Late weekend game.
Table is amazing full of drunks gambling and playing bingo.

SB is mid 20s, see him in poker room a lot. He is probably a pro and looks like a pro. He is only good player on the table.

BB doesn't know me but must at least realise I am semi solid as I am only one playing tight on this crazy table. I have raised once preflop in about 25 hands and 99 got shown down.

BB has been raising pre quite a bit in the hour I have been on the table but I have not seen him 3 bet.

Hero has $500

BB covers



Hero is UTG raises $20 with AK
a few drunk fish call in middle position, they are $300-$500 stacks

SB makes it $130

If I call those drunk guys are calling a lot to most likely

call, fold or shove here??

I assume the references to BB are actually more info about SB?

This one is close between calling and shoving, imo. Never folding against described V. He should be pretty wide here. If we call, we're playing fit or fold, which kinda sucks, but we have the potential to play a monster pot against the drunks who likely aren't coming along if we shove.

I’d shove if he’s capable of 3betting with TT+.

How many drunk fish called the pfr? How much money is currently in the pot?

In theory a good player should be squeezing wider than normal for value as johnny and garick mention. Calling is a potential option to keep in the fish who have lots of weak hands. I'd also be flatting my KK and AA in this spot.

The hand isn't playing very deep anymore since the pfr was so large and you got so many callers pf. I'd probably just call this spot anyway since you have no history of him 3betting yet.

3 callers puts the pot at $84 before the 3b. Using the 4X plus callers calc makes the $130 sizing reasonable.

While V could certainly be squeezing a bit wider, a thinking player will recognize Hero raised UTG, i.e. tight range considering the number of expected callers in this game. I’d go higher than $20 given the dynamic.

Call, hope to flop TPTK and get value from someone in the field.

don't mind a fold, but V could be doing this with something as light as 88, but most likely he has JJ or QQ. super high variance spot that you really don't have much control over.

the problem is, there is no way to range all the drunk fish and you have no way of knowing how many of your As and Ks that they are blocking.

Considering that V has been fairly aggressive recently and that this spot set up perfectly for a squeeze, I would range him weaker rather than strong and just go ahead and rip it in.

id just shove

I wonder if you're using this as "hoping logic". I've played in a lot of drunk games of course and this isn't a sure-fire thing by any means.

From SB's description I'm folding here. If this is a great game they'll be way better times to get $, of course this is a coin flip at best.

I'm not totally convinced this SB will be squeezing here a ton OOP. The presence of loads of drunk players is going to reduce his fold equity AND hero appears tight and raised UTG. Add in the modest stack depths (meaning hero can happily shove a good chunk of his opening range) and this just is not a good squeeze spot IMHO.

What it is a good spot for is when V has QQ+ AK himself and can induce hero or one of the drunks to GII light "because he's so obviously squeezing".

Therefore I'd be calling or folding, not shoving. We're IP vs the 3bettor and we'd surely be flatting our QQ+ to trap here too so I'm happy flatting AK a bit too.

AK wants to fold out 30-50% equity or see 5 cards. Not whiff the flop with an SPR of 1.

Yeah, there is absolutely no way I am calling here. I'd rather fold than call.

We need to make a decision right now whether we are in good shape against this guy's 3betting range or not. If we are, then we should shove. If we are not, then we should fold.

Delaying our decision until the flop, by calling, is a major RIO proposition.

Personally I might find a fold here. We have raised UTG, and we think Villain, who is "probably a pro", sees us as the only tight player on the table. Why would he risk getting involved with us without a real hand when he can just call or fold, and save the big money for the easier spots?

^ JohnnyBuzz and Vernon - would you be happy to flat AKs?

Against a thinking player don't we have to sometimes flat AK so we're a threat on Ace and King high flops or is this 3bet so big us balancing just doesn't matter or rather we can afford to defend stupidly tight?

I like this.^^
call see a flop and monitor the drunk poker for recent developments.
the more drunks the more I play ABC.
besides this is about as versatile a hand as you could hope for given this table texture.

question if we do shove, is he ever folding like jacks to us? and we just win all the money without a fight? because this would be a pretty good result for us.


the thing is if we call and miss the flop and he continues, that is not a great spot for us.


i think we just have to put it in, put the pressure on him if he 10s or jacks or 9s

Ok I can't decide so I'm going to flat AKs then fold some AKo and shove some AKo. Got to be right sometimes if I'm taking all available actions

Yes the point would be to fold out hands like JJ/TT/99 and whatever else he may be squeezing with like AQ. He may even nit it up and fold QQ as our line is insanely strong when shoving here.

with UTG raising and 2 callers
SB knows there's no fold equity to be had

easy fold
you got A high big whoop

We definitely don't want to fold out AQ. We much prefer a fold from the rest of pairs and othe AK in his range, though.

Lets assume "a few" drunk fish calling equals 3. Further, to make the math easier, let's assume they all fold if we shove (this is likely true). In that case, there is $210 in the pot already. If we shove and he folds, that is our EV for all of his holdings.

If he calls the pot will be $1060. We will be putting in $480 of that, which we are risking to win $580.

So if he calls with AQ
71.02% of the time we will win (+411.92)
24.37% of the time we will lose (-116.98)
2.31% of the time we will tie and chop the dead money (+0.69)
Overall EV $295.63, or $85 better than him folding.

Now if he has an underpair, we'd far prefer it to fold and win unopposed. In fact, even though it is a "flip," it's not We're actually a bit -EV here, even with the dead money, surprisingly. The ties are really rare here, so Imma leave them out.
43.62% of the time we win (+253)
56% of the time we lose (-268.80)
Overall EV -$15.80.

If he has AA or KK, of course, we are hating life with only 18% equity. Fortunately, we block those, so there are only three combos of each available, even if the large sizing doesn't reduce their weighting.

So let's see how we are doing against his whole range. I approximated it at 88+ AJs+ AQo+ with AA and KK reduced in weight due to his sizing.

Against that range, we have 50.35% equity and a profitable shove (+$53.60) if he calls with the whole range.

If he folds all the AJ/AQ, 88-TT and half of the JJ-QQ, he's folding 48 combos out of his range of 61 combos, or 78.69% of the time (EV=+165.25) and calls 21.31% of the time with AK and the remaining half of the JJ-AA combos (we took half of KK and AA out by his 3-bet and assumed he folds QQ/JJ half the time). When that happens we have 40.275% equity (EV=-9.60) for an overall EV of shoving of +$155.65

If his range is tighter, of course, we have much less FE. Let's say his range is only JJ+ (all combos), AQs+, and AKo. Now he only folds 9 combos out of 25 (36% of the time). Our FE is +75.60 and when called we have 38.824% equity for an EV of -44.92, for an overall EV of +$30.68.

We should never be folding unless you think his range is even tighter than this, which seems unlikely.

Of course the drunk fish math is insanely complicated and dependent, so I can't do an EV calc for flatting, or even for the weird chance one of them cold calls our shove.

Well if he wants to call it off with 25-30% with AQ then sure be my guest, but I'm operating under the assumption that a "pro" will let it go for a 4bet jam and we scoop $190.

the thing is, is on the flops we miss and he continues we are going to have to fold to his initiative.

and on the flops we hit sometimes he is still going to have us dominated.

and the flops we hit like an ace when he has queens he will not get stacked. so i think in this spot playing ak tournament style has a lot going for it.

Yeah, those are all fair. I was just responding to the "fold" argument with math, and the only math that could reasonably be done is the shove math with some assumptions.

I would never want to call HU, for the reasons you mention, but the presence of drunken fish who might call with KQ and stack off on a K-high flop makes it more complicated. The fact that we don't have position on them sucks, and as you mention we will sometimes get stacked even if we hit TPTK, so there are a lot of downsides to go with the upside. My gut feeling is that it's close, but that shoving is better, especially the wider V1's range is.

I can get behind a shove or even a call, but folding just seems wrong.

If image is correct he knows ur range in strong utg.

Never a call. Shove or fold. But I’d fold in this spot.

Did you see the math above showing a shove is profitable if his range is JJ+/AQs/AK and he calls with QQ+/AK? How much tighter do you think his range is? I just have a hard time imagining there aren't three combos of light-ish squeeze and the normal JJ+/AK in his range here.

Remember, there are only 6 combos of AA/KK available, since we block both, and nothing else crushes us.

Is it ever a consideration that if I lose my stack to the only other solid player I am back down to 100BB ($300 max buyin)?

The reason this is an issue is there are 3 other huge spots on the table sitting with $500 who are drunk and will be giving their chips away shortly so it's very valuable to cover them as much as possible.