Here's a 2/5 live poker hand I'm curious what folks here would think:

Hero: One of larger stacks at ~$1850
Villian: ~$1400, playing very TAG all night rarely losing small/mid pots at showdown

Playing 6 or 7 handed, Hero is the button and calls $30 raise from UTG with the 67d; 4 callers; Villian in CO

Pot: $127

Flop: 9d4d5c

Check around to V who overbets $200; Hero calls, everyone else folds to HU play

Pot: $427

Turn: 6h

V bets $500, Hero calls

Pot: $1427

River: 9c

V shoves last $670 with 9d4d5c6h9c board??????????

Thoughts???????????

Guess what? He doesn't want you to draw. Fold on the flop.

River is a pretty obv fold

Im not folding flop with this combo draw though. Might consider just jamming it in otf as sick as that sounds, although calling flop and turn isnt bad either.

Really don't like any of it. He's not giving you odds to draw.
If you want to make a crazy move for it, then re-blast his flop bet or shove his turn bet.

As played, calling his large bets down is giving you little options except loosing money to his over pair.

In bulk, several points to note:

1) An overbet OTF is usually a bad bet because it will be called or raised only by stronger made hands and it will get correct folds from weaker hands and draws (that is vs thinking players).
But here you have such a monster draw that it could be considered almost as a very strong made hand. You have at least 50% against any range. So going on in the hand, even versus such an overbet is not unreasonnable.

2) When it comes to play draws passively or agressively OTF, one important factor to consider is not to have stacks exorbitantly large compared to the pot size, in which case it's better to play the draw passively.

3) Other factors to consider are number of outs (better to play agressively when you have a lot of them, which is the case here) and fold equity (better to play aggro when you have some, which shouldn't be case here)

All in all, it seems to me that playing your draw in call mode is not the best option here.
One additionnal reason for this choice is that you may not get your opponent stack if a diamond hit as it will be very scary to Villain. In other rare cases you may face the nut flush which would be a disaster.

That leaves us with the agressive play, that is the raise OTF, or the fold.
But now we face another problem: the stack sizes are really not optimal at all for a standard raise. If you raise his $200 bet to like $600, Villain may shove and you really don't want to be the caller here but you'd rather be the last raiser, so you get some fold equity.

So we get to the last option: shove directly his $200 bet OTF. You'll have maximum fold equity (theorically, because really it's playing your draw face up against any player with a brain). But anyway, you'll always have a tiny bit of FE, and when you are called, it's 50/50.

So we get to the ultimate question before putting your ships in the middle: Do you like variance? I mean the shove is probably the optimal play, but there is very little to gain really and you'll either win $1400 or lose $1400. If you want to avoid huge swings, you'd better let it go and just fold. That's what I would do.

EDIT: after giving it some more thought, we can't say that you won't have any FE by shoving. After all if Villain has a hand like JJ or QQ, he will always be hard pressed to call $1200 more. He will be afraid to face a set and drawing to a 2 outer. So the shove is better but it's a high variance play.

Now as played, OTT, the worst option is still the call but the shove is possible again as you have a decent amount of equity (around 45%). I think that the shove and the fold OTT have very close EV.

OTR, easy fold.

That overbet is ridiculous but the only reason he does it is because idiots will call him. Just fold flop and hopefully he will realize how horrible his bet-sizing is.

I hear you guys. So the options here are just to shove flop or fold to the overbet since we're not getting odds?!? So nobody's thinking it's a marginally good to a good call on the river?

Just curious:

Can jamming the flop be bad?

Board: 9d 4d 5c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 45.731% 45.73% 00.00% 6791 0.00 { 7d6d }
Hand 1: 54.269% 54.27% 00.00% 8059 0.00 { AA, 99, 55-44 }

I mean, if he over bets with anything that is not a set, and then folds all of his hands that are not a set, don't we make money by shoving?

At the first overbet I thought he might've flopped a set which, if I hit one of my draws, I was going to stack him with.

Then when the six came and he bet so big I realized maybe he had top set and stone cold nuts. While the $500 bet may've been the point I should've folded I just didn't believe him.

Then when the last nine came I thought it was a lot less likely he had top set. Realistically what could he have had other than air at that point since all the draws missed?

Is calling this down to the end really that bad a play?

