My main questions about this hand boils down to the preflop decision, which I believe I royally messed up. I'll post my thought process at the end.

There is some history between the two villain's in the hand, which is important to understand.

V1 is a local pro. He probably plays 80 hours a week, mainly 2/3 and 5/5 (when it runs). He's the most advanced player at the table. It's common knowledge that V1 has a wide opening Range. He's opening all his suited double gappers from mid position. He's opening all suited connectors, some suited 1 gappers, and Ax suited from UTG. I think he even showed down J6 suited from UTG+3 earlier in the session. He relies on hand reading and post flop skills to compensate for loose preflop play.

V2 is a local semi-winning reg, level 2/3 thinker. He's a mixed bag. Sometimes he makes very spewey plays. I've called down several huge multistreet bluffs for 200bb with marginal holdings. Recently he's had the better of me with his river bets. He recognizes V1's loose range, and likes to isolate light.

Hero is probably viewed as not getting too out of line preflop, possibly a bit of a station postflop (especially considering my recent history with V2).

V1, V2, and Hero are all 500 effective.

Preflop: Hero straddles UTG to 6, V1 in MP2 opens to 25, V2 in BB raises to 75. Hero looks down at two black Jacks.

Hero flats. V1 flats. Pot = 227. Players are 425 effective.

Flop: 578ss.

V2 leads for 200, Hero folds, V1 folds.

So, I think I really messed up the preflop play on this one. If I give V1 an opening range of 30% of hands, and V2 a 3-betting range of >10%, I think the math works out that shoving preflop is + EV. As played, my plan was to call a reasonable half pot sized turn bet on a dry flop with no Ace (like Q72). When the flop comes 578, I think this is smacking V2's range pretty hard, and I don't think he's cbetting this board texture with air for $200.

So how badly was this hand misplayed?

Against these two players, I can get behind a PF shove with JJ. I can also see folding. But calling and then folding on this raggedy flop just seems really bad.

I think your flop play is incredibly MUBsy. With the descriptions you just gave, that flop is glorious for JJ and a snap-jam.

As for preflop, I don't necessarily mind a flat, although I think you just have to 4-bet GII here given descriptions of villains. You're in a straddled pot so you only have 86 BBs effective.

Also: Q72 is WAAAAAY worse of a flop than 875 why do you say that you will GII on a non-ace flop and then say 875 smacks his range? Which is it?

I was planning on calling V1 down, but the sizing of his flop bet really threw me off. When my flatting range is clearly so strong, I just don't see him cbetting with air at that size. Of course, I may have incorrectly analyzed whether or not he has this sizing tell -- he is spewey after all. Which is why I am kicking myself for not taking the simple option and shoving preflop

What hands do you think V2 3bets with in this spot preflop? What hands do you expect to get value from with a preflop shove?

My logic is probably incoherent. My thought process was that he has many more combos of monsters on 875 than Q72 (9 combos of sets versus 6 combos, 3 combos of 2 pair versus 0 combos, 6 combos of pair plus open ended straight draw, versus 0 combos). So when he bombs the flop for 200, it's less likely to be air on the 875 flop than the Q72 flop.

When villain calls my shove, I think I'm in bad shape. Probably facing {AK,QQ+}, which I think I have roughly 35% equity against. But I think V2 is isoing wide, like 10% of hands, and his shove calling range makes up the top 3% of that range. So 7 times out of 10, I'm scooping 100 dollars in dead money from the pot, and 3 times out of 10 I'm seeing a board as a 2:1 dog. I think it works out to be +EV (+70 when he folds, and like - 30% 166 = -51 when he calls).

I ran the hand through an equity calculator, giving villain a range of {AsKs, AsQs, KsQs, 56s,67s,78s, 99+, 88, 77, 55}. We're ~37% against that range. Nowhere close to the odds required to GII on the flop. What I'm unsure of his how often he's bombing the flop with air. I discounted the possibility given how strong my flatting range is supposed to be in this spot (V2 should know this).

[table]ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation
308,880 trials (Exhaustive)
board: 875

You need 40% equity to GII. 37% is not "nowhere near" he only needs a couple less strong hands here to justify the shove. I think he can have more spade hands like A7ss A6ss A8ss and A8 suited and some other hands that make the jam a lot better.

I have no idea why we are putting in dead money UTG with a straddle especially at a table which features at least 2 good players.

I find preflop pretty tough being so deep. I mean if we were shortstacking at like $200 then whatever, probably just get it in. But deeper it is a much more difficult spot. I think I sometimes just take a low variance line here and just nit fold. We don't have the odds to setmine, the other guy still might come over the top (are we comfortable playing for these stacks preflop with JJ?), we'll likely be OOP to one guy postflop, both villains aren't easy money, and JJ is going to flop horrible a lot. I mean obviously sometimes we have the best hand here too, so it would definitely be an extremely nitty fold, but unless we flop a J postflop for our remaining $425 it just ain't gonna be too easy. Tough spot, imo.

The other options preflop (calling and reraising) both have pros and cons. Obviously reraising is pretty much committing our stack (can we really raise to 1/2 our stack to fold?). One benefit of flatting might be that it'll force everyone to play more honestly postflop especially 3way especially with us taking this to the face preflop, and so we can make hero folds like we did on the flop, although it costs us a fair bit / we'll flop horrible a lot / we still have the other guy behind us even if the first guy checks.

Gsometimespokerishard,imoG

Haha. Well, there are two negative EV actions that I sometimes take to try to reduce the perception that I'm a nit (which I am). One thing is to straddle every few orbits -- there are a few other players who do the same, and it is nice to return the favor once in a while. The other thing is related to bomb pots. I hate them because they are high-variance. But I choose to participate for meta-game reasons, even though the way that I play them is -EV. There's something about sitting out of a bomb pot which can really ruin your image IMO.

The other thing I wanted to point out is that we actually aren't that deep. Due to the straddle, we're less than 84bbs effective.

I think the payback in EV (if there really is any at all) by participating in straddles and bomb pots is vastly overrated, imo.

G/derailG

I think the payback in EV (and there is really some) by participating in straddles (for us, on the button) encourages others to straddle and raises the stakes and loosens the action when it happens, no matter who does it.

If we are the worst player at the table, we should get a table change. If we are "middle of the pack" or better, we should want bigger stakes and looser action.

Can I prove it? Hardly.

Do I do it? Yes.

Are the pots bigger? Yes.

Do I win "my share" of them? Sometimes.

But sometimes it only takes one such pot.

You can't profitably setmine for $75 out of your $500 stack. Preflop I can see arguments to take any action but if you flat you have to continue on this flop.

could be the entire table straddling? it's not a cardinal sin to straddle from time to time and not the most -EV in the world to do. sometimes when im card dead i will just put the straddle on. not sure why 2p2 has to shame people and make them feel like they killed a puppy when they put a straddle on from time to time.

gg is just an uber nit. I love the straddle. Players play so passive and so terribly and so terribly passive in straddled pots that you gotta love it.

If you've convinced yourself that this is somehow a long term boom to your winrate participating in this stuff, you're welcome to opinion. As someone who has never straddled / never shot blind / never bomb potted / etc., and done perfectly fine at all of these tables, I just believe it's highly overrated concept.

GimoG

Last session out my typical action table went thru a bit of a lull of action, to the point where a total of 5 straddles over about ~hour got a walk, lol.

GubernitG

i never implied that it's a "long term boom" to the win rate. i just dont think its that big of a deal if 1) you are fine/happy to participate in straddling if people want to or 2) you just occasionally throw it out for either image purposes or to just show some of the action players that you aren't nitting it up 24/7.

i just dont understand why every time there is a HH here with hero straddling
the first 5 comments are always "why the hell are we straddling?" people in this forum have to act like OP killed a child

in some games/environments/rooms it is GREAT for the game to be willing to straddle. maybe not yours GG because you always just talk about how your games are different. but like i said, we dont need to act like someone is committing a crime because they straddled