Raising/jamming here is lazy poker.

I'm also in clear call camp. We have position and we are 200bb deep. If we were 100bb deep, or OOP, then that would change things and raising/turn-jamming becomes a more attractive option.

Consider the reasons for raising... fold equity? The only hands that may fold are smaller flush draws and weak top pairs... the main hands we are winning value against.

The hands that still call are overpairs, sets, 2pairs, which we are flipping against or losing to - why bloat the pot against these hands when we are barely ahead or behind? I'm not sure how many of these hands fold to a turn-jam when we miss our diamond so not sure why that's a great strategy.

I prefer to raise when we have a naked flush draw or a non-TPTK combo draw like JTdd (and of course, two pairs/sets to balance). In this case we have clear showdown value with TPTK and may possibly have the best hand. Let's pot control while we only have a single pair hand and play good post-flop in position with a ~35% draw to the nuts. This is an excellent spot to be in, no need to get spewy yet.

Agree completely with @browni and @gobbledygeek (not going to lie, this is the first time I've ever agreed with GG)

Someone above also said that we should raise-flop but then check-turn... why not just call flop?

^ regularly calling off flop raise -> bet/shove lines with lone overpairs in >11x SPR pots is a pretty good way to go broke.

We are raising for value. We are absolutely smashing V2’s range here, we are essentially never behind, we get value from all of his J’s and his worse flush draws. We are flipping against his overpairs and we probably increase our fold equity against those hands.

Same goes for the LAG v1. Ok, so he has 6 combos of sets, he has dozens of flush draws and dozens of one pair hands. There are 8 combos alone of KJ.

If you think we are folding out everything but overpairs or better here, we should be massively over-bluffing in this spot.

After 88 and 55, and this is the very best hand we really have to raise for value. The biggest mistake people make in LLSNL is calling too much, and not bluffing enough. The way to exploit that leak is by raising for value when we have a strong hand.

My snap reaction was to call for the reasons others have given. If we raise and get called by the older guy we have to check a lot of turns, revealing our hand, as i doubt he is calling here to fold on a blank.

However, I'm pursuaded to raise especially because of our kicker. We are really targeting the tilting indian. Imo,a key to these stakes is coaxing money from hands that are crushed into the pot. Then whatever happens with the older guy, so be it. It can be almost like O8 sometimes.

If we don't raise here a common scenario on blank turns will be Indian guy checks and old guy blasts it, which isn't good.

Also, Johnny pointed out that the older guy doesn't have many nutty hands, so a big reason to be cautious in such a spot is reduced in significance.

Mindlessly raising pairs plus flush draws in a spot like this, as you seem to be suggesting, is clearly foolish. So, by your own criterion....

For any of you call people, does the 3-way nature of the hand change things vs. how you'd play HU against a PFR? The player betting from the BB is close to 100bb's, the PFR calling is a mixed bag (seems more likely to be a 1-pair hand than anything else). We should feel comfortable committing against BB.

lmao, spot on.

Bolded is laughable. What is lazy and potentially bad in this spot is to just call in a spot where our equity versus any honestly constructed range is massive.

And BTW, when the action gets to us OTF, we are 167 bb deep effective (V2 has $502 left)...if you don't want to play for stacks with top/top/nfd in that scenario, then stick to checkers.

Add to that, the PFR just flatted the donk with us behind, so the ONLY hand we should even be remotely worried about in his entire range is JJ (which, BTW, we block). V2 is in an AWFUL spot unless he holds JJ...between a donker fish and us, but ONLY if we take advantage of that and raise NOW.

Pot control is for spots where we have a good made hand with little chance to improve. This spot is about as far from that as possible. I would only agree with flatting if we were 375 bb+ deep where a 3! shove by V might cause us to throw our hand away.

Not raising this flop in this spot is torching many hours of earn IMNSHO.

I'm usually quite open to different ideas and discussion on hands, as there's seldom only one correct way to play a hand. But I simply can't fathom not raising here. Is our raising range only sets? We're not going to have many two pair hands on this board.

Furthermore, we would almost certainly raise Td9d or 7d6d, right? So why on earth would we not raise AdJd? The "we have SDV" argument doesn't work here, as V2's range is probably mostly QQ+.

We want more action now before scare cards hit and while our equity is at its highest. I simply cannot fathom another course of action being correct.

But why are we risking the admittedly small range worst case scenario when the hands we are targetting to fold is also very small?

In this case, we're basically targeting AA/KK/QQ from the old guy as it's unlikely the donker has these hands, which is also the range we have the least amount of FE against (and against AA the least amount of hand equity against). If we had bottom pair, we're targeting both opponents and we're targeting a much larger range (not only AA/KK/QQ but also all Jx/TT/99/8x/77/66/etc.), and most of that range we have huge FE against.

