two quick ones flopping top 2:

HAND 1

1/3/6

Villain: Nervous young college aged white kid - obviously has poker experience but definitely not live. He has been a non-participant mostly at table, Limp re-raised UTG or UTG + 1 in a straddled pot vs me an orbit earlier and I folded.

Now 4 handed, maybe 2 orbits later tops V has about 120-135BBs effective I have AJs on BU and I'm straddle, limps to me i make it 25, he limp rr's to 75. I tank and flat. I have trouble laying down AJ 4 way here but also the frequency with which this guy has limp/rr'ed now makes me lean towards a range that is wider than simply KK/AA/AK+/XXspaz and probably includes more PPs (77+? 88+?), maybe suited broadway. Ive been active so my button raise range probably looks pretty wide and a RR should yield a fold if I am playing it from his perspective

Flop AhJdTh
He tanks for like 15/20 seconds & annonuces all in
Hero ?


HAND 2 also 1-3
Different table 9 handed, MAWG/Older than MA - seems better than most recreational players but has made bad folds to me and seems to not have a solid grasp on hand reading via things he's said at table in hands vs other players and myself. Has me covered I have about 160BBs. Ive only been at this table 3 orbits tops. I have been getting hands pre flop but ive been whiffing flops, fortunately everyone else was too so I was picking up a lot without showdown. Then to save image I had a few i checked down that were terrible for me to c-bet flop or turn and my KQ and KT scooped the small ones. So my image isnt completely full of ****.

Villain limps UTG or UTG+1 4 players limp to me on BU, I make it 15 w/ QsTh all limpers call.

Flop $78 Qc Ts 3s
Checked to me, I bet 55. V tanks 10/15 seconds makes it 155. I contemplate - limp call UTG makes me think best hand is 33 here but I wasnt exactly

Turn $388 Qc Ts 3s 8c
Villain tanks for a long while, 40 seconds, seemed pained and slides out 200
Hero ??

are either of these spots shrug calls? are they both shrug folds? neither player is an agro donkey, but both capable of putting me on a wider range thereby increasing equity of their weaker made hands in their eyes.

dude i gotta ask: 24K posts, youre not sure you have a postflop advantage in a room full of folks chasing a bad beat ...

is this whole thing a long complicated level?

I feel like im being leveled with some of this "nit this", "limp that", "he's never bluffing" etc.

Hand 1 is a call post flop but I'm not sure if you should be calling the l/r pre. It's only the second time he's done it, no? I'd fold to the rr pre but as played you block AA and JJ and he should have enough AK and KK in his range as well as silly stuff that you can't fold top two

Hand 1 two pair:

Definetely folding pre until i am proven otherwise that he is limp/reraising so wide that we can call with hands such as AJ and profit. Because of the small SPR being built by the limp reraise preflop, we are in stackoff mode if we flop top pair+ here, wich is what happend.

On the flop we dont have that much behind and we are beating AK and AQ, so i am not folding on the flop here like ever with this SPR. The problem with this hand is preflop- what happens postflop is just follow up mistakes and/or consequences of the choice we made before the flop. If we are beat now, we should make a note behind our ear about the very possible big mistake of calling the limp reraise pre.

Hand 2:

I dont like preflop in this hand either. 4 limpers is showing interest in the pot, and while i like the thought in a vacuum of isolating with a somewhat wide range on the button- i think Q10 off is a stretch. It doesent play well enough or flop well enough that we want to blow this pot up pre into the world.

But here we are, you did raise it up and flopped top two on a very draw heavy board. Like in hand number 1, i cant think of a world that i am folding this one postflop either. We have like the top of our range here and while i dont love the situation i am going with the hand as played. Villain could be overvaluing a limped KQ or AQ or blasting off with a combodraw/nutflushdraw kind of hand.

Like, imagine our raisingrange pre overall here. We can bet/fold small flushdraws to this action. We can bet/fold KK and AA to this action. We can bet/fold KQ and AQ. We have alot of hands in our preflop raisingrange that we can and in many instances should lay down to this type of action. But top two is just too strong,too high up in our valuerange to fold on this board for these stacks in my opinion.

If we are gonna fold top two here, the preflopraise is even worse- considering we are obviously not continueing without straights or boats if we face resistance from our opponents.

Preflop in hand 2 is awful. Raise to 35 if you're gonna raise but if not, preferably be happy to see a cheap flop with a decent hand.

