UTG+2 middle aged, LAG like player raises to 12$
UTG+3 loose, young cool looking guy with tattoos (lol) calls
Folds to Hero w AJ $300 effective calls???
BB folds

Flop: AT3 39$
LAG bets 25$
Cool guy calls
Hero calls

Turn 9 $114

Hero was going to lead out, but notices LAG is counting out $55, I'm confident he's going to bet. Hero checks
LAG bets $55
Cool guy calls
Hero calls???

My question is for the turn, I'll write the rest of hand in a spoiler below. Should I jam here? This is what I have for ranges on these guys P1 is LAG, P2 is Hero P3 is tattoo guy: hancombos.com/hrid=...

These are my reads:

The LAG player was raising about 50% of his hands. He has been double barreling with any piece of the flop especially multiway. My read on him was that he always has KJ/QJ, any ace. His flop and turn bet size were his "normal" bet size if you know what I mean.

The cool guy with tattoos was a station. He limped 100% and called down very lightly, even in multiway pots. He might just be some rich kid or something, but it's clear the money means nothing to him. He consistently called down multiway with low pair and also min raised bluffed a 4 card flush board on the river multiway. He can have any piece of the flop.

We need to 3 bet to $60 pre, flatting here is not good.

Now we're being put in weird spots for just flatting pre. Flop is fine.

Definitely don't lead turn, that accomplishes nothing and can put us in another tough spot. I was gonna say it's pretty borderline on whether to fold/call this turn, but with your reads I guess we just call down from here.

Did not look at spoiler yet... Turn spot is awful. I kinda like raise / folding the flop here.
Gives us a really good chance of getting HU vs cool guy and we smash his range. Easily can fold to a 4bet.
How are you not gonna get in this spot on the turn most of the time? Call pre, oop with AJ, call an ace high flop, your hand is face up and your opponent keeps betting... It's classic.
As played, I agree with the above poster you almost have to call and hate it given your reads.

I considered 3betting, and if I'm on the button I would 3b this hand most of the time. I felt like playing a big pot out of position with a hand that rarely hits TPTK+ is a mistake. They don't fold to 3bets often, and it feels like most of my value comes from seeing a cheap flop and making better decisions/bet sizes than them.

I'm confident I can hand read against these guys and they were giving off so much information with live reads too. I'm not confident I can bluff the LAG guy when I don't hit a hand though, and I pretty much have to play hit or miss OOP if I 3bet.

On the turn, given how they play I think it is obvious I'm ahead of both their ranges. They could also call a shove with worse, or call with an open ended straight draw. Shoving the turn is probably always +EV, even if they fold weaker Ax - because they have too many hands in their range in this spot. At the same time though, theres only like 12 outs that suck on the river (Q/K/7). And the other 75% of the time I'm getting another bet out of at least one of them.

What do you think about these ideas?

I'm 3 betting from both BTN and SB, but I'm actually more inclined to 3 bet from SB. In general, SB should be 3b/f pre. In these live games I'd say I'm 3 betting/folding ~ 85% of the time from SB, and online/vs better players ~95%. Playing post from SB just sucks, and pre pots aren't raked. If they're this big of stations, size up 3 bets ($75 here), c bet flops we have a range advantage on, repeat.

I think as played, calling is probably best in case LAG has air, but shoving is probably not bad if they're calling that wide.

What happens when I three bet though? I think I'm getting called by both probably around 80% of the time. That's right that playing from the SB just sucks. What does playing a $180+ pot from the SB feel like?

Cbetting these guys doesn't work often. If the LAG gets any piece of the flop, or some sort of back door, of if he has over cards - he's peeling and betting if I check 100%. If my strategy is "cbet and give up unimproved" that's a losing strategy against this kind of player. I think 3betting, and check/jamming with any piece of the flop against the LAG is a profitable strategy, but that sounds worse than calling pre-flop. Especially considering the other guy will call my 3b too.

If I do 3b and decide to cbet when I miss, I can only cbet/fold like 1/6th the pot size. Otherwise I have to jam. On almost every board, the pot will be too large to fold at that point.