In many ways, a raise is almost a "raise to see where we're at" when we have TP here. If everyone folds, hey, guess what, we likely had the best hand; congrats on getting hands like QJ and other 1-2 outers to fold when we were sucking up all the equity. If anyone continues for 200bbs, hey, guess what, we're drawing to a discounted flush draw; way to get in huge stacks as a 2:1+ dog. I mean, it's not completely that case, as sometimes we are called by draws that are drawing ~dead (a value raise), and sometimes we manage to fold out AA/KK/QQ (a semi-bluff raise), but it's a lot closer to a "raise to see where we're at" than had we been doing this with bottom pair.

There's just so much more risk vs reward reason to raise with bottom pair here than top pair. or with much smaller stacks (where the pot reward is greater and there is more hands we are doing fine against that are willing to play for smaller stacks).

GimoG

I think both calling and raising are probably fine, but I think I'd probably call here. The thing that breaks the tie is that with absolute and relative position in this hand, I'd rather take these guys to the turn, where I am going to get more information before I decide how much money I want to commit.

All their worse fd's are probably going to call a raise and we have tptk, how is this not a slam dunk raise?

They're getting to draw at a straight or overcard for $30 and getting the odds or at least close to them to do it. Also odds are close to 0% that V2 has a set since it would be a no brainer raise on his part.

This is simply not true, man. V2 is the only one who can continue for 200 bbs, and he has a set here almost never. We are not a 2:1 dog against anything else. You're also way way way underscoring how often this raise is for pure value against other draws, of which there are approximately a gazillion, not to mention Jx that gets sticky.

You're the one always talking about let's not stack off an overpair to serious heat in a huge SPR pot. So why would we not simultaneously put that serious heat on V2's likely overpair?

You're engaging in a ton of cognitive dissonance with your advice lately, I feel.

I'm repeating myself, buy your game plays a whole lot different than mine if an old guy gets in 200bbs on the flop with an overpair; if he gets in 200bbs, he simply has a set and we get in our money horrendously. If he folds, many times we had the best hand anyways and he was drawing to 1-2 outs (i.e. our raise ends up being a very poor "raise to see where we were at", although, yes, a decent amount of the time he folds the three possible hands that are currently ahead of us (he's not a nit opener, his range is not limited to those three hands).

I'm basically in Vernon's camp: it's close. Raising has benefits as it can fold AA-QQ (semi-bluff) plus flush draws which are drawing ~dead can call (easy value raise). But there are also benefits to flatting (all described above). In the end, I'm more saying how there is much more reason to raise with bottom pair than there is with TP. With TP, there isn't as many reasons to raise, and flatting (especially in position with large stacks behind) is fine.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Gg you are hopeless. If you were V2 and got raised here you would be tossing QQ into the muck so quickly patting yourself on the back for ditching an overpair in an 11x SPR pot that you’d miss AJ scooping the pot unimproved versus V1’s Jx or busted flush draw.

I've never said Villain isn't going to fold AA-QQ a decent amount of the time.

What I've said is that, as opposed to raising with bottom pair, (a) those are the only better hands we're targeting (a very small range against a non-nit open) and (b) we have the least amount of FE / hand equity against that range.

I've also never said there isn't any reason to raise the flop; there clearly is. The question is whether those reasons outweigh the benefits of flatting. I don't think it's a slamdunk either way.

Galsolovehowyoucontinuallytargetmewhenatleastthree othersinthisthreadhavearguedsimilarpointsG

I certainly agree, but that isnt a fresh problem- but have pretty much as long as i can remember back in time been the problem with alot of GG posts.

Also i actually want to repeat what have been said:Like, if we arent even comfortable raising this hand, what are we raising then? Is our flopraising range only the mortal nutz (sets) exclusively? I mean again: its no wonder why you have a hard time to get paid off by wider ranges GG, because youre playing so incredibly tight that you are narrowing down your opponents ranges considerably by playing this way. In many ways your opponents is a mirror of how you play. If over time your opponents see that you are simply nutpeddling in every aspect of your game,you will eventually start hitting the wall in some degree due to the very tight ranges youre opponents will stick to against you.

And please let go of the constant strawman arguments and MUBSY catastrophe scenarios that implies that everytime we raise this flop this is gonna be a 400 BB stackoff pot and we are gonna get stacked by a set. Most of the time thats not the case of course,because its hard to flop a set. Most of the time we will play a medium/semibig pot, where we get good value from stubborn worse Jx, dominated flushdraws that we destroy,we can choose different turn/river lines regarding sizing depending on wich cards is coming and so forth.

Like why does OMC have such huge trouble getting paid off, and why are they playing their cards faceup on the table from the perspective of any decent or good player? Because they _only_ play the nutz if any significant money goes into the pot, and they never ever 3 bet light, semibluff or bluffs.

Bang bang: bullseye of the thread.

It goes the other way too: if gg is calling with such a strong hand, his weaker hands and draws (which I imagine are also calls) get some protection- villains won't know if they're up against tptk or some kind of draw, and may play turn/river more passively.

Tell me what the plan is on the turn then, legitimately asking. Are we jamming on any card?

