Hero: 30s white male. Been at the table for 4 hours or so. I specifically table changed because of the action and this villain. I’ve been aggressive, probably most at the table besides him. I flopped a straight as soon as I sat down, doubled up, and have been showing all winners. TAG image. Stack: $1000

Villain: 40s/50s white male. Aggressive and loose. Straddling UTG and BTN. Can bluff, put three barrels leading to AI total 300 vs a guy who called him with A high to win. He’s also a calling station with his looseness, I value towned him for around 300 with KK and he’s paid off others. In a lot of hands check/calling but keeps adding and is good aggro at times to extract value so right now he has a healthy stack. Stack: $800

On to the hand

Hero straddles on BTN for 7, SB folds, BB calls, folds to Villain in HJ who calls, folds back to Hero who looks at QQ and raises to 60, folds back to Villain who quickly calls.

Flop: 628 (Pot:$120)

Villain checks, Hero bets 75, Villain calls.

Turn: 628J (Pot $270)

Villain donks 170, Hero..?

It could be worse. You have blockers to both flushes and top end of straight. I suspect he has turned a straight flush draw or TPTK with NFD - so Ts9s or AsJs. He has some JJ here too. So that’s 6 problematic combos he might lead into you. These are the holdings that make the most sense.

You’re ahead of everything else and his air that would put you on AK/Aq and bluff at this wet board. I assume he would have led flopped sets. I also feel like he would make this play with AsJx blocking your flushes too

I guess I’m calling here getting 5-2 to fade an Ace, Jack or a spade on river(17 outs) and we’re 62 pct to hold up. If a club came I would have trouble putting him on flush mainly because I cannot imagine what he flatted flop with if not spades. He has some JJ here to cold deck you with I suppose.

Jamming gives V almost 2-1 to call which I think is too close to the right price for comfort. So I prefer to just call. I hope I didn’t mess up this math.

I think the turn is the last bet unless he decides to barrel if he misses. This would leave you getting 2-1 to catch his bluffs. If he misses and checks you won’t get paid.

Put the chips in the middle. All of the chips.

$60 preflop seems a bit excessive.

Jam turn, it changed nothing, make him pay to see the river with his draws unless you are happy to be guessing on at least half the deck

Call

This pot should not be this big. Do not raise.

Im raising

This sizing doesnt look credible to me and there are a million draws

Pre-flop is too big, pot is incredibly inflated now and we block a lot of the hands we want villain to have.

Call, evaluate river.

I suck at deepstack.

One of the reasons I suck is because I have a very difficult time with preflop. We'd like to thin the field so with a loose guy in the mix typically a big raise is required. But at the same time we don't want to create a handcuffing SPR (one where we can easily be forced to stack off postflop and yet given decent IO preflop). Here, we gave IO of ~14:1 to setup an SPR of 6, so it's a pretty meh spot. I doubt we'd be able to go much larger preflop and still get action (to give poor IO and trivial postflop stackoff). So the other option is to raise far less and create a more manageable SPR. But a smaller raise could easily make the pot 3way and still create an SPR where opponent could make us play for stacks easily postflop (ex. a more "reasonable" $25 raise will create a 3way $75 pot for an SPR of about 10, which ain't too bad and is much more playable than 6 but it can still be dicey unless we get to check a street).

And here's the problem postflop. A very reasonable ~60% PSB on the flop, followed up by a very reasonable ~60% PSB on the flop, and no draws / overcards have come in and we're in position and yet villain can force us to play for stacks with just a 80% PSB on the river. It's a pretty gross spot having given the okish IO we gave preflop (and possibly with a face up hand), imo.

Ggoodluckinthesespots,imoG

GG: great analysis of situation.

AP: so what do you recommend now that he's here? Also, I'd be so grateful if you would read my recommendation and critique it. Thanks!

@ Spanishmoon

Honestly, at this point I think everything we do sucks, and maybe that's why the responses so far have been split down the middle. You could argue that we're committed on a drawy board against a guy who can get his chips in the middle so lets go ahead and do that now. You could argue that's pretty gross and let's just see a river and fade half the deck and see what he does. Both options (as well as folding) all suck. I don't have a lotta confidence in these spots, and they pretty much seem like high variance random button clicking spots at this point (are we really doing that much better than our opponents in these spots, especially given the responses here so far seem to be split?), which is why I do something different preflop.

In the end, I probably call. Mostly because I don't want to fold nor want to play for huge $800 stacks with one pair if I don't have to... yet. And those probably ain't the best reasons.

Gbutifyou're100%confidentinyourturnactionthenyoupr obablyrelishthesespots,sodothatG

I don't hate a flop check and call/call line vs spewy villian

Surprised so many people are saying preflop is too big. I’d been upping my sizing preflop vs this villain as he was calling with any two cards. He opened with 79s for 10, gotten one caller, and smooth called my 3bet to 55 earlier. Another time he straddled for 11 UTG, next player called, I made it 60 and again he quickly called. I understand it may make postflop bloated, but shouldn’t I go for most value before any bad flops? My KK hand went 60->70->X->160 on Q high save runout. He mostly check/called when OOP and not the aggressor, which is why the donk was confusing for me.

[QUOTE=gobbledygeek;55037636]@ Spanishmoon

Honestly, at this point I think everything we do sucks, and maybe that's why the responses so far have been split down the middle. You could argue that we're committed on a drawy board against a guy who can get his chips in the middle so lets go ahead and do that now. You could argue that's pretty gross and let's just see a river and fade half the deck and see what he does. Both options (as well as folding) all suck. I don't have a lotta confidence in these spots, and they pretty much seem like high variance random button clicking spots at this point (are we really doing that much better than our opponents in these spots, especially given the responses here so far seem to be split?), which is why I do something different preflop.

