Villain 1: MAWG playing loose/weak with the ability to get shifty post flop. Has been losing every showdown with the table whale for the last three hours, so image is not great ATM.

Villain 2: MABG is the newest to the table. Seems to be here to drink a few beers and gamble it up. On his 2nd buy in already.

Villain 3: MAWG; I have never played with him, but have seen him playing PLO regularly. I think he is a TAG based on the roughly 2+ hours we've been playing. Seems to know more than the fundamentals of NL.

Hero: Early 20s WG. I have only see a few hands in the last 2+ hours to play in a position I want to continue with, but I have won all showdowns in that time. I should have a winning image. But can also be viewed as shutting down to lock up a win?

The game dynamics have been weird for a while now. There is a mark (MP1) in the game that everyone wants to get HU at any point post flop. This has lead to a lot of limping and limp/calling in an inelastic way. I have seen a $35 PFR go 5+ ways and a few $50-$60 3 bets go 3+ ways multiple times if the fish is in there (and the fish is in there 85% of the time.) Players that are normally more LAG have become LAP, and I have seen a few players show down some hands like AKo and TT that they limped in with preflop.


$1/3 NL (10 handed)

UTG Hero ($1532)
UTG + 1 ($450)
MP1 ($620)
MP2 ($315)
MP3 ($1600)
HJ V1 ($520)
CO V2($280)
BTN V3 ($1800)
SB ($240)
BB ($400)

Hero is dealt J J UTG

Hero opens to $12, MP1 (mark) calls, fold, MP2 calls, fold, HJ (V1) calls, CO (V2) calls, BTN (V3) calls, 2 folds

I'm not thrilled to be OOP in a 6 handed pot with this type of hand, but I'm not surprised to find myself here at all. I thought about opening to $25, but that is such a large open to still find myself OOP in a 5 way pot, which is probably what would have happened... I was still trying to adjust to how the game had become so inelastic preflop. Thoughts?


Flop ($70) Q T 9

Hero ($1520) bets $60, 2 folds, V1 ($508) calls $60, V2 ($268) calls $60, V3 ($1788) raises to $360, Hero?

I have absolutely no idea what to do when raised like this when we are 500bb deep, but I feel like this is a spot V3 could be looking for when this deep? Thoughts on the lead too? Should I be looking to flop a set or better or been done with the hand in this spot?

Pretty rare to have ~$6500 on the table at a 1/3 game.

I'm folding pretty quickly to that big raise on the flop this deep with this much $ on the table. Going to find a much better spot(s)

1) There is just about zero chance you dont get called when you CBet this flop into 5 people.
2) There is just about zero chance you currently have the best hand.
3) You admitted that you have no idea what to do when raised on this flop and you are this deep.

1+2+3 = check the flop

Fold

Easy fold.

X2

As played I kind of want to shove since it's a tough call with anything but the nuts or OESD/FD in which case you're in good shape. Even middle or bottom set isn't gonna love calling off $1500 in a 1/3 game. This assumes V doesn't think you're stupid enough to shove an overpair.

Super high variance obviously. Folding doesn't suck.

check/evaluate the flop, as played fold to raise

I probably would have limp/evaluated preflop. I just don't see much of a point to going 6ways OOP in a bloated pot where we are *almost* setmining, can also get in sticky situations with an overpair depending on what stack we are up against, etc. I would rather limp and then see what happens. If some aggro shortstack attempts to iso the whale, then I'd reraise; if some more nitty deepstack iso's, then I perhaps go into more setmining mode, etc. The one benefit raising does do is often get us on the good side of a cooler for big stacks in a set over set / two pair situation, but I'm not sure if that is reason enough at this table / against some of the smaller stacks.

I'd probably just check/evaluate the flop, and a lot of time that would probably include folding (our implied odds suck to a four-to-a-straight, our set outs are dirty, some of our OESD could be dirty, we could easily be chopping our winnings). A bet ain't taking this flop down eleventeen ways and there is a good chance someone else has this board crushed.

Easy fold to the raise, imo. This guy has crushed the flop and is simply targetting the whale and the spewer.

ETA: Although I don't hate wj's thought of shoving here. We're undoubtedly behind, but are probably only a ~60/40 dog with a crapload of dead money and some FE against non-nut hands (although we are probably doing worse than 60/40 against straights). But I'm not sure I'm in love with the high variance route here, especially if we can't buy back in for the whales / spewers stacks.

Ghandisoverplayed,imoG

I agree with most of your posts, but you limp JJ UTG when you get some deep stacks at the table?

Often in deeper stacks situations I have a 0% raising range in EP/MP, and would much rather limp/reraise to setup an easier situation postflop with TP type hands. I'm also all about not building big pots OOP (build them in position, imo), especially if any of the players I'm OOP to are capable of stealing pots.

As I've stated in the past, I'm not *too* concerned whether this is the best method since I so rarely get in games where there are many deepstacks at the table.

Gbutthat'smeG

grunch. check flop and see what happens.

as played, simple fold.

Pre: if you raised to $12 because you knew it would go 6 ways and didn't want a big pot then the best thing would have been limp calling.


Flop: very clear check. Vs. that many players your jacks do not have a serious equity advantage against anything that calls and you lose out on your equity when raised as happened.

I can't get on board with limping JJ UTG even when super deep.

But given that you're very deep, post flop mistakes are accentuated and I think c-betting here is a huge mistake as well. Check/Call here for the most part and folding to the raise.