You say that we pot control when we have good hands that have little chance to improve, but what about a good hand that is most likely going to lose equity in future streets?

There is an 81% chance the turn is non-diamond. Now we have arguably over-played our hand, and we only have 19% equity to hit our draw. Do we (A) semi-bluff jam? Or as another poster said, (B) check? (A) My issue with this position is that all hands that call our flop-raise most likely won't fold turn, and we are now officially behind their range given our decreased equity (didn't do the math, feel free to prove me wrong) - this is spewy for 200bb and avoidable. (B) Check might be the best option, but if we plan on checking here, why not call flop in the first place? Flop-raise, turn check puts us in an awkward spot on the river.

If a diamond does come, great obviously, but I'd argue we already folded out most flush draws with a huge flop raise considering we block all pair-combo draws with the Jd... the only ones that stay are 67dd or 69dd (1-2 combos!)

(And just for record, I'll put the brakes on the hyperbole earlier, I of course don't think raising is disastrous. Just lazy )

Gil, maybe you should re-read my posts in this thread.

I'm raising bottom pair + nut flush draw here (which kinda makes your whole diatribe against my nut peddling moot), and simply think there is much more reason to do so with that hand than there is with TP + nut flush draw (which I've argued is close, and certainly not bad, but certainly not slamdunk either).

GcluelessreadingcomprehensionnoobG

Agree of course, we would never do that

Trying to bet 1/3 villains out of their overpairs and then getting stacked for 200bb because they are fish is another good way to go broke. Don't forget to mutter under your breath "can't believe you didn't respect my raise, my range there had your overpair crushed"

Jokes aside, point is- if we're raising just to knock off V1/2 off of an overpair, that's not only really thin, but also not a guarantee.

Agree!

I'm the poster who advocated raising the flop and then checking the turn if V2 flats the flop raise (whether V1 calls it as well or not). I acknowledged I think check vs. raise is closer than some posters are making it seem, but I still think a raise is necessary here to protect our still unrealized equity. At the same time, when V2 doesn't have an overpair (many 1-2 and 1-3 V's would not raise an op here even though they should, so they have to stay solidly in his range), our raise is for value vs. both of their ranges.

On that flop, our #1 goal in the hand should be to realize our equity, which requires us to see two cards. We obviously can't jam over the bet/flat on the flop to get V2 to come along. Playing for stacks is the optimal result on this flop, but that's really hard to do. So what's the next best thing?

If we raise the flop, there's always the non-zero chance V1 jams and V2 re-ships or flats again, or a chance that V1 flats/folds and V2 jams. In both cases, if V2 has AA/KK/QQ, we have our best EV scenario that we're going to get at any point to hands we're actually behind. As you mentioned, going to the turn and facing a bet by V2 is our worst case scenario, because if we're behind at that point we likely don't have the equity to call anymore as we narrow V2's range.

If we raise the flop and V1 flats/folds and V2 flats, we are almost 100% of the time going to have it checked to us on the turn. The only exception to this is if V2 donk bets/jams a safe turn card in which case we're possibly a lot further behind than we originally thought when we have to weigh the limited set combos more heavily. When V1/V2 check to us, our flop bet was able to successfully get us two cards, and we can check behind with the hope to improve. Even if we're ahead at this point, there's not many cards on the river that scare us, so we can still get a 2nd street of value on the river, particularly from V2 if he holds a hand like 99-TT and hero calls us thinking we missed our draw. Our position here is very important, particularly with aggression on the flop as it relates to our ability to control the action on the turn.

We're not going to realize our equity (i.e. get to the river) with our TPTK alone if we don't raise the flop?

Unless there is some massive turn action / sizing, I'm pretty sure I'm getting to the river most times with a flop flat.

GcluelessNLnoobG

We're often not going to realize our equity on a blank turn if we give V2 a chance to take initiative with a passive line on the flop. If we flat the flop and on a blank turn V1 checks and V2 bets 2/3+ of pot or V1 bets and V2 raises, we are put in the worst spot out of all the scenarios.

I really am not understanding how this is a crystal clear raise OTF. The logic that "we have nut flush draw and top pair top kicker -> raise for value" is not how to play solid poker. Yes, we have great equity against opener's open and c-bet range, but when we raise and get called / get reraised, we are in a lot worse shape AGAINST THIS RANGE. Those who are saying "at worst we are against sets and still have decent equity against overpairs", think: do you want to shovel in 200B where IF the money goes in, you are probably against one of these sets or overpairs.

I can definitely see this as a raise a portion of the time, especially against players who may spew with worse Jx or FDs, but against any decent player this hand plays much better as a call. We can call every single turn comfortably, allow him to bluff, and allow him to even value bet worse hands.

When we raise and get it in on the flop, I estimate we will have somewhere between 40-50% equity, perhaps a bit more if villain will spew. Why should we take such a strong hand that will have significantly more equity if we call and play turns and rivers and reduce it to a mere coin flip, or worse?