Villain 1 is a complete fish. Mostly just a calling station but will gamble occasionally. Has about $300.

Villain 2 sat down 1-2 rounds ago and seems pretty competent. He bought in for the max and I get the feeling he plays often. I can't tell how good he is though. Could be a decent ABC player or could be much better and much more aggressive than that. Has about $1200.

Hero has $800 and villain might have a similar opinion of me that I have of him, but I'm just guessing here. Also I did have a little less than the max buy-in; that might lower his opinion of me a little bit.




Villain 1 straddles to $10, hero is in the CO and makes it $30 with QQ, villain 2 on the BTN makes it $90, villain 1 folds, hero makes it $300, villain shoves and it's up to hero again.



This game has a $1k max buy-in. I've found the 2/5 with $1k max buy-in games to be much more aggressive than anything I'm used to. I thought villain might have thought I was raising light to get position on the fish, but then again maybe villain was just super strong. I'm not sure what type of ranges I should expect to see in these spots in a 2/5 in Vegas with a $1k max. I also didn't feel comfortable just calling the $90 raise and being OOP to this guy who might be a better player than I am and seemed to feel more comfortable and experienced playing at this level (and I'm sure he has more experience playing against players that are actually competent; I'm used to playing against fish at 1/2 and 1/3).

Edit: Also I'm not just curious about how I should react to his shove. I'm also curious how I should have responded to that $90 raise.

I think a fold is standard. You went from $30 to $300 in a split second, if hes factoring that in, i think he shoved because he thinks you have a big hand.

Also given you both seem to have some kind of unspoken respect, Getting it in with JJ 160bb deep is atrocious with getting in AK not far behind.

V2's first raise could be worse than your QQ, if he thought you were opening light to iso the fish

however, after you repop it to $300 and he shoves, i'm assigning him exactly KK+, AK. a few points here:
1) you've poured money in at every chance, and he's 5betting you (if you count straddle as first bet). AK is bottom of his range here
2) you have no history. less unlikely he is messing around vs. an unknown
3) a good player might consider flatting with KK+ to your $300 bet, which makes me consider AK more

how quickly did he shove after you made it $300?

sounds like we need to call $500 to win ~$1600, right? we only need ~31% to make this call, and we have 40% equity against KK+, AK. so i think you have to call, although in game i definitely would have folded without running the math

As much as it sucks, I'd probably fold. 4b smaller next time, 225 will do it, and maybe even less. When you bet this much you should be ready to GII

Villain doesnt need to even have a flatting range. With flatting creating a spr less than 1 and flatting potentially looking much stronger than jamming, i would definitely go ahead and jam KK+ as the villain. The question then becomes how often villain jams AK vs folding them.

WTF @ that 4-bet, man... Do people not stop and think before clicking buttons? If you 4-bet in this spot, he either has AKs/JJ/TT and you're hoping he will fold (why wouldn't you want value out of those hands anyway?), or he has AA/KK (which you're hoping he doesn't have) and will 5-bet ship.

4-betting here for that amount hurts you here, especially OOP with those stacks (-EV).

Stacks are deep enough to take a 3-bet pot to the flop and play poker. Adding an additional 210 to 90 is unnecessary and bloats the pot unfavorably.

Flatting is fine but trickier, without knowing things like double barreling frequency, hero is at a distinct postflop disadvantage. Its actually pretty hard to play postflop poker out of position against a good opponent with the pot being bloated pretty big...

4betting smaller is also fine, 4betting to $300 is a bit excessive but at least he should be a tad more confident that hes folding the second best hand.

i just don't feel like getting 150BBs aipf with QQ, without much of a read on villain, is going to be +EV

and ^^ what hardball said about the 4bet

He did think for a little while before he shoved. Not for an extremely long time or anything like that though.

I think part of the reason I made it $300 is I was afraid to play postflop OOP with this guy and he is going to have a very strong range (not saying this is good thinking, just trying to remember how I was thinking/feeling at the time). And folding to that $90 raise seems so nitty.

I got the feeling that I was going to get outplayed and get in trouble a lot if I called and saw the flop. Being OOP would have really sucked in this spot and I think I was worried about making a big mistake after the flop.

So you played scared poker, because you didn't want to play the third best hand OOP? I get that you're playing out of you're comfort zone, and that's a good thing if you want to improve. But don't let nerves cloud your thinking. You're going into this hand with the idea that V2 is a tough reg, when in reality you had little info. You let yourself get intimidated and thus lost half the war before the fighting even began.

I absolutely hear your feelings on making it more because you didn't want to play the flop OOP. I've done things like that for that reason as well. But you're essentially turning your hand into a bluff by doing so - generally a bad strategy when you've got such a valuable hand. Heck, stack sizes may even make it worthwhile to set mine with QQ here.

