Hey what's up guys

So I just played in a live 3/3 full ring game and was wondering if I played this hand correctly....

UTG straddles

Hero is in mp1 with K J and starts with about $320

Hero opens to $20, short stack in mp2 calls, CO and btn calls...

Flop 9 T 7 ($92)

Hero cbets $55, mp2 calls, CO calls

Turn 5 ($257)

Hero bets allin $245, mp2 (short stack) calls with $80, CO folds

River T



What do you guys think about the shove on the turn? The reason why I decided to shove was because I have a pot sized bet behind me, dbl gutter with two overs so even if I get called I got outs, and my shove can potentially fold one pair or Tx type of hands on such a dry board....I feel like with the short stack right behind me and the CO I don't really want to just x/c and would rather be the guy with the betting lead...if mp2 shoves and CO calls i think we're just going to have to x/f...what do you guys think?

I don't think you need to shove the turn because your hand is pretty well disguised and there is no way you are getting a fold from the short stack with his stack being 1/3 of the pot. I think a c/c works as you would likely get paid if you hit your straight on the river.

Not thrilled with raising this hand in MP, especially with a straddle on and a short-stacker behind me. What are the reads on the other players?

Once I get three callers and whiff the flop, I'm done. Nobody is folding any piece of this. Definitely done on the turn once I get two callers to my c-bet.

Sorry, but I don't like it.

I'm good with the open and the c-bet (a double gutter +BDFD +2overs is not whiffing the flop). On the turn I think the presence of the short-stack makes it a check/call. Since you are drawing and have 0 fold equity against the short-stack you might as well check and let him jam, and hopefully CO comes along and you get an extra value bet out of him on the river if you make your hand.

I whiffed this flop enough that I am not going to C-bet it into three players. I will check/call a lot of the time, but we have no reads on any of the players (not even stacks), and I don't think bet/calling or bet/folding is good here -- unless the short-stack is the only player, but we are behind if he shoves.

I still think against unknowns with a short-stack behind the raise pre is bad from MP. If we had more info, I might get behind it.

A $20 raise in a straddled pot at an obviously loose table just ain't going to narrow the field. All it's going to do is bloat the pot, OOP, with a really marginal hand (that is often dominated). I'd either raise big to actually have a chance at narrowing the field, or open limp and see if I can see a flop for relatively cheap with a hand that plays ok multiway.

Flop for me mostly comes down to how likely we think a cbet will take it down. There's no scary high card to rep so small pairs probably don't fold to a flop bet. Too good a chance with 3 opponents that someone has hit enough to continue. However, we do have a double gutter and overs, so we should have decent equity in the pot; I might bet small here (no more than 1/2 PSB so we can perhaps call a raise) to set our own price. I might also check/evaluate, and if I think a loose player has donked weakly and I'm perhaps closing the action, I might check/shove or simply check/call.

Trying to get 2 people off their hand (including a shortstack who is never folding), especially when TP on the flop just made trips (someone most likely has that and is obviously never folding) is typically suicide.

Overall, I really don't like how we built a huge pot preflop (although honestly QQ probably would have done that anyways). We have a lot more room to move with drawing hands postflop if the pot is kept small preflop.

GimoG

pretty much this.

I know you play a tighter game than me, but lets not get carried away about how weak KJs is. The dominating range of JJ+, AJ+, KQ is 5.71% of hands when you have KJs. So the probability of none of the six remaining players having you dominated is approximately (1-0.0571)^6 or 70.3%. With a straddle, three of the six remaining players are OOP to your open. I would definitely open KJs in this spot to a similar size (maybe slightly larger like 25). KJs is a value hand in a loose game where you are going to get called by all sorts of hands that you dominate or hands that will c/f when they miss. The domination situation is also better if Vs typically only 3b a tight premium range with no bluffs since you can easily fold to a 3b from a hand you would have had little flop equity against anyway.

