1. Hero: A8s in BB (200)

there is pfr from MP to 13; a couple callers in front of me and I make the call in the BB; not going to give too much information about villains bc this was early in my session and I honestly don't remember the villain descriptions, fairly standard loose passive 1/2 game; villains have stack sizes of (100-200)

F: 889, (2 spades) pot(52); I have A8 of clubs and I am first act; What would you do here on flop? I'm not in love with checking or betting here so seems it could go either way


2. Hero: AhKh in LP; Villain1 opens to 7 in front of me and I 3! to 21; ( I think I could size up a bit here), get called by Tight player(V2) in the BB and V1;

3 way to a flop:Q44,(1h) pot(64); It is checked to me; at first glance this seems like a stnd c-bet with overs and back door draws but I wonder how often I should be checking here vs betting, the board being paired doesn't really give me much to rep other than (AQ,JJ+), doesn't seem like a great board for my opponents range and maybe slightly favors my range, a delayed c-bet is always an option tho, ( Villains likely wont check a Q to me twice)


curious what other ppl think?

Hand 1: Fold preflop. With a suited A-bad kicker you need to see the flop real cheaply before it's worth playing. As played bet the flop. If you can be confident that the PFR will bet then check/raise also works but this is a good flop for PFR to give up. There are lots of worse hands that can call at least once.

Hand 2: Meh, whatever. The board is dry and has a single face card, which is good for c-betting. That is countered by it being multiway and villains tending to be non-believers on paired boards.

Stack sizes and villain tendencies matter but in abstract I'm c-betting 1/4 to 1/5 of the time. Less often then heads up but still fairly often. If I do c-bet there I'm planning to barrel a lot if I get one caller on the flop and give up if I get two.

hand 1: fold pre? seeing a flop multiway with a discount gives me good IO to see a flop, I'd rather not be OOP here but I don't see much reason for folding pre

IMO you are not nearly deep enough. If the stacks were 400, sure. But you are calling a raise oop with a hand where if you hit top pair it's not likely you are good. You are basically trying for two pair and trip 8s and a flush.

When the raise is 6.5BB the discount for being the BB isn't enough. It's not just that the big raise means your only getting 4-1 on your money. The real problem is that getting enough money post flop when you hit to justify your call is hard to impossible because stacks are not really deep enough. For a hand like this you need to be making something over 20-1 when you call and hit. To have a chance of making money you have to stack one of the other deep stacks when you hit and that won't happen enough.

If the original raise had been something small like $4/$5 you have an obvious call. Above that it's questionable and above $10 there just isn't really enough money in play.

+1

fix this leak you will see your bottom line go way up

We really need precise stack depths for all players in both hands.

1: A suited ace isn't playable multi-way from early position at these stack depths. Too often we whiff on the flop and have to fold our equity to a c-bet. If you think the pfr is opening too many hands, this is a perfect opportunity to 3-bet squeeze. AP, it really depends on villain tendencies. If he often c-bets, then we can go for the check-raise on the flop (we would make the same play with some of our flush draws).

2: The answer really depends on stack depths. If we are deep, I think this is an okay spot to check back the flop, with the intention of a delayed c-bet. We can consider checking this flop with our entire range, as the Q doesn't really hit us that hard.

Fair points guys

Thanks

This is why you fold pre (or 3bet if stacks are deeper).

wow my mistake first flop was 899 not 889; that's my bad; I did not have trips.. hence the dilemma

There’s no dilemma. You x/eval and curse yourself when you find out you folded the best hand. Then you remind yourself not to call raises with Axs OOP.

lmao yea I led out on the flop too, not happy with myself at all

That is really the only option. Having the low pair on this sort of board is a suicide position. Think about what turn card you want to see. Even if nobody has a 9 your looking for a non-spade that isn't an over card. And even those are not entirely safe because of low straight draws and underpairs making boats.

Occasionally your pair will have turn out to be best on the river but it's the exception.

H1: Fold pre. At 1/2 I would use the 15/25/35 rule when deciding whether to call a hand like this. By that rule you need effective stacks of 385 to call AXs. You can go a bit less if villain is spewy but not a lot.

AP x/c 899 flop, give up to further aggression. Donking is not bad but it complicates your game a bit to create donking ranges.

H2: Go 25 if you can. OTF V2 has mostly underpairs or nothing and if truly tight will fold to a c bet. V1 could have a Q (mostly AQ maybe KQ) and you block both. Could have QQ if we think he doesn't 4 bet it. Such a small open with QQ is very unusual however. I expect this is mostly smaller pairs, perhaps suited connectors or AXs. I would c bet and if called by V2 give up on turns that don't improve your equity. If called by just V1 I would barrel a lot of turns because he probably calls once with his underpairs and gives up OTT.

I wouldn't worry about what you can rep. Villains at this level are mostly just playing their hand. If they don't have anything they'll give up. Besides AQ and QQ+ make up 27 combos on this board, AK and JJ 22. Since a typical 3 bet range might be JJ+ AQ+ if I'm V I'm going to think you usually have it when you bet. Particularly since a lot of people will check AK or JJ here. I might peel with a hand like 99 but am giving up 100% if you barrel turn.

That said if villains are sticky a x is okay.

Could explain how the 15/25/35 rule works? which number am I multiplying the pfr by?

ok i looked it up lol 35 X 11 for a suited gapper, so I miscalculated my IO's significantly here

Yeah it's your price to call multiplied by x where x = 15, 25, or 35. If x < villains remaining stack size you can call for IO

X = 15 for pocket pairs (setmining)
X = 25 for SCs and suited broadways
X = 35 for SC 1 gappers and AXs

This is an approximation for estimating implied odds in typical games. If villain is very likely to pay you off you can reduce the numbers to 10/20/30 and if he's very unlikely to pay you off increase to 20/30/40 or higher.

Note there is some theoretical difference for what x should be for specific pairs, specific SCs, etc.

For instance we have better IO with 99 than 22 due to set over set, so we might use x = 14 for 99, x = 15 for 77, x = 16 for 33. And similarly for KQs we might use x=24 and x=26 for KJs. Likewise we prefer wheel AXs like A5s with A2s being a bit less favored for always making the lowest straight.

But in practice multiplying by intervals of 5 is much easier than by 17 or 24 etc. so I would just use 15/25/35 and if it's close make your decision based on villain type and relative hand strength.

Yes great stuff, not only better IO with 99 than 22 but also reduced ROI which is true for bigger SC's vs smaller ones as well; this will help me a lot with pre-flop play, I was using 20X for set mining but just as a general guidline; amount of players in the hand is also a factor that could allow you to lower the multiple in certain situations but not sure how to do that mathematically tbh; like for example , if I am set mining against 5 players (very stationy) Pre flop; maybe I could bend the rule to around 9 or 10x; is this reasonable? or is it a little too carried away.

Accounting for multiple callers post flop some percentage of the time is what I mean , so if im not deep enough to have 15X in my stack but still have opportunity to make 15X post flop in a given situation

In massively multiway pots you can call with shorter stacks but don't get carried away because keep in mind the other callers are also mostly nutmining and the more of them there are the higher your RIO with certain hands (particularly low PPs but also low SCs)

With hands that look to make the nuts like A6s you have no real RIO if you're calling specifically to hit a flush and planning to fold TP. So with a lot of callers in front you could definitely call shorter stacked there.

I'm familiar with the math for establishing the rule but haven't worked out fine tuning it for specific hands or for different number of callers.