Villain is a bit loose pre but not crazily so - looser than optimal but not a huge fish. May overvalue hands post, but we've only been playing together for an hour so I don't have much of a read.

Straddle to my left, 1 limper to me in MP, I go $55 with AJ, straddle (villain) calls, limper folds.

Flop: J94 ($115)
I bet $100, he raises to $300, I.... (he has $550 behind, I cover)

If I go all in, I think he can probably fold most hands I beat if he was getting odd with KJ or something. He'll call when he has equity to do so. He should have 2 two pair combos, 9 set combos, 4 combo draws, then like 11-12 flush draws and 8 OESD, possible 15 combos of KQ w/o FD.

Sizing is just too big, cuts away at your options particularly in conjunction with the straddle making things so shallow.
AP what happens is you wind up torn between two legitimate forces. The first telling you to jam TPTK in a narrow vs wide range spot at ~90bbs - the other, telling you to bet-fold given the likely equity deficit against and the fact this is still ~180bb worth of chips relative to the game, which is a lot to wager in such a spot.

It's obviously hard to realize equity oop against almost any opponent, so what I tend to do is keep things deep early in hands as best I can to keep all options on the table. You're somewhat limited to do so bc of the straddle, but you could have easily made it 40 pre which accomplishes the same thing pre while still allowing for flexibility post. That flexibility translates to visibility and most importantly it goes straight to EV... for example, AJ might have been able to bet-call flop instead of 0EV folding or questionable bet-3betting.

Preflop sizing is fine.

I'd bet flop smaller.

As played this is just a ****ty spot. When he is bluffing he most likely has a good combo draw, or at least a FD with 1 over as a lot of villains like this one aren't raising nearly "enough", ie they're not raising KQ, 78 without clubs. Although I guess we can't really make that assumption with only an hour of play.

The ****ty part of this spot is he's repping so goddamn thin for value that isn't a combodraw, but your not in great shape vs combodraws.

I think your combo math is off. Is he really open limping 99 or JJ in MP? He's got J9s, maybe J9o (even then... pretty unlikely) and 55. So he's got 3 55, 1 J9s (we block the J9dd) maybe some J9o or 95s and a bunch of good-decent draws.

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

25,740 trials (Exhaustive)

board: J95

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AdJd	46.65%	12,006	5
QxTx, Tx8x, Ac2c, Ac3c, Ac5c, Ac6c, Ac7c, Ac8c, Ac9c, AcTc, 55, Js9s, 9c8c, 9c7c, 9cKc, 9cQc, KcQc, KcTc, 7c8c	53.35%	13,729	5

This range isn't going to be perfectly accurate but should give you a rough idea. If you add KQ the equity goes up to 52.17%. If we leave all J9 and KQ it's 48.03%, if we leave all J9 and remove KQ it's 41.41%.

This is a close spot and I don't think you're losing too much money no matter which decision you make. I might just make a nitty-ish fold suspecting that it might be slightly EV. If villain had jammed instead of making it 300 we'd still be getting probably the right price to call.

Wow! .. that's good move. I remember I've seen it sometime back. Maybe last week? _ I don't remember but I'm sure I've seen this play before. That is called "playing for stacks without fold equity" - That's part of the GTO?

We are either flipping or drawing slim or dead unless he's going ape **** with KJ.

Fold.

This. We are only called if we are beat or flipping. Not a great situation either way.
Sigh and fold.
Limping pre might not be a bad option, if you take it down pre with your raise you don't win that much.
If called you could be in bad shape.
Besides all the combo draws villain could also have an overpair or set.

Bet flop smaller ~$70. Fold to his raise.

Agree on folding cause bluffs will have so much equity, for GTO probably calling with AJ and fold rest?

Actually my question: What would we do if Hero has AA / KK / QQ ?

If we're limping AJs pre, what are we raising pre? Just AQ+, TT+?

What about ck-c flop?

very wise advice...you are in a no mans land on stack sizes and OOP, so your sizing really stinks pre and otf

check the flop because we have to fold when we are raised because of our stack sizes

this is a spot where sizing matters a lot...you have turned your odds inside out and made v a big favorite

40 pre, cc flop, any size bet sucks

as played snap call and pray

had we bet 40 pre we could bet/fold

It's situational, we can certainly raise AJ or worse at times, but I just don't like it here.
There's not enough dead money in the pot and it's already been straddled.When we make big raise to get heads up pre flop I prefer a better hand.
I would rather see a flop for 10$ against 4 or 5 opponents with AJ suited, rather than have a bloated pot heads up.

Yeah but not all AJ. Prefer to xc with AcJx

+1 to not being a fan of the pre or flop sizing. I feel like when you take that sizings you are looking to GII because you think villain can semi-bluff light. I'd rather just keep ranges wider and use more moderate sizing throughout for the reasons Amanaplan stated.

I know the players at SugarHouse are terrible which likely influenced your max value sizing but I don't think our hand strength and hot/cold equity vs. a raise warrants such large sizing. Sizing your sets that large is likely fine as I don't see SugarHouse players picking up on your bet sizing differences between TPTK and sets on boards like this.

Sizing pre is the only amount that was getting folds, $40 never gets through and picking up the $27 dead is huge especially when rake takes out $7 if we see a flop. I could possibly see an argument for limping > raising but with only the straddle and a limper left to act I'm pretty sure my AJs is the best hand.

On the flop I normally go smaller - I am experimenting with incorporating two bet sizes in my game, and on a flop like this I want them to be about half pot and near full pot. If I had a hand like JTs i'm going smaller, but AJs is just going to be the best hand almost always on this board.

johnnyBuz, isn't TPTK going to be good almost as much as a set on this board? While also benefiting more from getting folds from weaker hands, which will still have plenty of equity?

Most of the time pre I don't think we are sizing for all folds, we are sizing to isolate

The raising range you're assigning him would paint a picture that V is pretty aggressive. Has he raised the flop against other players yet in the hour you've seen him play? What are his preflop tendencies (i.e. does he usually open limp/call, open raise, or a mix of both)? How old does V look?

Pre is too small to me. I'd be fine with 65-75 here. I'm confused on positions though? Is it a rock straddle?

Sorry I should have been more clear - that is not his raising range, that is as wide as his raising range gets, it practice it is probably narrower. Not many reads unfortunately

I think the only hands I prefer to see a flop rather than lock up 5.5bb worth of profit would be KK and AA. Maaaaaaaybe QQ/AKs. So I'd say most of the time pre, we love all folds.

It is not a rock straddle, but you can straddle from everywhere. I'm in MP, straddle is to my left so I'm last to act before straddle pre.




FWIW, this hand is heavily influenced by No Limit Hold'Em for Advanced Players, which advocates for rooting for people to fold even when you have a very strong hand. I just started playing around with it so I'm not sure how well it works in practice

While we love when flop is folded, using a large size like $100 vs $65 isn't going to induce "more" folds on this board at LLSNL. Also, we don't have to worry about protecting against hands that are going to continue anyways.

The reason we could size up with 99-JJ here is because of the hot/cold equity of a set vs having AJ, our reluctance to 3bet GII with AJ given equities and our awkward spr given oop if we bet $100/call a 3bet. Not to mention we just put more money in the pot vs an inelastic range that won't adjust enough/ever vs our sizing.

This isn't a spot I'm ever worried about balancing and I think we could have 0 bluffs on the flop that aren't at least really good draws like an OESD/FD or better.

Sizing matters a lot here.

I misread the hand anyway. Thought we were on sb but we need to price this for pure value pre flop.

Sizing on flop is good only if we want to GII. In which case i think jam>>>call

I hate the sizing pre. If we want dead money we can size it more then check flop back. Or we can go 40 pre and induce on flop with small bet. 55 pre and almost full pot just allows v to continue with a stronger range. I hate this all the way around.

That being said, as played i like to jam here because you could fold the best hand a lot because we dont know what draw he is on. We are behind some and ahead of others and we cant fold if he jams turn

After 55 pre i would check flop and peel tho. You are not ever ever getting flatted on this texture i think, so v will either fold or raise

Oh wow its a mid pos straddle yuck...that changes everything. No wonder we were OOP to the straddle.

I get it now. This seems a lot better in light of this. I have now changed my mind and the sizing seems better pre. Cc flop tho, as played jam