Once you flop this well, you pretty much have to cbet even though I don't expect your FE to be too high. It doesn't really matter though since you have 52% equity against a hand as strong as AT and enough equity to continue against many other hands. Once called on the flop by the short stack and another V, shoving is only bad because you have no FE against that V so shoving just potentially pushes out a marginal hand from the CO, but the main pot is already protected with no side pot. You are worried about having to C/F the turn, but you definitely have pot odds to call if mp2 shoves and the CO calls. You would only have to fold if mp2 shoves and the CO reshoves, but against that part of his range your shove would have no FE anyway and not enough equity to get a pot size bet in on the turn.

Open shove a turn since the BDFD gives you enough equity to get it in no matter what and you want whatever marginal bit of FE you might have against mp2 and the CO.

I don't mind this, so long as our raise narrows the field. If it doesn't narrow the field, all we do is bloat the pot, have someone dominating us 30% of the time, in a multiway pot where someone can easily outflop us, and likely OOP in with a small SPR (where drawing might be difficult given low IO/position, and where we might even feel committed for stacks with a fairly weak TP).

GimoG

I don't really agree with ever raising to thin the field unless you are trying to isolate a particular fish. Obviously when you are bluffing you don't want any callers, but when you have a value hand you want as many callers as possible from marginal hands. You want all the calls from hands like 86o, J6s, T7o, K2s, etc that incorrectly think they can call due to pot odds. When you are dominated you can't get KJ+ hands to fold preflop anyway so you might as well get as much value as possible when you are ahead most of the time. You wouldn't overcall with Q8o on the button because it's -ev right? Why would you want to discourage Vs from doing it? The fact that many hands are going MW indicates that people are calling with weak ranges.

The way I see it, there's a difference between having equity and betting for value. OTF we have equity enough to c/c a reasonable bet, but we have less reason to bet ourselves, unless GG is correct and we'll get to set the price (which had better be cheap).

One of our gutters won't be the nuts, and in a loose game you have to expect QJo to come along pre. It'll also put an obvious 4 to a straight on board, no reason to think we're guaranteed to get paid.

I think you should be checking the turn. Seeing a free river is great for your hand given you currently have nothing but a bluff. If the short stack pushes, then there's a decent chance CO calls which gives you pot odds for your double gutter with a bit of implied odds that CO might call a reasonable bet on the river if a Q comes and a crying call if an 8 comes (of course, if a 8 comes and they raise your bet, you're stuck calling and they may have QJ).

a check/raise on the turn where shorty pushes and CO calls might be even better because you'll trap more money in the pot and most likely push out a better hand while still having plenty of outs.

open pushing on the turn doesn't seem to accomplish anything.

also, KJ seems like a pretty bad hand to play in MP with a straddle. You are too likely to be dominated and there's a very good chance you won't be playing with position.

The problem I have with this is the preflop immediate value we are going for is pretty thin and for a small percentage of our stack; poker stove KJs (or even much better hands) against a world of callers, it's true that we have an equity advantage here, but it is pretty slight, for just ~6% of our stack. And it's not like the hand stops after preflop and we just turn over our hands and see who ends up winning; there's still 3 more streets to come, for ~94% of our stack. And thanks to an SPR < 4, those remaining stacks can go in trivially, where hands like 86/etc. should have a much better idea of where they are at than our TP with KJ (although, admittedly TP hands we dominate will be in trouble).

Gimo,andIadmitlotsdisagreewiththisreasoningG

How is it a 5-way pot if you got 3 callers? Are you counting the dealer?

Given PF, which I won't dispute: IMO you need to make a decision OTF whether to play for stacks. The 55 is complete spew, IMO. CRAI IMO.

Pre is OK.

Flop is fine if you know your opponents have a fold button. This flop is likely to hit them to some extent so unless we have some fold equity to go with our outs, I'm checking.

Turn is spew IMO. Once they call, we know they like their hands. I don't think we make our money in weak games by bombing brick turns when our equity just nosedived. We have a short stack, we have two opponents, they called the flop...looks like a clear spot to x to me.

x/c flop, x/c turn, reevaluate