Hero button $550: tag image

Villain1 utg+1 $600: black male in 30's. weak tag image

Villain2 mp1 $900: white male mid 30's-40. tag image leaning tight passive

Villain3 co $500: white male mid 40's. tag image so far, however not much reads

Preflop $7
v1 limp
v2 limp
mp3 limp
v3 limp
h limp A10
sb limp
bb check

Flop $30 1097
v1 lead $25
v2 call
v3 call
h ? (is raise to attempt to fold out draws? or just flat and take control ott if a blank comes and it's checked to hero?)

Surrender.

Raise preflop, you have position and will get called by worse frequently.

You have enough equity to call, especially in position.
You didn't give much info on the players - what does "weak" mean, for instance so without reads I'd be unlikely to raise.

V1's lead is strong but the other two have TP or draws. Raising is an interesting idea and against certain players there could be more value in it but it looks so strong here that it's likely to be spew without better reads.

This hand is too strong not to raise preflop on the button with it.

As played, fold. The entire reason we like having position here is so that we can dump this hand right now and lose zero dollars postflop. If we aren't already in trouble, there's a big likelihood that we will be by the river.

But he's got blackjack!

Seriously, pf is a raise or fold. I'd raise pf if I really had a TAG image. I'll note it is extremely unusual to see even 1 TAG at the table, let alone 4. TAGs will raise pf about 3 times as often as they will call pf. The action in this hand would be very unlikely for TAGs pf.

Given how you played it pf, your best course of action is folding on the flop. At best, you're slightly ahead and have lots of tough decisions ahead of you. Your upside is limited, but your downside is your stack.

not raising with ATo on the button after that many limpers makes me really sad

Seriously, you need to be raising a lot more in position. At a bare minimum, if you have a decent image or okay image you your raising range in the CO and BTN should be QJ+, KT+, 99+.

Once you get comfortable raising with a wider range and playing post flop and using your image, then you can mix in SCs and S1Gs like 87s and T8s to the mix. Personally, 10% - 15% of my raising range consists of SCs and S1Gs and I can't tell you how many monster pots I've won flopping or turning gin after raising when villains think I have JJ+ or AK and in reality I flopped/turned gin on them on a 9 6 4 5 board. And on the flip side, I can often rep an A or K and win with a c-bet on those type of boards...

Anyways, not to write a book here, you need to widen your raising range while in position. As played, I remember the adage spoken by Doyle Brunson

"don't go broke in a limped pot"

so fold...

Let me reiterate that flop is not a clear fold
You're getting 4-1 and ~always have villains 2 and 3 beat. Villain 1 is going to play straightforward and can absolutely have a worse Tx here (depending on what "weak" means)
Think of getting 4-1 as drawing to blank turns

I agree with everyone saying raise pre.

This is an auto raise for me.
And should be for most.

I mean this nicely, but it might sound mean. If you're not comfortable raising this pre flop at your average table, you might be playing above your skill level.

Having said that, I understand what venice and dig are saying about fold the flop. But getting 4:1 is that really best? And closing the action. I think there are ~15 turn cards that we can be fine with on the turn and 4 that we really enjoy. (The remaining two T's and two A's that are not spades.) I don't think we are committing to stacking off here peeling one off with what has a good chance to be the best hand at the moment. And we have position.

It just feel SOOO nitty folding here.. I dunno.

You should do more listening than talking in this thread. Flop is a clear fold.

Here are some draws we aren't happy to see our opponents show up with:

8x--98 and 87 have 14 outs to beat us, so if anyone has one of these, our equity is at most 50%.

QJ--another hand with 14 outs to beat our hand. If anyone has this, our equity is at most 50%.

Flush draws: flush draws can have overcards to the board. If, for example, someone has Jx, that's an overcard, gutshot, and flush draw. That hand also has us below 50% equity. Also we are in trouble against any flush draw with the 7 too.

Draws that are so good that they are significantly ahead of our hand: a hand like Q8 or QJ or 87, or really any flush draw with the 8.

We aren't doing well against these, and they're just the draws! Also, there are TWO callers, so they could easily have different outs. That means there are so few cards we are happy to continue on on the turn. Board pairs can't be considered blanks. Overcards can't be considered blanks. Basically we are only happy to see...what? A T, or a non-spade A, or...5, 3, or 2 that isn't a spade? That's only 13 cards.