As played, I definitely call flop and probably call turn, albeit some of the combos we beat on flop get there on turn

I'm cool with preflop at this table. I know others will differ, but I'm fine with open limping this hand UTG at this table.

As someone stated earlier, I don't like my flop sizing. I really think I'm missing big value by not PSBing it. Also, at less ****** / payoffy stationy tables, I think there is an argument for checking instead of bet/bet/betting (at least, certainly more of one that I would have considered in the past), especially on drawier boards, although in this case I'm still cool with my donk (just not cool with my sizing).

I think I'm ok with my turn play. I don't believe at this point I can fold yet, and I'll let the river card/action tell me if I should.

I think I should have folded the river against this player in this dynamic. I know it's difficult without being at the table and simply reading a HH to fully understand the villain / dynamic of table, and obviously I have a much better grasp of it thanks to being there / having the history than anyone reading it, so I can understand if the thought of folding comes across as lol. Still, G's argument about random spazz / etc. is the best argument for not doing so, imo.

As I say, I was more looking for confirmation that hero folding here isn't as lol as I thought and one of the differences between crushing versus getting by (especially as conditions get tougher). G's point noted, overall I'm a little surprised I didn't get that feedback. So I'm either being harder on myself than I thought, or...

GcluelessNLnoobG

smoking robot hands

H1:

Disclaimer: I have zero experience playing 4 handed (exactly 0%).

But overall, most players at this level don't adjust their style at all when things go shorthanded. So I would probably give credit to the limp/reraise until shown otherwise, and just fold preflop. Yeah he's limp/reraised twice in ~2 orbits, but it's pretty easy to get 2 hands > AJ in 2 orbits.

As played, I probably fold the flop. If you take even a limp/reraising range of AT+/TT+/KQ, he pretty much has you smashed in most cases and in others where he doesn't have you smashed (such as KK/QQ) it's unlikely he's dumping it in on this flop. The only exceptions would be AT (who could easily think they are best against AK/AQ), and AK/AQ (and this is a *terrible* flop for those hands against our raise/calling range). You'd really have to start widening his range preflop to start including hands like KJhh/QJhh/etc. in order to make this closer.

But I never play 4 handed, so maybe there is more hurp durping and I'm off base here. Although the young nervous college kid who probably doesn't have a lotta money to his name just shipped $400 in a 1/3 NL game.


H2:

I think preflop is setting money on fire. You have zero chance of thinning the field, and best hand is going to win eleventeen ways postflop (and QTo is going to be that hand far less than almost anyone else). Easy overlimp for me.

Difficult spot postflop (thanks in large part to our raise preflop). Dude has been made nothing but bad folds and now wants to play for 160bb stacks with others still to react behind him. TT is easily in the mix (although obviously limited combos), and obviously 33; heck, QQ is often in the mix here too. Is a guy who is making bad folds really going nuts with AQ or a big draw? I probably lay in the bed I made and ship it, but I don't feel great about it either.

It's a tough postflop spot, but the one thing I'll say is this: he ain't just playing against you, he's still got all the limpers to react (who could easily be checking monsters to you). This is a pretty strong move.


Gclueless4handednoobG

1/3 NL, 10 handed

All 5 tables are going when I get there at 3:30pm on a Tuesday afternoon, with everyone hunkered down chasing the huge BBJ. Reg filled as always (with a lot of players from other rooms filling out the roster).

Tables are meh, but typical. No inexperienced players here with the possible exception of one (the BB in this hand who I don't recognize). One or two guys can get their money in bad postflop, but most are just nitting it up and have a clue postflop. Table is loose and aggro preflop.

UTG straddles. He hasn't won a hand in the 40 minutes I've been here, has just rebought for $300 (the table maximum), and has jokingly asked the dealer "what's the longest a seat has gone without winning a hand?" so I don't think he's won a hand yet. He's a reg from another casino, has been around the block, and knows what is going on. I've heard he can be action / make moves, but I haven't really seen *too* much of this in my times playing with him (which is very limited), although he's not face up ABC either.

The Button is the most active player at the table whom I've played with a few times before. He's also been around the block, I assume plays elsewhere, and I'm guessing the Straddle knows him.

I have TT UTG+1 and limp. I'm shortstacking $200 purposely because I don't feel I have much (if any) postflop advantage on this table.

Rather surprisingly folds to the Button who $16. He could almost have ATC here.

