Hi all, interested in your thoughts on the two hands below please – played on the weekend

Hand 1

Hero at table for about an orbit, folded so far. Known as aggressive by V2.

Now in CO w AKo ($200, all v’s cover)

V1 limps $2
V2 raise to $15
V3 call $15
Hero raise to $50

All call (pot $190) (note v1 limp-coldcalls here, leading to V2 and v3 getting nice odds)

V1 = at the time I had only seen him for one orbit and I thought he was half decent. Young guy, 20ish. When he cold calls the preflop 3bet I am quite confused about him.

V2 = played with her before, 40yo asian lady. Tight but slightly passive. Regular player, I think a winner. Can value raise AJ on AKx board in right circumstance. She folded AA to my river bluff 3 weeks ago getting 3.5 to 1. Range is tight (AJ+, 88+) after raising $15 pre herself.

V3 = Seen only once before. Loose and aggressive, but not playing LAG very ‘correctly’ imo. Not a bad player by any stretch, but unsure if he is a longterm winner (he straddles $13 utg always&hellip.
Range overcalling = any SC and better, probably any two-paint.

Flop 876 rainbow

All check to me. Question: Do I just pray-shove or check with the intent of check-folding?

My thoughts were: Seems like any 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 will call me here and I’ll be behind with only 6 outs plus trying to dodge 4-straights sometimes or best case flipping against 15outs of theirs.
99, TT, JJ will call fo sho. I think it pretty rare for all 3 to fold to a shove. So I check and fold to tiny $25 bet on 10 turn.

- Is the 3bet pre good?
- Check flop on this flop ok or lame?


Hand 2

Hero at table for about 2 hours, folded a lot of hands but have aggressive image. Double barrel/folded one hand with air (unique at this table) and 3bet 3 times so far (unique at this table) plus played a small number of single-raised and limped pots IP.


V1 ($120), straddle $14 (quite new player, not sure but this straddle is obviously weird)
V2 call (covers me, same v2 as hand 1)
V3 call (covers me, tight asian guy good player I think)
Hero in sb w 99 ($200)

Is this a big 3bet/call off pre or a call pre?

One hand per post, please.

Hand 1 - pot is 1+2+2+15+15=35
our bet is 50. so pot is 85. V1 or V2 must call 35 to win 85.
anyone with a pp or AJ+ is calling this.
3-bet must be bigger due to pot size and players in pot.
as played: check/fold flop

Hand 2
call "straddle"
if flop is low or you hit a set, use your aggro image to overbet pot and get paid.

Slightly larger bet pre on hand 1 but I dont think that matters too much. Check folding this hand as theres just too many in the hand to take a stab at it imo.

Hand 2 I'm just calling and hoping to spike in the flop or get value on low boards.

Hand 1 is a bummer flop. On most low flops I'd say just shove all in because you can rep an overpair to most people and 2pr+ is rare. But this is just too connected; people will be calling you with all sorts of straight draw + pair hands. And there's no flush draw to get value from.

My baseline-formula for reraises is 3x + 1 for every caller. I deviate from this alot based on various factors but this is my "standard." That means $60 preflop. Having only been at the table 1 orbit that's what I'd do.

Hand 2 is so frustrating because of the stack sizes. We are beating the range of the callers and crushing the ATC range of the straddler. And we'd rather the SPR be lower since we're OOP. Honestly I want to raise this to 70 but that sets up an SPR<1 and I don't know how to play 99s in this situation on the flop, except for shoving every single flop if we get 1 caller.

Calling is the default and it isn't bad; I just feel like we're losing value by calling.

Also yeah, this: