Game is 2/5 $500 max. Late in same session from the bottom set hand. Hero is not having a good night, into the game for $1900 with around $425 in front (no tilt yet, but been frustrating. First 2/5 session in quite a while and have run into top of opponents ranges 3x not to mention a few where I have gotten it in really good only to be outdrawn. But I digress.). V in this hand is a young LAG, very active, willing to put pressure on at appropriate spots, might be an aspiring pro. He has been in God Mode since the game started. He has $2800 in front.

Folded to V in MP2 and he raises to $20. SuperAsianlagtardDonkeyFish calls in CO and Hero calls BTN with AT. Maybe first mistake...anyone 3! here? I admit at this point I was a bit gunshy so didn't give it the proper thought.

Flop($62 after max rake)

K4Q

V bets $40. DonkeyFish folds (for the first time in his life on the flop) and it is on Hero. Hero thinks that flatting and raising both have merit here, so wanted to ask what you guys would do. And if you do choose to raise, what is your sizing and plan for the rest of the hand if V flats/3!'s?

Thanks,

Shorn

Definitely looking to 3b here vs MP2 LAG, particularly with a caller in between. If he calls the 3b OOP I'm checking back if he checks or jamming this specific flop if he bets. Checking back most A-high flops (unless it's AAX/ATX/TTX).

As played? Your stack size makes this pretty difficult at this point. I don't think an overbet jam works because you don't have enough equity vs most of his calling range which is KK/QQ/AK/KQ. So I'd just call the flop and hope to bink a turn card. If you miss turn and he jams, you just fold and move on. If he checks turn you jam and hope you didn't run into the top of another player's range again.

Edit: I miscalculated stack sizes on turn, forget the jamming, but definitely putting in a 70-80% PSB on the turn if he checks to you.

On a KQX two tone flop I doubt we have much FE as a lot of his range pre connects with this board. I guess I play it passive IP and call but plan on betting most any turn if he checks.

3b and flat pre both have merits. It's better to be quite a bit deeper to 3b this hand but you can still probably turn a profit with a 3b in this spot. Whether call is better is pretty close. Benefits to calling are keeping the SPR larger postflop and keeping the donkeyfish in the pot. I'd lean more toward call than 3b but a healthy mix of both is fine, maybe 80/20? If you're 3betting this all the time then you're doing it way too much I think. Maybe opt to 3b the suited baby aces instead since they're not as playable as ATs for a flat.

Postflop I think flatting is much better. If I had a read that he's cbetting way too much, like with 99 or QJ then a raise makes a lot more sense. A benefit of flatting is to keep in his worse draws which you have absolutely dominated, that he could certainly fold to a raise. If he's pretty agro and barreling a lot then I'd be looking to semibluff the turn a bunch. Edit: I think he'd have to be really lagro to shove over a turn bet. If he checks to you I think you can bet and try to take it down.

3bet or call are both fine, if we expect V to fold a lot and donkeyfish to call often i definitely like a 3bet more.

AP, V is betting into a donkeyfish and a perceived tilted player on a board that hits his range pretty hard. Not sure we have that much fold equity. I probably flat and possibly look to semibluff some turns, like a 9 or a Q.
That being said, we have like 40% vs the top of his range, so raising is surely making us money also.

We're basically flipping against his continue range. Also I think if he has total airball like 97dd and pairs up on the turn, we can fold him out later anyway so we're fine w/ giving him a cheapie with those hands. Plus we're at a range disadvantage. So I think I like calling flop.

OK so based on the comments I butchered this one (and leads me to think that I WAS on tilt and need to watch myself more closely).

I decided to raise to $125 (which again, given my stack size is brutal sizing being kind of tweener). V thinks for maybe 5 seconds and shoves. So pot is $632, $280 to call with 12 clean outs. I need 44% equity to call so it was kind of close but at this point I just didn't feel I could get away so I called. I of course bricked and he won with AKo. I left shortly after because I KNEW at that point I would tilt off another buyin or so if I stayed. "So I got that going for me....which is nice."

Feel like I played really poorly this past week, clearly have some tilt issues that need attention, and am in need of some work on my game, particularly sizing when playing a capped stack. Thanks to you guys for re-iterating what I kind of knew anyway, but it was helpful to hear.

Shorn

Props for admitting the butcher, lord knows I've butchered hands way too many times. It wasn't that bad since you had some chance of winning From this and the other hand you posted I think you would benefit a lot from exercising some quick math and predicting what the pot size and remaining stacks will be.

Yeah I think you are right. I think one of my weaknesses is planning ahead for future streets when sizing a bet on an early street. I seem to be fine at this when deep, but have a tendency to get lost a bit when a 100 bb's and lower. I also need to take more time with some decisions. Oh, and I need to run better too.

Mostly standard. Sometimes you just lose.

I don't think raising is awful, the biggest argument is that hero is not really deep enough to get much extra fold equity over several streets. Villain cbet range on this texture should also be value-orientated, and it's not clear if he even fires with weaker pairs like tt or jj.

Implied odds on the turn for flatting seem pretty good, our hand is so easy to play well in position

Raising is certainly not awful as an exploit esp if villain cbets too much with stuff like Qx, AJ gutshots or even underpairs, but I would not raise this board texture as played with any of my range vs a good opponent. You have KQ and 44 for value, and that´s it, you got way too many draws in your raising range if you decide to have a raising range on this texture.

anyway, by far the biggest concern I have for you is that you blatantly miscalculated your pot odds, if you need to call off 280 to win 632 you don´t need anywhere near 44% to call profitably.

grunch

flatting seems fine pre here with the other flatter. We have a decent multi-way hand. I wouldn't mind a 3-bet with ATo as a squeeze.

On the flop, I mean you have so much equity it doesn't really matter what you do except fold. I think calling is ok here because that's what you'd do with, like, KJs or AQ or so. But raise/GII seems fine too.

Agreed, this is a significant math mistake.

I don't really understand the pot size if his raise is $280 more either.

Pot before flop: $62.

First bet $40, Second bet $125, All in for $405.

So we're calling $280 more and the final pot will be $62 + $405 + $405 = $872.

In this case you only need to win 32.2% of the time to show a profit.

You can check this buy calculating the profit if you won 1 in 3 times.

1 time you win $872 - $280 = $592
2 times you lose $280

Result: $592 - $560 = +$32

Edit:
When you express your odds in a ratio, you do (pot size without my call) to (my call) i.e. "$592 to $280 odds" but when you calculate the percentage, you need to do (my call) / (pot size after my call) i.e. $280 / $872 = 32.11%

WP OP

We should be 3-betting some of our draws on this board, to balance the times when we 3-bet our KQ and 44. I would include a few combos of semibluffs, mainly with our weaker draws which we can easily fold to a 4-bet. I would go with AsJx and AsTx (non-suited). You can also include AsJs and AsTs if you want. Like other have said, you can't really misplay those hands except for folding.

Shorn, I corrected your math in the bottom set hand. You made the same math mistake here. As already pointed out, you only needed 32% equity to call, not 44% so its snap call after your raise. Not knowing that math is a HUGE leak.

As for how you played the hand, preflop is kinda whatever. I can go either way vs a LAG with a fish in between.

Post flop Id say you played it perfectly. You have to raise this flop against a LAG. Hes a LAG. This flop doesnt hit his range like it does vs a TAG. Even vs a TAG, I'm raising most of the time. A flop raise is going to win this hand very often vs a LAG. If he shoves over your raise like he did here, its an easy call. If he calls your raise, you can shove the turn most of the time and live with the result. Its +EV.

Calling this flop bet with this hand in this situation vs this player is really pretty bad.

Forgive me if I'm wrong OP but I think you made a similar mistake in another hand/post so, at risk of bring patronising (and I absolutely suck at maths myself so I know how it feels)...

When facing a calling decision you're "have to win to break-even%" is given by:

Call amount/(pot before your call + call amount)

So here break even equity = 280/(280 + 632) = 31%

Thus you have a profitable call on the turn.


My thoughts on hand coincide with the others:

Preflop calling with the fish involved is fine. If I were going to be the first preflop caller I would probably fold due to being a bit short stacked to be able to profit from my position given V is a strong player.

Too little fold equity on flop vs his strong range for betting into a calling station on this board (which hits his open range hard). So just call flop and look to raise or bet turn if you make it or if you pick up extra equity.

U guys are right and I just fat fingered the pot size when putting this in writing. Funny, it looked wrong when I was writing it, but I didn't go through it again. I knew it was a no brainer call at the table which I guess is the most important.

Yup and I did the same thing in the set hand too when posting it. Weird. Again, I did the math correctly at the table but just screwed up my notes and then was an idiot when posting to not go back over it again.

Thanks to all for commenting/critiqueing.

Shorn

Ah, Mike beat me to it on the maths, apologies.

Mike, don't you think a good LAG is going to tighten up some on the flop with both a station sat and a shorter stacked somewhat tilted but otherwise competent reg behind too? Surely he's realising his FE is substantially lower than usual here?

Hero never said the guy was a"good" LAG. He just said hes a LAG who puts the pressure on in appropriate spots. Betting the flop with 2 big broadway cards is well within those guidelines.

Lots of LAGS just bet and hope nobody can call. But even if you told me the LAG had Kx (including lots of lower suited Ks), Id still raise and put the pressure on him.

Against this player, facing the preflop raise and flop continue into two players, Calling would appear to be a bit more optimal then raising. I think the only non-made that you should consider raising with in this spot would be JTss given that you have 9 flush outs + 6 straight draw outs.

There are only 2 value hands you are raising with here, 44 and KQ, the rest of your raises are drawing hands. For KQ, there is a good chance that V blocks at least 1 or more combos, so that reduces the amount of KQ's that you can have. V can have all the made hands in this spot and only a few marginal drawing type hands. When he c-bet leads, we know he is not leading JT into two players, so the chances of him having a marginal drawing hand (98ss, 78ss) are pretty slim. His Hand range is weighted way more towards strength or just complete air, and the complete air you can probably fold out on later streets. The strength (AA, AK, KQ, 44, KK, QQ) which makes up a large portion of his range here is just not folding. KJs and KTs are two made hands that could potentially fold, but even then he's probably going to float the flop with backdoor draws. So you're not going to get many folds by raising, which ideally is the goal.

If you raise, I think the plan should be raising flop to get steal the betting lead and take a free turn.

Against this player, in position, I think flatting to control size of pot and realize additional equity on later streets is clearly the optimal play here. Even pair+FD should still flat here.

I'd like this hand more as an OOP check/raise then an in position raise.

it really isn´t pretty bad against a good player.
think about how you play your range vs him; even if he does cbet way too much, we still got great options ott by just flatting with almost all our continuing range.

esp if he is double barrel or bluff happy we can exploit him even more if we ship it ott or let him rep the hand we have.
If he is a good player who is not exploited so easily which OP states he is, then I´m thinking about how to play my range in a way not to get exploited.
That means pretty much not having a flop raising range on this texture after preflop action at all and use position.

It´s far more effective imo than putting him to a decision otf and throwing away our positional advantage.

And while writing this I realize that I said in my first post that raising is certainly not bad as an exploit, and I stand by that and don´t want to become the guy who just argues for arguments sake...

I guess I just took offense on calling being "really pretty bad" when in fact I think it´s the overall better decision.
It´s not like I hate a raise.

The bold is a great point and one that I didn't take the time to consider at the time. TBH, I played this hand way too emotionally given that I was losing, had been outdrawn a few times in big pots, and was (now that I think about it) legit tilting. When I saw the flop, I immediately felt like there was little chance I was folding at any point and so raising the flop and GII didn't concern me. Being 5 days removed and looking at it more rationally though, calling makes a ton of sense here now for a lot of the reasons that you guys have stated (IMO). I would like raising more if I was deeper and/or if I had a winning image as both of those things might increase my FE in this spot. Since I had neither, calling IO seems superior for sure.

What do you find more comfortable to play against?

having a competent aggressive opponent who forces you to make decisions for stacks otf?

Or having a competent not that aggressive opponent who is sticky and flats a whole lot in position and puts you in a ****load of ****ty spots otr when the pot is really big?

I´m not sure that applies to nlh as well as it does to plo, but looking at your general villain who frankly has no idea how to construct his own ranges and arrives at later streets usually WAY too wide, I think it´s very profitable to force them to make mistakes when the pot is the biggest.