And guess what? Even if we see one of those cards, we could still be drawing thin to V1 if he has a set or straight or 2 pair. On this kind of board, there's almost no way we are going to make it to showdown with the best hand. The likelihood is probably less than 20%, meaning it is totally fine to fold getting 4:1 on our money.

If we see one of our 13 cards and V1 bets again, what are we doing then? Call or fold? If we call, we open ourselves up to reverse implied odds. If we fold, then we might as well have folded the flop and saved the $25.

I fold the flop and feel good about it. EDIT: To the guy above me--yes, it is good that we have position. The reason it's good is because we get to fold now!

100% raise pre barring some super-sick live read

I don't mean to pile on here, not my intent. I just like to focus on key concepts and items that highlight the dividing line or inflection point between winning and losing players. And this post/situation is one of them.

It is counter intuitive, but This situation is a 100% fold facing 3 villains who have shown interest in a pot that started out 5-6 handed. Since the pot started out with so many villains this means hand ranges will merge towards nutted and high equity hands . When viewed holistically against our ATo our equity is abysmal and our hand becomes an RIO hand. The fact we are getting 4:1 on a call does not counter our disadvantage.

This is a serious leak and why this situation is the epitome for why passive passive limpy limpy poker is not as profitable as being selectively aggressive. I can not over state this point or this situation, and why to the typical recreational player this situation doesn't seem too bad or even may appear to be a good spot like "wow, I'm in position with TPTK and getting 4:1 on my money, what a great spot...". When the reality is completely opposite and this spot is about as appealing as eating chocolate ice cream out of the A-hole of a dead cow.

The typical player thinks to himself, "wow, look free ice cream" whereas the pro sees nothing but disgusting dead cow anus .

Sorry if I come off as a bit of a condescending prick, but I feel it is important to highlight this spot so that players that think this is an okay spot to call see that actually its not.

Review the following topics: hand ranges, equity, merging, RIO, & equity vs # of villains. Play around with poker stove and see what our equity looks like vs 3 villains whose combined

Edit: note that the 3 villain ranges will be stronger due to the hand starting out 6 way

I'm stuck waiting for a flight so I'll write this out. Trust me, I'm not advocating a "OMG TPTK I call".

Let me start by stating a few assumptions, since those might be the source of our disagreement.

1. We always have V2 and V3 beat unless one has 97 specifically
2. Turn is a snap fold to any action whatsoever
3. V1 can bet flop with TP but will only bet nuttish hands on the turn
4. Villains will check missed draws on the turn

A few other small things that don't make a big equity difference too like V1 always open-raising TT and 99 pre but those don't have a big impact.

At the end of the day, the general gist of my thinking is that the board is so wet that it doesn't make a huge difference whether we're facing one player or three because, as you guys noted, so many turn cards are bad for us anyway. Having three people in the hand will actually make everyone play more straightforward, and it's less common than you'd think that all three have different draws if you look at the combos.

All true and indisputable but I'm not sure why you consider 50% a magic number. We need far less equity than that to make a profitable call so even if we know we're behind we should call.

It's also significant that our equity in the pot is already realized. Rarely after a non-spade turn do we see a river (because we have position and can bet when checked around to or we just fold whenever anyone bets), meaning the practical equity of draws is halved in this situation. Turn will be played very straightforward since it's multiway on a wet board so we have very easy decisions there.

Again, true that they could have different outs but by far the biggest parts of V2 and 3's ranges are NFD's and Tx so they mostly just have the same outs. Qx and Kx are almost always safe and even on 4 straights we're mostly ahead, plus villains will bet when they make a straight and we can just fold.

Still correct that we almost never see a showdown (unless someone makes a bad turn c/c with a draw or Tx which against bad players is definitely possible) because we're either folding to a bet on the turn or betting ourselves to try to force an error from a draw. Think of this as a board where there will only be 4 cards. Our equity on the flop depending on how you count it is 15-18%, but jumps to about 25% if you look at it with one card to come, making this a clear call.

We also might be able to induce mistakes on the turn from bad villains c/c TP or a draw.