I fold to the 5-bet because he's not doing this with worse and I don't think he does it with AK all the time.

I probably just call the flop of I think about it and play poker. Even though I might feel it's weak in the moment.

I thought I'd be in trouble a lot on the flop if I called but yeah if the PF raise sucks then that doesn't justify my raise. And yeah I probably was playing scared poker.

Chalk it up to a $300 lesson.

Did you shot-take playing this game?

$30 was too small, even with no limpers into the straddle.

I think you mentally 'made up' for the small open by over betting your 4-bet ($210 into $190) .. although it's close. If you intend to 4-bet fold here, I think you could go a bit smaller.

It's very possible that your opponent 'knew the math' of a shove here (as you found out later) and went with it. I think it's best to take this type of play from unknowns for face value and fold out.

You indicate some OOP issues here, then what's wrong with putting $60 (not $90) into $130 and working on it? This would be cheap information IMO. Yes, you will see A or K on 30% of Flops but you also can now set mine with 'marginal' implied odds (12-1) and gain some experience against this V ... assuming you plan on a long session. He offered 2 to 1 to you to stay in the hand. That's a pretty good offer with QQ in my pocket.

In general I think based on the amount of credit you give your opponent's image AND his ability to read your image that you need to lay this down here. But if you have 4 more BI in your pocket then I think the math here is close.

You have OMC'd your play here (small open and large 'go away' 'counter' measure) and V is still pushing into you. That's pretty strong to me, but sometimes we just want to pay to find out!! GL

Does anyone think calling to set mine is okay here? When the flop comes J or lower we're in a ****ty spot, but I think we can get away from the hand at that point if V starts betting.

If you call 60 you go to the flop of $180 with $710 behind. Can you get an extra 600 out of V when you hit a set? Maybe. Seems thin without more knowledge of V.

It's way too early to start thinking about setmining with QQ based on a button 3b by a competent player.

I just think we want to play some poker here. Set mining is a bonus. Hero has indicated a reservation about these spots and 'should' play some to gain experience in them. In a 'readless' 2/5 game we really shouldn't be looking at folding QQ to a $60 raise .. and I don't think any here are. So we 4-bet some and we flat some and go from there.

Although we don't want to get into a bet sizing tell, I just think we should 4-bet a tad smaller if we intend to fold to 5-bet/shoves.

Based on our Hero's 'fears' would we rather have him OOP in a $190 pot or a $610 pot with 'nothing' behind? GL

PS ... I guess to answer that ... Being in a $610 pot with 'nothing' behind makes it play much easier for Hero. He either jams J-high boards or c/f to V? Right? And if that's the case, then he just 'reverse' set mined only getting 2.67 to 1. Not good.

Definitely just flat the 3bet or 4bet much smaller. When we 4b to 300, we're pot committed. We need to call 500 to win 1100, and we do have about 33 percent against KK, AA, AK.

If we 4bet to like 240, then we have to call 560 to win 1040, and we can get away from that spot.

And if you do think this guy is better than you, change seats.

Grunch

I would probably flat the 3bet because I don't want to get jammed on if I raise but we should be ahead of his range. I know we're not in position but I don't mind playing 3rd nuts OOP.

AP, if you want to bet-fold, make it $220 or something. No point in making it $300 unless you intend to shove.

AP, fold now. If he's on the TAG spectrum, whether it's ABC or good player or excellent, he has to put you on a real hand when you bang it up to $300.

EDIT

Said above, but definitely iso the fish harder. If he's a drooler, I make it at least $50.

So do we only think this is ever AA and KK? I'm new to the live arena and would snap this given the odds and putting AK into the range.

OP has made the choice difficult. If villain only has AA/KK, it's a fold. If he has AK, it's a call. If he only has some AK combos e.g. AKss, it's a fold. I don't think a call now is bad, I don't think a fold is bad either. I tend to assume shoves 150bb+ lean more to nuts but I'm nitty by live standards. So I fold.

In live poker I also take into account:

1) How Hero is going to feel if it's AA/KK .. will it effect his future play (either way) if he loses or V shows TT?
2) Can Hero rebuy?
3) Does this fit into image Hero is trying to project to the table if he shows (win or lose)?

Online 'no one' sees your rage, tilt or future 'tells' associated with live play. Depending on how skilled and/or deep the rest of the table is .. will you get these chips back? GL

I've been playing a lot more 2/5 in places with a $500 max and 1/3 at places with a $500 max (recently just decided to start playing in those games). I was curious about some of the rooms with a $1k max and decided to try them out and see what the games were like, except I just bought in for my usual $500 instead. I could be wrong but from my very limited experiences I've found the rooms with the $1k max to be significantly tougher. I don't think the games are bad though because when I'm seeing the flop I'm usually up against the fish and not the better players, but I do feel a little more out of my comfort zone for sure.