1/3, Sunday night, 9-handed, unusual circumstances

UTG (55yo white female, recreational player, 95/80, $1100) opens to $20
- UTG is a recreational player who lives in the countryside a few hours away and has been raising and reraising nearly every hand she's dealt in the last three orbits. She never folds to a 3-bet pre-flop. She is not necessary aggressive post-flop, but will three-barrel on occasion.

UTG+1 (30yo white male, shark, 18/15, $300) calls
- This is a down-on-their luck semi-pro who usually plays 2/5 or 5/10.

Hero in UTG+2 ($800) calls

Three additional callers, including CO (45yo white male, 60/10 - will call any preflop size raise), SB and BB


Flop ($120): A-9-5r

Everyone checks

Turn ($120): 3, completing the rainbow

SB ($400, 20yo Asian male, 8/5) bets $120

Everyone folds to Hero

What do you do?
Also, how would you play this hand better, given the table dynamic?
Do you squeeze preflop? Do you bet on the flop and how much?

What is your hand?

My bad.

I had AJo

I like a disciplined fold preflop, our hand does not play particularly well post-flop and we are normally folding to a 3! Behind us.

As played, I would bet the flop. Probably 60ish, as we want to be able to lose the minimum when we encounter resistance. We could even try to size a little smaller, say 45, at the risk some opponents interpret it as weak and choose to play back at you

As played I'm folding to the turn lead, villain may have a worse ace but we put ourselves in a bad spot, and even if villain has a worse ace he may still be able to bluff us by barreling the river again.

I prefer a 3bet pre to isolate the 95/80 whale. Maybe $60-70 as the whale can call anything pre. The shark will often be forced to get out of the way as he is not deep enough so you can play a big pot HU vs the whale

AP, bet flop around 60. AP turn, fold given your read on SB

I think you have to either 3bet or fold preflop. I would interpret the semi-pro's call as not a very strong hand because he should have isolated with most holdings (in his shoes I 3bet almost anything I am continuing with against villain #1.)

I don't mind the check on this dry board. Though I would have probably bet in the $50-$70 range.

As played I think you should just fold the turn. You've essentially lost the minimum here but other than the sb showing up with 46s or AT I can't think of any hands he could be betting here that you are beating and even AT is a stretch probably.

Hello there! Sounds like quite the player in your game, 1100 in her stack and she's hyper aggressive. How did you end up finishing that night?

Anyways, the hand. With AJ off against the lady and the semi-pro, I'd be raising if I decided to play that hand. Definitely not just calling.I wouldn't make it a habit though to do this because of the semi-pro and the ton of people left to act. If you're going to play a hand like that ep you need to get rid of the majority of people because it doesn't play well multiway. So preflop, raise to iso. Flop I'm definitely betting. Why give free cards to someone with ace rag or have a bad card turn up? Turn I'm probably not gonna like it but I've given up a long time ago so I'd fold to the pot size bet.

I'm new to this so please school me and let me know if I'm wrong or not and why. Thanks guys!

grunch

fold preflop. This hand does terribly against a UTG 6.6x raise and a UTG+1 flat call.

As played preflop, lead the flop for $50 or so.

As played flop, probably call turn and evaluate river. Probably trying to convince myself to find a call on the river, but dunno.

What do you do? - 3-bet or fold. If you 3-bet, I'd go big, probably $100 - $120. Force everyone who hasn't acted yet to play extremely face up and then make the UTG Rec player put a lot of money in with a hand range that is behind yours by a decent clip. IF everybody folds, that's a good result also. You really want to get this hand HU vs whale or fold. You're equity is not great in a pot that goes 5-6 ways.

Given the stats you provided. I'm certainly 3-betting and 4-betting this player with hands that are crushing her range as often as possible. Ideally I am trying to get stacks in by the turn when I have value, because these types of players will typically call when they have chances to improve but by the river will fold if they feel like they don't have the best hand.

I don't keep stats, but I'm convinced I've lost more money with AJ than any other hand. With that in mind, I just quietly fold preflop and move on. Yeah, we're probably ahead of UTG, but who cares since we're so deep and we're rarely going to flop anything we're totally in love with. We also have the semi-pro in front of us, plus we have a zillion people behind us (I just hate playing this hand OOP and we could get 3bet). I won't hate on a preflop call just to ~nutmine this deep. Obviously another option is to 3bet ourselves, but that's sorta meh at a table where at least 2 people aren't folding preflop this deep; I'm fairly convinced this is how it has become my all-time biggest losing hand, so now I don't do that anymore.

I'd probably bet 1/2 PSB on the flop and just hope it ends the hand.

As played, I'd fold the turn. Not loving my hand when this guy bets huge into the world.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Fold pre. It's not really a tempting squeeze with just one (good) caller in between and so many people left to act who could wake up with a better hand. Maybe if three people called and you were on the BTN or in SB/BB. Just let it go. I'd open raise this in MP or later and 3! a CO/BTN open.