Then just fold pre if you're that concerned, and 3 bet a narrow range huge and shove flops. These players have given me a lot of trouble, too. I'm sure 3 betting AJs is +EV, but not as much as pairs.

don't listen to this at all, easy way to lose money at 1/3

only 3b if you think you have fold equity, but my wager against described V's is that you don't have any

if you do 3bet, jack it up like 6x-7x which means you shouldn't do it often, I'd stick to AQ/AK/maybe a SC if you're deep enough. AJs plays fine multiway anyways, if anything I'd 3b AJo but even then fine to call against described V's.

as played just call turn you're often ahead, evaluate river

Lol

fold pre with AJs?? Calling is an option (and the best one)

the reason why theory calls for 3b/f is because (i) fold equity, which we don't have and (ii) the disaster risk of the BB 3-betting us, which won't happen in a passive 1/3 game. We can strategically deviate from this strategy for this game to maximize our EV/risk

Do you guys know why a lot of people advocate a 3bet or fold strategy from the SB?

As far as the hand - easy river fold.

Avoid playing out of position and FE, rake, heads up pot usually if going post flop

None of those reasons are the main reasons though. Why do you think players at high stakes prefer a 3bet/fold out of the SB?

The rake is insignificant and not even a factor worth mentioning at high stakes and yet they still do it.

We don’t need to 3-bet or fold in very weak live games. However this hand is a slam dunk value 3-bet and we are happy when they both call.

If you think bloating the pot OOP sucks then you’re thinking about it wrong. You’re reducing SPR agains ranges you’re way ahead of. This decreases the disadvantage of being OOP. The fact that they don’t fold pre makes this more of a 3-bet. If they want to call QJ and T5 pre then they will get destroyed. If they fold they’re still getting destroyed by having too many hands. Calling doesn’t punish them enough for having way too many hands.

All this is true. But you also have to have the skill to navigate in a 3bet pots OOP which requires a lot of studying.

We don't just blindly cbet every flop which is what most people do.

This should play more like a single raised pot with short stacks the way each player’s ranges are likely constructed. C-betting every flop is pretty poor against players who are very sticky and aggressive, but it’s not even that bad of a strategy in general when most people are doing it with super tight ranges because they don’t 3-bet enough and their opponents have super loose preflop calling ranges.

With these two players just playing very straightforward is going to yield a very high EV. It also seems like a good spot to check at a very high frequency with a player behind that will bet way too much and another that will call way too much.

Given 100bb eff and the read on V1 and V2 this is a very clear 3b pre. I probably make it $65+ and expect to be way ahead of both V's calling range. If they don't fold to 3b, then you'll see the bliated flop likely way ahead.

Probably lead $100 otf, assuming both called the 3b.

yeah I mean Axx boards in 3bet pots OOP are the highest frequency checked boards OTF. And we would bet all of our AK/AQ before this hand. a check seems good to me

To avoid a squeeze?

To uncap your range. By flatting preflop you never have premiums/AK so on high boards you can get exploited.

But you never have to worry about that in low stakes live play so just calling hands like 66/77/88/QJs is fine and probably more profitable. Especially if opponents are sticky preflop.

This hand should be 3bet though.

3bet pre

results, wow.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldf7T6TlV-o

I would keep things a bit smaller pre against fish, 55, then bet 60 or this flop and shove turn if called.

the next logical question is why have a calling range vs an open at any position? because position makes up for the range disadvantage? how do you quantify that?

I just wanted to thank everyone of you for giving this post a reply. I played this hand super exploitatively because they were really bad. I do see more merrits to 3betting now based off of some of the responses. I think some of the time I should and will 3bet to like $65ish.

In the moment, I felt my hand reading skills were in my "A" game and I could read their body language very well bc they were giving off obvious tells consistently. I still shouldn't underestimate them, and looking back at the session I wasn't 3betting enough. In the moment it just seems like these guys wouldn't fold. I also find that playing my moderately-strong hands in 3b pots while OOP is really hard for me (AJo-AQo, AJs, 88-TT).

High variance fancy play syndrome

On the vast majority of flops you're going to be missing and firing into opponents who will call you down with mid pair

People here are overrating their ability to use skill to overcome being out of position. Position > skill

People are also overrating AJs in general

Look I don't think a 3betting here is a huge mistake (it's better than folding which someone suggested LOL) but thinking it's a slam dunk is a huge mistake

AJs is hard enough to play and you shouldn't risk losing your stack to fish for it, I'm for sure mixing in calls here and tightening my 3b range in the SB