Villain1 ($119) SB; Loose Aggressive, Will overbet anything and call to the river to see cards. Started with $300. Just came back from $35.

Hero ($726) MP2; Tight Passive, particularly this game because I was practicing fundamentals. Started with $300.

Villain2 ($236) CO; Tight Aggressive, the type of player that talks and acts like he knows what hes doing but always ends up leaving felted. You know the type. Started with $200.

I just came off a few good hands after being card dead for over an hour. Those hands included a double up and big pot off of V2 so at this point I was weary of betting in front of him out of position thinking any hand hes calling me with now is going to be a good one because he is obviously pissed at me I slow played two pocket pairs for trips and full house on the flop against him.

Hero KQ: it folds or limps to me I bet $10.

V2: calls

V1: calls

(Flop)
K34

V1 checks

Hero bets $25

V2 calls

V1: shoves with $109

Hero: I want to shove and isolate V1 but I fear V2 may call or push and either of them could very well have a better kicker, AK. I try to stick to my original strategy of only calling in +EV positions and I really dont feel this is one of those positions. I fold.

V2: calls, as i suspected.

Turn J, River 9, rainbow.

V1: shows K7o

V2: mucks, like you didn't think V1 at least had a king? I can see from V1's profile while this may have been true but he is coming back from almost being felted I would believe V1 wouldn't be playing anything but the nuts right now.

I regret not calling this hand. I tried to calculate my EV and I got 4:1 odds with 5 outs - is that correct? 5 x 4 rule?

Pot odds were I have to call $109 to win a pot of $189? 1.75:1 pot odds?

Would implied odds put me +EV? I dont think so.

Fundamentally I think I made the right call. My reads were someone had to of had a better kicker than me, maybe even flopped two pair or a set? It wasn't worth it.

Give me your opinion.

Well - it's hard not to be results oriented obv.... but it felt like a close call to me.

V1 played his hand pretty face up I thought. He was almost felted and caught up a little and is trying for a 'what the hell' play. I doubt he'd have played a stronger hand AK+ like this - it's a really dry board.

V2 could be a problem. When he calls your $25 - on that board you have to give him 88+. If he's really TAG - you'd expect him to raise AK pf - but there's at least some chance he's on a set. But all and all - combinatoricly he's more likely to have Kx or an underpair - I'd call (and I wouldn't even be thinking about 'outs' since I'm expecting to be ahead.

Positions are important. If either V limped preflop then they won't have AK.

This is a really good flop for you. Neither V should have two pair and AK is discounted because neither three-bet you preflop. You are only really worried about sets.

I would call the flop jam all turns if V2 checks to me. Shoving helps V2 fold out all his hands that you have crushed.

Folding is very bad here. You are well ahead of both V's ranges.

Don't post results. It can bias responses.

I am pretty certain this is the same advice I give if I don't know what happened. This is a pretty standard spot, I think.

I would have snap called.

Raise more pre even if $10 is the "norm," although I don't know how it can be at 1/3 with limpers.

My thoughts:

1. Raise pre is super small for 1/3, especially if there are limpers. $10 would be my standard raise in an unlimped pot in 1/2, would do $15 in 1/3.
2. OTF, V1 is short enough that I'm happy to stack off against him, so let's focus on V2's range. I would normally assume a TAG V is 3-betting AK, and folding K3 or K4, which means we're only worried about sets. He could easily call your $25 bet with any K (assume he has KT-KQ here) and some PP between 55-99 thinking that you whiffed an c-bet. Also can have 65s and maybe 65o. Of course he could have a set too, but his range is wide for his first call. Think he's way too wide for you to fold here. I probably call flop and jam all turns.
3. Don't post results, especially in a hand like this. It will really bias replies.

Poker for profit is a game of information.
Information, gathering, analysis, and application.

Analyzing a poker hand means that we have to rely on the information that you give us to make a decision on what we would have / should have / could have done in your spot.
Without this information we are useless.

Based on this alone, you likely aren't paying that much attention at your table. There is a world of a different between 1, 2, maybe 3 people limping to you and everyone folding to you.

These differences are:
What their limp ranges are (it gets wider the more people that limp)
What their limp/calling ranges are (it also gets wider with more people)
What we are trying to accomplish with our raise size
The range of hands we should raise with.

It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but the more that you practice taking mental note about who did what the easier that it becomes. And you get better at filtering out information that you simply don't need to make a decision.

Having said all that, this is a pretty easy call.
All sorts of worse hands and even a few draws in their range.

Pretty easy call with these stacks. If someone flopped a set or has AK you're gonna have to give them some cash.

Given the effective stacks, player images, and your hand strength vs. their ranges, this is a call.

While they may have AK/43/44/33, their ranges include many more combos of worse KX and hands like 65. As an example, KJ represents 8 combos alone. 65 = 16 combos.

Btw, their ranges should hardly ever include AK based on your description of them. When constructing your range, keep it reasonable based on the player, narrowing those ranges as action occurs.

GL!

I'd raise to $25 preflop so that I can easily stack off postflop with TP against the CO/SB (our most likely targets by the sounds of it). Really don't like our small raise here at all as it doesn't setup an easy SPR situation which we could have achieved.

SPR against shortstack is 3.6; we're committed against him. However, what complicates things is that our SPR is 7.5 against the guy who has position on us, and this is not an SPR we'd like to stack off to (imo), and yet we'll be OOP to this guy and he could make us play for stacks with 3 easy postflop bets (all the while only getting in a mere 4% of his stack preflop to do so). So with this in mind, I'd check the flop and hope it checks thru. If we are betting, I have no idea why we are betting so big (almost a PSB?); are we looking to play for stacks here, cuz that is what this bet is setting us up for.

Now in a very difficult spot again. I still feel committed against short V1 (although not loving life nearly as much given this action, but he could still easily have a worse K). But I don't feel committed against V2, and with him sitting behind us, it makes for a very difficult call. It's a very difficult spot, and I actually don't fault you for the fold (although as others have said above, it ain't great, but I don't think it's horrendous either).

GcluelessNLnoobG

you bet 25 and a dude shoved 109, and you folded for 84 more?

Snap call, villain is short, can shove any pair or a straight draw, whatever