HJ (1k) He just got his JJ cracked for a 2k pot and is now raising every hand for past 7 hands. He's shown 85s when he raised over a limper from the Sb.

CO (1.4k). Foreign man in his forties. He acknowledged hero that I'm not at my usual casino I grind at. I have no idea who he is..

2/5
Folds to HJ who raises to 15. Co BTN and SB (1.5k) call.
Hero (1.4k) raises to 75 in BB w AcJh.
CO and SB call.
Flop (225) AsKs8s 1 ck. hero bets 130. CO raises to 330. SB folds. Hero?

flat pre. 3betting is terrible. stick wih AQ+ TT+. fold flop. youre flipping or dead

Defffffffinitely 3!ing pre. This is practically like iso'ing a straddler at this point. Weeeee variance train as we're essentially playing 1500nl 90bbs deep.

OTF: options are between b/f or x/f. Prefer a x/f given we can rely on players to seldom bet worse on a monotone flop in a 3b pot, and we're OOP with a marginal hand with zero equity protection whatso-****ing-ever.

Now that we bet and were raised, I don't understand what the question is.

3! bigger here oop. Make it 100. We don't want to be playing a bloated pot oop with AJo vs multiple opponents.

As played 165/f

How does the villain react to if 3bet?
I can see the merit of 3 betting this guy but if he calls I can see the other calling as just for value,then we are playing a big pot,low spr,oop with and average hand.
If he is more inclined to fold then 3 bet big.
I personally would be leaning towards a fold pre but that is just me and AJo.
As for the flop just fold at best you are flipping at worst you are dead in the water playing against an unknown I would not want to be going too crazy

Fold Pre. This hand has literally no SDV. Play from OTB in raised pot is fine.

Flat pre. As played, definitely folding to the flop raise.

Check flop.

Personally I would never 3 bet in this spot especially with how deep we are, but it can't be too bad since you take it down preflop a lot and AJ has decent playability against their in-position calling ranges, especially if we flop a jack as top pair. But keep in mind that they will also flat most of the time with AK/AQ.

OTF -- I see no issue with betting this flop since you usually have the bet hand, but nothing wrong with just checking instead to see what happens. But when you bet and get raised it's a snap fold. He has AK, 88, A8s, or flushes with suited connectors a lot here or even AxQs. What do you beat? I can't imagine what a mess the turn and river would be if you call here. If he bluffed you or overplayed his AT, fine, wait for a better spot.

I don't understand why we wouldn't 3! AJo for value/squeeze here. This is a reasonably strong hand in this spot with dead money. $75 is about a pot-sized raise but I'd prefer it be a bit bigger being OOP and deep-stacked.

This flop hits our perceived range well, although we're somewhat capped as CO probably doesn't put QsJs type hands in our 3! range. I think the flop is an easy fold to the raise. We don't have to worry about being exploited as we have much better hands to defend with. AJ no spade is probably close to the bottom of our flop betting range.

I prefer checking the flop and folding to a reasonable bet. We flopped TPGK but it's pretty marginal in this spot.

The 3! is good pre. We want to iso the guy on monkey tilt. Since the tilted player folded, this becomes a standard b/f spot.

i think 3 betting pre is not bad, a bigger 3bet pre would have been a little better considering 4 people already in pot. maybe go closer to double pot imo.

on flop i bet 3/4 pot. you bet closer to half pot

dude might be semi bluffing with the 3spades out there

What you are doing PF is turning your hand into a bluff in a spot where you shouldn't be bluffing. Just my opinion anyway. There are probably accomplished players who can make this work.

I think Sklansky discusses this exact NL hand in one of his theory books, as an example of how to force your opponents to play exactly as they should. I.e. "value-owning" yourself.

AJo is always marginal. Flops that are both J high and dry are uncommon.

Op clearly said HJ was on tilt and raising 7 hands in a row, the table knew this and they all flatted pre. If co had ak or aq he would have 3bet not flat, and every flat caller after that shows less strength by simply calling.

Op felt his hand was best and 3 bet which i feel was the right play in this situation, because hes raising for value and also trying to thin the field and play against less opponents.

You say AJ is a marginal hand always, well Aj becomes even more marginal in a 5 way pot. You either 3bet here or fold, calling is too weak

+1 that if you're gonna 3-bet, you need to raise bigger.

Your OP doesn't really tell us anything about the villains except that one guy is on tilt, and says nothing about how you play and how V's would perceive you.

If you are quite new to the table and don't have proper reads on these guys, then its not mandatory to 3bet and create a big pot OOP…calling and playing it safe till you get better reads is probably better.

I mean, this V has raised to $330 and you don't know what to do? Suggests that you don't know how he plays, tight, passive, super aggro etc …you don't seem to have any info whether he would do this with spade draws, combo draws or only made hands.

