H ($1400) - Active, aggressive but now bluffy image. Have 3b and raised pre and post pretty frequently. Relevant hh I triple barreled bluffed V3 and showed down bottom pair.
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1.../#post54224142

V1 ($400) - reg who just joined the table, opens wider than most

V2 ($800) - LAGgy player, likes to see a lot of flops, and can bluff postflop. Has seen my bluff prior

V3 ($625) - Decent player, have seen him opening a little loose like small pps from any pos, iso'ing over limpers quite a lot in LP. Claimed to have folded 44 in the previous hh, saying he was going to call down on river if there wasn't an A or K.

V1 opens $15 UTG+2, V2 (CO) calls, short stack(BTN) calls, V3(SB) calls,

H(BB) w/ AQ ??

IRT the previous HH,
1) Don't show your bluffs, especially if you already have an active image. Based on your comments, V folded as 44 would have beat the bottom pair, so showing is just awful.
2) Don't talk strat at the table, as your comments on V3's comments implies that you're doing.

It really sounds like you are doing a lot of -EV things for ego reasons. Stop it.

AP, your image sucks so this is a bad time to 3-bet the bottom of a legit 3-bet range OOP. If you're image didn't suck, I'd def rather put in a re-raise than play this hand passively OOP, but if you do that now you are begging for a 4-bet. There's enough money in the pot that I probably can't bring myself to fold a hand this good, so I guess I call. I'm looking to play small-ball if I hit TP, though

Wrt to other hand, turn size too big and river way too small. Frankly, a bad board to bluff with dozens of mid pair combos that will call. Glad you ran into the bottom of his range.

Yea, your image doesn't favor a 3b here imho. I'd call and complete action. Even though opener may be wide, he is in EP.

Yes agree that I didn't need to show the bluff with the previous hand. I had never tripled before tbh and was relieved to get it through. I just showed to see if I could get some info and he told me that stuff. I didn't talk strat at all

But its true I need to make sure my aggression is in check when playing deep

Regarding 4betting, no-one was 4b lite to be honest, but it is a consideration I have to take into account if I'm 3betting often. The opener hasn't seen the previous hh

dont see how you can do anything but call this deep

Think pre plays a lot better as a 3b, AQo doesnt play well post 10 ways to the flop and AQo is pretty high up in your value range vs these loose players

i dont think it plays that well even HU OOP in a bloated pot with a bad table image either, though.

basically if you 3b you want to win the pot right there. if you dont think that will work i dont see the point. if you just call pre you can play passive post flop with one pair hands with a lot of check/calling

Onto my preflop action
V1 opens $15 UTG+2, V2 (CO) calls, short stack(BTN) calls, V3(SB) calls,
H(BB) 3b to $100, UTG+2, V2, short stack folds, V3(SB) calls.

Flop J53 ($245)
V3 checks, Hero??

Lol at the people saying this is the bottom of your 3bet range (they are thinking about their 3bet range)... this is a 100% 3bet given your image. People aren't going to give you credit for a good hand and its a perfect spot to squeeze and get less credit than you are repping. AQo is going to be pretty hard to play post OOP multiway as well.

Bet the flop and then barrel when you pick up equity. You are probably going to get called on this flop at a high % as its a pretty good one for all the mid-pairs in v3's range and he's probably going to put you on ace-king given his previous comment.

Grunch

Normally I'd advocate 3betting here. However, with effective stacks at 800 with the LAG who like to see flops and is capable of bluffing postflop and has seen you bluffing recently I think you're in a bad spot right now OOP, deep, bad image and an offsuit big card hand. It's the perfect set up to value-own yourself preflop or postflop.

If you 3bet anything but massive the deepstacked LAG is definitely flatting you IP and that's going to be hard for you postflop. But if you squeeze really big you're risking a lot Vs a fairly deep EP raiser - and your image is poor.

Stacks are so deep you can just flat this OOP with best position relative to the preflop raiser on the flop and closing the action pre. Then you can look to make a strong (2-pair+) hand to stack a disbelieving deepstack with or play a top pair hand a bit weird (like you're running a stupid bluff) for a smaller win against the disbelievers.

Even if you flat pre and just X/F a bunch of flops it helps a bit to repair your image.

So maybe controversial but I don't go for the squeeze here.

As played preflop:

Sigh. This is the exact crap scenario I wanted to avoid preflop. Now we're OOP, multiway, bad-image and SPR with deepest stack is < 3. Absolutely perfect spot if our plan is to barrel off a really big stack with Ace-high and zero fold equity because we're in a charitable mood.

Otherwise I'd check/fold before this gets any worse/more-expensive.

I'm HU IP?

AQo isn't the kind of hand you want when your opponents are giving you less credit than the hand you're repping. You want AA-QQ when that happens.

When people think you're fos, they're gonna play nearly perfectly against AQ. i.e. they're gonna call with any pocket pair, not fold flop unless it has an ace, call with JTs and call down when they hit a T, etc.

When you have the overcard hands, you want to have an image that makes people afraid you have the overpair.

he probably misread the action as if other people called.

You did get basically the best result you could hope for with your 3-bet.

I'd bet $100 again here. Planning to continue barreling turned clubs/K/T and checking back everything else.

I think you have to take a B/X/B line here.

You can probably go as low as 1/3 pot c-bet on this flop, check behind on the turn (or call his bet if he donks and you pick up equity) and see what comes on the river.

