1/3 NYC club game.

V1 (UTG $120) - 30-ish Russian guy. Very loose pre and post-flop. Saw him gii pre with A7s earlier.

V2 (SB $450) - 35 y.o white guy. Played with him several years ago and have a recollection that he was tight but it's vague. Has played reasonably TAG in the hour or so I've played with him tonight. Seen him 3-bet a couple of times.

HH with V2 - H is dealt TT UTG and raises to 15. V2 3-bets to $50 from CO. H calls. H checks, V2 bets $60 on a 4c3c2s flop, H calls. Ad turn, H checks/folds to V2's $100 turn barrel.

H is a 35 y.o. white guy in a suit straight from work. Earlier I bluffed flop and turn with ATs and ended up showing down and winning on an ace river, so can't have such a great image. Covers V1 and V2 with about $600.

V1 raises $15. H has AKo in MP and raises to $50. V2 calls from SB. V1 shoves, as expected. Hero?

My sizing was designed to let V1 reopen the betting in case there were any callers of the $50. Assume that V2 would raise from the SB with KK or AA, though can't say for sure he wouldn't slow play them. Feels like a raise is in order here to isolate V1, but thoughts welcome.

Good plan to make sure you can reopen the betting. I'd 5! to isolate V1. You have blockers to AA/KK. V2 should have 4! with AA/KK instead of overcalled anyway. I think V2 has QQ-JJ and AK here a fair amount of the time. A 5! reps AA and should get him to fold almost all of his cold-calling range. I would 5! to $200. I would plan to fold to a 6! from V2 since that probably only means KK+. I can't see a tight player 6! shove with AK or worse.

Shove. His cold-call of your 3-bet is going to be TT-QQ, AK a lot of the time. It will be AA and KK occasionally but you block those, and with all the extra money in there you are showing a profit whether he calls or folds to your shove.

Kinda gross spot, imo. I mean, if V2 was tight a few years ago and is still playing, my guess is that if anything he's tightened up even more (my guess at the natural evolution of poker survivors, I could be wrong), so he really shouldn't be taking a 3bet to face like this with very much. He knows V1 is going to get it all in, and he knows that re-opens the betting for us. And yet he's still cool flatting here. Kinda screams monster to me, but I'm MUBSy like that.

I probably shove cuz I don't know what else to do, and we might even have some FE against QQ- (and are flipping with big dead money against them anyways). But my spider senses are going off, although I'll admit they're often wrong.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This is the "standard" thinking, and is probably true in most games, which is fine.

If he's a decent player though, he should notice that V1 is a short stack and expects him to go all in, so his cold calling range actually looks super strong.

I would personally cold call QQ+ here knowing Hero will 5bet to isolate.

Having said that though, I'd also shove with AK here as Hero. But say we have AQs or JJ here (which are still clear 3 betting hands against V1's open), it is actually an extremely gross spot.

What would you guys do here with AQs and JJ?

this is one of those spots that you just don't know how much credit to give an opponent. I agree that V2 oughta see the 3 and (maybe the) 4 bet coming... yet he walks into it. All he needs to know is that V1 will reraise - perhaps his plan is to trap hero calling the 3 bet - then show his strength. But that's giving him a lot of credit. Much more likely he simply has a JJ-QQ/AK as was suggested up-thread.

Sigh. This really feels like a lot of risk to be taking to (probably) be flipping with V1 for $50 of dead money. Yuck - nothing feels good.... can't fold, hate calling, shove feels really risky... I guess I bump it to $250 and find a fold if V2 shoves.

Did V2 see V1 gii pre with A7s? How deep was V1 with that shove?
Does V2 seem to be aware that V1 is hyper-loose+aggro?

These are probably the most important questions in this hand.

V2 did see V1 gii w/ A7s. Effective stacks in that hand were about $150 or so.
I don't have a sense of how V2 perceives V1. I didn't see V2 necessarily make any plays designed to exploit V1 but had also only been sitting for an hour. Get the sense that V2 is a reg in this game, but don't know whether V1 is.

No reason to shove. Bump it up to 225

Results (which were kind of crazy) - H bumps it up to $300 (no idea why I didn't just shove).
V2 hems and haws, says something like "you really don't want me in this pot", hems and haws some more, and shove $100 on top.
H calls of course. Board runs out 33566. Hero tables AK and is somehow good in both the main and side pot!

No idea what V2 could have. 22? KQ? Maybe AQ that didn't realize he chopped on the double paired board? In any event I'm clearly changing my read on V2...

speechless... no hand that didn't at least chop on that board had any business calling off pre-flop raises and re-raises.

Yeah, obviously have to adjust read.

It's stuff like this that just shows I'm way too MUBSy most times and have to always include like 20% ****** factor into every hand range.

GwowG

I couldn't believe it. My goal was to get V2 to fold hands that had a lot of equity and to otherwise flip with him when called. Never, ever thought I was raising for value if called. V1 and V2 both packed up and left and the whole table was trying to conjecture what V2 could have had.

What's really surprising is that V2 has been playing for at least 3 years, and I assume a lot more, and probably very regularly seeing that I see him pretty much every time I've gone to one of the clubs he plays in (this was my first time at this club and he was there). Don't know how he hasn't gone broke, he must have a good job...

Revisiting this hand, I was talking about it with a dealer friend in another game who knows V2, and I've played with V2 once or twice since then as well. Confirmed based both on my discussions with friend and later play that V2 is a tight player. No idea what he was doing here, have to chalk it up to everyone doing something out of the ordinary every so often.

I'm super surprised no one blurted out "you don't have an ace!?" to V2 which happens to me on a weekly basis.

grunch:

$275/call