V1 - SB ($140) - Quiet, somewhat passive, relatively tight and plays premium hands. He doubled up against me earlier with AKo which lost to his AJ. We got it in pre, I made it 15 and he shoved all in for 70.

V2 - HJ ($300) - Bad LAG regular, bluffy, aggressive, and also tilting from losing to an old lady who is a calling station. He is sitting to my right and was telling me how much he hates 1/2 and wishes he was playing 2/5. He was saying how pointless it is to bluff at 1/2. It's funny because another gambling maniac regular at the table says the same thing, yet continues to bluff.

Hero - CO ($300) - Played with V1/V2 a couple times before but not a ton of history. Perceived as a tight aggressive player. Especially during this session, as I've stood up to a different aggro maniac at the table by raising/shoving with premium hands, and winning.

Preflop: UTG straddles, V2 calls, Hero has AKo and makes it $20, V1 and V2 call.

Flop: QQ3r (~$60)
Checks around

Turn: Ad, putting two diamonds on the board
V1 checks, V2 bets $25, Hero and V1 call

River: Ks (~$135)
V1 checks, V2 bets $80, Hero tanks... Looks at V1 who is behind to act, and he still has his white chip on his cards and doesn't look to be folding. I even glare at him a bit but he is stiff. Hero?

Normally my read is that if someone checks twice as V1 did on flop and turn, he doesn't have the Q. But this read has proven wrong with passive players several times recently, so I'm not sure what to think of that.

If it's heads up versus V2, I am snap calling. But the fact that he is making value-sized bet sizes into 2 opponents on such a scary board makes me think he wants a call and has a Q or better.

this is $1/$2 with $4 straddle?? raise to $25 pre to isolate after a limp and straddle. cbet $30 as played. you dont really expect to get callled by worse or fold out better, but we are betting what's often the best hand, protecting our equity, and reduce the chance we get bluffed later. checking to give a hand like JT a free 6 outer on turn is pointless.

Call turn and call river as played. he could have just an ace. his bet sizing doesn't indicate too much strength

I think you're good against V2 about half the time. No one has shown any strength in the hand, so he could be doing this with a lot of hands: something like a weak A.

The problem comes if V1 shoves and then V2 reshoves. I guess I would fold to that.

Sorry - It is $1/2 with $5 straddle

1) I am surprised about recommending a $30 cbet 3-handed with a bad tilty LAG in the hand. Aren't we just going to get called and give up on every non A/K turn?

2) Lastly about the river bet sizing, isn't a >1/2 pot bet on the river pretty strong on a scary, paired board 3-handed? Seems like he wants a call by an Ace or a King.

Just want to better understand these concepts of cbetting and bet sizing. Thank you

Check the turn. You're only getting one street from Ax on this board and don't want to value own yourself against Qx. If the river checks around to you then you're always good here. If one of them leads river then probably call depending on sizing.

This is a really interesting spot, one that has no "standard" line as far as I can see, and one where we want to take wildly different lines against different players. It's not necessarily a close EV spot either -- against some players, calling would be a disaster, and against others, folding would be. In other words, it's very difficult.

Preflop: What were the stakes/straddle? If this is 1/2 and the straddle was to 4, I think your preflop raise is a little small over the limp. I'd go to $25. (Doing this with all hands). If the straddle was to $5 then $20 is definitely too small; I'd be going to $30.

Aside from that quibble I like the way the hand was played postflop. What I don't like is that, while we have some general reads, we do not have pre-flop calling ranges for these villains. This leaves us in the dark, and is very important on this board, because this decision can be strongly in favor of calling, folding, and even raising, depending on what our missing reads are. Due to this, most of this post will read: "if A then X, if B then Y, if C then Z." It's a little convoluted and I apologize, but it's the best I can do with your half-reads. (Developing clear reads/ranges is what OP needs to work on imo.)

