1. 2/5, 9 handed, $700 effective. Hero has a pretty aggressive image, both pre and post.

OTTH

Tight passive limps LJ that only usually calls raises pre after limping when he's at the top of his limp range (probably ~ 88-99, ATs-AJs, KQs, AQo here) or if he's getting good pot odds, HJ that's only been at the table about 45 minutes but has raised a few hands pre, and x bet every hand, has overlimped once, called a raise one, 3 bet me to $125 from SB after I opened $25 +2 and loose passive LJ called. SB is a decent TAG, and SB is a loose passive fish. Hero has A 3 OTB. Raise to $30-$35, or overlimp?

2. 2/5/10 (everyone is straddling UTG, because both whales asked the table), 9 handed, $1.3k effective. Hero has a TAG image, with an emphasis on the AG. Hero has been at the table for ~1 hour, and has only called one raise pre and that was from BB after UTG raised $10 and got four callers - J6s got to showdown . Other than that hero has 3 bet 3 times with none getting to showdown, and raised pre 3 others time and c bet - fold every time.

OTTH

Loose passive open limps LJ $10, hero raises CO $60 with K Q, tighter player calls OTB, looser player calls SB. Villain in the straddle 3 bets to $300. Hero?

Villain is a losing LAG - very aggressive pre, and squeezes quite frequently. Villain views hero as TAG, but not a nit. I would estimate villain's range to be all suited broadways besides JTs, QTs, and KTs, ATo+, KQo, all suited wheel As, 65s-87s 25%, and 77+. Villain also has a c bet percentage close to 100%, and usually bets on the larger side.

Hand 1 : I think you can raise here in position given descriptions on opponents and your skill advantage

Hand 2: fold. You don’t close the action and even if you get HU the SPR implies a commitment spot with a potentially dominated hand.

SPR was a major concern for hand two, also the fact that he's c betting almost every time and on the larger side...I was wondering if that outweighs the fact that we're getting the right price equity wise

Hand 1: Suited ace, on the button almost 150 blinds deep and facing two very likely weak limping ranges i am raising here the vast majority of the time. I think we mostly print by putting on the gas pedal here. We can take it down rakefree preflop wich is a very underrated outcome- or we can go to the flop in position against weak limp/call ranges with iniative.

Hand 2: If you are confident his 3 betting range is this wide (also against you after you made it 60 pre), i find it hard to fold a hand as strong as KQ suited. If you arent confident in your read, or the added variance is too much for your mental game/bankroll i dont see anything wrong with folding.

If you are ready to felt your stack when you flop decent equity like top pair,open ender or a flushdraw i think we are +EV to call the 3 bet, even though he made it 300. The guy sounds like he is 3 betting too wide+ over C-betting alot (big leak in my opinion), wich raises our EV because he will give us alot of money if we get a good flop for our hand when he really should put on the brakes.

Edit: This kind of villain is the kind of player who will give you alot of money, but you got to adjust well/being willing to stackoff in spots you woudnt against other tighter players in order to get most of this money.

Obviously I defer to Petrucci but I would just add that I’d rather jam than call on hand 2. We block Qq/kk and probably can fold out his JJ/TT. We also avoid having the tight V OTB getting priced in behind us. That would be a real problem since I assume his flat range here may be strong enough to overcall when it comes back around.

The money is going in at this SPR anyway so I’d rather jam it in if I feel he’s this wide. Otherwise I’m folding.

Grunch

Hand 1 flush mine in position. I'm not sure I can get this heads up and A3s isn't much of a value hand. If you just limp you get the station in BB into the hand and have good implied odds against him. See flop cheap in position and make the best hand here.

Hand 2 fold. I don't want to walk into a sub 2 spr pot with Khi.

Thank you for your thoughts. Petrucci - are you concerned about the SPR at all? I'm pretty confident in V's range.

I don't mind jamming hand two either...What does everyone else think? I think I'd rather jam than call, too, with SPR considerations.

Not really concerned about SPR in this spot. It doesent really matter if villains range is wide enough, and the fact that he is over C-betting. SPR can weigh a tight decision either way, but it isnt that important in all spots.

Also i want to flat in order to rape his wide range and tendency to over C bet. We accomplish that by flatting,forcing him to go to the flop with his whole wide range and blast away.

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Just want to add a little bit here. Too many players get caught up about SPR, and making their whole decision regards to SPR alone it seems like.

Villain described is 3 betting with all sorts of hands as OP described him. He is in there with 6-8 suited and 6-7 suited. QJ off,AJ off. A2 suited,A3 suited++. On top of that, villain is leaking money by C-betting too big and too often, wich raises our EV big time. He is gonna blast off with his 6-7 when the board comes 3-4-Q trying to make us fold. He is gonna fire away with A2s when the board comes K-K-4 or K-5-3.

KQ does very well against such a wide range, and we are clearly leaving money on the table by running away from spots like this just because the pot size increases and we may very well gonna face a stackoff for 200 blinds+.

