Friday night game, just sat down 20 minutes ago. Hero picked up a pot or two raising in position a couple of times. Once was a BTN 3bet in a straddled pot, the other was an open raise on the BTN over two limpers in a straddled pot. No showdowns thus far.

V ($380) Middle-aged white guy. No history, haven't seen him play. First hand I sat down and watched was V (I think open raising to $15), 3 callers, a squeeze from a bigger stack to $80, a $150 AI by V, and a call by the big stack. V showed J9o and big stack had A3 suited. A high won and V reloaded for $300. Not quite sure how V got to $380 but I believe he had me slightly covered.

Hero ($360)

Hero opens UTG to $15 with AA. V calls $15, blinds fold. HU.

Flop ($31) T83

Hero bets $20, V raises to $60 pretty quickly. Hero?

Thoughts of my plan for the hand in spoiler (no actual spoilers!):

Aggressive action theorem. Raise to $160, jam all turn cards.

The problem with calling is that there are a ton of cards that can kill your action. He thinks his hand is boss. He's either tilted or generally too aggressive. Reraise now and let him decide you MUST have AhKx.

Unless I'm misreading the previous HH from villain, he jammed PF with 0 FE (shoved for $150 over an $80 3-bet) with J9o? If so, I'm ecstatic about getting money into this pot when he raises the flop. 3-bet to $150 and jam turn, get him to put more money in now before an overcard or heart rolls off and scares him into folding his Tx.

First Thoughts: Min raise to $120

The hand-range I put V on when he re-raises to $60 are sets, pair+flush or straight draw combo, straight draw, and top pair, okay kicker.

Flop: I feel like if we re-raise to $160+ we are folding out the lower part of his hand range. I'm not really good with the math in poker, but I think were pretty much ahead of most of his hand range here, except trips. But even if he has trips, were still about a 45% favorite ( again, not too sure about the math).

But by raising $120, it's only $60 more to call for villain, so I'm pretty sure he is likely to call with the lower part of his hand range.

Turn: If V calls our min raise OTF, the pot should be around $270, leaving us with about $240 to GII, or c/c if any A or heart comes out on the board giving us basically the nuts.

Second Thought: I think I would rather call the flop, and c/c the turn on any card, and c/c or c/r depending on the river card and V's actions. Again, were ahead most of V's range, and and re-raising would fold out most of his weaker hand range OTF.

But I think we might have to re-evaluate the turn if the board pairs.

Raise, hope he raises you and GII.
You bet 20, he raised to 60. 120-150 is a nice number. He might spaz and shove, or if he calls, pot is big enough to set up turn shove. And it's small enough that he prob calls.
With the action, Vs profile and these stacks and your hand, I am very eager to get stacks in the middle. You probably have best hand, you def have best draw.

3-bet to $150. Shove all turns.

It looks like hero is at an awesome table (I'm jealous).

UPDATE: Hero thinks for 10-20 seconds and calls.

Turn ($151) T836

Hero?

are straddle pots good for our $per hr? is there enough tables where we can convert to just stealing playing uber tight and cbetting the right boards ip in straddle games?

Playing against Vs who straddle constantly is almost universally better for our $/hr.

It really depends on the straddler/other players involved. I don't change a whole lot other than tightening my PF hand selection. Note that we're now half as deep as we were before. Sometimes I'll open fold something like 44 even in late position if I have evidence that the straddler is going to be raising a lot.

The key is recognizing how often a straddler will be raising limped pots. You should be constantly aware of position (absolute and relative) and adjust accordingly.

For example, if I see that V straddles and has raised his last 3 straddles over limpers, I'm watching how many other players are deciding to come in again. I'm less likely to isolate without a near premium hand, and actually looking to l/rr in some spots because there will be so much dead money and you can create a very desirable flop SPR.

I guess it comes down to how much confidence we put in V's predilection to stack off with air. We've seen him do it once with 50 bb to an obvious squeeze. We're now about to count on him doing it 120 bb deep to an UTG PFR when we know he doesn't have the boss heart.

If we're certain he's just shoveling chips in without rhyme or reason, well then, tally ho!

But SPR is 12 in a pot where we could easily only get it in bad. I'm a little more cautious about using one hand for such a big decision. I've seen players make decisions well below their standard level of play before.

I assume we're calling if he shoves over our 3b? As long as he's doing that with overpairs that have a heart as well as flushes, sets, and 2P, we're about even money and getting an overlay. If he's doing that only with flushes, sets, and 2P, we're not getting the odds to call.

This just feels like we're better off calling the flop and playing poker on the turn. Yep, there are cards that will kill the action. On the other hand, it's not yet clear that the action being killed is ours and not his.

thanks, nice touch..

EDIT: actually reading cotm scared money and it seems like a good concept to blend together with this straddle pot talk.. Im sure playing uber tight should be our default on the subject but i bet we'll/should be loosening up seeing favorable conditions often and knowing when we might have reason to level ourselves into thinking the table holds a type of favorable condition.

If I'm making a mistake, I'm making it big: I check here too.

If he bets, I'll range him on a flush, set, or possibly a PP that's "protecting" itself. I'll call if the bet is reasonable and eval river. If he shoves river, I'm likely to fold; raise/bet/bet is a lion's bluff or the effective nuts until I know he's a maniac.

If he checks, I think it's TP (possibly with a heart) or possibly a PP that chooses pot control. I plan to bet all rivers for value.

Wow, a $15 UTG open at a game where people are getting in stacks with J9o/A3s preflop and we somehow narrowed the field to HU? Good result, but is this really expected at this table? I probably would have limp/raised.

SPR is ~11, so I don't think we should think of stacking off, even though this guy can obviously get in stacks light (although last time he only had 50bbs). Obviously this guy can be tricky, and I'd hate to face a raise on the flop (as we will then be facing stack commitment decisions). We don't fear most draws (since we have the nut draw). We have a showdownable overpair which is cool with a street checking thru. I'd just check the flop. If it checks thru, fine, lets go for two streets of value (or perhaps even continue with a bluffcatching plan against a tricky villain). Otherwise, I'm pretty cool with him driving the bus for a while.

Now we're in a weird spot. He can apply some pretty serious pressure on the turn if we just call and whiff. We could just commit and shove to make our decisions easier, but that's not necessarily good as typically we just fold out worse and get called by better (although against this guy who knows). I'm not sure why we're lamenting the fact that we probably don't have any FE; is our plan to fold out better hands? Wish we weren't in this spot.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Didn't mention this in OP, but there were at least 3 bonafide nits at the table (played with them before), so yes it would have surprised me if the raise had gotten 4+ callers. We were also 8 handed while the player to my left (squeezer in the hand I described) got up for a smoke break.

I'm not sure how 'fold' is even in our vocabulary against this V in this spot. The likelihood of getting bluffed off of the best hand is far far too high IMO to consider it. We have very limited info, but that info infers extreme loose-aggressive tendencies and/or a penchant for tossing away money. I think assuming that he's super nutted here (flush/set/2p) is kind of MUBSY, and the goal for me in-game was to find the best way for him to stick it all in with the bottom of his range. To me, that included me "selling" a call of the raise on the flop and letting him hang himself on 'safe' turns. Now I'm debating whether it makes more sense to c/shove turn or c/c c/c river.

I think it's a huge mistake to assume players play the same with 50bb stacks as they do with 120bb stacks.

GimoG

I think a call here is a mistake. A pot sized raise would be my go to option, with a shove baring another raise.

Checking this flop is insanely bad. You can easily get 3 streets of value here vs. the described villain. Yes, we shouldn't assume that villain plays the same with a 120bb stack as he does with a 50bb stack, but we should definitely assume based on his previous play that villain is more than willing to gamble and take aggressive lines in bad spots. You're absolutely crushing his range on this flop, and a fourth heart could very well kill your action against all sorts of hands that will call a flop bet.

If you think someone is often taking aggressive lines with with weak hands then checking is exactly what you want to do.

Yes, but it depends on the type of player that villain is. Some over-aggro players take aggressive lines at any sign of weakness. Some play back at aggression with more aggression of their own. Seems like this villain is more likely to be the latter based on his shove over the squeeze with J9o. Also, checking this flop is going to make it much harder for us to get villain's stack.