1/3 Live 5-Handed (No Rake, Time Charge)

Effective stack is $300.

Villian is BTN and he straddles to $6. He seems loose so I expect him to defend his BTN straddle wide.

In other hands, in an unraised multiway pot, he three-barreled OOP and lost when he got called down by 66 on a 9h 7d 5h Js 3d runout lol. His bets were not that big. Like half pot flop (just got the 1 caller), half pot turn, and then quarter pot on the river. He didn't show his hand.

But he seems passive otherwise. For example, in an unraised hand with 7 players, he just called down AQ with J8 even though he flopped two pair on the flop. The runout was Ah Jh 8c 3d 9s. The AQ player bet $20 (pot) on flop. Everyone else folded. Then, he bet $60 (pot) and $100 (55% pot). So, I’m guessing the big turn and river bets made the Villian think could be up against a bigger two pair.

The blinds fold and HJ folds.

I’m in the CO with Jc 9c.

Your play?

I'm opening this with a raise to $20 without a specific reason to do otherwise.

Button straddle puts you at 50BB effective, which simply forces a tight strategy. But with just one person to get through and dead money in the pot already you have a huge pressure to open wide also. Something between 30% and 40% range depending on how good villain is and what sort of sizing gets folds preflop, possibly even wider if he is really bad and has easily exploitable post flop play or will just fold preflop a lot. That puts J9s in the bottom end of opening range, something that is more semi-bluff then value and your happy if he folds preflop.

Sizing is a bigger question and depends on what sort of sizing is getting folds at the table. I expect $20 is probably around the right size. If you can get folds on $15 then you can be a bit more reckless and if you have to go to $25 then a little tighter.

$20-25 but recognize you are short and this is not ideal.

Agree with open. If he's going to over-defend, even with your positional disadvantage, this hand has enough playability to hold up well vs his range.

Does anything change with your analysis if I have $700 and he has $300?

I think Villain is calling $15-$25 with same range, probably even $30.

That read means I should only raise to $15. However, I think he will call wide to a half-pot bet of $15. Also, I think a $20 c-bet is going to be called very similar to the $15 c-bet.

However, if I raise to $25, I think he will call less wide to a half-pot bet of $25. $25 seems to be his breaking point in terms of c-bets.

He's not thinking of the bet in terms of pot size. Rather, he's thinking of it in terms of absolute dollar value.

What would you open raise in this situation?

If he is really going to put things in that absolute of a sizing then $15 preflop and $25 on the flop. It will be close to a pot sized bet but who cares if it takes down most pots. It also saves a little money when you get a really bad flop and just give up.

The difference between your having $700 and him having $300 vs him having $700 and you have $300 is purely psychological. When villain has the deep stack most villains are more likely to call. They are thinking about their stack and see bets as smaller because they are a smaller percent of their stack. The common exception being certain nitty leaning villains who have a small profit and are playing to keep their profits, pushing them into outright rock play.

This can't possibly be the best seat at the table (to the immediate right of a difficult loose / aggro player)? Seat change, imo (just noticed we're only 5 handed, but still).

I think preflop is difficult. Based on reads, our opponent is obviously not a face up fish and he'll have position on us. Is this really a guy we want to be building a pot against OOP with a hand that is mostly going to remain very mediocre at best postflop? If the blinds are horrible, I might limp in attempting to get into a cheap pot with them. Otherwise, I think it's perfectly ok to pass here (my guess being that very few will agree with that).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Sounds like this guy is mostly loose passive but fired three streets on a draw and missed. Not sure if that really counts as 3 streets when the sizing is 1/2, 1/2, 1/4 but all the more reason to play this guy heads up. If we aren't willing to go after this guy heads up with a J high suited 1 gapper what are we waiting for? No one is saying we have to stack off here. He has a fold button per the description and we have better than a random straddle hand. Let's go! I open $20, c-bet $25-30 on most flops, eval turn.

What I get from the two HH reads are this:

1) He's capable of 3barrelling postflop with air. How many opponents that you play with are capable of this? This puts him into the difficult category for me, and he'll have the huge advantage of having position on us to boot. This isn't the guy that is likely going to roll over to one cbet postflop in a raised pot in position.

2) He didn't go all nutso with the bottom two pair hand in a pot with eleventeen players in it facing PSBs on early streets. This puts him in the non-necessarily-a-moran camp for me.

Preflop is all about getting ourselves into profitable spots in a game that is already being raked. I just don't think raising with this guy on the Button is nearly as slam dunk profitable as everyone else does.

