~1400 effective live 2/5
Button Straddle on

-Sb opens to 35
-Hero makes it 105 with Ah4h (SB is a young LAG rec player, he has been opening and 3betting pretty liberally. Also, there are 2 aggressive players behind hero so isolating seems better)
-Folds to SB who makes it 260
-Hero makes it 550 and SB calls

Flop (1100): 863 with 1 heart
-SB checks
-Hero?

As played, with SPR <1 here do you jam or bet small? Also, would you play pre flop any differently? Previously, I was beating this game for about 5 big blinds over the last 500 hours just playing a solid pre flop range and not getting out of line much (unlike this hand). However, that leads to being predictable and not being able to get max value against many regulars. I don't want to get complacent and from studying and talking to better players, it seems like I need to get uncomfortable, polarize my range in different spots and put players in tough spots sometimes if I really want to grow as a player and increase my winrate significantly.

So far it's been hurting more than helping as my variance and downswings are amplified every time I try and experiment like this. Maybe I just have a small sample size and need to get better at maneuvering post flop in these big pots. Any advice from someone who's been down a similar path and achieved the goal of increasing their winrate in these live games would be appreciated!

Cheers

I can appreciate your fearlessness and desire to mix things up, but this is quantum spew. When you 5-bet like 40% of your stack here you can't even fold if he jams a range of KK+/AK. If you didn't win this pot I hope you at least showed the nuclear meltdown so you can get paaaaaaid in the future.

Preflop: Fold. As played, after the 4bet: fold.

I'm assuming that SB acts first in this straddle situation. If so, even though the SB is LAG he's very UTG here. Your hand has some value, but you're basically turning it into a bluff against a player who is representing both strength and (as a LAG) a willingness to push people off hands like A4s. You didn't list your position, but with players left to act you are in very bad shape if anybody else joins the pot.

There are certain spots where 3betting with a rag A is good against an open raiser because the raiser is less likely to have AA and therefore more likely to fold to your bluff. This is not one of those spots. Fold.

Just my opinion...

EDIT: I forgot to add flop comments.

Flop: The fact that your opponent didn't shove preflop, plus the fact that you are holding an A makes AA less likely for him. If your opponent is a thinking LAG a shove here could get him to fold a lower overpair, if he's a non-thinking or spazzy LAG a shove is lighting money on fire. Given the little information we have on him, I'd rather take a free card and hope a A or rolls off and proceed from there.

3bet is totally fine but we shouldn't have a 5bet range here at all. Calling the 4bet against the v you described this deep is probably fine if you are really good post flop and with live reads but it doesn't sound like you are.

People always say you need to be more aggressive to grow as a player and increase your win rate but 4 and 5 bet bluffing is not the way to do it. It's just a guessing game and live 3/4bet ranges are too tight for it to make you money in the long run.

Start check raising flops more or just raising more often post flop in general. You need to learn which hands make good bluffs on which textures. Blind aggression is just going to lose you money. Get a gto trainer and play it a lot. You'll start to learn which bluffs work in theory. Then start targeting players when they do things that make you feel like they're weak. Like if they bet the same amount 2 streets in a row when the highest card on the board changes or a draw hits.

I have no idea how to play this flop. If you want a spewy image then just jam it in and show if he folds. Hopefully your tight image will pay off and he'll fold KK or QQ. You should start mixing in aggression vs players who know you are tight not unknowns. Again we shouldn't have a 5 bet range this deep. The only time we should is vs a super whale and we have AA/KK and it's purely an exploit.

I ended up jamming the flop. Villain tank called with AKo and took it down. Only silver lining was that it surprised the table and helped my image.. at least I hope so.

Thanks guys. @drowski, that was super constructive and makes sense in hindsight. Any recommendation for a gto trainer or other resources to study post flop aggression with this goal in mind? Also, any advice for studying how to navigate multi way post flop scenarios, which are common in these games but most material I've come across focuses on headsup situations.

Appreciate it!

If you're going to 5bet it needs to be all in

Folding pre. SB should be coming in with an extremely tight range and we should respect it, unless shown otherwise. Even then, we have an entire table that can wake up with a hand that has us crushed. The 3 bet is much better than flat calling, at least.

Now we are kind of spewing. Raise/4 from sb in Btn straddle hand should be a tight and strong range. My “bluff” here would be AK combos. It’s nice that we block aces, but this hand doesn’t have enough.

I’m not sure if I’d bet this at all. If I were to bet, bet whatever size you think you’d bet if you had AA

I am assuming when OP says the 3 bet liberally, the implication is that we shouldn't be respecting the 3 bet as we would at a no reads table. I don't mind calling it here, although this is the worst hand I am probably even considering it, and it's mostly to try get a draw. 4 bet seems ambitious, even more so when we 5 bet.

SB almost certainly has an overpair that isn't aces or AK when he checks here. Can this guy fold overpairs, or is he going to be sticky with even something as weak as JJ given the action?

Edit: Given the results, I mean when you jam here, what do you think V can fold here? Neither of you should really have a set given the action pre. I am actually surprised he called because you can have all the overpairs as well, but personally I lean towards checking back if I found myself in this situation.

Yeah I mean I get the reasons behind the 3 bet. I don’t think OP is bleeding cash by doing this. Just that by the dynamics (we have a table full of people in position on us left to act), I’m not sold this is going to be making us money

Grunch- 4-bettor would have to be some hyper-lag and willing to make big lay downs pre- to even attempt this…and even then I would only do it live like 5-10% (with all previous conditions met…)… as played I’d just bet super small like 20%… both your ranges are going to be super condensed around big pairs AA,KK…while he prob has QQ and some JJ and you don’t, maybe he folds some AKs on the flop, I’d check turn if you don’t pick up strong equity (flush draw) on the turn.

Honestly he prob should be folding AKo to the 5-bet and then to the jam on the flop…I don’t like jam because if you had AA or Kk why would you jam flop? IF V thinks you have enough AK he will jam flop with QQ if you bet small but still prob calls a flop jam with QQ…

-3betting A4s pre is a bluff. The point of the bluff is to fold better hands.

- When villain 4bets, you fold your bluffs.

- If villain raises SB vs BU straddle, his range is UTG on steroids. Vs that range, A4s is a pure fold, since your range should be so much tighter that A4s isn't at the bottom of it so that it can be turned into a bluff.

While true, I don't see many people, even bad fish wanting to get in on a SB open/BB 3 bet without the absolute nuts so the players left to act doesn't really bother me. What bothers me for sure is that this is probably are worst hand we should be 3 betting, and I personally think we are deep enough that we consider folding to the 4 bet. Unless those are light from the V as well.

BAsically, what overtly said.

I thought Vanessa Selbst quit poker...guess she just moved down in stakes.

While this was a spew, IMHO, even worse was the call by the SB...if you are going to 4-bet AK OOP, you need to either fold or shove to the 5-bet.

If you look at many of the posts on this board, many of them are AK/AQ from early position...it's a hand that really is tough to play in raised pot.

I use the postflop+ app on my phone it's pretty good. It isn't perfect because all bet sizes are predetermined and you can't change them but its very good for what it is.

For multi way spots I would recommend getting the trial for simple 3-way solver. Its from simple poker. Even with just the few pre solved hands it gives you I learned a lot before I bought the full version. It really helps with finding a baseline multi way strategy. You need to be a lot tighter and more passive than you think. Obviously we're playing live villians so I deviate a lot but having an idea of what baseline is and what I'm exploiting when I do deviate is really helpful.


Gl man. Sorry he called. His play is way worse than yours haha