In the end, I probably call. Mostly because I don't want to fold nor want to play for huge $800 stacks with one pair if I don't have to... yet. And those probably ain't the best reasons.

Gbutifyou're100%confidentinyourturnactionthenyoupr obablyrelishthesespots,sodothatG[/QUOTE

Thanks brother!

Mathematically, this is kinda equivalent to getting it in for 60bbs as a favorite. If I understand your strategy, this is your goal: trivial stackoffs with GG having way the better of it.

Math says this is a no-brainer call. Forget about how we got here, which we both agree was gross. If you landed from Mars, walked into a casino and saw this scenario develop and were offered to take over Hero's position, you'd do it without hesitation. If we could get 5-2 on calls from here to eternity where we are even 50% to win, we would consider this poker paradise. In this case, we may be as high as 62% favorites, as we block top straight draws and have flush blockers too.

ETA: Like you, I try to avoid playing QQ oop in deep situations because it's so difficult and you find yourself in all kinds of gross spots.

I think as long as you don't fold I don't hate it. This guy sounds like a dream.

I think there's merit in calling and calling again on the river, as it keeps his bluffs in plus he'll valuetown himself with Jx, but I think literally every card that isn't a red 2 on the river could be bad news and you'll never know which.

It shouldn't be all that confusing. This turn likely added a lot of equity to the majority of his range and it makes sense he would semi-bluff lead it/lead thinking he has the best hand sometimes. Many of his OESDs and gutters added more straight (and some flush outs) in addition to pairing top pair (or already having a pair+new outs). The best thing about the Jc is that while adding all of this equity, it is also unlikely to have improved him to a better hand. There are a few 2p combos, but still that makes up only a small part of his range. You have the QQ blocking both flushdraws which benefits you because he now has less combos of FD/BDFD that includes a K or A overcard (pair equity still matters) plus you remove outs to his T9s and spade/club combos.


Whether or not you want to pile in 650 more now vs calling the 170 and calling down a lot of rivers is debatable. I am actually rethinking my position here and believe a shove is in order. It is a straddled pot and you likely are dealing with someone who is willing to throw in huge bets even in a 1/3 game when the situation calls for it. Given how much equity this card gives him, I think a shove actually gets called far wider than I initially thought it would (which is why I wanted to call at first). He is still extremely wide for a pot this big being the last one to pre and being so loose. You have the best hand a lot. Shove over his lead and hold on tight.

I defer to your superior knowledge here. But isn't it better to call getting 5-2 on an even-money (or better) proposition than jam and offer the Villain 2-1 on his call, which may in fact be the correct price?

I'm not anti-math, but this pot is not going to be decided by running numbers, at least on the turn. I mean, ordinarily, any BB edge you can find in a soon-to-be 600bb pot (300bb if you want to account for the straddle) is going to be worth a lot of dollars, and usually will be worth calculating. However, here, it's just about whether we make the most by calling turn+calling/checking/raising/betting river OR shoving turn. It's like Occam's razor in a sense - We have the best hand a lot, he has the worst hand a lot, so logically, let's raise. The only info we need to rely on is pot size, remaining stack, how we're doing against his turn betting range (and turn bet-calling range). At first glance, I was thinking that this deep facing a $170 bet (a huge bet for this game normally) we would not be doing great when a shove is called. But when you look at the pot+stacks+his range, things become much more clear. This double-suited, non-bway board connects 'equity-wise' with just about every flush, open ender, and gutter in this guy's limp-calling range pre and it's reasonable that he leads a lot when his drawing hands just got even drawier. Once he leads and we choose call, he may elect to only shove his remaining ~500 into 500+ with hands > QQ and check fold the rest, that's problematic for a turn call, so let's shove and have him fold his equity or call it off, mostly behind.

fwiw rivers are generally easier to do/rely on the math piece. You can solve much more easily when you know your own value combos and other info. You can search poker theory and lookup brokenstars for some clean/easy-to-apply math logic for river play.

Agreed. So it comes down to our estimate of our FE if we want to jam turn. I think it’s low because we’re offering him 2-1 which is very close to the correct price. That said, your argument that it’s a lot of money and his risk aversion may skew his logical assessment of the proposition is valid and compelling against certain Villains.

Thanks for your help!

Jam Sammy. )

That being said - I do understand why it can be terrifying to jam here and shows how important it is to be over rolled for the games we play. As an unattached party it’s obvious what needs to be done here but I’ve been in the situation hundreds of times with monsters under my bed.

You're misunderstanding the point of a turn jam. We are not trying to get villain to fold/make a bad call. The price villain is getting doesn't matter and it's totally fine if he has a +EV call facing our jam. Getting opponents to make -EV calls is not always the goal, although many people seem to think that's our entire source of income.

Villain has a lot of hands in his range which are either going to have 0% or 100% equity on the river, and he doesn't often have QQ beaten on the turn. This kind of range polarizes on the river and QQ is not very happy to see rivers against such a range. Jamming denies him most of his pot share when he has this kind of holding even if he happens to have a slight +EV call.

Think this is an excellent post, thank you.

Amana - it’s only $500 more, not $650. Villain is effective stack with $800. * Edit - see you corrected it in later post.

Jam feels good.