This was at a small casino in Saskatchewan where the action is usually awesome, lots of gamblers, but this night for whatever reason the table was playing much tougher - villains were varying their play on every street to where it just felt random, pouncing on pots when everyone else showed weakness, sometimes slowplaying sometimes betting with made hands, tough to read the table, nobody was really weak.

A fortysomething overweight short-haired lady with glasses sat down at the table and several of the other players seemed to know her. I have $190 she has me covered.

I didn't play the first 5 hands after she sat down. On the 6th hand there's a $5 straddle, 4 callers including her, I call on the button with ATo, big blind calls, straddler checks.

Flop pot size $31, flop comes T45r, checks around to lady who bets $25. Folds around to me and I raise to $75. Lady looks shocked, tanks and calls.

Turn pot size $181 (minus rake). Turn is 7r. Lady looks like she's trying to conceal surprise, donks $35 into me and stares at me in a non-menacing way.

The math says this is a trivial shove - I only have $110 behind, there's nearly TWICE that in the pot, and if she'd checked I surely would have shoved.

Not having any reads on the lady gave me cause for pause - when a fish makes this kind of bet it's because they slowplayed a monster and want a call, but a good player could be making a blocking bet with a worse 10, or could be trying to REPRESENT a slowplayed monster. Then again, if she's a good player, she could see that I only had $110 behind, and if she thinks I'M a good player she'll realize my money's going in no matter what so why bet. But SHE doesn't have any reads on ME.

It would be VERY bad luck if she flopped or even TURNED a better hand than I did given the action (she does NOT have 68 - no way she bets the flop with that, and ABSOLUTELY no way she calls a big raise with it. I don't think she does that with 77 either. T7 maybe but that's VERY few combos.)

In a readless situation like this, do I just have to use the math and put the rest of my money in?

ATo plays pretty badly multiway, raise to $40 or so. This hand will do better in a heads up pot.

AP go all in. If she tanked as a hollywood on the flop keep a mental note. Sounds like a bad beat story though.

WRT raising to $40 before the flop, let's say I do so and get 1 caller. Now there's over $100 in the pot and I have $160 behind. That's a very awkward SPR for TPTK when TP is a T. If I'm donked into for any amount over $50 am I doing anything but shove?

What if the flop had been A45r instead of T45r? How does that change the dynamics of the donk? Am I destined to go broke if someone limpcalled AJ, AQ or AK?

WRT a bad beat story, it isn't. I was trying really hard to elucidate my thoughts at the point of the *decision*. I didn't say which decision I made as played, nor whether or not I won the hand.

I'm not sure about $40 but you certainly should raise preflop to dwindle down the field. Stack sizes are only awkward because you don't have much experience playing like this. Most likely your opponents don't either.

If villain leads the flop and I have top pair top kicker on the button then I'm just flatting because a large portion of villains range is 1 pair hands and we have a huge equity advantage...actually 88% to 12% vs smaller pocket pairs and hands like JT and those are the hands that I don't want to make fold.

1.6 isn't an awkward SPR at all. It's a delightful SPR. On this particular flop, KT, QT, JT, T9s, T8s, 76s, maybe T9 and 76 offsuit are all in a bad player's range and will call. At this stack size, they'll probably call off stacks. You're cbetting unpaired hands so 66-99 should and probably will call one reasonable cbet. QJ, KJ, and even just ace- and king-highs might decide to take a card off.

You're talking yourself into thinking your opponents call tightly preflop and on the flop. They don't. This particular TPTK has at least 1.5 streets of value, so the SPR is perfect. More generally AT will usually be the best hand postflop HU whether it improves or not. If it pairs aces it will often get paid off by worse. SPR < 2 is exactly where you should be wanting it.

If they lead into you for $50, you shove as you would always do with TPTK at SPR=1.6 except on a horribly coordinated board. EDIT: See below. If they paid a big price and flopped two pair, good for them, but with bad players that's always either a weak one pair or a draw.

One of us, you or me, has a faulty understanding of SPR dynamics. Eager for others to chime in, especially if it's me!

