This is my first time posting here so go easy on me!

1/2 live cash game. Player in the HJ is a whale. Both myself (on the button) and the player next to me in the SB (V) are trying to get in as many pots as possible with him as he is raising every hand (23o, 72o).

OTTH: whale in HJ raises to 5. I 3b to 16 from BUT w AJcc. SB (V) cold 4b to 50. The whale in HJ folds unfortunately. I feel like the SB is likely to cold 4b wider than usual given the fact that the whale is opening 100% of hands and the fact that we have joked about trying to isolate him before the other does! I decide to flat.

Effective stacks: ~450


Pot: 108

OTTF: Qs 7c 5h. I have one over and bdfd (and in my mind the possibility that my hand is actually good given the widened ranges of the Sb and myself).

V bets 50. I call. In retrospect I think this is too loose and I have many better hands to continue with but I levelled myself into the call given his perceived widened 4b range (I’m thinking A5s etc).

Pot: 208

Turn is 9c bringing me the nfd. V checks. I decide to bet 115 in an attempt to get AK to fold and put pressure on any underpairs to the Q and maybe even KQ. I think I should be making a smaller bet here as I think AK will likely have to fold even if I only make it 70 (due to the dryness of the flop and hence my flop calling range appearing stronger).

Pot: 438.

Effective stacks: 231

OTTR: brick (2h I think). V checks. I tank for a while and decide to check back as at this point I feel like AA and KK are his most likely holdings and I don’t feel confident that he will fold those as the only hand that makes sense for me to shove for value is QQ (maybe 77 if i’m Calling that pre). I also think he might call AQ as he’d be blocking QQ and I know he thinks along those lines. On the other hand I think I just got scared of losing my stack and if I don’t shove this hand once I’ve got to this point (whether I should be there or not), I’ll never have any bluffs on the river. I guess I shouldn’t be betting the turn if i’m not going to shove the river unimproved.

After I check back he turns over KK and I muck. Sorry for lying to you Kieran-I didn’t have AQ as I said I did after the hand!

I think I made all sorts of mistakes in this hand and it ended up being a bit of a disaster, potentially on every street, but I’d really like to see where others think the mistakes are so I can see if I’m thinking along similar lines about how I’d play this hand in the future. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

3b bigger. Fold to the 4b. Fold flop.

This is not the player we are targeting. I expect his range from the blinds to be very strong here as I'm sure he is fully expecting to go 3 handed to the flop oop to the world.

Please don't include results as it biases feedback. Leave it at river 2h V cks, H?

Fold preflop. I agree that villain can be wider then usual here but he is also OOP against multiple opponents and AJ is going to leave you guessing where you stand. AJ is the sort of bottom end value hand where you are happy to put in the first raise but is a trivial fold to a reraise.

Flop is also a fold, but this is actually closer then preflop. Villain is likely c-betting this flop 100% of the time no matter what he has so floating occasionally is fine. If you are calling flop then betting turn when villain checks is obvious. I do agree that a little less is better on such a dry board but I would go $80/$90. You want to look like you are going for some value with AQ/KQ and the board isn't entirely dry.

River give up after turn is called is OK. You should continue sometimes, though obviously it probably doesn't work here.

In this situation notice also that stack sizes by player also matter. If villain has the shorter stack and committed a good chunk of his stack preflop then his range is tighter. In that case folding preflop and on flop is obvious. If villain and whale are deeper then hero is then their ranges are wider and c-betting flop with air are more likely.

Haha I think I know who you are. We played at the same table - I was to the right of the whale but later moved to his left (in between him and yourself). And yes I remember this hand, where your friend played very well in my opinion. When he checked Turn after leading flop and seeing flush draw on the board, I thought he must have JJ type hand or AK, but apparently his check on the turn did induce your bluff.

I would say fold pre given the v is not your main target. I did fold to both your and your friend’s raise quite a few times with hands like A4s just to save my bullet for the whale.

Btw I posted a slow play pre earlier today here, on a few hands in the session with the same whale (your friend was involved). Will be great to hear your thoughts on my moves!

Anyway, good luck and look forward to seeing you at Empire again!

I fold all day to this 4! with AJ. Pretty much wouldn't deviate from that.

I like a fold pre, this actually isn’t the ideal set up.
The thing is, if u have been joking with this player about making light reraises preflop, u should expect him to actually play tighter! The psychological dynamic will be that he EXPECTS TO GET PAID with his premiums, and will always 4b them, but when a player plans to bluff, the last thing they want to do is make their intentions known!
Furthermore, villain must know that a big 4b might push the whale out of the hand... so he would not make this play with an implied odds hand (re: 22-88, AXs, suited connectors etc)
So we weight this range towards value.
Also he knows you’re isolating light, so he can 4b wider FOR VALUE... AQ and AK for sure, maybe even AJs, maybe ATs, regardless we are behind those big aces for the most part.



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This is like the ideal light 5bet spot to make it ~150. We have a suited Ax in position vs a possible light 4bet. We can fold out some better hands (88-JJ,AQ, maybe even AK) and have ok equity if called.

Btw, folding to the 4bet is the worst option imo, we are getting 3:1 in position while reasonably deep vs a possible light range, with a hand that has at ~30% vs even the top of that range.

AP, the flop float is to loose but not horrible, i'd like it a lot more on a dynamic board where we can use some scare cards on later streets.

Turn and river seem fine.

This ^

nice!

I actually really like the idea of the 5bet bluff here, especially if we expect V to play 6bet/fold vs it, and only 6bet AK+/QQ and sometimes even fold QQ, AK.

Thanks everyone for the feedback - very helpful.

I'm basically treating the whale's raise as a straddle here. He was raising every unopened pot (w 72o etc). He also called off at least 60bb with a junk hand like that - I think he just enjoys cracking aces with junk hands as that's what he said he did the night before for 500bb pot with 72.

Both myself and the SB know this, so I know the SB is expecting me to 3B the whale v light, even with weak ace x type hands as I think he'd seen me do that before. I actually think AJs is very high up in my range in this spot. I'd been raising the whale a fair bit and trying to isolate. Surely folding here is too nitty? In a normal unopened pot, I'm not folding many suited aces to a sb 3b vs me on the button, and given the whale's 100% RFI from LP, I'm treating this almost like an unopened pot. We're also fairly deep (more than 200bb) so SPR hitting the flop is similar to how it would be if we had RFI and called 3b on button w 100bb.

I know it's a pretty unique situation, and probably won't come up that much, but I feel like folding AJs here IP is pretty exploitable. What range are we continuing with? I'm not saying I'm right here, just explaining my thought processes and the fact that if we fold AJs here, to me it still feels like the SB can print money by 4b'ing light given the dynamic.

Haha good spot mate . Will check out the hands you posted shortly (I have a feeling I know at least one of them and I think limping worked out very well!).

I like this thinking. In this specific situation given the fact that it's effectively an unopened pot though (whale raising 100% unopened pots from LP) I opted to call with AJs as I felt it was too strong to 5b(effectively 4b) and fold to jam. I think I'd rather bluff with A8s or A5s.