$1-3 NLHE

Tight V1 ($130) opens to $12 from UTG+1.
Hero ($350) calls w TT from lojack.
Active Tricky V2 ($1200) calls from BB.

Flop ($37) 9s 5h 2d

V2 check.

V1 Bet $20.

Hero?

I think it's a pretty easy call on this flop in position

i don't really care that a tight player raised from UTG+1 im 3betting TT here. if we get 4bet off the hand fine, but just flatting is weak imo. he would have to be the nittiest player ever for me not to raise. good things happen when you raise.

Calling pre is fine, esp with opener being shortisn. I sometimes 3-bet TT, but against an EP open from a short stack we'll get shoved on a lot and hate life since we won't know much about his range.

Always calling OTF. Never raising a barely over-pair on that dry board.

call the flop

well you should care that a tight player is raising from UTG+1 when you decide to 3bet a med PP. But if you don't, that's fine. It's your choice not to care about ranges and that he will be committed otf (unless he jams pre).

i do care. im just not going to play scared MUBSY poker and only raise the nuts. thats bad poker trust me. and TT is a big PP imo. thats why i 3bet it. and lol keep playing weak tight scared poker, thats where the money's at. if UTG+1 range is so strong then just open fold TT for the initial raise. otherwise quit being scared. at least if we 3bet pre we would have avoided this spot altogether.

ok so if you know a tight players range from UTG+1 is QQ+, it's MUBSY to think he has us dominated so we still 3bet an upper med PP vs a guy who's going to commit his stack if he calls, because playing scared is bad poker? Sounds more like button clicking to me.

I'm ok with just calling preflop. A tight guy is opening in EP, so I don't think we want to go to war preflop even with shortish stacks. A call might entice a lot of other callers, and we can almost setmine, or just play a pot in position.

Tight guy continued postflop into 2 opponents, so I'm giving him credit here. I fold the flop.

ETA: I mean, this really comes down to reads. All we have on V1 is "tight", and he's playing short, and he's raised in EP, and he's continued postflop and now put in a decent chunk of his stack. If that's all the info we have, then that's enough for me to fold the flop, even though it is obviously on the nitty side.

GcluelessNLnoobG

oh that's just a given now is it? tight player = QQ+ raise from UTG+1??? GTFO with that range.

you think calling with TT with less than 12x implied odds against a range of QQ+ is going to be profitable?? lol now you're the button clicker.

good things happen when you play aggressively. but go ahead and keep playing passively im sure you're a small winner and that works for you =D

Rich, calm down. He's telling you to not talk in generalities, but look at each situation individually. He's not saying that this particular V's range is QQ+, he's saying "how would your general proscription apply if we knew the range was X?" In other words, don't just say "play aggressively, good things happen when you do," but actually talk about why you think that this action would be best against this V with this range in this situation.

And he's right. There are times I 3-bet TT, but this isn't one of them, for reasons (not just bon mots) that I explained above. General "X is good and Y is bad" advice that doesn't talk at all about the particular circumstance is pretty useless.

Call pre, call flop, 3 balling a tight UTG opener with TT is not good when most tight UTG opens are some AK and QQ+. Take a flop IP.

This was a tough hand for me.

I'm not sure about raising the preflop bet of $12. If I re-raise his $12 to $36, and he calls, I guess I can be more confident that he has a better premium hand, although AK is still possible. If he re-raises, I can fold TT, just losing the re-raise of $36.

But, once I just call the pre-flop bet, I don't like calling the $20 flop bet because we're vulnerable against overs; V1 could have AK and now active tricky V2 could possibly make a loose call with a range of overs and be getting 3-1 or maybe even he gets way out of line with something like 87, either calling (or re-raise squeezing) thinking he's getting a lot of implied odds with the gut shot, on top of the 3-1. Lastly, a call doesn't give me any more information. What do I do on the turn when V1 bets out again.

Raising here probably means I'll be playing for all of V1's money if he he calls. He's got about $90 behind.

In retrospect, I wonder if I should have raised to $36 preflop...

Any thoughts on any of that before the results?

I think we should consider folding with the gap principle in mind.

I don't think we quite have the odds to set mine getting only 11:1 (maybe more if BB comes along, but maybe less if BB 3b and we end up having to fold). I think it's close, but I'm reminded that there are lots of ways to flop a set against an big pair and still lose.

Otherwise, I think we're putting money in the pot without a very clear idea how we're going to win. Any flop without a T puts us either behind his range or about even with it. That's not a great spot to be in with shallow stacks.

Flat pre is fine. If you do 3-bet I'd make it like 40 - 45 I think. 36 he's probably not folding much.

