Normally play $1/3 and started there today but moved to $2/5 when the game started to follow one of the worst players I have ever seen, he is V3 in the hand. This table had been amazing, 5 loose bad villains and one super tight old guy. 7 handed, plexiglass, $1k max buy in.

Hero - mid 30s WG, playing bigger than normal, but play 2/5 regularly during bi-annual Vegas trips. Not scared money but playing tight. It may appear that I’m playing more loose than I am because I have had a nice run of cards, winning big pots with and without showdown. No bluffs caught or shown. Came to table from 1/3 where I was in for $600. Brought $999 from 1/3 and stack is $2100.

V1 - 60s WG, very loose, I feel like he has called almost all of my opens. Has rebought for the the $200 minimum several times. He recently won a pot where he made top pair AJ on a JT4 board and got it in vs the pre-flop raisers KK and then rivered a 3rd J. Stack $650.

V2 - late 20s/early 30s Middle Eastern, very loose, tilted, threw cards off the table when his AA lost all in pre $700 stacks against V3’s lol JT. H he as been in every pot that hasn’t been 3bet...folding maybe 10% hands pre. Stack $500.

V3 - mid 30s WG - very loose, very bad, bad at hand reading, plays slow, pays off in situations where he’s obviously beat. I abused him at 1/3 and followed him to 2/5. I was shocked by him getting called for 2/5 and felt I had to follow. He has straddled each time and I have been the button on his straddle at both tables. I have raised his straddle at least 10 times and have won several small/medium pots. He has called my raises and I folded the one time he 3bet. We played a big hand at 1/3 where I smooth called his bets until the river and snapped his shove with KK and he instamucked. He’s in for about $2500 but won the aforementioned hand with JT vs AA. Stack $1700.

V1 SB
V2 BB
V3 Straddle
Hero Button

Pre-Flop
Folds to Hero who opens to $45 looking to iso V3. Could have probably went to at least $60 because both V1 and V2 call without much thought and V3 ponders for a while and calls.

Flop ($180)
JJT hhx
All villains check fairly quickly. Hero considers a bet but decides to check behind as there could easily be J out and there and none of these guys are folding a PP or a T to a C-bet.

Turn ($180)
A x
V1 and V2 check, V3 leads for $80

Hero?

What's your hand? AK?

I guess that’s important. My hand is KQ hx.

I would be shocked if we don't have the best hand right now. I would raise to $400 and look to shove most rivers.

As played call the raise, let position work for you and hope he bets river so you can raise/jam whatever your heart desires. If he really cant hand read or was slowplaying J9 or something you get paid a lot.

But lets go back to the flop. You say "there could easily be a J out there", no it's not easy to flop trips. Regardless your cbet here while unlikely to fold out better still has merit because with an OESD and broadway cards in view you can fire the turn too. You have lots of credibility in spots like this. People only call one time just to see if you check the turn or to get supremely lucky, neither of which is likely to happen. Bet half pot next time. If they call again they likely arent folding the river so just x/f if you miss

I think in practice we make more money if we raise turn. Ace, k,q,10,j are scary cards. Also someone might have the heart draw.

I’d make it like 300.

^^^This.

Given the loose opponents, I'd raise to $225, about 1/2 of the remaining stack of V2. Might get some value from FD/98s or a slow-played JX.

Make it 280 and fire most rivers 400. Getting in 1700 is probably an overplay even against spewy V3

Hero Raises to $220 total. V1 and V2 fold. V3 thinks for at least 2 minutes and makes it $700 total.

Hero?

why didn’t you start here? It’s a tough spot because he either has the same hand as us or a full house. He doesn’t have naked Jack or or some sort of pair plus flush draw.

I think we can fold vs population. . Obviously really hard spot. He raised kind of big too. Like if he made it like 550 I would peel I guess. But 700 maybe we just lay it down.

If your read the guy is maniacal obviously call down. But even like maniacs aren’t 4 bet bluffing the turn too often.

Villain obviously likes his hand. Is he bad enough to be over valuing a worse hand that much? That is harder to say.

Has his bet sizing changed since he got a big stack? Has he been betting more just because he has more in front of him? Has he been trying to push people around? How bad is his bet sizing in general? Have you seen any other post flop 3 bets?

With a slightly better bad player I could get away from this fairly easily. The pattern reeks of his having a boat and his small bet was trying to see if he could suck anybody in. Once that got raised he suddenly wants to play for stacks and went big. This guy sounds like he might be bad enough to do this with a worse hand though.

One additional consideration when both you and villain are well over a buy in is that you don't want to fall too far behind. If he double up through you here he will have over $3K. Now you need to double up through him just to get enough to stack him. This counts against some marginal situations because if your wrong it becomes much harder to recover.

All that said, I still want to fold here. Hero doesn't have the nuts and it's a good board for villain to show up with a boat. His 3 betting turn means I'm not looking forward to getting money in here, it's deciding if I think he might be so bad that I can't fold. If I'm not folding I'm just calling. He has to go first on the river and if he is over playing I want to let him continue. If he wants to check it down at this point I'm willing to check behind. One thing I'm not doing is calling turn and folding river much. If I'm calling turn I'm planning on calling all but the worst rivers.

Hero decides that he can’t fold to this specific villain and flats with the plan to call River unless it’s a disastrous card.

River ($1580)
8x

Villain takes 30 seconds and shoves. Hero calls and villain tables QJos excitedly. He was not happy to see Hero’s straight.

Thanks for your thoughts.

yeah some players are that clueless that this would be a calldown. its actually a tough position you get in sometimes determining how clueless your opponent is. also sometimes the clueless people have the goods and even though you read them correctly as clueless you still lose.

but yeah good call down i guess.

Nobody 3bets with a boat, thats trappy mctrap slowplay time. I would never in a million years fold the nut straight to a splashy villain just because the board paired, especially a high pair that would include a degree of 3betting preflop if there were any big hands in play.

Raising turn as some suggested is fine, I just dont want to scare off something weaker than trips he might be overplaying. The fact he'd take this line with QJ, while unsurprising does indicate he overvalues a lot of hands. He obviously didnt think 2 seconds about what a turn x/r means in a paired board and that a straight is literally the bottom of your range when you do this. For that reason I feel it expands his range much wider than trips and thus he could actually fold some of the time.

Re: preflop

Opening to $60 on the button sounds excessive unless that has been the table norm or something. Sure you would prefer to just play against the whale, but it's gonna look weird if you size up and you might just fold out a bunch of dumb hands that normally tag along, deflating your own value.

Maybe it was just a passing comment based on the result of both blinds calling, but that would be a way above average open in most games.

Flop check is probably fine, I don't love to barrel draws into 3+ opponents unless it's very strong. In this case it is quite strong but the paired board / reverse implied odds for some of your outs seems reasonable to tap the brakes and play some poker on the turn.