This hand was from a 2/2 NL game in Jacksonville, FL this weekend. The room was having a high hand promotion, so it was absolutely slammed with fishy recreational players just hoping to hit the $1,000 bonus. Both of the villains in this hand seemed to fit into that category.

Hero (UTG): early 30's white guy, playing fairly snug for the past 2 hours. Bluffed a few times, but only showed down premium hands. Stack ~$240.

Villain 1 (UTG+1): middle aged black guy directly to my left. Fairly passive, but has raised a few times preflop. Post-flop, I've seen him slow play monster hands at least a couple times. Stack ~$115.

Villain 2: (BTN): older white gentleman (mid-70's), very passive but not as nitty as you might guess just based on his age. Hasn't said a word to anyone the whole time I've been here. Stack ~$65.

Hero limps UTG w/ 55. V1 in UTG+1 makes it $7, 3 people call (including V2 on the BTN), hero calls.

Flop: QT5r (Pot ~$30)
Hero bets $12 (I know this bet is on the small side, but even with a $30 pot, $20+ would be viewed as a huge bet at this table, so I decided to bet an amount that I thought might encourage marginal hands to call), V1 makes it $25, 2 folds, V2 calls, action back to hero. V1 has about $85 more behind, and V2 has about $20 behind. Hero covers.

Thoughts on how the hand was played so far?

At this point, is this always just a shove? Or could there be merit in making a small raise to $55 or $60, which would be enough to put V2 all in but would leave V1 with about $55 more behind?

You bet small, which could induce a hand as weak as top pair to raise. The raise and flat call is not exactly a fist pump shove but it is an easy shove. You can't fold given those stack sizes and there is no reason to let them draw for free if they have the OESD or top two. The shove might scare off top pair hands, but after the bet/raise/double flat call they shouldn't be putting any more money in anyway. Heads up just flatting the raise to get top pair to bet turn might be right, but once the raise gets called just shove.

Preflop is fine if the table is loose and passve, which is typical for these situations. Table appears to be a bit short so you don't want to raise a small pair and get reraised. Better to limp and call a small/medium raise and fold if the raise is too big. Flop I would bet bigger into that many, to keep the straight draws from being able to draw cheaply. Betting smaller isn't entirely bad though, higher variance but should keep weaker hands around.

Your small bet induced a raise and trapped a player in between. Great result. Blast away, root for quads, be happy win or lose. It is almost always correct to fast play sets on the flop.

Given the action and stack sizes id just shove. Probably bet ~18 on flop though at that type of table.

Bet 18 on flop reraise all in

I would make it 60 here. You want to try and entice them to come in, because once you get him to put that 60 in, the rest is going in on the next card no matter what it is. If he shows down QQ or TT here, i'm going to live with that and call it a cooler even given your description. At no point would I ever believe I was behind short of him showing me the cards. There are just so many weaker hands in his range.

The flop bet is small but I guess you said you're trying to induce and it worked! I wouldn't ship here. I'd min raise back then let him put his stack in or fold.

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Considering the PFR is directly to your left and that the stacks are pretty small, I think you are better off checking this flop and letting him take the lead. Too often your bet will be met with a raise that will fold out hands that would have otherwise been strung along.

As played, it doesn't really matter. I don't mind flatting and jamming any turn.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

When the action got back to me, I decided to just make a small raise to $55 total. To be honest, I'm not sure why I chose that option instead of just shoving at that point other than the fact that this table had playing so passively that I was worried that by betting too big I'd only get called by hands that had me beat, but I thought that he'd probably call a small raise with his entire range.

Anyway, after I made it $55, V1 reraised all in to $110 total, and V2 called. Since my plan the whole time was to get it in here, I pretty much instacalled, but in hindsight I'm wondering if I should have considered just folding once V1 shoves. I wasn't really worried about V2, but V1's line (raise/4bet shove) looks super strong, and I don't know if a passive villain like this is ever making this play with anything other than QQ or TT.

So can this ever be a 3bet/fold on the flop with the stack sizes being what they are? Or are we committed to just getting it in and hoping to see villain show up with QT or an overpair?

Stack sizes say stack off every time. Set over set happens.

"We don't pave these streets by folding sets." ~anonymous

It sounds like villain showed up with QQ or TT. It's too bad, OP, but you have to call here. Villain could still have AA or KK, or QT.

Even if villain 1 only has QT, TT or QQ, there are 9 combinations of QT he could have, and only 6 total combinations of TT and QQ.

Although the fact that he is passive but raised UTG tends to take QT out of his range entirely.

So think of it this way: he has 6 possible combinations of AA and 6 possible combinations of KK. Still very possible for him to have one of those hands.