I would just fold the flop, you are 50/50 at best and worse vs sets and nfd. Tight opponent probably won't pay you of if you hit. You have about a 25% chance of making your hand OTT and you are clearly getting no where near the right odds to call. Now if you do call the flop you should definitely fold OTT for the same reasons.

River is obvious fold, you beat nothing.

Well actually pure_aggression I did hit my six on the turn...

A 6 doesn't beat a set, 2p doesn't beat a set. Tight guy isn't overbetting then shipping it in with nothing.

Easy flop raise for freeroll fold equity. What are you worried about? Learn to put pressure on deep stacked opponents and see what happens.

NFD's make this situation a bit complicated because it's good for you if he has them and folds, but very bad for you if he has them and calls.

I would jam. Ignoring NFD's for now, like iraisetoomuch posted, if he *only* has AA, 99, 55, and 44 and always calls it off, then a jam is slightly worse than breakeven (investing $1350 more to have 45% equity in a 2850 pot). If he folds even once in a blue moon, it's +EV. If someone else checked the flop with a set and you get it in 3 ways vs. two sets, you're godlike.

So yea the above analysis is an ESTIMATE based on a couple oversimplifications, but I don't think your in-game scenario can possibly be that much worse. Also you neglected hero's image, if you seem tight then villain may even fold bottom set :P

As ATSai likes to recommend, shake your head and say "well, guess it's time to go home" before you jam

Thanks everyone for your mid hand analysis. Very helpful stuff and I obviously made a ton of mistakes in how I played the hand so far. My table image is very TAG too and when I do raise it often leads to insta-folds around the table. I've spent the whole night grinding my way up to >$1800.

The real question I have is that ATR I'm facing a $670 shove into a pot that now has a big fat ~$2,100 sitting in the middle. If I do call and am facing nuts then I'm left with a piddly $450 and Villain owns my soul. If I fold I'm just roughly breakeven for the session which is "nice" but I'm gonna feel pretty owned too. I'm not liking the prospect of shipping the pot to TAG villain here.

I'm now faced with the fact that I've missed both my flush draw and my straight draw. However, I did hit a 6 on the turn so I can only beat A high, lower pairs and any air.

Yes, you beat all of those hands.

But what makes you think that he has any of those hands in his range?

And if we think that he has any of those hands in his range, then we should def be jamming the flop.

As we are def going to show a profit in the long run.

If his range is 75% sets, which will calll, 15% nut flush draws, which will 50/50 call and fold, and 10% air, which he will fold, jamming will be +EV for us.

I don't think this is correct at all, I think there is almost no air in his range the way that he's played the hand, but IF you have read of that, and if you really think that he has air here on the river, then he certainly had more air in his range on the flop, and a jam is profitable.

Good luck.

I guess hands like this are exactly why we play poker.

While no one was willing to co-sign the choice of play on this hand and according to standard poker logic we've done almost everything wrong here.

And yet at the same time [spoiler alert] I tanked for a long, long, long time then called V's $670 bet and took down the $2750 pot with my measly pair of sixes. He showed me his QJ and walked away from the table with a wry little smile. It was easily the biggest pot of the night at that table and made me realize again why I love this game so much.

Lol at this brag thread

Even though your right this time like 90% of the time you will be beat

Maybe you're right xyos and maybe I am happy that it turned out this way as opposed to how it was "supposed" to go. At the same time it's important to talk about hand logic and the rights and wrongs to maximize value at the table. Here we did everything "wrong" and stacked the other deepest stack at the table.

Listen im not trying to rain on your parade but you're not thinking about poker like a winning player if you're proud of taking a poor line which happens to maximize value vs some very specific holdings.

Yes thats alot of $$ in this hand but you could have easily lost and been kicking yourself for weeks.

I think you're 100% right Aesah. I don't think I really understood just how awful the line I took was until it was batted around on this thread. In fact I'm pretty embarrassed by how weakly I played it and that I was in that position facing his OTR jam. That said it also shows how arbitrary and counterintuitive the game can sometimes be. What fun would a game be if stanky play wasn't so richly rewarded sometimes?

we've all been there :P

Hero's hand is FD + OESD right? Raise/call off seems pretty standard.

Think iraisetoomuch has it right. Jamming the flip is the best play here and any other play is kind of weak and stanky. While V may've folded to my raise leaving me a tidy little pot in the long run that's the winning play there. Instead of felting V most of the time I'm gonna be up against a monster there.