You need to stop just looking at your cards and start considering game conditions. $25 raises were going 5 ways. Not a good spot for jacks in a blown up pot.

Pretty heated response for no reason.

I understand that "we've seen a $25 raise go 5 way." That doesn't mean it always will. If it's consistently going multi-way then thats a different story. I've been at plenty of crazy tables where 7-10x opens get called by almost ATC sometimes - but even at those tables, it does not happen every time.

If I raise UTG and get called 5-way then I'll adjust post flop. Your response was as if opening JJ UTG at a loose table is spew and absurd.

^^^^

It's possible an UTG raise might win the blinds.

It's possible an UTG raise might go 10way to the flop.

One of the most important aspects of poker is estimating things based on the info we have at hand. I think a fairly good estimate of what will happen when we raise UTG at this table, given the information that we've been given, is that we are going to go multiway to very multiway to the flop. So, if that's the result we want, we should do that; if not, we should do something different.

GimoG

As others have said, I don't like leading into a bunch of hands on this flop. Check the flop. As played fold to the raise for reasons outlined by other posters. I don't like the jam recommendation here, while you probably have a ton of fold equity the only hands that call you are made straights and maybe sets. This flop is very connected, though the range that can call you is very limited I think you'll be up against KJ often enough in this spot (I realize you block KJ, QJ and J8, but that's somewhat mitigated as you're up against a ton of villains)

Your villain is essentially flipping his cards face up. Your villain's bet screams one of a few things. First he could be bluffing and your jj would be a bluff catcher. More likely he has 2 pair. If he had QQ he would have 3bet to thin out the playing field. Fold... raise more pre flop or limp this hand in that position.

Never bet out with JJ on such a wet board OOP.

I'm not recommending it, I'm just saying it's a tough call for V without the nuts. Even if he has J8, he knows he could be drawing dead to a chop putting $1500 in and people don't just willy nilly stuff $1500 in a 1/3 game without the nutty mcnutter nuts. In fact, I can't ever remember a single hand in a normal $300-500 cap 1/3 game where someone shoved $1500 on the flop.

Thanks for the consideration, guys. I can see now that this wasn't as close a spot as I originally thought.


I felt I could get value out of flush draws, gutshots, and Tx's. I also thought I could get a weak Q to fold by the river. I block a portion of straight draws, and I also have the club blocker. I now see that its not a great idea to try to get worse to call while getting better to fold simultaneously, even if I know which of the Vs had which of those likely hands...

In response to 3) I rarely get to play this deep, and I almost felt like I was playing a different game. I admit I did not think a $300 raise would be something any of the Vs in the pot could make. I'll be sure to never under estimate unknowns in the future.



I'm having trouble reconciling this line. If I limp preflop and it limps around, am I supposed to check/evaluate the flop without really any information to narrow Vs' ranges? That sure feels like a waste of a pretty good preflop hand, but most preflop mistakes will be compounded on later streets.

Or is this the optimal line on this table, at this time, under these circumstances? I need to think less "Oh boy, JACKS! and more "this is a marginal spot, I only have $3 invested here, I will fold and look for better spots later."

It's like reading the User Agreement to an iphone.

what is there to think about? fold. V flopped 2 pair or a set, plain and simple. He is never going to fold to a shove on a board that wet. At least one of the other V's have a flush draw and are probably going to get it in from this raise anyway.

The problem isn't that they're only Jacks, the problem is you got a terrible flop for your jacks, albeit with outs. If you had gotten a 10 7 2 flop then you probably could've won a nice pot with them.

For me, preflop boils down to (a) our cards, (b) our position, (c) stacks, (d) difficulty of opponents, and (e) tendency of table. Here, the only thing we have going for us is good starting cards.

We'll be OOP, which is an obvious disadvantage.

Stacks are deep, so having the best starting hand preflop, especially one that will most likely just remain a single pair (and often not even the top one at that), ain't a huge advantage if we can only get in a lol small % of stacks preflop; if all the stacks were much smaller and we could get in a much larger % of stacks preflop (making it impossible for speculative hands to play profitably against us), then more reason for raising.

At least one opponent who has position on us can get shifty postflop. Not a great idea to build a big pot OOP to a guy like this (unless we can get in a significant portion of our stack preflop to negate this shiftyness).

The table is obviously loose, and we're likely to go very multiway, thus creating a difficult SPR where we can be put to stack committing decisions by the river. If table was a lot tighter where an EP raise would often get this HU, then much more reason for raising, as we take stacks out of play and can play a more mediocre sized pot (one that our hand will most likely want to be playing).

So, all told, I just think there is more reasons for limp/evaluating than there are for raising.

If it limps around, fine. Play a small pot. If an overcard comes, simply check/fold, $3 down the tubes, no biggee. If we flop an overpair, tread lightly, probably bet/folding some streets; if someone blows us off the best hand, so be it, but whatever, it's a fairly small pot, so not a hugenormous mistake. If we flop a set, go for the gold and print as much money as we can. We can definitely make some mistakes in a multiway limped pot, but we're unlikely to make huge ones (folding the best hand in a huge pot, calling off our stack with the worst of it) like we can in the resulting spot we got ourselves into.

GimoG

his range is flopped straights / sets / 2 pair - Ace high flush draws and maybe Jx of clubs.

against that range this should be a pretty easy fold.


Why did you bet this flop?