£1/2 table. Table overall has been fairly active - very few limped pots - but 3! has been rare.

V1 (£600+): Mid-20s guy, Middle Eastern. Moderately tight, definitely not passive but not overly aggressive either. Have not seen him make any big bluffs yet. He's 3-bet once at the table in the last 3 hours, and he had AA (ended up AI on the flop vs KK and Aces held).

V2 (£500+): Call-happy luckbox. Will call with any draw.

Hero (£550): Middle-aged white guy, looks & dressed like a banker, mainly because he's a banker. Tight from EP, but table has seen him make some moves, including raise/folds on the river, bluffs, shoving on the river on a five-to-a-straight board and getting other villain in the hand to fold the chop , and calling a massive over-pot bet on the river with AT on a T842K board to a 'waiting for 2/5 table to open up' villain, and MHWG).

I have KK in EP. I open to £16, a bit larger than the standard open (£10 or so). Folds to V1 in MP who thinks for a while and 3-bets to £40. V2 calls.

Pot is about £100 to me.

I could 4-bet and get it in, but we're 200BB deep, and I think he's probably only calling specifically with AA - he folds JJ and worse (would he 3B with JJ?) and AK/AQ; obviously AA calls, but QQ is tough. At a table where the 3B range has been specifically AA/AK/KK/QQ, QQ probably needs to fold to a non-spazzy 4B, no? I hate flatting...but I hate raising and only getting called by AA even more, so I flat and see what happens.

Flop (£125): J 9 4 two spaces.

I bet £80. V1 raises to £200. V2 calls.

Pot is £600, another £120 or so to call, and basically it's an all-in.

I can put V1 basically on three hands: JJ, QQ, or AA. If I lose to 2/3rds of the hands I put him on, I really should fold this, right?

4 bet pre. When did it become the standard to call 3 bets oop with KK when 200bbs deep? Every KK thread Ive seen lately has been funny. As played I guess sigh fold.

Are you holding Ks? If not i might jam (though close) if you do then its a pretty clear fold.

Laughed pretty hard at the "looks and dresses like a banker. Mainly because he is"

I like 4b to 140, v1 will flat often with a range you crush and often fish will overcall given lol pot odds, we can then pot size ship a lot of flops bar axx or qjx etc and feel pretty good about it. Gii if v1 5b ships if he clicks it back I'd fold.

I like the donk with v2 still in the hand. I don't think v1 ever chooses this raise size when we're ahead so now I fold.

Flatting the 3-bet was correct, given that we need to keep the fish in the hand. 4-betting allows V1 to play optimally versus us (he folds JJ, AK, and some QQ).

I dont like the donk bet on the flop though. Just check and evaluate.

Have you seen how V1 plays AK?

Thats a very interresting question. I personally have seen som very strange/weird lines with AK in 3 bet pots, and spazz raises allin on the flop with A high i have seen many times.

If we conclude that he both can play QQ or AK like this, i think this is a call with the amount of money we have invested in the pot already.

By the way i also dont like your donk bet on the flop, it just increases the difficulty of getting a read on villain in my mind. Your donk here looks weak, and even fish deduce that and i think he can spazz shove AK here as a result of your donk bet.

If you check he may make a weak bet with AK and you can call one more street and he maybe shuts down after getting called. Or if he holds the overpair he may bet almost full pot and you get more info that way.

Grunch:

I would 4 bet here to maybe get heads up with the fishy gambler. He did cold call a 3bet here. Pop it to $110 or so. If they both come along, commit to most flops. If V2 calls, plan to get it in on 2 streets pretty much regardless of run out. Makes the pot $260 OTF (if V1 doesn't call). Bet $150-$200 depending on how much protection we need on the board, and ship the turn. Pot would be $330 with both in, and we have $440 left. We can overbet ship the flop, or we could go $200/$240 OTF/OTT.

The value that we lose when V1 folds out worse (AK/AQ/JJ) is less than the value we can gain by playing against V2 who might be calling here with lord knows what.

We're going to get stacked by V1 with AA here a lot of the time. But the more money that we can get him to put in pre flop with QQ/JJ I think it makes our life easier to stack the weaker part of him range post as we have to do less work (in terms of betting) to get his stack in. And the more money that V2 commits with whatever trash he likely has is even better for us.

You should 4bet pre. Not worried about v2 cold calling. If you 4bet on the smaller side pre you can fairly easily fold to a 5bet/shove.

As played I think I call but I really don't like it.

Lol at the term "correct" here and assuming villain 1 folds QQ AND JJ to a 4.

I obviously thought about AK - that's certainly what I wanted him to have - but while I included it in his pre-flop range, on the flop I just don't see a reasonably competent non-spazzy player going nuts with AK on a J-high flop in a 3-bet pot vs a tight player in EP who was the PFR, especially with a call-happy villain behind him.

Anyway, I think there are two main points here.

1) Do we 4-bet pre or not?

2) Do we bet out on the flop or not?

Seems to be divided opinion on both...

Grunch... Make it 85 pre and shove all flops that don't have an A

You opened big and this guy still raised you, let's min click back and play a huge pot w 2nd best starting hand in game

He ain't folding anything to min click back

Sorry he had aces

Doesn't look like we'll get much more discussion - where's dgi when we need him? - so I'll post results in a bit if no one else chimes in.

Yeah 4! pre try to get heads up with V2, commit to any non Ace flop. As played, fold. You're beat on the flop if you weren't beat pre.

That crossed my mind pre-flop, of course...but my read was that V2 was call-happy with draws, not necessarily a complete drooler. I probably should have been more clear in the original post.

Results:
So, I went into the tank for quite a bit, decided that I was losing to two of the three hands I could put V1 on, even though I thought I was ahead of V2 - I didn't have Ks, btw; I had two red Kings.