Call flop. I want to keep the pot small given the tricky deep stacked player. You could raise to like 100 to put V1 effectively all in but if V2 calls things can get messy...so I like just calling. Turn will bring an overcard about a third of the time, bit less if we're assuming V1 has AK/AQ or overpair. So be prepared for that.

If any of you have put in enough volume using a HUD in microstakes online and saw a hot sheet (table of all hands colored in shades of dark green to red) of a standard microstakes players' volume usually the darkest red color (most money lost) is exactly 99 and TT.

So yes this is definitely a great hand to talk about in live low stakes poker since the level of play is fairly applicable.

For this particular situation, I do think that it is almost always a call. GTO-wise it is definitely a call preflop. I saw the heated argument above Rich posted about a 3-bet always being the play, this is definitely not the true case against most all players. I would tend to agree with Garrick's assessment above for almost all spots.

If however, the 3! argument was presented differently as a more exploitative version of this hand only... I could see it being a fine thought to iso the majority of villains range which is weak broadway holdings hoping for this exact board, to pounce on with a c-bet.

That being said... for that play to work, you need a lot to happen. You have to 3!... V2 needs to fold... and you need a board to completely cooperate... For that line to work.

In this case had we 3! and got V2 out, it very likely would have succeeded. But overall, that play is dubious given all the factors that need to come together.

good points. I still think I'd rather 3bet this hand. I don't know what "tight" means in this context. If we've seen him limp AK and JJ/TT from early position than yeah I wouldn't 3bet this hand either. I would literally need to see him having limped one of those hands from early though.

I agree w/ this. I'm treating TT here the same as any other pair through 22. Tight players don't open 99- or AQ- UTG here. We aren't getting the set mining odds and it sounds like we don't have the luxury of several loose passive players behind where maybe we could make up for that. 3 betting is really just lighting money on fire IMO. We're 33.66% vs. a range of JJ+, AK. With his short stack he would most likely respond w/ a 4 bet all in and now we've put in $130 as a 33% dog.

With regards to folding preflop: we're in the LJ, which means there are still 5 other people that could come along for the ride. I'm not sure how $12 plays is in your 1/3 NL game, but it's pretty damn small in my 1/3 NL game and will often get lots aboard any train. So I think it's worth a call so long as we're disciplined postflop (which is why I fold to the flop bet).

GcluelessNLnoobG

TT doesn't need to flop a set to win. We have SDV, so our goal would be to get to SD cheaply without going broke.

If the tight villain barrels away on blank turns or rivers (or boards with overcards to our tens), we can assume he has a higher pair and let it go.

V is too short to set mine against, but we can get other money in there to help cover that deficit by flatting PF IP. We now get to see 4 cards for the price of one 3-bet ... and can still fold to pressure on the Turn based the V image. I like the idea of seeing 4 cards instead of zero cards. GL

I can see the rationale for both approaches.

While I do agree that the vast majority of the time a flat call preflop with TT is correct here looking to set mine esp at live micros, I do see the rationale for Rich's argument. While I disagree that aggression is "always" good in these spots, from an information/exploratory perspective a 3-bet by hero can give us valuable information. If villian 4-bet/shoves on us then we can fold knowing it's likely JJ+. Yeah occasionally AK shows up but overall it depends. If they 4-bet we can consider a call looking to mine or fold and be ok with either decision. If they shove we have the info we need and fold pre.

Then we go to the flop, if we simply flat call we don't know where we're at. 99 doesn't show up enough here and I agree it's MUBSY to worry about that type of hand. But if we flat call pre we DO have to worry about JJ+. Sure we can put out an exploratory bet here to see where we're at but I wouldn't get out of line and would absolutely fold to a raise on this flop if we flatted the call pre.

However, if we 3-bet them pre and they flat call we can easily rule out QQ+ in most cases and to worry about JJ too much here is again a bit MUBSY.

So basically there's a ton of info to be gained by 3-betting them pre here, HOWEVER, I do think we could get the same info on the flop if they are first to act and bet or we put out an exploratory bet and they raise us on the flop.

I think it's a wash. 3-bet pre and get the same info we might get on any flop action. Occasionally a 3-bet pre here will get a fold and win us a small pot but overall I think we're getting called/raised here and just wasting chips on a 3-bet here for info we can easily get post flop potentially for free.

Overall it comes down to can we 3-bet pre here and if so why are we doing it? If it's for information it can be helpful but one can argue we can get the info free post flop. If it's to steal the preflop pot and shut down villian we've got to be near certain that works otherwise we're just wasting money preflop. So look at why we're 3-betting or flatting and go from there. Blind aggression IMO is worse than MUBSY.