Flop: I really really like the check. If we had bet, we'd have gotten folds from undercards that missed (9T/similar), calls from underpairs that correctly don't think we have the Q, and we would start building a pot against a slowplaying Q. It's the definition of a bad bet and it's good that we didn't make it. There are no draws that we extract value from.

Turn: The LAG could be betting with anything. He could have diamonds, or KJ/JT, or an underpair that he's turning into a bluff, or absolutely nothing and is correctly stealing on a dry board with no interest shown, or he could have AXs, or perhaps AXo, or a monster. Against a range this wide I'm pretty happy calling and keeping it wide. I'm also okay with raising to extract value from draws, and goading queens into re-raising us so we can happily fold.

V1 could be calling with a draw or an underpair or a Q/monster. I wouldn't generally trust your "didn't take chips off cards" river read to mean he didn't simply have a draw that missed. If someone shoves the river, I'm folding, and a player to my right is contemplating calling, I make a point of never giving away that I'm folding. After all, I don't want them to know when I'm calling so they make a more correct play against me later.

River: JT got there and nothing else. V2 could certainly be incorrectly bluffing (diamonds/air), not realizing that no one is ever folding a pair of aces. Most players at low stakes, bad LAGs included, bluff small because they have no balls. This, however, is very player dependent, and if you've been playing with this LAG for a while you should know what a small bet means from him. If he's the type who bets big when he bluffs, but has a good hand here, this is a fold, unless he's also the type to overvalue a pair of aces, in which case it's a call or shove.

BUT, there is another option. Does this bad LAG limp/call unsuited aces? Has he shown, say, A9o down in a raise pot? If so, I like shoving the river. The LAG will likely level himself into calling with any ace, supposing you are forcing him off a chop, not because that's what you would do, but because that's what he would do. People have trouble folding aces here because they think the kicker won't matter. They have two pair -- AAQQK, and think you have the same thing. If you've heard him talk about this move, then definitely go all in. If he's never mentioned trying to force someone off a chop, we can just call and keep things safe. We need his range to have lots of crappy aces in it for this to work though.

Basically, the K is a decent card for us, not because it improves our hand (it actually makes us lose more showdowns), but because our opponents may incorrectly think it improved theirs.

I would call rather than reshove here; I'm just throwing the shoving idea out there because 1) we have a tilting LAG, 2) he bluffs a lot anyway. This all very much depends on villain being a level 0 thinker. This sort of strategizing works against level 0 thinkers. If he's thinking about what he can get value from (that is, what we have), this all goes out the window.

It's a bummer if V1 somehow outflopped us and slowplayed a monster and gets to triple up, but I'm pretty much ignoring his presence because he only has $15 more behind after this river bet and he can absolutely call/shove with any AX for the same reasons I outlined above. Plus he might be about to fold a draw.

Not really a scary board imo. One straight, the flush draw missed, V1 probably raises trips when the draws appear, V2 has a wide range. With your image, it might be a lot scarier for your villains than us if WE were to shove. Straights might find a fold against our likely full house, and naked trips might find a fold against our possible straight/full house. I know it's strange to say that shoving might get calls from worse or folds from better, but we don't really have many reads, and the point is: shoving would give our opponents the chance to make many mistakes.

Of course if you have some sort of live read that V1 is really strong and likely has a Q then go with that (I go with reads on principle). But ultimately. I don't feel bad about being coolered on a hand like this when the stacks are so short after the straddle, SPR was 5 to 1 (2 to 1 with V1), and we hit top two pair.

Cliffs: yes, either villain can have a Q, but I think we are good often enough here to call, and I think we even have the option of value bet shoving into V1. If all of these reads are truly missing, then I default to calling with an underrepped hand, but this could be really wrong.

This is honestly one of the most confusing hands I've ever thought about, and every paragraph I wrote has about 5 ideas/possibilities and 0 conclusions. I think the difficulty is what's responsible for the high number of views compared to the low number of responses. Sorry, HH! If you have any more reads that you neglected to put in the thread, please tell us so we can narrow down the possibilities a little.