Hero (UTG): ~400, effective stack. E20s WG. I've been at the table for <5 minutes; this is the first hand I've played.

V(UTG+1): >3000, covers. 20s Asian guy. I struck up a conversation about his 1k+ BB stack when I sat down. He mentioned having been up all night the previous night basically coolering several drunk maniacs to build his monster stack (It's about 2pm at this point). He seemed to be a smart, thinking player.

Preflop (7 handed): H limps 3h3d. V raises 15. 3 callers (CO, BB, Hero)

Flop (~60): J73r. Checked to V who bets 30. CO calls, H calls, BB folds.

Turn (~150) J, completes rainbow. Checked around.

River (~150) A. H bets 125, V shoves ~330 eff., CO folds. H?

Calls. If he has AJ, tell him nice hand. You aren't folding.

AA feels more likely than AJ to me. I can see a competent player checking the turn with AA expecting to be in a WA/WB scenario and someone else having a J with 2 flop callers. Whereas I see AJ continuing to bet the turn for value.

With a caller between, I raise the flop to take the lead, build the pot, and intend to bet (maybe even jam depending on villain) almost every turn.

As played, I think fold is the correct decision, but I doubt I could do it in the moment. I likely call, say "nice hand" and reload.

I hate the open limp pre. Just fold and raise 77+. When you limp in EP you turn your hand face up. As a result, when you c/r these dry flops with a couple low/middling cards (see below), V can confidently fold his overpairs and Jx knowing you flopped a set.

You should have c/r flop anyway, IMO. Good Vs will know the jig is up and fold their OPs.

AP, on river I'd let it go. After you bet huge, he still jammed. V as described has AA (or JJ) 95% of the time here.

I'm not folding to a 230 eff raise on the river here for one buyin unless i only came to play with one bullet.

I hope we've immediately asked for a seat change as we're sitting in the worse one.

I no longer think playing small pairs in EP is profitable (at one time I did) so I now just open fold them. Whether calling the raise is profitable is often going to be dependent on how horrible the other callers are as obviously we're not going to be super profitable against this villain (especially OOP).

I'd lean to donking the flop. I'm just looking to start getting paid off by hopefully one of the worse callers behind.

As played I'd donk the turn. This is the best card to come off as now Jx will have a hard time getting away and yet they won't necessarily bet it on this drawless board.

I'm cool with the river bet. As played, it looks like we could easily have Jx and yet he doesn't care. Ax is almost never going to raise and mostly decide if they should fold vs raise. He also can't get too out-of-line as he's got the other guy behind him. So it boils down to whether he can play KJ like this, and even KJ often just calls a big bet like this. I'd lean to fold against anyone who isn't stooopid, and it's mostly why playing 33 in EP likely isn't profitable.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'm snap calling. hes an unknown theres no way I could ever be convinced even if he sounds like a grinder. sucks if he has you

Your hand has absolute strength, but is the weakest fullhouse.

Not sure why nobody has included 77 and JJ in Villain's range - too strong to c-bet the flop? But with 3 players in the hand, c-betting is almost always correct, no matter how much one has the board locked down.

Your hand looks a lot like Jx. In terms of strength, 33 is almost the same as KJ here.

Also, the River bet is too large. Would AK/AQ really call your bet?

Villain's raise is too small to be a bluff. If he is telling you he can beat KJ, then he can beat 33.

As played, fold.

It's not that much more than a min raise but if stacks were deeper I can def justify a fold.

Never ever folding. If he has AJ or AA good for him. Lots of guys would play Jx like this on the turn trying to get you to bluff the river.

I think Hero's line looks very much like Jx.

H is first to act, V is in between two players. Do you believe he would check the Turn with Jx?

With a nutted hand, I could see him checking.

Who, villain? Yes, sometimes.

Yeah, this is AA a lot, and whatever JJ/AJ/77 he might've checked the turn with, but we don't know this V nearly well enough to fold to so few combos getting ~3:1 when it's possible he could think he's being super crafty with KJ/QJ, or just be tired/brain-dead.

+1 to folding 33 pre UTG at a table full of unknowns.

Snap call

V just always has aces or JJ here, I can't find another hand that someone would play this way as PFR unless they were a total idiot or maniac....if he has AJ he is 100% betting the turn against two people. 77 is possible but he probably keeps betting that on a gin turn card when you both have Jx a lot. Then he shoves river over a close to PSB with someone behind him that could easily have Jx and you have all Jx and boats in your range and very, very little bluffs (probably none). This is not a snap call given the action and I'd probably fold against most players, only thing is V is 20's asian guy....but yeah.

Open folding 33 at a table of unknowns at 1/3 is completely terrible. There is no hand in poker that makes more money than a set, and there is no hand tha'ts "less bad" to limp with than a pp in EP because you can call a raise almost all the time.

Fold pre is far from completely terrible. People don't just auto stack off with overpairs anymore, especially after we limp/call and then start spazzing out later. And of course the times we are oversetted we lose 130bb every time.

After getting 2 calls on this dry flop, I would actually play KJ like this on the turn... not necessarily to tarp but rather that I think there's an ok chance I'm actually behind and I'm not looking to get 2 more bets in.

And on the river I'm just calling with KJ. It makes zero sense to raise if we think we're up against a bluff (the only benefit to that would be that we don't have to show our hand, which isn't worth the risk). Yeah, I'll miss some value against QJ/JT, but I also don't own myself against better hands.

Facing a big bet in a big pot, methinks the majority of players simply call here with their Jx as most players (including myself) have a very common trait: MUBSYness.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Stating that folding preflop is terrible is lol. If you want to play it, that's fine; if you want to fold it, that's fine. It's likely super close either way and pretty table / skill dependent.

FWIW, how do you think OP played flop/turn? I think he butchered these streets and it's highly unlikely he could make setmining profitable here; you could probably do better so if you want to play it that's fine.

GcluelesssetminingnoobG

Re: folding pre, there are also more decent players raising light over limpers than there were 10 years ago, and our IO against them OOP are pretty meager, since they're not getting stacks in with enough of their range.

I mean, sure, if the player pool is mostly just raising premiums and will way overvalue top pair in MW pots, then open limp low pairs all day.

There was no need to check and under rep his hand on the turn with bottom set. His hand strength was well hidden already.

It's a gross spot to be sure. My take is V has AA or is bluffing (and I would consider hands like AK/KK etc to be a bluff at this point). I'm not sure how I would play it but I would not have gotten to this point as more chips would be going in on turn making river decision trivial no matter what.

One question--Is there a significant high hand promotion going on? When they run it at my room and there's times it's up to $1k per half hour, people will play trips and sets weirdly.

At just about any table folding it is terrible. End of story. I have more than 3 years worth of data to prove it. If you want to fold it, its your money. Do whatever you want with it.

I highly doubt your data shows that playing 33 UTG is like this massively +++EV spot (which "folding is terrible / end of story" implies).

And you didn't answer my second question: based on the way OP played the hand, do you think he is capable of making this an EV spot?

If you're a good player in a good game it's likely an EV spot; I would never say that getting involved in the hand here is "terrible". But if you're a meh player / in a meh game, I doubt it's profitable.

Ghavetoworkonthestrengthofyouradjectives,imoG

Im not going to base my decisions on how to play a hand on what I would do if I was a meh player in a meh game.

I think OP played the hand just like 90% of people would, but not how I would.