Quick answer: easy fold

I've explained why I disagree with this, but if I haven't addressed some of your logic, I'm happy to look back again.

@dgiharris: I tried to respond to your post through the above statements as well. You don't come off as condescending (probably since it's never condescending when you're wrong ) but I think you're too quickly making the jump from "we have low equity" (which is correct) to "we fold to a bet" (which isn't necessarily correct) without looking at how later streets will play out and what kind of odds we're getting.

These two statements I didn't agree with but maybe I'm misreading what you're trying to say:

This doesn't seem to mean anything except that they will fold trash that missed but I'm not sure if you have something else in mind.

Sounds like a table full of tagfish who have super wide ranges on the flop (before any action) and won't take this factor into account too much. Their calling ranges (draws and TP) don't differ depending on how many other people are in the hand.

RIO is not a factor in this hand since we're not paying off another bet so I'm not clear on how you're using the term.

I agree with the pf raise camp - how much would you all raise here at an average table? $35 min I would think - more?

Imagine this same scenario, but instead of the hand starting out with 5 villains, we raised preflop and were just called by one villain.

The probability of one villain flopping gin against us is significantly lower than the probability of 1 villain out of 5 flopping gin against us.

ALso, when we are up against 5 villains, all their ranges combine against us so that a bet on the flop weeds out all the trash and weaker ranges and narrows the ranges that call us to ranges that have equity against us.

the more villains that start the hand, the worse the above is for us.

Instead of one villain with a range of draws and combo hands we are now facing all those possible ranges spread out among 3 villains and as Vernon pointed out the end result is basically that pretty much all of deck sucks for us.

There is a huge difference between starting out a hand with 1, 2, or 3 villains and starting out a hand with 5 or 6 villains that subsequently narrow to 1, 2, or 3 villains based on flop action.

So we basically are calling hoping that no one else bets anymore AND the turn bricks out???

that is just losing poker.

The poker principle behind equity is that when we have majority equity we want to get more money into the pot and when we have minority equity we want to limit how much money we put into the pot.

So does this mean we should never put more money into the pot when we have minority equity? No. There are situations in which we can and should put more money into the pot when our equity is low, namely when we have draws to drastically improve our hand (i.e. FD or SD...), hit our draws, achieve majority equity, and pump more money into the pot and basically realize implied odds by having our villains call and pay us off...

That just isn't even remotely the case here. The board is super wet and 3 villains have shown interest and all indications are that future betting will take place. Thus, the writing is on the wall that we will be facing a turn bet.

But what about when we are getting odds? I mean, we are getting 4:1 odds on a call so shouldn't we call?

Not in this situation. Our equity is pretty low, majority of the deck sucks for us, and the writing is on the wall that we will be facing another bet on the turn...

Putting more money into a pot under so many unfavorable conditions and possible situations is just lighting money on fire.

or put another way, what changes on the turn if the turn is a brick? If V1 bets again ($75) and V2 and V3 calls then we are facing the exact same situation we are now facing on the flop. We would still be getting 4:1 on our money right?

DGiHarris pretty much sums it up in his last post.

Excellent writing.

The "dead cow anus" post is gonna stick w me for awhile. Bleah.

Yes, but we have more information than what chance tells us, specifically a bet by a bad player and two calls. Our decision will be based on that information, not the detached probably of someone having a monster.

I guess I'm still not following what you're trying to say - as stated, this is true of any bet ever made, regardless of how many people are in the pot.

In any case, your point may or may not be true theoretically but I'm hesitant to apply a theoretical generalization to a specific scenario as unusual as this one.

No, the end result is that pretty much all of the deck might suck for us. Issue with auto-folding flop is that we play the turn with perfect information and we will know when the deck sucked and when it didn't. Yes the chances are higher that on bad turn we are beat, but like I said, having several villains makes turn straightforward to play and we capitalize on all of our equity when we still have it and give up when we don't.

I offered some math that argues to the contrary. Obviously it's based on imperfect assumptions that will swing the numbers one way or another, but not by too much. You're making a generalization which is often right (as generalizations typically are) but not universally right. This is a fairly unique situation where it's not the case. General principle is correct, but I don't believe it applies to the hand here, pretty much solely because of position.

