1/2 with straddle.

effective stacks of about 350.

folds around to HJ who raises to $25. Hero calls in straddle with 66.

Flop (~$50) 6 8 9

Hero checks, HJ bets $35 - Hero?

Call and lead any non diamond turn

PS..Fold preflop. Set mining HU OOP with a raise this big is a losing proposition.

that board is superconnected. just call.

good chance V has an overpair with a , so he is most likely to keep barreling away.

but raising overreps your hand.

Any info on HJ? I'm fine with the call pre because it's your straddle, but info on HJ would help.

Call flop. Re-evaluate turn (again, need player info).

One more thing. Dont straddle UTG.

Fold pre....can't throw away $21 with 66 out of position....less than 100bb deep (with straddle).

As played...check-raise big....make it like $155.....shove any non diamond turn....I hate calling flop out of position here which allows villain to play stress free...let's make him make a mistake now. I mean, we are only in real bad shape against an overset.

Straddling gives the illusion of an action/gambly player for a small amount. I find it loosens up games considerably and is well worth the cost.

I agree, but only if I can straddle on the button. Straddling UTG is a losing strategy. The only time I would consider it is if the entire table was doing it and I'd kill the "vibe."

This is a c/raise at these stack depths IMO...he will call with such a wide range:

Overpairs
Over cards with
AX

maybe even 78s. 9Ts, etc

Make it enough that we can pile turn

And I agree with fold pre

I think check/raising scares off too many hands, but I'm not against it. A call looks strong, too, but it looks more like a big diamond or maybe a straight draw than a set.

(Still would love player descriptions.)

What's with everyone wanting to fold pre with a PP getting 17:1 implied?

I think the problem with the flop-call/evaluate line is that the board is so scary for a lot of the hands V is betting that our call alone may cause him to slow down on the turn and that stops us getting much value.

Also if he has AdX our passive line allows him to check behind on the turn and draw all the way for only $35. If V is a bit timid he might even check behind some overpairs with a diamond too. On the other hand V will certainly just keep betting his flushes and sets.

I don't like flatting flop then leading turn because it just looks weird and is going to cause V to do stuff we can't read accurately.

Therefore I prefer x/r flop to setup a shove on non-diamond turns. After all, we've setmined quite expensively OOP so we really have to go for max value when we do actually hit.

OOP it's quite hard to get max value these days in my experience and we don't have reads on V so I think people are being extra cautious.

Though I personally would call preflop in this spot unless V was particularly good.

Stacks aren't ideal but I think hero should xr too, no reason not to play our hand fast on this texture when we can xr many worse hands profitably - going 135-155 I guess

Not if you do what I said, which is call flop and lead any non diamond turn.

^ ok I accept call flop and lead turn is an option but I'd have to think carefully about how it's going to be perceived by V.

We'd mostly want to lead pretty big as I guess that's perceived as strong and V will just call with anything less than a flush. If he raises he must have it and we just have a pot odds decision but this is going to be rare so not a huge concern.

Alternatively we could take a really weird line intended to induce. We could lead 1/3rd pot - would that illicit a raise from V's overpairs or is board simply too scary? Would this V even recognise a tiny lead as a blocking bet with a FD?

Sorry no player descriptions. V had only been there for about 1 orbit and hadn't done anything of significance.

Here is what happened if anyone cares...

I'd say 7 out of the 9 players were straddling. It was a good table, more like 1/2/4.

Then join the fun!

If it were MW I'd be more interested. HU OOP in this case and little less than 17 in fact