1/3 live game 6 dollar straddle on
Hero in BB with 220 KJ off suit
Villain in SB with about 260
two Middle position players limp for 6
Villain raises BB to 21
Normally I would consider folding here hate playing kj OOP but i looked around at the straddler plus the other two limpers and it was obvious by their body language they were going to call so i figured i would get good odds in the hand
I call 21
straddler calls 21
MP limper calls 21
MP limper calls 21 pot (105 or so)

Flop is J 9 4 rainbow
Villan bets 15
Hero raises to 55
straddle flods MP limpers fold
Villan tanks for about 15 seconds then announces all in

Hero tanks and studies villain. villain leans way back in his chair and is looking away from the table as if not interested in the hand at all. then takes a drink from his glass with relatively smooth movement.
Hero?

Villain sober mid 30's looking guy seems to be playing fairly well doesn't get too out of line but has been check raised bluff by me a couple times and seemed a little frustrated by it. I never showed the bluffs. Also villain hasn't been opening very many pots at all.

Hero in general has loose bluffy image at the casino but has no short medium or long term hand history with the villain. first time we ever played together

I'm not calling pre.

I'm not raising flop.

As played flop should be an easy fold to his shove.

Welcome to the forum, OP. Please don't post results, even in a spoiler, as it tends to bias responses.

Pre is a fold to the raise, even with the read that everyone is calling. You aren't deep enough, and KJo plays poorly OOP multi-way in a 3-bet pot.

Flop bet is really weird. $15 into a $105 5-way pot, when he raise to $21 pre? All kinds of alarm bells would be going off here. I can't see folding TP2ndK to it, but I'm not raising, as it seems like that bet is looking to induce a reaction.

AP, obvious fold is obvious, and top up.

Fold pre. Call flop. Fold now.

Really easy fold for me preflop. Our hand is way too easily dominated (by both passive limpers with big hands as well as a raisers range whether they are the button or not), we're too short (37bbs with the straddle) to be playing relative junk, any one of the limpers could be attempting a limp/reraise, we'll be OOP, and if we flop TPmK (our most likely flop) in an SPR 2 pot we'll feel committed (and yet not totally be pumped about it).

As played, SPR is 2 and we've flopped TP2K. Not sure how we're supposed to do anything other than stack off now. I'd probably treat the lol small donk as a check and simply bet what I would have to stack off, which would be about 3/4 PSB ($75), to ship the rest in on the turn. In general, putting in 1/3rd of our stack to fold is pretty bad, so I'm calling the shove.

GcluelessNLnoobG

this is still not a reason to call, you don't have really a multi way hand. Even if it was suited, how do you know someone else wasn't looking interested because there were gonna 3bet?

fold pre and what is the reason you raised the flop? just call

Firstly, I just want to thank all the posters I got nobody to talk strategy with and as is evident by my post and future posts I am in need of people to help me with my thought process.

As far as the raise on the flop was concerned my honest thinking was I want to find out where I stand in this hand instead of just calling. I thought If i call the 15 a lot of the cards that could come might hit his range and then what do i do on the turn bet? Also i wanted to raise so that the three players behind me wouldn't have absurd price to call with anything they had. I realize this thinking is rudimentary but it was what i was thinking honestly.

well now you have a boat load of people to talk strategy with

Normally, this hand would be a 3bet or a fold pf (and I say normally because there are times we can flat in position vs the right opponents at the right times but this is def not one of them).

If the original raiser has a wide opening range, I would 3bet pf to 60. However, this villain has a couple reads why we can't do that:

His range for raising out of the blinds is pretty strong and narrow to begin with, add the fact that he hardly ever raises, plus he is sick of being pushed around by you, means there is a good chance he will re-raise us. So just fold.

you should never "raise for information". that is what fish do. We call because we have a medium strength hand that we don't want to inflate the pot with, or have the possibility he comes over the top.

At least you are thinking -- and coming here to post hands will help a ton! Keep posting.

Stop thinking you're "raising to see where you're at". You're either raising as a bluff or for value (or subtle subsets/mixtures of both).

You raise, he jams and you have to fold. What if he was jamming QT here? Or a horrific QJ? You don't know where you're at you've just reopened the betting with TP2K which you don't want to do.

Read this old post from gobboboy:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...84&postcount=1

For those who are flatting, I guess the idea is to see if someone goes nutso behind us thus allowing us to get away? If we just flat, the pot will be $130 HU with just $185 left on the turn. For better or worse, we've flopped TP2K in a huge pot (SPR 2); what's our plan?

I still think treating this lol $15 donk into $100 (not even a 1/6 PSB bet) as a check and simply betting what we would have bet had we been checked to is better, but I could perhaps be convinced otherwise.

GcluelessNLnoobG

See, GG, many of us are moving past PNLHE auto-stack-off SPRs. When our Vs are as transparent as LLSNL V's so often are, I'll fold an overpair on a dry board for with an SPR of one, if the V's range has 90% equity against our hand.

Commitment based on SPR is for V's who can have air, semi-bluffs, or overvalue a hand worse than ours. When none of those factors apply, we can safely fold even when the SPR is low.

If I flat and get HU with a $130 pot and $185 behind, against a V who is giving off strength tells but betting tiny, I generally check a dry turn for pot control if checked to, fold to a bet > half-pot, call a smaller bet planning to fold to a third barrel OTR unimproved, or check back to realize SDV if he gives up.

all the feed back is really helping me to come to the realization that I've been playing terribly and that is breakthrough in and of itself. Is anybody giving any value to body language or physical tells in this hand to help aid the decision? I really try and pay attention and sometimes i feel like i can spot some great tells but recently its been much less useful for me. I gotta a lot of work to do on my game clearly.

Tells aren't first priority for me, but I do factor them in. More so if I've cataloged a tell with a range for a specific player, as the same tell can mean different things with different players.

In general, "I DGAF about this hand anymore, I'm just going to drink my beer and talk about sports" (aka "head out the window") is a huge tell of strength. Combined with the weird bet-sizing, all sorts of alarm bells are going of for me OTF. As I said, that's not enough by itself to make me fold, but it's enough to make me reconsider the bet I would normally make and the "treat tiny bets like a check and just raise it to the size i would have bet anyway" that is usually my policy.

"Tells" are the most overrated concept in poker at this level, imo. It should be the absolute last thing put any effort into, and if you never did put any effort into it, it wouldn't be any big loss. Concentrate on the fundamentals instead.

General "reads" on how an opponent plays (is he aggro/bluffy? is he a nit? is this his first rodeo? etc.) are obviously quite important, but this ain't the same as "tells".

GimhoG

These are good points.

But in this spot, wouldn't we have bet if Villain checked to us? I'm not sure exactly where the cutoff is for treating a small bet like a check, but $15 into $105 is close enough for me.

Gfairlymootasweshouldn'thavebeeninthehandtobeginwi thG

I think villain has an overpair. His body language screams strength as did his small bet to induce a raise. I'm folding here. I would have folded preflop as well.