Yes and no. We want to make bets when we think we have majority equity because we believe opponents will incorrectly put money in the pot.

Correct but there are other situations where we want to put money in the pot. Consider what it means when we float a flop with very little equity. We're making a -EV call in terms of showdown equity, but hopefully a +EV call in terms of the situations that will arise on the turn, where villain checks and we can win the pot with our own bet.

Here, no, we don't have a draw or good opportunity to improve but the essence of what I'm saying is to think of this hand as a float or draw. Not a draw to better cards to improve, but a draw to a certain situation (where we get a safe turn and villains check) that I'm arguing happens greater than 20% of the time, making a call at 4:1 profitable.

It's very likely we face a bet on the turn, but it's not 100%. Again, 4:1 to not face a bet. That's a pretty clear function of V1's betting range.

In theory, if turn really does check to us >20% of the time, we can float ATC here profitably. I'd never stop to consider than in-game, but based on my assumptions and ranges it's technically true. Again, I'm assuming V1 bets JT+ and all good draws and that V2 and 3 never have us beat on the flop except for 97 (bottom 2). This is as pure a testament to the value of position as you'll ever see.

V1's (or whoever bets) range changes if he bets the turn, as does the likelihood of facing a river bet, making turn a clear fold to a bet.

iIImatic,

I get the sense that you are a competent thinking player and have a good handle on poker theory and concepts...

but I feel you are letting your big brain get in the way here and you are leveling yourself trying to turn lemons into lemon-aide here.

We are intentionally floating in a situation that is -EV in the "hopes" that we can use our awesome post flop skills to save the day. And oh, by the way, in this particular case our so called "skill" is nothing more than hoping that the turn is a brick AND that villains don't bet anymore despite the indications that more betting will take place...

I'm sorry, but you are just leveling yourself.

Its kinda like that adage "A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing..."

If you are overcalling in these spots so that you can use your awesome poker skills to save the day, then I suspect you have a serious -3bb/hr or greater leak in your winrate AINEC.

Sometimes, its nice to have all that advanced poker knowledge, concepts, skills, and theories in our head and apply them such that we realize an edge over our peers...

But sometimes, all we need is to follow simple adages and rules of thumb.

In this case, Doyle Brunson's adage comes to mind and I think applies beautifully to this situation: "Don't go broke in limped pots."

Trust me, I'm all about pushing edges and using my skill edge yada yada yada, and I'm telling you this situation is not the situation to do so.

Part of poker is science and part of poker is art.

Figuring out "when" to go against convention and to go against the standard lines and to use those advanced skills is part of the "art" of poker.

In this case, your paintbrush is crooked. This is not the situation in which you want to ignore the simple adages and proceed with the advanced stuff.

I don't know what else to say, so I guess I'm done

GL

Another way to say what dgi is trying to say here: in this case, our "awesome postflop skill" is knowing we're supposed to fold here where virtually no one would.

This is a very easy fold, and dgi has done a great job explaining why.

I'd like to hear one you guys explain why raising over 5 limpers with AT is a good play here. Live players limp/call all the time with hands that dominate you. You're rarely going to get this heads up and although you are bloating the pot in position, you're doing it with an easily dominated hand. Also, by bombing to $35+ you're encouraging only better hands to call you. Short answer: it's not a good play. I think an over limp is okay, but not great either. You're looking to flop two pair or a straight and cooler someone. I don't hate a fold, either. Raising is the worst.

Raising in position is extremely profitable in LLSNL and is the bread-and-butter player for any serious winning player.

-Villains will often put you on a strong hand
-Villains will often turn their hands face up post flop
-You have the initiative enabling you to rep big hands post flop
-When called by 3 villains or less, odds are they missed their hands
-You can often take pots down with a simple c-bet
-You can utilize your position to maneuver post flop
-It augments the other aspects of your game like semi-bluffing and disguising your monster hands...

I could go on but I will stop there. Raising preflop in position with a wide range of hands and recognizing which conditions to do so is a staple of winning poker. If you don't understand this or worse, if you disagree with this, you need to do some serious studying of basic poker concepts. Not trying to be a dick, but raising preflop with AT in this spot preflop is fairly standard.

