Hero (300)(HJ) KJ
Villlain 1 -- (2000)(UTG +1) 20's Asian gentleman. Also likes to open quite a bit.. but is on a heater and always seems to turn over premiums..
Villain 2 -- (500)(Button) LAGy... opens A8s from CO to 15 with 3 callers in front i.e.


Villain 1 limps, hero bets 15, Villain 2 calls, Villain 1 calls

(49)
984
Villain 1 checks, Hero bets 25, Villain 2 folds, Villain 1 raises to 60, hero calls (has ~225 left)

(169)
A
Villain Checks, Hero Checks

(169)
8
Villain All in (covers Hero), Hero folds


Is this a check on the flop in between 2 generally sticky opponents?

Anyone barrel this turn? Not sure why I didn't do that do that...

I wouldnt check back flop here. Yeah you’re getting raised a lot and it hits their rangehard but id rather check back hands that have more SDV like AQss/AKss. I’d probably cbet A7ss/A10ss since they have bdsd and can continue on more turns vs a raise.

Flop call std.

Ott weird spot. Think checking or bet are both fine and one isnt vastly better than other

Easy cbet. Even into sticky opponents.

Turn I would just check behind.

Don't mind just jamming vs this weak raise on flop also. But calling is fine too.

Played hand well.

Against V1 as described I just call preflop, as described he's always calling here....

As played:
Flop: This is a easy reraise allin on flop for me. We have to assume all our outs are good, right?

Not really. If he has Axss we are pretty screwed and vs two pair +, our outs are only spades and we have to fade the board pairing.

I just overlimp preflop. With 4 people still to act behind us (2 of which can still end up in position) I believe we're simply opening too soon. And if we go multiway (which we can easily do) there will be very few runouts where we'll be comfortable playing for stacks, and yet our raise will likely create an SPR where stacks can now go on trivially. I'll likely be outvoted on this by a large margin.

I'm cool with our 1/2 PSB. Sometimes it takes it down, otherwise it will usually give us good odds to continue to a poorly sized raise with our equity. I treat check/raises on the flop with decent respect, so even though I have 2 overs plus the second nut flush draw, I'm not thrilled about playing for stacks ASAP (especially since most players don't check/raise just one pair). His poor raise size gave us almost the immediate odds we need to chase our draw so I just take those odds.

Flatting also allows us options on the turn in position, and taking a free card when checked to is one of them. I also take the free card.

I would also fold the river. It's a weird line by villain but maybe he was trapping on the turn. In the end, he's a loose player who has shown down the goods, so I'm not looking him up with K high.

GI'mfinewithpostflopG

being as short stacked as you are I think this is ok but I may have bet the turn trying to rep something on that street, a bet of 80 or so should be fine then you have the odds to call any back raise

it can be hard to do in game but even if he has an ace we have 20% equity

if we bet 80 we will have 160 behind and will need to call 160 to win 660 for about even money on our odds

if he folds a better hand OTT at all we make a profit

standard math!

I bet the flop.

I'm pretty curious what V1 had. Is this guy check raising the PFR with like K9 here? If so, that makes him quite unusual.

I check the turn. It's not that you'll NEVER get a fold, but free river is much better. You might wind up winning a showdown against 5s6s occasionally.

Not often enough to call river.

I vote against you, though I'm often more sympathetic to your reasoning than most.

Gonna hoist you by your own petard here. I don't think you're beating the rake limping in in MP behind a single caller. If it limps around, you're going to be playing small pot fit or fold at max rake. It's a poor limp calling hand. I think fold might be better than call.

We might make a profit raising, though some players won't. You steal occasionally pre. The initiative and the playability of the hand allow you to take it down post sometimes.

+1 to raising flop; unless you think you have no FE but I don't think that's the case

I agree that in a lot of lineups this isn't going to be some huge money maker, but I'm still going to assume that thanks to position and hopefully our postflop skillz that it will be +EV.

