New table 5 handed 1/3

Hero opens $15 JdJs in CO, BTN ($900) and SB ($225) call

Flop ($48): 9d 8d 3c
Check, Hero bets $40, BTN calls, SB raises to $115, Hero ??

I don't know if it matters that I squeezed Vs $10 open + call with AKdd in BB last orbit, he called and I Cbet $75 on 982hhd to get a fold, but I doubt he's the type to play back.

Easy fold for me vs relative unknown in a multi-way pot. SB just c/r not only you but BTN as well. Smells like 2p+. Even throwing in NFD combos & 76dd, V has 65.6% equity assuming AKdd 3bets pre and he would fold 98o.

5 handed i 3bet jam here to deny draws odds to call and hopefully get a hand like A9,K9, or maybe Q9 to call it off light. worse case scenario he has two pair and we have 25% equity or a set or overpair and we have 10% equity.

folding seems really weak imo.

If he had a draw he'd probably just shove. He's c/r over half his stack, this screams strength. good fold.

Wut. Never folding flop. {98, 99, 88, 33} = 18 combos, even if he's never ever bluffing {A9 TT} is 18 combos too. Add some draws and you're way ahead.

I agree the small raise size seems weird as a bluff, but this is a pretty wet board, so it seems just as weird as a value hand as well. A lot of people would shove for protection. So I wouldn't try to make a soul read on that. It's weird either way.

BTN makes things interesting, I'd probably just flat and if BTN came along I'd call SB's turn jam or bet if SB checks. But maybe clicking back flop is better. Depends on BTN I guess.

I don't know the type of player he is but in reality he could have 10-10 or QQ in this spot or 98. Without any reads I probably call and evaluate on the turn. I think folding is a little nitty but I don't think you are far ahead of his range, especially because you don't think he plays back. He could also play a flush draw with 2 overs. It would be hard for him to have an open ended straight flush draw given you have the Jd unless he had the low end and if he did you would be in good shape. You also block the OESD.

Heads up in a vacuum typical V can do this with top pair and QQ as well as 2pair+ and draws but...

Fact it is 3way decreases chance V feels comfortable doing this with 9X or TT. Fact he doesn't shove decreases chance he has big draw. Your Jd and two Js block some FDs and straight draws.

Finally your preflop raise is big, especially short handed, and your near pot sized flop bet into two on a drawy board says you are strong here. A lot of villains will put you on an overpair You are facing a range skewed to 98+ I'm quite happy to fold this time.

Also you don't mention your stack size. If you cover the deepstack on the BTN then I think it is further cause to fold. You can easily end up feeling committed with only one pair later in this hand in a deep stack situation. That's not good in my experience.

Tbh, calling doesn't even cross my mind if I'm $300 deep to start the hand and the raiser has like $100 more behind. Are we really folding a diamond turn for that price? It's either fold or shove for me.

This seems like a clear bet/fold and I obviously folded.

BTN ended up shoving with A6dd and SB called with TT. Board bricked out and I puked up for missing a ~triple-up.

I don't understand why these clowns would overvalue TT in this spot when I'm cbetting close to PSB on the flop and get called before it gets to them. It's ridiculous how they get a better hand to fold making such a move.

That's annoying for sure but like you say - what on earth is he doing this with TT for????

I think either V is massive fish or he messed up this hand. Keep observing him and adjust accordingly. You can pretend you had AK and talk to him after the hand to see how good he felt about his play and use that to help gauge how he plays.

"lol balance at 1/3" and all that but balance is how you handle unpredictable players. You will be missing a lot more value in the future if you always expect your low stakes opponents to behave sensibly.

By balance I don't mean go all GTO all the time. You should still always be unbalanced preflop, because you know everyone is calling huge raises with far too many hands. But when you face a WTF bet postflop, you don't always have to find a reason behind it. You can just call with a portion of your best hands depending on the pot odds.

I did not realize this for far too long, only years later did I realize how many thousands of dollars I likely folded early on

It reminds me of playing low stakes online years ago. I'd just gii with TPTK+ regardless of depth because people got it in senselessly with so much crap.

I feel my live game isn't quite that soft today so I'd fold this till I see a particular reg over values pairs or draws. Against a drunk recreational player late on weekend night I'd maybe gii though.

Still concerned in this particular spot by deep stack on BTN.

C-bets are not considered a sign of strength any more. That is an excellent flop for JJ and TT. With stacks around $200-$300 and a pot of $48 on the flop you should both have been happy to get it in.

Cbets are not all equal. This cbet looks strong for various reasons. TT shouldn't be happy to gii on this flop vs CO calling range IMO.

What is CO raising to 15 short handed (where steals would frequently size smaller pre)?

What can CO bet big on this flop into 2 players then continue to a raise?

TT looks like -EV to me for sure unless there is history between these players that says otherwise.

1/3 $15 is a standard raise near me. Shorthanded from the cut off a typical range is going to be mostly big cards (any two broad way, suited aces, and all pairs). The majority of players, in my experience, c-bet 100% of their range here, most of which is just unpaired over cards. Cut hero's c-bet range to just A high, sets, and over pairs. (about half) TT is still ahead over all. TT should more worried about the Button's call. That call shows mostly 9's and draws though. TT should be happy to shove expecting the CO to fold most of the time and flipping with the button.

Varies from region to region I guess. My room people cut their raise size down shirt handed: 3bb 3.5bb pretty common. Cbets are also way less common where I play, particularly on mid card, connected two tone flops.

