1/2 NL, 9 players. Saturday night around 2am. Grosvenor Victoria Edgeware Road, London.

Hero Hero: is white, mid-30s male playing TAG but limping behind and calling behind frequently in late position, especially on button. Has shown down 1 hand in 5 hours play and is up around 50b. Perceived as tight and slightly nervous as he usually plays online and doesn't know how to handle chips!

Villains: Various loose and limpy bad fishy type players.

BTN is mid 30s asian male playing about half of his hands and raising 1/3 of them. Been seen bluffing postflop and bets any top pair fairly large.

BB is old white guy almost always calling preflop and then playing passively with a mixture of Top-pair, OESD, gut-shots, FDs and 2-pair+

UTG is mid 20s asian guy limping almost every hand and playing badly post-flop with lots of small bets, check/calling a lot and then folding before showdown almost always.

Effective Stacks: 250bb

Preflop:

Hero is Hijack with AJ

2 limps to Hero. Hero raises to 5bb.

BTN calls, BB calls and UTG calls. 1-limper folds.


Flop: pot is 20bb
J95

Hero is watching BTN as flop is dealt and sees him glance briefly at his chips before looking away from the table into space.

BB checks
UTG bets 7.5bb
Hero calls 7.6bb
BTN raises to 30bb
BB calls 30bb

Hero?

Given the tell, I would just call here. You don't want to get blown off a nut draw, and you don't want to get a mountain of cash in against a set, and you don't want BB to get blown off a dominated draw.

I don't like the idea of call/3 betting here. Just flat. You're closing the action. Let's see the turn.

Yeah, looking back I agree with you both!

I actually insta-shoved after UTG folded. My reasoning was I think these guys are happier getting it in now than later and if either or both are drawing at the flush then it is obviously not going to come up very often.

I also felt like if BTN was beating me with QQ or J9 then he can more easily get it in here than after I go ahead with an A or on the turn or river.

I felt that, given how loose BTN was he could also have KJ and think my shove was with a naked flush-draw.

Mainly though I just panicked a bit and thought I don't want to face a tough decision on the turn!!!

Hero shoves (and is covering both BTN and BB).

BTN and BB call.

Thoughts on what BTN and BB might be holding?

Agree with others 250BB deep just flat the raise.

Arrrgh! Sorry, I meant 150bb! Damn - I made sure it was all neatly laid out and everything and then got the most important information wrong!

Yeah I think the shove is really bad here. You're not getting anything worse than you to call by folding out most all draws and top pair good kicker type hands. You're probably also getting QQ to fold, which seems to be the only realistic overpair given how the action went preflop.

As played, I expect to see mainly sets, and possibly combo draws like QTdd. You're obviously not drawing dead here, but I don't even think an A is old here. I agree with everyone above that with the raise plus the tell, this is a flat call in position.

Yep you were at least half right Chillkill17.

After I shoved I showed my hand in the hope of them both showing there's.

BTN saw my hand and looked pretty horrified. Old guy in the BB turned over QTdd.

Turn blanked and river was a diamond giving me the nut flush.

The BTN went to muck his hand and I didn't have the heart to ask him to show me what it was after he'd just lost £290. However, I think he had KJ or a bare flush-draw from the look on his face when I showed TPTK and NFD on the flop.

Can't be sure though - maybe he had a set or 2-pair and just runs so bad he feared I was going to suck out on him!

Given it was approximately 150bb effective stacks do you all still think shove was bad choice?

Personally I think I narrowly got away with it this time but wouldn't want to repeat this move...

You need to go somewhat into passive mode and flat. The bad part here is more than likely somebody has a set, or maybe like J9 for 2p, possibly even a SD + FD. I would especially pay attention to what the BTN does OTT. Pretty much guaranteed that the BB will check and you should as well. If it checks through OTT be prepared to fire on a non SD completing card.

A shove in this situation is pretty bad because you are so deep. If somebody has a set you are drawing very thin (runner runner or to the flush) so you have around 11 outs.

Almost certainly you have the best hand or the second best hand. Even if they both have sets you have the second best hand.

