Pre is indeed too small, especially at this table, but also in general imo. This deep I'd probably make it ~64 in a vacuum and against these guys at least 72. At least.

I'd flat flop. Interesting to hear the various reasons for a raise, but on an Ace high flop in a 3bet pot, I'd still think they're folding just about anything if you raise now. But you were there. If you have a read that one or two of them just don't have a fold button, then just raise, I guess. But I'd much rather give those guys a couple of chances to start spazzing away themselves. I mean, if you just call, they're gonna wanna barrel you off your obvious KK/QQ/JJ, right?

Everyone arguing for a flat I hope you are raising with lots of semibluffs if you believe they will fold too much

This.

Just imagining how infrequently two whales (plus another spaz candidate) fold to tiny flop raise on this board in 3-bet pot makes flat seem suboptimal.

Everyone arguing for a raise I hope you are flatting with lots of draws if you believe they will call too much.

Keep them wide, nice and deep with the majority of ranges are draws which we can maneuver well against for the big bet streets/stack people in 500-750bb pot. Why not keep the bluffer bluffing? Why shutout trip/set equity from other continuing ranges? Obviously there are some runouts that suck, but against this crop of ******s they are less of a concern.

This is not really how that works. I'm flatting because I have two aces in my hand. Me not having those two aces would greatly increase the chance of one of them having one, especially the guy who's now donking into me. So no, I'm not necessarily raising "with lots of semi-bluffs, because I believe they'll fold too much"... because I do not believe they will.

Because the bluffer is only bluffing for 1/4 pot, and we want max value from players that aren't folding anyway.

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God pre is such an awful sizing. It's literally a dream spot vs utg raise and a few deep whale callers. Let's make it as small as possible.

Flop I'm raising. Always give them rope. Who cares about what the other 2 do. You're practically never winning a giant 3 or 4 way pot by flatting and MP is not folding anything he's deciding to call regardless of what happens and we are fine isoing the biggest whale. Especially with the 95o hand and recent dynamics etc.

Flatting is trying too hard to be cool.

If the donkbet were a normal size I like flatting to keep ranges wide.

At this lol bet sizing, plus the fact that these guys will chase draws, a raise seems mandatory. It doesn't have to be big raise. 125 is fine. That donkbet size on this board screams "I want to draw for cheap against your AK"

Pre - $65-70 for value.

Flop - I like a small raise, say $115-125. Vs. this field, a smaller sizing is mostly inelastic, less likely to fold out worse. Probably still getting calls from a GS-hand like 65 as well as FDs.

+1

You have the best hand, best players in the pot, small raise gives these guys a chance to repop and they sound like they are at least calling. I'm also in the higher pre camp... $80.

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Alright, let’s see a turn.

Max value doesn’t mean making the pot bigger unless you know for certain your opponents never fold. If that were the case you would just shove an infinite stack with the nuts here for max value.

True, 160lb max value isn't always achieved by making the pot bigger; but in this case with the described villains, we're going to get more in the pot by taking initiative than by letting them bet for us.

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A true TAG's flatting range here is [AsAx, AsKx+], imo. So I am not the least bit worried about scaring off the whales by raising otf.

$125-150.

If the game is close to going bonkers, I'ma making it $300 to watch heads xplode.

Ya i would make it $250-300 if the game was ramped up as fukc with these players.

Alright guys,time for results. Seems like thread is split (as expected in this spot) between people wanting to raise, and people wanting to flat.

Hero eventually chooses to raise to $150,feeling that it cant be optimal to let people draw as cheap as 1/4 pot with these deep stacks, and thus having implied odds for my entire stack- because i wont be able to get away from topset against neither of the whales if they bink a flushdraw or a straightdraw. I was thinking lets say for example if cutoff is leading a flushdraw, and other whale have a gutshot- they have a very decent amount of outs combined to stack me, and they are not making a mistake to draw for that good of a price either.
Also i want to get max value right now if some of them have a made hand,forcing them to stackoff/put in more money before any scarecards lets them possibly get away. Maybe this reasoning is putting more weight on the less important things, i am not really sure.

Anyway, villain tanks and finds a fold claiming he folded a bad A. He didnt show any cards, so it could just be a lie and postering from his part for all i know. Nothing he had done the whole game in any hand would suggest that he is capable of folding top pair on this kind of board even in a 3 bet multiway pot. My guess is that he had a very weak one pair hand with this lead like middle pair or total garbage like a bottom pair, or even a total bluff with air like he is capable of. In hindsight,his wide range is for sure an argument for flatting, but his 1/4 pot bet complicates it as mentioned above. Its kind of annoying that he happens to donk here with this size, if he checks to me and i C-bet as everybody expects from me as the preflop aggressor this hand could have played out in a myriad of different ways.

Also i aggree with the posters saying that if he donks a more proper bigger size in relation to the pot i am much more inclined to flat to keep ranges wide and to force him to possibly make a huge pot commitment bet/shove mistake on the turn when the potsize is very big.

Hero is expert at home game seat selection, nice.

Are the whales capable of calling a big raise to like $100+? Cuz that's what I'd like to make it to prevent setmining odds. If SB/BB are incredibly 3betty we could also risk a flat/reraise. Otherwise, we just end up in the spot we did here: our hand is likely going to be pretty face up on the table, they are all going to have a much better idea of where they stand postflop than we do, we offered 3 opponents 24+ IO to stack us, and the SPR is < 4 (zero wiggle room postflop).

Anyways, nice flop.

For me this is mostly a flop that someone has something worth giving action with (unlucky case A, a set, a flush draw, or a straight draw) or they don't. And while there are whales in the hand who might chase with what they think is a 5 outer (7x, etc.), for the most part there isn't anything else that is going to last long in this hand. So I simply hammer the flop to setup a turn shove to target hands that are willing to give me action, and really don't care about the mediocre hands (which are unlikely to put much more in the pot anyways). So I raise to like $200 to setup a turn shove.

ETA: I wouldn't feel too bad about the results. My guess is that you probably wouldn't have gotten too much more out of him unless he hit his 3 outer. If he kept betting with Ax thinking it was the best hand, it would likely still be pretty small bets so that we don't fold our KK-. Instead, I would more worry about the massive amount of value we lose by not raising against hands that will be willing to continue. IMO.

GbutIsuckatdeepstack,sowhateverG

Yes, nice and important to have a good seat against these guys Pro tip is that i know the host of the game, and when i know these whales are coming (they have fav seat numbers that is locked up for them), then i make sure to show up early so i can get the jesusseat if possible.

Besides that i disagree on alot you are saying in the first part of this post.

1) My hand is really not "faceup" in the terms that anybody can autoput me on KK/AA. Ive been 3 betting several times this game, and i dont play as tight or nitty as you do. Being on the button here in a nice squeezespot with the two whales playing deep stacked, my hand is not faceup. And yes: if i bomb it pre to like 80-100 here the chances are absolutely there that i start to get folds, and i would argue that such size for sure turns my hand more faceup as a premium. If i am 3 betting KQ suited or JJ here i am not blasting it to 100 to give an example.

2)Also i am not on board with the zero wiggleroom postflop statement. People (for the most part) play pretty faceup in 3 bet pots, and for sure multiway 3 bet pots like this. I have 750 left in my stack when the flop comes down and have the button, and i trust my postflopgame enough that i can avoid autostacking off regardless of the board. Even though its 200 in the middle,there is a decent amount of manouvering postflop to be done here on many boards depending on how the hand developes, who bets,who continues++.

Regarding setmining odds, that is not a concern we should let ride over anything else: because the two whales ranges are literally close to any two cards at this point in the game. They will have a boatload RIO hands like QJ,KQ,AQ,AJ,KJ and so forth+ a myriad of suited connectors and gappers that will give me big value when they flop a dominated top pair or a draw they cant get away from cheaply.

A couple of points:

- while our hand might not be face upish immediately it will get there pretty quick in a multiway pot (unless you are barrelling air a lot multiway against whales)
- still think this SPR is pretty handcuffing; I mean, change that A on the flop to a K and now what; you betting small allowing all the draws good odds? you somehow not stacking off postflop? this pot is more than "juiced", you could argue we're committed (which you're actually doing given the statement that these guys will stack off with a boatload of RIO hands); ETA: And while I definitely won't go so far as to say preflop setup a -EV situation (it's gotta be EV against these guys), we could certainly do a lot better (by simply raising more preflop, like is the consensus)

GimoG

.. double post

My hand isnt faceup to these whales anyway, remember that these guys are huge losers, plays almost every hand dealt at this point and the cutoff 4 bet piled 9-5 off against me cause he thought i squeezed an UTG open raise and 3 callers with "nothing" to steal the pot and would fold to his shove after putting in $70 pre with $230 left.

And as stated earlier in this thread, i am on board with going bigger- like 60-70. I was get caught a bit off guard, as this game usually dont play this crazy at all, so i normally cant size as big here for value as i can successfully in other games i play. If i go bigger than 60-70 here like you suggest (80-100), then i will start to get folds at a serious frequenzy unless they are at the top of their callingranges, wich obviously is worst case scenario when i have AA on the button against this group of opponents.

Regarding avoiding stacking off: sure, if the flop comes like you said K73 with a flushdraw and one of the whales happens to flop a set with 33/77 on me- they usually get my money. However, its extremely hard to flop a set for these guys when you think about how few PP they have in their wide open ranges, and the money i lose if that happens is gonna be more than offset when they will lose their stack with KQ/AQ on Q high boards, AK/KQ/KJ on K high boards, stacking off with flushdraws+++. Or all the times i take down the $200 pot on the flop uncontested, that adds up over time. All i am saying is that i am not very worried about stopping them from having setmining odds in this spot, wich was one of your big arguments for bombsizing to 100.

Regarding our actual sizing, that's fair enough; I'm obviously on the conservative / less variance end of the spectrum so I'm fine with going bigger. And when I play with whales I'm not too worried about losing anyone preflop especially if it looks like it'll go multiway (about a month ago I posted a hand where I 3bet to $100 with $300 effective stacks and went 4WAYS, lol).

GcluelesswhalehuntingnoobG

Ditto. Any good Ace is never folding, you charge any flush draw yet to act and if V has a smaller set, you give him a chance to spazz when he holes that you have AK with a spade draw.

I would think a larger donk bet would mean a bigger made hand, like hopefully set over set, and I would be more inclined to raise. A small donk bet can also leave the door open for one of the other players to raise after we flat, but I'm not saying it was a mistake to raise.

Unlucky result. Still have to raise.