As always getting an accurate feel for how your own game plays will pay dividends.

Also be careful in non heads up situations assuming you capture the same value getting folds as heads up. In this hand the blinds player risks a lot of chips not to pick up the pot but to gii vs BTN. With TT or similar BTN's call/shove and call/call range will often be flipping or ahead of TT so it is not a clearly +EV decision to try to force CO to fold his hand.

Is the dead money enough to pay for the times TT gets it in drawing thin Vs CO?

What is our stack? If it's anything in the SBs range of $225, then I'm opening to 10% to more easily commit postflop.

Really don't like how our raise size offered decent 16+ implied odds preflop for only 6% of stacks and yet setup a 3way pot which produces an SPR 4 on a drawy flop, which means we have to make up our mind right out of the gates whether we are committed or not. This is mostly opponent dependent. He almost did a minraise considering the amount of money in the pot, and to me it looks like he's attempting to get action (and not folds). If he had a big draw, you'd think he'd just ship. Anyways, opponent dependent for me. We probably shouldn't be folding with this SPR, but we have to know what we are doing before we bet (especially a big bet), but against certain opponents we can *perhaps* make a hero fold here. If we simply raised $10 more preflop it would be a trivial stackoff (although admittedly this depends on how our stack size compares to the huge Button stack).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Seems to be a little bit of entitlement tilt here, no?

I think postflop is probably close either way (TT did immediately spring to mind as perhaps a worse hand that was protecting). However, you got yourself in a somewhat trickier spot than you had to be with a poor preflop raise size (imo, although admittedly it is unclear how deep we are against the Button). If we simply make it ~$22 preflop then we create a trivial stack off spot postflop, imo.

Gmakepostflopeasieronyourself,imoG

Ragequit,

Well after playing around with my equity calculator I think so. I'd estimate the ev to be between $10 and $50 depending on exact ranges. The tighter you range CO the smaller the edge becomes. That does not consider any fold equity from the button. Problem is complex enough I need a simulator instead of an equity calculator to solve.

The raise was oddly sized. Only logic I can find to it is the SB wanted to save $100 to shove any non-diamond turn.That may be a "magic" big bet number for him.

It just feels too wrong to blast my raise size in these spots based on eff stacks because I wouldn't be comfortable going $30 (10%) with a hand like A7s here. Or $50 if I was $500 effective. It's just not my style, especially when it's the first hand I'm raising in 20-30 mins due to being card dead.

Not to forget it's going to get folds a huge majority of the time and I'm missing so much value with JJ.

You're cbetting ~PSB on 983 two-tone (that smashes calling ranges) 3-way with unpaired overcards 100% of the time here? Looks pretty optimistic. What's your plan if you get called by anyone and whiff turn?

Also, I disagree that TT should be worried about BTN's call as BTN would raise over my Cbet with 2p+ here most of the time, right? So his range is highly skewed to draws that can't stand too much pressure most of the time.

I don't understand why you include 9s in BTNs call range but exclude 8s, 3s or 98s? Aren't they all basically the same?

Easy shove. I think it's horrible to fold KK here on such a wet flop vs villains stack size. You're basically folding KK every time you face a bit of heat on the flop. Way too exploitable.

Yeah but his sizing tells us he loves his hand. Obv if he shoves we can call profitably, putting him on a flush draw, straight draw, or any decent 9, but when he raises to 115 from 40 after one call, it's clear he's strong, or at least thinks he's super strong. TT is the bottom of his non-shoving raising range here, imo

I didn't see your eff stack w btn?

Assuming the btn is irrelevant (he isn't of course) then you have a very easy shove. You have absolutely zero information on SBs range and you only need a third of the total pot to break even on a shove. Yea, you block a diamond and JT and that hurts a little if you're looking to add semibluffs to SB, but your hand is just too strong/pot too big to take 0ev.

You can even throw out every single one pair hand (that isn't QQ+) and still come up with a strong ck-r range against which you have ~50%.

Forget about balance unless you think people are figuring you out (and that will take them a *long* time to do). If you're sitting on a $300 stack and think you can get it HU with a raise with A7s from the CO, then raise to $10 or $12 (or just open limp it, which would actually be my preference); if you've been dealt AA, then raise to $30. I just recounted this story in the chat thread, but the last time I had AA on the Button vs 2 limpers and raised to $30 in my 1/3 NL game (I hadn't played a hand, let alone raised one, in about a month and a half) the first limper shoved $260 and the second limper insta called. I mean, lol, it's live pokers. Raise big with your big hands and raise small with your small ones (or not at all) and simply print monies in these spots.

Yes, you're probably not going to be able to raise to $50 at most 1/3 NL tables with a $500 stack, I understand that (although, lol, at some tables I could probably get away with that). But a $23 raise targetting the SB stack (especially if BB and us are in same neighbourhood)? I know I play at a super loose table, but $23 isn't getting folds 100% of the time where I play.

ETA: Also, even if everyone folds at least you won the blinds/limps with your JJ. Look at what happened here: you put in a bunch of money and still didn't drag the pot *and* you had the best hand; where's your "value" now?

GgoodluckG

lol reading the OP I thought the btn was the entire point of this hand and whether the deep stacks made this a flat/3b tiny/shove. Folding is pretty obscene.

That said I think I like flat in a vacuum, especially blocking the most major draws, however 3b to like 250 and fold to a jam seems fine against passive players that will never back raise a draw or even a strong draw, which is the case for most.

And always smaller pre and otf but w/e.