No, this is not mathematically true, not even close. 90%+ of the time, our villains are going to have a hand that is weaker than AT. When our villains are significantly stronger than AT they will often let us know.

I'm just going to stop here lest I write a book. But in a nutshell, this is just passive passive LLSNL poker theory at its finest. Passive rec-fish just don't feel comfortable raising with anything other than JJ+, AK. And poker is much more complex than that and as your skill level grows and your ability to play post flop increases you will find that you will naturally raise with a much wider range.

My raising range from CO and BTN is basically JT+, 88+ and 5% - 15% of the time 76s+ and 75s+.

poker is more than just simply flopping or turning gin. We need to adjust to our villains as well as use our image. Obviously, if I'm up against Level 1 cavemen then yeah, I'm going to adjust by raising more with my value hands....

anyways, I suggest you study up on your poker fundamentals if you seriously think raising with AT from the BTN is bad...

If you think like that, it usually means that you haven't been aggressive enough in LP.

If you can't raise with AT in this spot, you need to ask yourself questions why.

If all you're doing is playing your hand and calculate equity vs generic unknown ranges, then it may be neutral EV to limp in this spot given that you have position, because you're absolutely right, raising with blindfolds on is probably a -EV move.

There are several conditions where above is true, and several that above is false.

Blanket thinking processes are often what hold back a player.

See above.

I'm gonna simplify cause I've been writing (excessively) long posts but my arguments aren't really being addressed directly except with generalizations (generalizations I agree with, but don't account for some peculiarities and frequent leaks live SSNL villains have).
First off, the call isn't automatically -EV and to call it that is to make a circular argument about the hand. Obviously if the call is -EV we shouldn't make it, the discussion is whether or not it is in fact -EV in the first place.
FWIW, flop is a very, very marginal spot so small differences in ranges and assumptions about turn play will make a significant difference in whether we can call and therefore those should be the focus of any discussion.

Let me restate my argument and we can just focus on these points and assumptions:
1. V1 will bet flop with JT+, any combo draw, and NFD's.
2. V2 and V3 will raise all straights/sets/2p other than 97.
3. Villains will check turn unimproved with 97 and all worse

Game plan for turn would be: Fold to any bet but bet ~2/3 pot ourselves when checked to.
We could also check back to bluffcatch river if villains are aggressive, but if that's the case we should fold turn because we will be bluffed off our hand too often there.

So, against those ranges and following those assumptions, a flop call is +EV by my calcs if we win the pot 20% of the time of the turn. Stove some ranges (combo draws, Tx, 2p, etc. but account for V2 and V3 not having nut hands) and you'll find that we have the best hand on the turn 25%, and if it's always checked to us when we're best, we have a +EV call.

Flop fold seems intuitively right to me as well, but the numbers don't bear it out so let's discuss ranges and assumptions.

All of these assumptions could very easily be wrong, and personally I think 2 and 3 are seriously flawed.

Why exactly do you believe that 97 is the cutoff for what hands V2 and V3 will slowplay? I mean, you could be right, but we have no reason to think that. Maybe they'd slowplay all 2 pairs, but raise sets or better. Maybe they'd raise all 2 pair and middle and bottom set, but slowplay straights and top set (under the backward logic that their hand needs to be "strong enough" to slowplay). Our reads on V2 and V3 just aren't good enough to make any assumptions about what kind of hands they could or couldn't be slowplaying. If they are slowplaying a wider range than you think they are, that tilts the flop more towards being a fold.

But the real problem, in my view, is assumption 3. Here's how bad it is. You are arguing that we can often expect to be ahead with AT because there are so many draws that are going to take a card off, our one pair is probably good. Well, what's to stop V1 from thinking the same thing on the turn and betting a hand like JT or QT for what he thinks is thin value? If he did that he'd accidentally bluff us off our hand. That means we are not always making a perfect decision on the turn, which also tilts the flop more towards being a fold.

In fact, by your numbers, let's say that some of the time, V1 has Tx and bets the turn for value. Then since we are going to fold the turn in that scenario, we now ought to be folding the flop if this happens even 6% of the time! This is one of the big reasons the flop is a clear fold. We simply can't make a good plan for the turn because we do not know enough about the villains' tendencies to know that our equity will be realized.