Checking behind after 3! might induce a nasty turn bet where we just have to sigh fold.

It's not a great spot though

Apologies, I must have been flicking between too many different threads or something. It's a tremendously poor user experience on my phone so this happens occasionally with all the scrolling back and forth.

Anyway, somehow I got the impression your 3bet preflop got called MW.

Oh I see why, expecting that you 3bet I just skim-read the first line below the quote in post #8, saw all the villains calling and mistakenly thought that was the new action. My mistake.

So you're HU in the BB vs the competent player who we assume is a little suspicious of your bets following the other hand history.

SPR is slightly over 2:1. V3 checks.

Our range for V3 has got to include a bunch of mid-pocket pairs following the preflop action. I guess the unpaired hands are suited Broadway not quite good enough to squeeze pre himself.

Complicating factor is if he thought you were going to squeeze here in which case he might have flatted twice preflop with some surprisingly strong hands hoping to trap you postflop for your stack when you bluff or value-own yourself. His position means he can do this without 4betting pre because he sees everyone fold in front of him. Obviously it's high risk because if you don't 3bet he's in the worst position with a premium hand in a single raised MW pot - total disaster.

However, if he is suspicious of you his attention will have been on you preflop. If you looked at your hand before your action there's a chance he may have picked up on enough to predict your 3bet and sandbag a big hand. If you waited till your action to look at your cards I think your good - V3 wouldn't risk the preflop slow-play without some kind of telegraphing of your 3bet.

Nevertheless, a suspicious villain with a bunch of BWs and mid pocket pairs isn't going away on this flop that often. So personally I'd check behind and take the free card. Any T, K, 2, 4 or club is going to give you more equity on the turn. Any A or Q probably gives you the best hand. Villain won't automatically bet the turn after we check behind flop and it's quite possible we have the best hand here sometimes too.

Without V3 being suspicious and my concern he can trap here - if we have a good image - I'd be more tempted to cbet intending to barrel or shove a lot of the turns that give us extra equity or improve us to top pair. Here I'm not so sure it's a good idea.

Oh yeah, if I bet I agree 1/3rd to 1/2 pot is good.

So you'll check back turned A/Q? Presumably plan is we're barreling all our high club draws on club turns, barreling our KK/QQ on non club/A turns, barreling AK on turned A, barreling JJ on all turns... and we're not squeezing light pre because of our image so that's it?

You want AA-QQ at all times m8. Unfortunately this doesn't happen and I will be quite happy with AQo in this spot. It won't be as easy as having AA-QQ but it's still quite a good spot when people think you're fos. V will continue with a lot of hands that we dominate and we will be able to charge them the max if we 3bet this hand (i doubt they will play perfectly vs your AQ).

I actually prefer AQ over AK in this situation cos people always put you on AK and won't give you credit for the Q when it comes OTT or OTR and it plays pretty much the same.

Bet flop, double barrel turn when we pick up equity or hit our hand, check river if we end up bricking given our image, and value-shove when we hit.

What I meant was that when we have an fos image, we should look for less aggressive lines with the big unsuited cards and look for more aggressive lines with the big overpairs to take advantage of the fos perception. It's the exact opposite when we have a nitty image where we want to play the AK/AQ hands more aggressive and the AA-QQ hands more trappy.

I don't agree that AQo is a good hand when people think you're fos for the reasons I already stated.

I am raising AQo for value. And this makes no sense to me whatsoever ImAllInNow. If we have a very nitty image we are not going to get a lot of action from worse hands when we 3bet AK/AQo hands, we are only most likely getting action from better hands. When we have a very loose or fos image, we will get plenty of action from worse hands when we raise 'big unsuited' cards and have a much better chance at stacking a player with a dominated hand as they will call off their stack with top-pair or potentially less.

I honestly do not comprehend how people can think that AQ is not a good hand. I did not oversell the hand saying it was the nuts and you should barrel off on all flops.

Bonus: you are in position so you are much more likely to realize your equity. AQo also has good showdown value so you could play this board as a x/x, x/c, x/evaluate. I doubt this V is going to be folding his suited broadways, some suited aces, etc, all hands we are beating. Another bonus is that this player might be so focused on trying to sniff out one of our bluffs that he won't try to bluff us off our hand and let us showdown the AQ-high winner.

I can go either way preflop with 3! or flat. We are deep enough to do either. Given your descrip of these Villains though and your current (bad) image, I might tend to flat more as it disguises your strength and you may get more value from that deception down the line. But I don't hate your 3! and I think your sizing is good.

AP on the flop, there in no chance I am checking this board. We have two overs, BD flush and str8 possibilities and the nut blocker. That is plenty to continue as the preflop 3! here. I think I go $150-$160 here and then re-evaluate on the turn. Unless V somehow flopped a set with 55 or 33 (that he happened to call the 3! with), I think we get a ton of hands to fold their equity and we rarely (if ever) get raised here.

This is a great spot to take advantage of your image and potentially collect dead money.

I'd make it $100. Rather large sizing because while AQo is good, I really want everyone to fold pre because most hands have decent equity against us. Still in good shape if called.

With bdnfd, bdsd, and two overs, I like a bet of $125 otf. Lots of good turn barrel cards. Get those pp and KQ/KT type hands to fold!

Wouldn't we want KQ (especially) and KT to call? Not that they have any reason to (they are never folding KQ or KT clubs). I would like to fold out PPs.

Yes want them to call but by checking we allow these hands to realize their equity against us, which is not zero.