1/3 game...575 effective stacks...

3 limps, agro winning regular in his mid 20s raises to 20 in cutoff, button folds, we are in sb w/ AJs what line do we like? BB is a weak passive.

His range here is wide and I do not think he will 4 bet unless he has AA, KK or AK. A 3 bet/Cbet should be effective here, but is that the best ev line?

Do we want to keep limpers (all fish) in hand? Villain will continue w/ boards that hit our range and we would likely be ahead. However, our relative position is not good.

Thoughts?

Fold > Raise > Call

This player is agro and attacks limpers consistently and his range is very wide. AJs is ahead of his range here all day. I don't think folding is an option.

I'm leaning fold for 2 reasons: oop and facing a winning player.

Sounds like you are ahead of his range, so 3-betting makes sense from a value standpoint. Personally I'd value position over hand strength.

I think calling is out. Do you think AJs plays well multi-way oop? I don't think so. Building a pot when you hit and are looking for a return is much more challenging.

If he is consistently raising limpers then you have many opportunities to exploit this. I'd rather you do it from position than from OOP (you are 2 spots to his left so he only has position on you for 2 out of 9 hands). If he is raising often then other players may be limping a wide range of hands including hands that dominate ours.

Also, in general a strategy of trying to exploit winning players isn't very profitable at this level unless you are just head and shoulders better than them.

Calling isn't an option and shouldn't even be considered. Major leak if you call here.

It depends on how bad the other limpers are, but I'm probably 3 betting here. Playing AJs 5 ways OOP sucks, folding is actually an option FR, since AJ is often just going to flop TPGK or a FD. Playing a bloated pot OOP with TPGK or a FD a potential SPR < 4 isn't ideal obviously.

If it was just a CO open, I like calling with the fish in BB, then leading or check raising good flops for you. The fish should keep the aggro reg a little more honest.

This is spot on.

Calling leaves you oop against a solid aggressive player with a hand (AJs) that when it hits the flop is dominated often enough to be challenging to play correctly and when it misses (2/3 of time) is also going to provide difficult choices against opponent's wide range. Calling allows your opponent to play correctly more often then it will you. 3-betting to 60 should create a HU situation (which is what you want) and because you're raising from the sb the villain will most likely respect your action and only re-raise with the upper part of his range (unless of course he knows you know that and so he might add a few more hands at the bottom of his range to 4-bet). If you re-raise and he 4-bets then you need to be able to fold. 3-betting with this hand and playing the villain oop will require you to c-bet nearly 100% of flops and then to continue with your aggression. Are you prepared for him to raise your c-bet when you miss (middle and small flop)? What action would you choose if he raised your c-bet knowing that his calling range of your pf 3-bet is likely wide enough to include middle and small pairs, suited connectors and perhaps even suited Ax or Kx hands. Folding pf eliminates the challenges of playing this medium strength AX suited hand from oop against a solid aggressive player. Calling is incorrect, raising gets you value when you're ahead and information about his hand but must be followed through with more aggression from oop post flop and with that comes a number of challenges. Folding eliminates the challenges but you might be giving up too easily with the best hand. If you know that you can handle the challenges post flop against this opponent then raise but if you know you're not as good a post flop player as the villain then fold.

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I like this theory and would have liked 3betting enough i think is gonna win the pot and be done with it. If called down i shut down unless i flop well thinking his call means im probably dominated. Idk if its correct play but i like it lol

If you just want to win it preflop, you are risking a lot to win a pot that isn't all that big.

By taking this line pre you are repping a hand like AA/KK so a c-bet is a must on most boards. Normal villains will call us pre with hands like AK/AQ and pairs (some villains will call wider) so a lot of boards won't be good for them so we shouldn't just give them the pot by checking flops.

If there's a good chance the limpers come along if we call, then I just flat preflop and ~nutmine. Hopefully other stacks are deepish too and belong to poorish players.

If things are likely to just go HU, I'd probably just fold. There's no way we're going to win any money long term OOP to a good winning player here, so stack sizes (while great) don't really matter.

I also don't like 3betting because villain still did raise after 3 limpers (and at a loose table this typically means he's more doing this with hands that crush ours), we're deep enough that he'll typically be calling the 3bet, and we'll be playing OOP to a good player postflop (which obviously sucks).

ETA: I don't think calling is super bad *if* the limpers are likely to come along (and hopefully are deepish and bad). I think AJs plays fine multiway, so we're happy to see a multiway flop. The only downside is that the SPR will be fairly small and we won't have a lot of wiggle room, but we're obviously not playing for TP.

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