2/5 NL with 200-1000 max, 7 handed

V1 and V2 are battling like crazy. V1 has been opening a bunch of straddled pots to 60-75, V2 happy to come along with any two cards. V2 likes to donk bet and barrel when given the chance, V1 has been making quick decisions especially when calling V2. I haven't seen a lot of showdowns but they are clearly both out of line.

Hero is relatively new to the table, image is on the tight side with one showdown vs V2 where I floated his flop bet with gutshot + bdfd, stabbed at the turn with a combo draw then we chopped when the river put out a straight.

UTG ($1k) straddles to $10, no reads
V1 - button (covers, $2,000+)
V2 - small blind ($1,300)
Hero - big blind ($900)

Folds to V1 who opens to $100, definitely a notch higher than his other opens.
V2 calls
Hero has KK and raises to $375
V1 confirms if I have other big chips out of sight and quickly calls. V2 quickly calls.

Flop AQ4 (Pot: $1,128)
V2 checks, Hero checks, V1 bets $425, V2 folds, Hero ? with $525 behind

I'm mostly interested in the preflop sizing. $375 feels off in hindsight being like 40% of my stack... a jam for $900 feels excessive but maybe someone will keep me honest with TT+ and AK? Maybe raise to $300 and plan to barrel $200 on flop and $400 on turn if heads up and safe board?

As played it feels like I'm pretty committed getting 3:1 and already in for 40%, but obviously not thrilled with the flop.

Too small preflop with these to spazzy aggromonkeys battling it out. $500 sounds better, but i dont think $375 is awful by any means- even if it is a touch too small for my taste. The reason is either way you will get a big percentage of your stack in the middle here because of the absurd $100 open size, so it makes postflop kind of straightforward regardless.

Jam pre is horrible and forcing too many herofolds that we dont want. Just 3 bet like you did for fat value=print money. We can play exploitative as hell in dynamics like this and shove pre with a hand like AQo when we dont really mind taking it down pre, and 3 bet regular size with our ultra premiums if we want to.

If these guys really is out of line like they seem to be, i am closing my eyes and putting it in here with the price we are getting hoping to be up against the flushdraw or some other buttonclicking pair.

I would fold flop, but I'm also shoving pre. My default oop is 5x + x per caller. This would be $600, leaving $300 behind. We don't want to get in a spot where we have this much of our stack committed pre.

It doesent matter if we only have $300 behind though, as we are never folding any flop regardless if called.


But it do matter to our villains, that may get out of line gambling for 500 or 600 to see a flop to try and hit anything- but if they have to call it allin preflop they will more easily surrender their garbage hand.

We dont need KK to shove on these guys pre with fold equity,we can do it we lots of other hands instead where we benefit greatly from the fold equity we get.

V1 is committed vs V2 so he likely has something that can stack off. If we give him a 20% range and he’s betting Ax and clubs we have 14%. If we include Qx we have 29%.

Jam pre is ok but raising to 700 might be better vs these lags

I'd go $400 - $500 pre, but $375 isn't terrible or anything.

It's a pretty sick flop. Does V1 have any skills? Does he think you'd bet an A here? Is he soul-reading you? If so, jam it in. If not, he has an A (plus) and you are drawing thin. Does he expect you to fold an A here (never, obviously). He opened bigger than normal -- any idea what that means? It's an in-game read for me. Yes, we've invested a lot of our stack, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to gii.

When he has put a lot of money in, what did he have?

Preflop sizing looks good. I might go a little smaller (~$300) since it will still leave us with only a pot sized bet left if called, we're more likely to get called by worse (which now has to call off on low flops), and if someone has e.g. AK they can still jam and think they have some fold equity.

Despite getting in a third of our stack, I'm OK folding this flop. What calls a 75 BB raise preflop and bets this flop that we beat? What bluffs are there? Are there enough people turning JJ-TT into bluffs here to offset all the AK/AQ/QQ, when we could easily have an A? I doubt it.

I can see where you're coming from. Intuitively it doesn't make any sense, but villains also don't think logically.