-----

Above I suggested it's a no-brainer flop shove if led into. With a $50 bet and $90 behind I don't think shoving is awful. The same hands that are probe betting will now be priced in. Few 1-2 players are bet-folding JT there imo. But I do like this post a lot:
So now I prefer flatting and not giving them the info they seek. You do let draws set their own price but 76 is the only strong draw here. On a wetter board (except for something absurd like JhTh8h) just shove.

FYI I have the count in the OP wrong - there was 1 caller, then V, 1 caller, then me, and the BB called and the straddler checked, so it's a 6-way pot.

This means that if I call, there are 3 other villains between me and the bettor. You're not concerned about giving them a good price to call? There are a lot of hands in a straddler and straddlecaller's range that make straight draws or pair-and-a-straight draws. The first villain after me would have to call $25 into an $80 pot, and if he calls, the next villain would have to call $25 into a $105 pot.

My reply was in regards to what you would do postflop if you made it $40 preflop. You stated 1 caller and that caller leads into you. You asked if you should just ship it and I'm replying that no you should just flat. Then get it in on the turn.

On the preflop sizing, if an extra $5-10 greatly increases the chance of it getting HU or winning the pot outright then it is well spent. In my experience a little more goes a long way to ensure there isn't a "call cascade" among the limpers.

1.6x isn't awkward IMO. $100 in the pot and $160 left. That's plenty of room to work with three streets. You won't have enough behind to bet three streets but you'll rarely have a hand worth doing that so moot point.

Oops - my bad. Thanks for the advice (as always).

There was a $5 straddle and 3 calls before the action got to me, so let me calculate a pot-sized raise. 1+2+5*4 = 23. A call would be $5 so the "size of the pot" is considered to be $28, so a raise of pot would be to $33. So $40 is only a slight overbet, and I agree, I wouldn't mind picking up $23 in free money one bit.

Assuming I see the flop heads up and am checked to, if I have $160 behind and there's $100 in the pot, how big a flop bet should I make on a T45r board? It's next to impossible for V to have exactly 23 or 67 and no other draw has more than 5 outs, so it seems like I can bet $50 and still make it a mistake for him to call. If he calls, on the turn there will be $200 in the pot and I'll have $110 behind - he'll call with a lot of worse hands for that. My thinking reasonable?

So my Q is where in the calling sequence did she reside? IF she was first after straddle, then I think you need to add AA-JJ to here range as she may have been trying to LRR those hands. IF she was 3rd or 4th, then less so and all you really lose to are the sets (4's and 5's mostly because we clock TT).

Regardless of this though, I think I muck this hand. I can count on less than one finger the number of times an old lady has led/called the flop and then led turn again with a hand that doesn't destroy AT. More I think about it, this is a really easy fold.

As others have said, raise pre as well....lot of dead $ to scoop up.

This all seems good.

Given the physical reads and bet size I think 76, 65, 64 is a very plausible part of her range. This tiny bet is still more likely a scared/stopping/probe bet than a monster (although if she's stack aware she might be trying a weak lead; really though not many live players are that tricky. And people don't stare at you with a monster. They pretend to be distracted by the TV). She could also be scared with two low pair for some reason, but she's pricing you in to draw.

Does 7r mean completes the rainbow? If it makes a BDFD then that's another set of pair plus draw hands that could produce a reaction.

Anyway there are hands that could like the 7 but still not love their hand and want to lock in a price. I'd call the turn planning to call off the river barring an extremely strong read or make a tiny value bet if checked to. (Counterpoint: she probably has a lot of outs and the pot is big so shoving the turn isn't terrible. Folding is.)

If she actually is so good at the leveling game that she's faking tells (bet size, surprise, stare) at one level above the vast majority of 1-2 players, knowing that you're good at poker and know those tells, then good for her. Pay the woman off for outleveling you and make a note.

But she's probably not.

Or as the experienced PLO dealers do it, 3 times last bet/raise plus the trail.

3 * 5 straddle = 15
trail: 3 calls + blinds = 15 + 3 = 18
Total: $33

One thing that occurred to me is that I made the flop raise without any planning ahead whatsoever. Before raising should I have thought to myself, if I make this raise for 40 percent of my stack is the rest going in no matter what? Are there situations where you Ever make this raise and then fold?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk