Hand occurred a few nights ago so my recollection is a little fuzzy. Playing at a fairly soft 2/5 game around 1-2am. Hero is a 20's guy, been at the table for a couple of hours playing fairly tight and have won a few medium pots. In for $700 sitting on $1300.

V1 is a late 20's rec. Most likely a losing player. Only hand of note we've played together was my first orbit at the table when I bought in for $500. UTG EP limped, he raised to $25 from EP/MP, I 3! AKo from the BB to $80 and only villain called. Flop was J97cc (I have no clubs), I c-bet 75/160 and villain insta-jammed and I mucked. In hindsight this is probably closer to a x/f but that is our history. Villain's stack has bounced around but we have fairly similar stack size now.

V2 is another 20's rec and definitely a losing player. Not terribly relevant to the hand.

V3 was a 20s/30s Jewish guy with yamaka that was playing surprisingly tight but unremarkable. Was mostly forgettable and didn't add much to the game.

OTTH

Effective Stacks: $400-1300

V1 ($1300) straddles $10 UTG
V2 ($400) calls $10 UTG+1
V3 ($600) calls $10 UTG+2
MP, HJ fold
Hero ($1300) raises to $40 from the CO with QJ
BTN, SB, BB fold
V1 calls $40
V2 folds
V3 calls $40

I've been experimenting with smaller raise sizes with speculative holdings that play well multiway. Straddles at the table have been fairly rare so I'm not sure how sticky villains will be, but I believe their calling ranges are fairly inelastic between $40-50. If I had a hand like ATo, I would probably size up to $50-55 and try to take it down preflop, but with a hand like QJs I don't mind taking the pot down now or seeing a 2 or 3-way flop IP vs. mostly bad and fit-or-fold villains. With two shorter stacks involved I think we want to keep the SPR a little larger if possible.

Flop ($130): T 9 6

V1 donks $120
V3 folds
Hero ... ?

Effective stacks vs. V1 are $1300. The SPR is ~10x. If we call, the turn pot would be $370 with $1140 behind. My initial thoughts are this is a fold. I would range V1 fairly tight at all sets, T9s, 87s and for bluffs a handful of NFD hands. Basically we are ahead of nothing he is betting out.

Further, if V1 has a set, I don't think he is good enough to lay it down on a turn which means we would have to bet the turn and shove the river just to sell our "flush" story, and even then villain may still make a crying call. So bluffing phantom outs is likely extremely marginal vs. this villain. I'm not even considering my Q or J outs as live, so we are looking at 8 mostly live outs to the turn. We are ~5:1 to hit our card on the turn while only being offered ~2:1, meaning we need to make back $360 when we hit (which should be doable).

The best thing we have going for us is stack depth and position. A turn may allow us to see a free river, so ~20% of the time we are getting near direct 2:1 odds to realize our equity. It feels nitty to fold the flop here but it seems close enough it could go either way. Raising is out of the question.

Really really important is that the 6 is a 6. I overlook this all the time.

The 6 is most certainly a 6..

Haha. Well what I'm getting at is that it is a way worse card than a 5. For our implied odds.

On the 4th day of Christmas my fishy gave to me...
4 bad implied turns
3 nut outs
2 useless overs
and a call that is minus eeeee vvvvvv

I think that's a lot of risk to take just to sell a line the V may very well be betting. I'd *maybe* call flop expecting to fold the turn if he bets out again, but that near pot bet on the flop is rough.

I usually tempt to call with intentions of bluffing hearts if he checks heart turn. The hand 1 AKo is standard check/fold, not even close.


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LOL

And he sings too. This was quite good. I lol'd.

I also concur that the 6 appears to be exactly that... a six. Yes a 1 liner to a 7 on half our straight outs.

Almost psb, not great odds.

Not too nitty IMO.

well done lol.

Yeah I have no problem mucking this when he leads pot into us

edit: & no BDFD either!

I don't think V is giving me much 7x based on my image, and if he's the type to call with sets when the flush hits to try and boat up than he'll most likely be calling when a 4-liner hits as well.

Folding is really out of the question. We're getting 2:1 in position on a dynamic board. W/e his range is, he's in an awful spot on a lot of turns. ie we're not just winning this pot when we make a straight

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are only 6 turns we can continue on when villain inevitably continues to barrel?

Oh man, you know what? How can we fold when a bad rec donks T7s, 97s, 87s, 76s and some 77/88 with 1200 back? I was happy to sing you all a Christmas Carol, but now I want to peel and lay the premium considering he stacks off a lot on non h 8 turns and those Kx ones, well, Merry Xmas.

Why is it inevitable he's barreling 100% of the time on every turn card?

Yes, IP at this depth I'm going to continue on more than 6 turn cards facing a bet, depending on sizing.

" I would range V1 fairly tight at all sets, T9s, 87s and for bluffs a handful of NFD hands. " So our plan is to bink our 6 outer and dodge pairing and flush rivers? Or we can close our eyes and barrel him off sets/two pair when a heart comes and he checks?

+1. Pretty easy peel.

Villain likely wants to protect Tx. We have a ton of turn cards that improve our hand and create bluff opportunities. Basically any A,K,Q,J,8,7, or heart gives us a green light to bet the turn if villain checks.

Lolz! Way better final line than the original.

Calling here is just pretty spewy.

for the love of <poker> raise more pre, there's a straddle and two callers. Make it 60

I don't like calling to see one card. He's not gonna start checking turns, and since he straddled 10 and was "priced in" to call only 30 more, his range is wide to contain 78 that's afraid of the hearts as bad players are, two pairs or sets. I don't know if we would have too much FE since bad losing players don't like to fold too often.

Not even close to enough evidence, to suggest this.

Against this sizing. I probably fold. But my guess, him being a button clicker. That his donk range is fairly weak.

As most donk ranges from losing players are.

Should know shortly, when we see him get to river with a strong hand.

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So you raised smaller pre on purpose in order to keep the hand multi way... and now you've caught an above average flop for your hand and you feel like you have to fold immediately. This seems like a failed experiment to me. Why not raise to $60 and take it down pre? Or raise to $60, get one caller, and be in a much, much more comfortable spot? Not to mention you are developing a sizing tell that even some bad players may pick up on.

As for this flop situation, I'm not convinced this is a fold. I would expect TT/99 to raise preflop, I would also expect super strong hands to c/raise most of the time. I wouldn't be surprised to see him show up w/ a hand like JT or T8 here. And whatever he has, it's not going to be easy for him to keep barreling on several turn cards even if he is pretty strong because he is out of position. Seems like a fine spot to call and re-evaluate the turn. It's absurd to suggest that we can't possibly bluff him off of his hand on futures streets... nothing here suggests to me that he is a spewtard that's never folding all run-outs (and if he was, a call is still fine because we can stack him when we make our hand) nor is there anything that suggests he is always super strong in the first place.

At this stack depth, I probably call or fold depending on player but not at all thrilled about it, as I don't expect to get paid unless I hit the K or K exactly. But the big mistake is the preflop raise sizing. It's a pot-sweetener and accomplishes zilch.

There should be no hand you raise to $40 with, after a straddle and 2 callers, esp with these eff stacks. They don't even raise so little at Jokerstars.

I guarantee you the $120 donk bet is never a weak top pair from most live players. It's almost always 2p+ sizing it big because of the FD.

It seems like it may be worth revisiting preflop based on the last few replies. I'll preface that I'm not trying to come off as combative, merely that I don't see the marginal utility of increasing raise size beyond a certain point when you are indifferent as to whether the hand sees the flop or not (which is my major point of contention here).

What is your objective when deciding to raise this hand to $60? If our goal is to take it down preflop or get at most one caller than we have better "bluff" hands in our arsenal like ATo+ and KJo+.

If instead we have a more fluid concept of success and look at the hand as a continuum with a range of acceptable outcomes that will each occur some percentage of the time (ie: 20% of the time the table folds, 50% of the time 1-2 of the straddlers calls, 20% of the time BTN, SB or BB call plus all straddlers call, 10% of the time BTN, SB, BB or one of the straddlers 3!'s) than I favor taking an exploitative line and sizing down our raise to match the strength of our hand and get called by a wide range of similarly speculative hands by bad players OOP.

Results oriented much? If I think the villains already in the pot have an inelastic calling range between $40-60 why would we want to put even more money into the pot with a speculative drawing hand? Increasing the size of the pot and shrinking the SPR benefits our OOP opponents and makes the hand easier for them to play. It also increases the likelihood that we make mistakes when we flop one pair on wet boards and get x/jammed on. Speculative hands are best played out over multiple streets and a larger SPR helps us accomplish that.

If I raised to $60 we would most likely be in the same position we are now, except with a smaller SPR and a V1 donk bet of $180 into $190 instead of $120 into $130.

In order for a player to pick up a reliable sizing tell, he would have to see my cards at showdown using this smaller sizing. THEN, he would need to see me raise another straddled pot with similar # of callers with a premium hand and also see that hand go to showdown. THEN, he would need to see me raise a whole slew of other hands in straddled pots with similar # of callers to figure out which bucket they belong to in the future. The number of hours that this would require to get an accurate sample size is sufficiently large to the point that we don't even need to worry about it. I'm playing against bad losing recreational players that play far too many hands OOP and far too often play fit-or-fold. To think they are going to be able to synthesize a bunch of disparate data points that took months to acquire in real time and then use that to somehow exploit me is so far beyond the realm of even worrying about.

A big mistake according to who? How can you declare something a mistake when you don't know what the objective was of the player making the raise? If the purpose of the raise was to fold out the entire table and scoop the pot 100% of the time then yes it was a mistake and a failure. You can pick up nickels in front of the steam roller with ATC until you get snapped off by a premium holding. That doesn't make it correct to do so however.

So folding out the BTN, SB, BB and one of the straddle callers & playing one of the best multiway hands 3-way in absolute position vs. bad fit-or-fold recs & managing to avoid a light 3! because of our obvious pot-sweetener sizing is considered accomplishing "zilch?" Okay good to know.