I think our postflop skillz and position are much more useful in high SPR pots than small ones, and I've also begun to really question the supposed importance of initiative. Opponents "checking to the raiser" tells us zero about their hand; opponents checking (or betting) in a limped pot tells us a lot more.

A limp also allow us to get away from our hand for cheap if someone behind/blinds raises, whereas if we raise we often just end up valuetowning ourselves (both preflop and postflop) if they flat.

We also have the exact wrong person on the Button (much more reason for raising preflop if Button is tight OMC).

GimoG

Here's how initiative matters.

Passive clown limps in with A4o. We raise with KJs to iso the fish. Players behind fold. BB calls with 22.

Flop comes 863r Fish checks, we c-bet and both players fold the best hand.

We win money from the small blind, BB caller and the limp/caller while having the worst hand.

If we limp in, we lose our limp money and likely lose the pot after the flop.


This scenario is quite common and not even the "best case" since we weren't able to iso the limper. But we don't mind an additional caller since we have a great multiway hand.


Addiitonally, our opponents notice we are "raising more than everyone else" and start to get suspicious of us. This leads to them deducing they should "call us more to keep us honest" which leads to them calling us down for 3 streets with top pair when we have a flush.

If we made a flush in a limped pot, and played passive like everyone else, they would be more likely to just give us credit when the flush card comes and not make a tilty call down cus they are pissed off at our aggression.

river might be a call

definitely raise this pre for value, it's an unexploitable profit

i like just flatting the check raise on the flop but jamming can't be bad, he can call with worse and your overs can be live and you have back door straight potential, possibly going to 120 is ok too to force a call

if not putting the pedal to the metal i like betting the turn still, then prolly shoving the river no matter what card comes if he just flats the turn but you don't have to bet the river at all

if you bet 80 with plans to call to another c/r OTT, and he just calls, it works out to a profit no matter what he does or what card comes or whether or not you care to bluff the river

I would counter with:

- we are just as likely to take down the pot in your example in a limped pot; the preflop raise won't have any difference on the number of people going to the flop (if CO/Button/SB have a hand they want to play they're calling the raise, right?); so in this case the BB checks their 4th pair, the limper checks their A high, and we can use that info to stab and take down a small pot; whereas if we raise, we get no info at all from their checks (as they can easily be checking TP+, something they are not nearly as likely to do in a pot where there is no raiser to check to); admittedly, the pot we win is smaller, but I believe our flop bet will be a lot more successful

- I think you're also having it a little bit of both ways regarding them calling down more often postflop if we're more actiony preflop; if we're more actiony preflop, a single flop cbet is rarely going to work against any pair, no?

- I'll admit that there are benefits to raising meta-game wise in that we're not just the guy raising TT+/etc.; but I still think in this case (with 4 people still to react preflop and a very loose guy on the Button) that a raise mostly gets us going too multiway and OOP (but then again I play at extremely loose tables)

- the bigger the stacks the more room there is to move postflop, so we won't hate as much going multiway; but here we just went only 3ways and the SPR is still < 6, and I think we get into too many valuetowning ourselves situations

- I'm definitely not going to say raising here is horrible by any means; I'm just saying an overlimp is also fine (or, at the very least, not as horrible as some will make it out to be), imo

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think the hand is played fine. I'd bet the flop try try and chase out V2 and buy last act on later streets. It sort of worked.

Turn check seems good in theory. In practice, the x/r flop x turn line is pretty rare, and I think every time I've seen it it's a really really weak ass hand. It makes me want to barrel 100% of my range on the turn, so maybe I should start. I think I would definitely go for it with a hand with less equity, but then again, we'd be folding most of those hands to the x/r anyways.

His line definitely looks FOS, but I've seen plenty of people play value hands this way too. While I understand the temptation to call, we also block many of the spade draws he could be turning into bluffs. It also really sucks when you hero call with K high and they have T9o.

Our EV of checking is much better than betting if we are never winning this pot without spiking a spade.