On face value it looks hard for him to have a value hand since its very unlikely he has AA, KK or AK…does he call loose pre with something like A8? Facing this aggression with no reads i would fold and pick a better spot.

Thanks everyone. I guess I'm posting because I folded and the dude that raised proudly shows me QsTh and is like straight draw flush draw! I felt like I shoulda maybe checked the flop.

I agree to some extent; fold. If you are a player who can make a 3-bet work consistently in this situation, no need to ask my advice.

^ Most people are saying it started to go bad before that.

^ Not really. Flatting into this cluster shows significant strength. Think about it; would you go to the felt if one of them 4-bet? s/b obv. not. So I agree with the principle of the 3-bet, but question whether the facts fit. I'd 3-bet with TT 24/7.

3b is fine. Sizing is fine. Calling pre is fine if not optimal given HJ range.

4 ways I think b/f this flop is best. Not sure why we are checking unless it's to get HJ to blast off. If it were HU or possibly 3 way I'd be more inclined to c/c

3bet or fold pre. I would 3bet given the table dynamics. Every caller responded to the maniac and hasn't shown any real strength. You should 3bet to at least 100, probably more like 110.

The CO and SB called with the maniac out of the hand. They're probably not calling with garbage. I think it's fine to cbet and try to take it down. Chances are someone doesn't have the Q or J of spades. This is a clear bet-fold. I also don't mind checking and evaluating the flop.

Unlucky the villain had the nut flush draw. Very loose call from V with two players still to act. A larger 3bet should have folded out QTo.

I would have 3bet bigger especially expecting the HJ to flat since he's tilting. Usually I don't like light 3betting tilting players but since there is so much dead money in the pot I would 3bet to 95.

otmf, since people will most likely play straight up in monotone 3bet pots, I would either check or b/f depending on the type of villain the bb is.

As played, the fold was correct imo.

3bet pre. it's going to be a lot better than flatting in a multiway pot.

yes we're def. turning our hand into a bluff but why shouldn't we? We have a guy opening almost ATC followed by 3 callers. A lot of dead money and people don't really have anything. Taking down dead money is pure profit.

This is completely incorrect. It's actually the exact opposite.

We expect to get called super wide by HJ (ie by a worse hand). That is the definition of value betting.

Sure we might get called in other spots but those tend to be hands that AJ plays well against or flipping with. Reads/ranges/etc on other players would be helpful but 3b a tilting 100 VPIP player with AJ is not "bluffing" in any way.

My understanding of OP is that HJ folded and we are 3-way against CO and SB.

You are correct. Thought it was 4 ways. Still inclined to b/f but yeah prob closer

No offense to the person who posted this, but I literally had to take a few days' break from LLSNL after this thread (I'm only quoting this post because it did the best job of summarizing people's sentiments ITT).

Everyone needs to put the hand chart down for a second and take a momentary reprieve from their refusal to stack off with a single pair hand, and do this deceptively simple thing: put villain on a range and decide how to exploit it.

If villain is raising 85s out of the SB, then he's easily opening 30%+ of his hands regardless of scenario, and the fact that he's raised 7 straight hands means that it's likely much closer to 80% of hands. So in order for villain to not be "more inclined to fold," then he needs to be continuing with 40%+ of all possible NLHE holdings. I beg of you to put this into stove and see what those holdings look like, to consider how villain would have to play in order for him to not be folding postflop so often that it doesn't even matter what hand we hold, we can just auto bomb them for a profit.

Put the flatters on ranges and consider what percentage of *those* holdings they would have to be calling with for them to be "calling as just for value" whenever the first player calls along.

Then, make some base assumptions about how good their hand has to be for them to continue BEFORE you play with Flopzilla and plug away with different flops. Are you still convinced that we can't win a big pot with TPGK? If not, are they folding so often that we can make a profit with air?

If you are still not comfortable with 3!ing, then repeat the process with us flatting.

Hand strength is relative, and if you are up against 85s+/A3o+/J8o+/etc, then AJo is no longer an "average hand." I'm sorry, but if someone is opening 80% of hands, and you can't figure out how to win money with one of the top 8% of NLHE preflop holdings, then you have become the donk.

Yes, I realize that you also have that super secret plan in your pocket of calling with any PP and coolering them with a set, and yes, I realize that you are making some "loose" calls IP and "abusing" them by adding like 5% of the world's greatest coordinated cards in the 50% of the time that you have position on this player, but do not let this give you the illusion that you are actually exploiting this lagomaniacdroolermobydicksizedwhale. Because you are not.

You might be <80 years old, and you might have headphones instead of a newspaper, but you are this generation's OMC and I sure you notice your winrate slowly approaching zero as the games get less and less "juicy."