week to fold. Unless you are playing poker with a table full of SSN grinding blue haired ladies and OMC nits, you can never count on an $11 raise "isolating" at a LLSNL table. Seriously, you are delusional here and have some serious selective memory bias going on. Sorry I come off as a condescending dick here but your just flat out mistaken here in your thinking about "isolating". This is going hand in hand with your overvaluing 55 as a value hand. You are WAYYYYyyyy off there.

You mish mashing up concepts again. With 55 you want to limp against as many players are possible. Also, I don't think you properly understand how set mining works. The theory behind set mining is that you KNOWINGLY call when someone has a big hand because then when you hit THEN you get paid off. However, if you are the one isolating against a weak player and THEN you hit your set, how in the hell is said weak player going to have a strong enough hand to play for stacks??? See the Catch-22 here????

However, if you were to limp in a multiway pot and THEN hit your set, there is a good chance someone else hit two pair or a strong enough draw to pay you off. That probability goes up with each additional player in the hand...

So V is a calling station meaning that if you bet and he calls odds are he has "something" and if you have a baby pair his something is usually going to be enough to beat you. I mean, lets say V has Q9

Flop: A 5 9
is this V paying you off on 3 streets on this board? No.

How about
Flop: A 8 9
you bet, V calls, now what? If you keep firing V is still calling you down because he's ******ed. So how does your 55 work for you in this situation?

I think you may be biased by your own awesomeness. We have a very clear hand history of V being a monkey ******ed drooling station yet somehow in your mind you think you are awesome enough to somehow generate fold equity against said spewtard and make him fold.

Stop and think about that for a moment, let it sink in.

We have to check our egos at the door.

Our villains play the way they play because that is how they play. The worst thing we can do is let our egos fool us into thinking we can bend the laws of donk physics and make them play the way we want them to just because we are in the hand... No. They play the way they play and you are dreaming if you think you have fold equity against that drooler.

Just sayin... You need a reality check here and there is no nice way to say it.

****************
Overall, I like your willingness to think outside the box some, you just need to have a better understanding of some fundamental concepts. Google the stuff I suggested.

GL

V has more than flush draws in his range, also the aggression he showed means that if we do click it back then we leave him enough rope to hang himself and to spazz out and click it back against us.

Or put another way, if we are 100% sure he has ONLY a flush draw then yeah, we can and should click it back more to deny odds. However, if we include other hands in his range and if we even include some airballs in his range (i.e. he is just being awesome and making a move) then by clicking it back smaller we keep V in the hand with hands we crush while simultaneously allowing V to make more mistakes against us by leaving the door open to him to re-raise us.

FWIW, I'm not opposed to a bigger raise or even a ship against the villain as described. In spots like this, I tend to focus more on getting V to call the flop raise because once he calls the flop he is committed to playing for stacks on the turn. I sorta think of these spots as a Chinese Finger Trap. All I need is to get him to put his finger a little deeper into the trap and once he does, BOOM he is stuck and I can shove him on the turn and he has to call

You da man dgi. Appreciate the detailed responses.

I do agree baby pairs are much more profitable multi-way. Where do you typically draw the line between drawing pairs and value pairs? 77,88?

And I definitely need to check my ego. This is a constant struggle every session, but I recognize it and have actively been trying to tame it.

Was this at RR? If so do I know who V is? I would go $15 pre to iso a little better and set us up to play for stacks when we bink the fiver. On the flop I'm just going to shove which reps draws more than value hands and can get us paid off lighter. If you had a monster combo draw are you just calling or jamming? If you shove V has to call $320 to win a pot of $850 or whatever. People like winning big pots. They don't like raise/folding. Get it in.

I draw the line at 99 but really at 1/2 it could be up to JJ and I wouldn't argue

I agree with most of what you are saying, however the above does not compute. Is villain a mind reader? How does villain find a fold somewhere when we have set, but then calls off 3 streets when we don't, on basically the same board?

Yea at RR. I've never seen V before. With hands like 87, A7,A6,A:diamon d:2,A3 I jimmy jam it in pretty often here. Maybe 80-90%. Sometimes just calling in pos if V has small/bad sizing, likely to pay off on

Looks like a good time to jam a set then.

This.

Easy shove. Looks weaker than raising it to 220+ or something and more likely to get the GAMBOOL call.

Against the villain described I am shipping it in here, doubt he's folding much

I made a mistake in my hand posting. The first hand was suppose to show that villain completely whiffed and the second hand was to show that villain hit a piece of something.

Didn't discover the mistake until today and it's too late to edit it... the Q9 that villain has is suppose to be Q8 my mistake...

but basically my point was to just show that when we flop monster and V whiffs we don't get paid off however when the board is garbage and we have underpairs we just don't have the fold equity to push V off a garbage fledgling made hand.

So it has nothing to do with V being a mind reader and more to do with just the frequency of the spots we are going to find ourselves in when we try to play underpairs for value against terribad sticky villains.