GRUNCH:

Hand 1: OMG! Look at all the combos LJ is folding pre to a raise, compared to what he'll call with! 24 combos of just ATo & AJo; 27 combos of A2s-ATs; 20 combos of KJs KTs QTs QJs JTs. He's certainly not going to o/r with those if he won't o/r with AJs. And he's folding PRE to $30 more after the blinds fold because...........he's OOP & doesn't know what HJ will do? Never flatting there!

What a dream spot you had at that table!

Hand 2: If the suited wheel cards & 65s-87s are always of another suit other than spades, say always hearts....[have to pick 1 suit because you said he only makes that move with those hands 25% of the time], you are slightly better than 2-1 dog thru the Flop & 40% thru the Turn & 43.6% thru the River.

When the Flop is K [or Q] 9,4r, you will be IP but dominated some of the time with $300 in pre. When you miss the Flop, all of his Ax hands are in the lead, such as in 9s 7d 2c & 6 of his combos flopped sets. Are you going to believe him with he C-bets the flop? What if it's 9s 7d 2s, giving you a Flush draw? Is he C-betting with air there?

I fold because I only have the best of vs 65s-87s [3 combos because he only makes that move with those hands 25% of the time, 1 suit] & a coin-flip vs. 77-JJ, 36 combos & if he's playing his Flop sets correctly on a Flop of Kd 9s 7c are you ever folding?

I fold pre.

H1 I don't know that I really mind either way, just don't fold. TBH if you need a deciding factor -- raise if this is a pot-raked game with no flop/no drop, limp if it's time-raked or if they're raking pre.

H2: Do not shove. I started doing the math, and it's really bad for a shove -- even with V as wide as you say they are, they're only 3! about 130 combos here, and 30 of the 130 are JJ+/AK/AKs. I think Petrucci's logic is sound -- if you continue, you're going to need to play for all of it on flops where you have a pair, OESD, or flush draw, since V's going to c-bet too much of the time for too much. Upside, when you flop a pair, the combinatorics improve for you, plus you get to snap off a c-bet, and V c-bets too big and too much...if you're continuing, call > shove.

I just want to point out again that this is not guaranteed to be a HU spot and we have MP yet to act. If he overcalled behind us this is not a good scenario.

H1: I'd overlimp here the majority of the time after two or more limpers. I used to raise, but got in all sorts of weird spots post-flop where it's mostly gonna be multi-way. I'm perfectly happy overlimping nowadays.

H2: I'm wondering... Don’t you think his sqz range gets a lot narrower after there's been a 6x raise in straddled pot? In my experience squeezing a 20-25 raise to 120 is a lot easier for most active players than squeezing 60 to a whopping 300. Yet you seem to think this doesn’t make a difference at all.
But for now let's assume your range is correct. I'm not a math guy, so I don't really know how often we're gonna flop something worth continuing (i.e. committing) with here, but I wouldn't want to call here. We're still mostly missing the flop and having to fold, and if his range is so wide, that just doesn’t feel right. If I really think he's this wide, I would prefer shoving to calling. But like I said, I would probably doubt he is this wide in this particular spot, so in that light I would likely fold here.

Thank you very much for looking into the math on hand 2, BlindingLaser. That's also a really good thought about raising hand 1 in a rake game with no rake pre.

Thank you so much to everyone else for your thoughts - lots of good stuff in the thread. You are appreciated!

I think if I had my druthers, I'd want calls behind us -- they're mostly just padding a pot that we're trying to draw for a better hand into -- obviously if they have AQ exactly then we want a fold, but I think if they have a small pocket pair or whatever then we want them in, the odds of us flopping a pair at the same time 55 flops a set aren't so damaging that we wouldn't want an extra $240 in the middle for the times it comes Q63 instead of Q53.

One more thing that popped up from the back of my mind regarding flatting or shoving with KQs in hand number 2:

-We are trying to win the most money in cashgames, not the most pots.Sometimes we maximize our EV or set ourself up to win the most money by calling in order to max eploit a certain opponent instead of taking the most aggressive route. If we had a hand with less playability that gaines alot by avoiding taking a flop, for example a hand like AJ off or 1010- i would be much more inclined to choose the shove line.

Shoving here with this spesific hand (KQs) is kind of a tournament train of thought though, where we want to end the hand right here to preserve our stack. I would argue that we neccesarily dont want that.

Great stuff thanks!

Yes I just get concerned about position here if tight player (as described) calls behind us. In that scenario tricky V acts first, we act second and tight V is behind closing the action in a large pot. I’m not loving being sandwiched if we miss and I’m not sure even flopping a FD is very playable.

If we call and one of BTN or SB calls behind us, there will be almost $1K in there with $1K left to play...so we'll be getting 2:1 on a 35% proposition with a FD, and that's worst case (sometimes our pair outs are good, sometimes we have a back-door straight draw, and sometimes we'll get 3:1 from a call behind padding our odds). Improves even more if both call.

We're always effectively sandwiched when we miss -- we believe the squeezer to be barreling here basically every time for a sizable enough bet that we're committed.