Hello all, I'm George. First post here, and excited to join the community!

I played a fair bit of live poker about 5, 6 years ago, and after studying a couple of books, I was consistently doing quite well. But then I started playing online at the same monetary stakes I was playing live thinking it was the same game. I got absolutely crushed, over and over and over. Enough so that I gave up both online and live for several years.

Anyway, now that I live within walking distance of a casino with a very lively poker room, I've gotten back into poker again. Been playing 1/2 for now, but my goal is to learn to crush the 2/5 game and maybe even move up to 5/10. I have decent income outside of poker, so bankroll is not an issue.

First question:

Today at 1/2 I open raised to $10 in MP with AQs, loose passive player calls, and reasonably skillful LAG 3-bets to $35 on the button. He has likely identified me as an at least non-stupid TAG. Effective stacks were approx. $200.

I didn't particularly want to play OOP against this player with AQs. I didn't have much of a post-flop plan for the 2/3s of the time I miss, particularly if loose-passive guy calls behind me, which he certainly might for $35.

So I 4-bet to $75, loose-passive folds, LAG 5-bets all-in, and I folded.

Did my small 4-bet leaving $125 behind just scream "I have a moderately strong hand that I don't want to play OOP and one of us will fold pre-flop?"

Almost no live 1/2 player will 5-bet all-in with almost 40% of the stacks committed expecting a fold. I don't think I made the wrong fold. But I may have made the wrong bet.

What do you think? Would you have called and saw a flop, or 4-bet stronger? And if the former, what would be your plan for playing the flop if you (1) hit top pair, (2) hit a straight or flush draw, or (3) missed completely?

Assuming V 3bets wide here if LAG description is correct, you're probably neck & neck equity-wise. As far as realized equity since you're out of position, you flop TP+ or a strong draw over 41% of the time. @ the price he's giving you, we break even @~31% so I'd just flat and take it from there.

At 1/2 you can be a winning player (but not a crushing player) by just following some basic guidelines. Among those guidelines, most players at most tables do not 3! often enough. 4 bets and 5bets are almost exclusively AA/KK, weighted far heavier toward AA. QQ or JJ is more likely to result in a quick overshove because they are afraid of having to make harder decisions on later streets.

I'm curious how you know the V in this hand is a LAG. If you only recently started over at this casino, how much hand history do you have on him?

In this hand, I just call, let the passive player come along. AQs will play fine three ways, looking for straights and nut flushes, but is a dog against even moderate pairs. There is no reason to chase off the second villain. Worse case scenario, it only costs you 25 bucks more.

As played, you risked 65 bucks more, for what purpose? You scared off the passive player, and now you're going heads up with a player that you claim to know is aggressive, with a hand you aren't thrilled with, in position you're unhappy with.

You're right in that I don't have enough history to confidently label villain as a skillful LAG. It was just a rough feel from a single afternoon of playing - he played aggressively in many hands, but was quite capable of bet/folding, and definitely didn't showdown many losers.

Yea, as I think about this hand more, I definitely should've called and let loose-passive player do whatever. In the moment I just couldn't find the confidence to play this hand OOP in a potentially 3-way 3-bet pot, so I went the way of deciding this hand pre-flop.

I think very few players at live 1/2 would consider anybody capable of folding pre-flop after 4-betting 40% of their stack, so I did feel fairly confident that his 5-bet meant he wanted to get it in with AA/KK.

Another thought I had when 4-betting was:

If LAG calls my 4-bet, that removes most of the lower part of his 3-betting range, but I think it also removes AA/KK, possibly QQ. This is sort of the flip side of "1/2 players aren't going to fold pre-flop after committing 40% of their stack." I don't think he would have any reason to flat with AA/KK instead of 5-betting, and I think he'd most likely shove with QQ too. But he may call with AK, JJ, maybe even AQ and TT since my 4-bet was fairly small.

With that, I can shove on the flop whether I hit or miss, and there's a good chance he will fold the hands I described above.

However, if I call his 3-bet, I really can't range him very well. He could have AA, 99, AJ, or even a suited connector or 1-gapper. Heck, I'm capable of a squeeze play in position fairly light, and I'm most certainly much tighter than this guy.

I think this hand really showed my lack of post-flop confidence, so I made it easy for myself and avoided playing post-flop in a 3-bet pot.

Definitely not crushing the 1/2! But hey, it's my first few weeks back in the game! Definitely beating the standard ridiculousness I see on Friday / Saturday nights, lol.

Anyway, any thoughts on my pre-flop ranging? Am I completely out to lunch in assuming he would call with those hands?

If you're gonna 4 bet there you need to just rip it in. Why click it to 75 with a hand you aren't prepared to call off with only having ~125 behind? You basically just set yourself up to get outplayed. Min 4 betting isn't going to get him to fold anything. He could've been 3 betting with all kinds of stuff on the button especially after there was a caller. He's never doing anything but jamming on you or calling after you min 4 bet. You already know you're folding to a jam and if he calls you are out of position in a 4 bet pot where you are gonna whiff 2/3 of the time and you would have less than a pot sized bet left. If he's any good he also knows if he just calls the 4 bet you're gonna be jamming most of your range on the flop hit or miss. This sets you up to get trapped if he has a monster. He probably is never just gonna call either with anything you might be ahead of like smaller suited aces, medium suited connectors or even suited K-BW hands. I think you're only being called by monsters and getting jammed on with monsters occasionally but a whole bunch of other stuff too. Nothing wrong with just calling pre or even folding. Folding is bad too but not as bad as that min click back with the plan to fold to a jam. If you call the other guy will be enticed to come along as well getting immediate odds of 25 to win 80. If you go to a flop your hand is easy to play. Continue with an A, Q or flush draw on the flop or be done with it.

1. You have 28.6% versus a range of AA/KK/QQ/AK and 25.4% against AA/KK, 4 bet/folding here is just lighting money on fire as a strategy in this spot if he has ANY bluffs/weaker hands at all

2. If you have him read as being tight super tight with his 3 betting range...it's cannot be a 4 bet

3. You don't have to 4 bet pre, you could evaluate on the flop

4. Flatting may induce the bad player to come along

5. Small 4 bet worked well if you had AA and wanted a shove, huh?

6. Position isn't quite as important when the SPR gets this small. You're going to have an SPR of 2.5 on the flop, plus some idea of whether you're going to continue or not.