Board: Jc 9d 5d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 32.001% 32.00% 00.00% 1843244 0.00 { AdJd }
Hand 1: 63.465% 63.47% 00.00% 3655670 0.00 { 99 }
Hand 2: 04.535% 04.54% 00.00% 261220 0.00 { 55 }

So there's no problem building a huge pot on the flop. But generally speaking the more people in the pot the better. Encouraging someone with very low equity to fold is the only disaster for you; typically that means getting heads-up with a hand that's either better than yours or you're close to flipping with.

Rerun that with the second set being something else and your odds don't improve.

Both having sets means fewer boat outs for them and no one blocks any of your draw outs.

Yeah worst case scenario is one with set and one with QTdd.

I think at 150bb (typo when i wrote 250bb in OP) I'm best off just calling flop and playing like bigslick2006 says: Check turn and bet non straightening river if turn checks through.

However, I don't know what to do on turn if diamond comes: am I checking hoping BTN bets desire 3flush? If BB donk bets small am I raising allin to deny BTN odds to draw at a boat? Do I donk bet allin if BB checks?

If turn is blank, BB and I check and BTN bets allin am I ever folding if BB calls? Can I still call if BB folds?

If turn pairs board am I through with the hand?

After flop, if I called, pot would have been 125bb and effective stacks at around 110bb. I just felt like I could easily make a big mistake, either a folding or calling mistake so I panicked and shoved flop instead of risk bad decision on turn. Maybe I lack confidence postflop in big pots multiway? They do get big very fast and maybe I shouldn't be so keen to stack off when I haven't put half the money in the middle?

I wasn't talking about the worst case scenario. Focusing on the worst case scenario is irrelevant.

Against all Villain ranges/hands we have the best or second best hand. That's obviously true if someone has QTdd and the other has a set. Having the worst hand fold is the huge mistake that you can make.

So what? That has nothing to do with what I said. We always have the best or second best hand in this spot. We lose when the worst hand folds.

p.s. I don't know why people tend to show up in certain threads and not other threads, and holler "What if the Villain has a set!" I guess it's cause the first response had the word set in it.

Is there any reason that anyone thinks that most people are only continuing on this flop with a set?

I wasn't focussing on the worst case scenario - I meant worse case I still have 7 outs twice and am up against 2players so I cant be making a huge mistake, unless I make the worse hand fold and gii headsup, like you say...

Also I certainly felt at the time like they could both have worse than a set and gii...

There's few worse draws that can call and we fold out most kings with a shove so yeah I still prefer flatting

Plus if we do hit the flush after calling we are going to stack worse draws.

Actually vs QTdd and a set I only have 5 flush outs since 8d kd complete the straightflush.

I agree with flatting flop but I don't know how to play turn and river after I flat the flop (see my earlier post and effective stacks were around 150bb not 250bb, typo in my OP).

I'd raise more preflop.

If we call the flop, wtf are we doing on a turn brick if villain bets 3/4 pot?

Flop is 20bb. Eff stacks remaining are 145bb, spr is 7:1.

Then, 75bb ar e added to the pot. Now, 90bb in the pot with 115bb effective.

I'm quite happy to move in with TPTK+nfd.

Yeah I suppose by calling flop and shoving turn we allow the weaker hands to gii with us more easily than when we shove the flop. Thanks guys!

Whats our plan for a blank turn? Check to the button? Is he going to be c-betting a turn with less than AJ once two players have called his raise OTF?

Just ship it in and try to freeroll AJ and get it in with big draws. By flat calling you give free equity to JX or QT which probably aren't calling much if they miss on the turn.

Yeah I think I would check and see what BTN does but shove over any none allin bet.

I dunno why seeing the turn is that scary when we have TPTK.

It isn't that scary - honestly BTN could have done this with QTo or KJ as well as sets and QQ. I think I almost feel comfortable with this hand now.

Call flop raise.

Check all turns.

Shove over reasonable sized turn bets on non-straight, non-board-pairing cards. Maybe call tiny turn bets?

Call small turn bets from either BTN or BB on straight cards. What do I do vs big turn bet on straight card?

Fold to big turn bets from BTN on paired board. Including if I have trip Js???

Bet river if turn checks through and board remains unpaired, no straight and flush or no flush.