GimoG

1 - Had he bet more than 1/2 pot OTR I would agree. Maybe I'm inferring sizing tells that don't exist but this doesn't sound particularly worrisome to me. Hero also mentioned $25 seemed to be his flop c-bet calling threshold why not use this hand to confirm and exploit going forward if true?

2 - I actually like the way he played this hand. I think he got the max. If he raises later streets one pair can get away. We aren't planning to triple barrel 1 pair though, so again no worries.

I can respect your concerns though, I'd argue that if we aren't raising J9s heads up against a random hand we should probably just fold rather than playing 50 BB effective repping weak and OOP hoping to flop well...

This seems good, thanks.

Good call with seat change. I must've been sleep deprived because this did not even cross my mind lol.

The BTN straddled so blinds are first to act preflop. They both folded. It's just me in CO heads up vs BTN preflop. There is $10 in dead money. If I fold, BTN gets the blind money ($4) without doing literally anything.

Not air. I'm pretty sure he had a draw. Probably a decent draw like Ah 8h.

1/3 Live 5-Handed (No Rake, Time Charge)

Effective stack is $300.

Villian is BTN and he straddles to $6. He seems loose so I expect him to defend his BTN straddle wide.

In other hands, in an unraised multiway pot, he three-barreled OOP and lost when he got called down by 66 on a 9h 7d 5h Js 3d runout lol. His bets were not that big. Like half pot flop (just got the 1 caller), half pot turn, and then quarter pot on the river. He didn't show his hand.

But he seems passive otherwise. For example, in an unraised hand with 7 players, he just called down AQ with J8 even though he flopped two pair on the flop. The runout was Ah Jh 8c 3d 9s. The AQ player bet $20 (pot) on flop. Everyone else folded. Then, he bet $60 (pot) and $100 (55% pot). So, I’m guessing the big turn and river bets made the Villian think could be up against a bigger two pair.

The blinds fold and HJ folds.

I’m in the CO with Jc 9c.

I open raise to $25. He calls as expected.

Flop ($54): As 9s 4h

You are first to act. Your play?

Without poor blinds possibly in play, then I still think folding is perfectly fine. We don't have to be the ones to police whether he takes down some dead money on his uncontested straddle. All we care about is ourselves and whether our decisions are profitable for us; nothing else really matters (including how well others do in the game).

As played, I'd lean to a smallish 1/2 PSB cbet. There's a chance our hand is best and we're simply protecting our equity. We'd love to end the hand now. There are a crapload of terrible turn cards.

I'd be fairly surprised if this hand doesn't end up exactly where it was often going to end up from the start: with us in a bloated pot on the turn OOP with an extremely mediocre hand versus a player who can be difficult. That's why I'm not convinced preflop is great.

GcluelessNLnoobG

To OP, gobbledygeek always advocates for playing passive, losing lines in most instances, in case you weren't familiar w/ his typical advice in hands.

This is a standard open to $20, and then play as the board permits.

its because he plays in shortstack LAG games that are nonexistent in the usa.

Bet $25. It will be a harder decision on the turn if he doesn't fold flop but at this point we have no reason to think we are beat. Loose villain has a lot more then just AX and a fair portion of it folds.

Open to 15. There is no reason to open to 20/25. j9 Is a hand that plays well when theres room to navigate post flop.

I would always open to 15 here over 0 limpers even with AA if its CO vs Bu and it's folded around. I do want action afterall.


As played bet half pot on flop. Shut down if called. Pretty dry flop and you can't improve to any backdoors so there are no barrel cards for you.

1/3 Live 5-Handed (No Rake, Time Charge)

Effective stack is $300.

Villian is BTN and he straddles to $6. He seems loose so I expect him to defend his BTN straddle wide.

In other hands, in an unraised multiway pot, he three-barreled OOP and lost when he got called down by 66 on a 9h 7d 5h Js 3d runout lol. His bets were not that big. Like half pot flop (just got the 1 caller), half pot turn, and then quarter pot on the river. He didn't show his hand.

But he seems passive otherwise. For example, in an unraised hand with 7 players, he just called down AQ with J8 even though he flopped two pair on the flop. The runout was Ah Jh 8c 3d 9s. The AQ player bet $20 (pot) on flop. Everyone else folded. Then, he bet $60 (pot) and $100 (55% pot). So, I’m guessing the big turn and river bets made the Villian think could be up against a bigger two pair.

The blinds fold and HJ folds.

I’m in the CO with Jc 9c.

I open raise to $25. He calls as expected.

Flop ($54): As 9s 4h

I bet $25. He thinks for a few seconds and folds.