Haven't played in a year so I'm a bit rusty.

8-handed 3/5

UTG (1500) is decent player, young late 20's, early 30's white girl. She won 6-figures in a WPT tournament a couple years ago. Solid, semi-tight aggressive. Plays fairly ABC, though capable of making moves in position. We have some history, 3-betting, aggro, etc.

Hero, UTG+2 (2000) -- young asian, perceived as dangerous LAG. Just moved to left of V a few hands ago.

UTG raises to 25. I call with TT. Late position, very old guy (1000) calls. He's not very good, but likes to chase and make really weird plays/calls.

3 to flop.

Pot (80) 852r. UTG bets 60.

Do you raise or call here?

Raising is just bluffing (if you raise, can you ever envisage a situation where you show down unimproved against UTG and win?) and this doesn't seem like a great choice for a bluff.

I'm not a million miles away from folding, honestly. 60 into 80 vs two players on this flop is usually a real hand. I can't tell from your player description whether this player is likely to cbet whiffed hands here.

If you’re trying to isolate yourself with UTG because u think u have an exploitable read on them, I think raising can be +EV, and may be better EV than calling.


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Its a standard flat spot, on such a dry board i choose to be extremely polarized in my raising range i.e. sets and A-3,A-4 gutters with backdoor flush draws. Is this hand played at Talking Stick? If so i'd like to know who villain is (P.M. me if you want).But in a vacuum i'd have a very limited raising range and middling overpairs would not be it.

+1

Villain also has all of these sets so raise/folding seems ****ty. And if he flats we are in arguably a worse position.

Though because of our position at UTG+1 I don’t think we’re going to ever have a hand like A4s/A3s, adam, so I probably don’t even have a raising range here. I’m gong to flat TT and 88 all the same.

Whilst flatting is certainly the "standard" play here, it's actually not bad to make an exploitable raise here. The reason why raising is fine is for 4 reasons:
1. UTG will never 3bet the flop without a hand that crushes us, which makes it an easy raise/fold.
2. UTG will often check the turn if he flats the raise, which allows us to check back and ultimately get to showdown for the same price.
3. We can deny equity from all overcards (KQ, AJ, AQ, AK) in UTG's range by raising the flop.
4. We'd raise a set here sometimes, so we can raise some weaker pairs (even middle pair) here for balance.

I really respect the fact that you're willing to think outside the box and make some non-standard plays here. I think that this is a great spot to do so.

I don't agree with the bolded. Many good V's will 3! light with AK or AQ here repping QQ+ as they won't believe that you would raise a set. Not saying don't raise, but know your audience for this play.

I would flat and play the turn IP.

call

raising is over playing your hand. We have an UTG raiser, her range is going to be strong. If it's not AK, it's JJ+. Why would we raise against that range, especially a semi-tight player? Basically I'm begging to get to showdown cheap here.

Call unless you have a read that V cbets too often (with this sizing) in which case you should bluff raise air fairly often which allows you to raise this hand for value/protection.

This is a 3-handed flop guys. Let’s not just completely ignore the villain behind us.

She's the type to bet/fold all overcards on this board.

Then yeah should be playing back pretty aggressively with a bluff raise. Good candidates are ATs/KQs/QJs/JTs w/ BDFD. That also means you'll have to value raise a bit thinner so that you're not bluffing too much so sometimes but not always JJ/TT/ATs. If you're not playing back this aggressively then raising those latter group of hands is an overplay so just call them.

Doesn't qualify as a reason to raise.

But you're getting there against a different range. If UTG flats your raise, you are not going to win at showdown, except very occasionally against 99.

This is true, but it's basically true in every hand that we can deny some equity by betting or raising.

This is the wrong hand to balance with, you're wasting the value of the hand by turning it into a bluff. Raise with a hand like AXs or KQs with a BDFD.

So pretty much what I said..flat this hand fir 2/3 pot from EP (solid?) villian,especially with a bad nit behind...what s the turn?

Turn is ace. She bets, I fold. I’m probably continuing on any card jack or less.

Did LP old guy fold flop? Turn is a good opportunity to turn your hand into a bluff and rep all of those sets from the flop or even Ax two pair.

Yes, LP folded.

Good idea with turning hand into bluff. I'm just getting the wheels turning again after about 100 hours of play the last week and half, so thank you for reminding me to think creatively.

Bluffing is a decent idea, this hand is probably at the bottom of your range on this turn and doesn't really block anything you want your opponent to have, so if you want to have some bluffs this seems like a good candidate.

Vs Villain I’m probably folding turn unless bet sizing is off,but it’s a good thought.