The SB folds. The BB (the guy who looks a little inexperienced who I don't know) flats. Middle aged guy who looks like he could be one of the table marks. Earlier limped KK (probably hoping to limp/reraise) and then played it somewhat aggro postflop in a multiway limped pot (and got value). Doubt he's flatting a monster, but hands like JJ/QQ are often flatted in this game.

The Straddle 3bets to $55. Not his first rodeo, he knows Button is very wide.

Hero?

Obviously I'm assuming flatting isn't an option.

I purposely limped to shove over Button's raise, but now the 3bet has thrown a little bit of a wrench into things.

For $200, I'm expecting I'll get sigh calls from QQ/JJ, even to an EP limp/reraiser.

Is this the spot I've been waiting for?

Or is there just too good a chance I'm flipping or crushed, and too little chance I'm crushing as 3bets in general are just too often the goods? But in this case, maybe a 3bet isn't the goods? Do I play the general case and fold? Or do I try and play this particular scenario, and chalk it up to a cooler if the straddler shows up with the goods?

Gcluelesslimp/shovingnoobG

open TT it can win UI.

AP, I dunno, there's some meta stuff going on here but you're gonna get looked up here at 66bb's if you jam 'cause lol pot odds. I fold.

Hand 1: I'd call it off. The limp/rr is annoying as hell, but coming from the person described, I'd also think it's not an OMC trap range. Flop shove seems like spazz. Pretty awful value line.

Hand 2: Don't like the sizing pre. I either go with something large (~$30+) to get immediate folds/narrow it down significantly or I'll just overlimp if I think people really want to see the flop. I'd have a hard time not stacking off after calling the flop bet. Based on the broad description, I don't think he'd try to semi-bluff with J9, but that did get there. I guess he could have something like AQ. I see a lot of old people limp it pre. Not sure if this guy would over value it, but the we're near the top of our range, so if you felt like he could be wider than a set OTF, I'd call.

GG: work on post flop game maybe? though I think you're probably better than you paint yourself.

I don't get how limping TT is part of a solid short stacking strategy. Why are we not raising pre?

In this case here, if BB calls (which is happening the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time), I get $49 worth of dead money (fully 1/4 my stack) in the middle that I can take down preflop with a shove (and also untaxed). With preflop being very loose, I can often times get called by lol worse (see chat thread where later I limp QQ to get JTs to raise, get shortshoved by AJo, and then TJs snap calls my $200 limp/shove). And with postflop being tighter and a difficult player on the Button, all a preflop raise does is typically set me up for much more difficult postflop situations multiway OOP.

Honestly, at my loose/aggro table I think opening big hands in EP is mostly pretty bad. But that's me.

As played, how spewy is shoving in this spot? Or close? Or just real bad?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I got a question for people that open for 3xbb in 1/3 and 2/5 games. When you guys isolate limpers do you go 3x + 1bb/limper?

This is why I don't limp TT, GG, so I don't have to be in this spot. Shoving is somewhere between close & spew. All depends on the range you give the straddle and how often we think he'll fold to our jam.... + BTN as well. Honestly, with 1bb invested thus far, I'd prolly just let it go. I realize this isn't your MO, but I'd really like to play as deep as possible vs the people you're describing.

All depends on the table. Sometimes 4x is enough to narrow down 1 limper. Sometimes 9x still goes multiway.

Considering that I'm not going to set off this difficult 3bet situation very often, it's not as if I have to overly worry about it. It's more likely I'm going to see a loose raise and 3 calls, and then I have a super easy peasy spot.

And even if I just let it go here every time this situation occurs, I'm probably not losing all that much. Letting it go was definitely my first inclination, and I think it's a fine default. I'm just seeing if there are some situations (such as perhaps this one) where I should be going against my default.

GcluelessNLnoobG

semi-table/villain(s) dependent but I default to 4x+1bb/limp @ 2/5+

3xbb in a 1/3 NL game is $9. In my game, a $9 open is going to get called by every single person at the table. Your table may differ.

I throw that 3x + 1bb stuff out the window. If you are truly attempting to isolate (i.e. narrow the field to HU) then raise an amount that will do that. It is dependent on: the culture of the room in general, the table, the players who have limped (and how many), the players behind who have yet to act, and the stack sizes. Most 1/3 NL games I play in are very loose preflop; even with a $200 stack, after 2 limpers a $30 raise could *easily* be in play. And even still I am often at the mercy of fate: the difference between a 5way pot and taking it down preflop is typically an EP caller.

GcluelessraisesizingnoobG

I appreciate everyone who responded to those hands btw. im quoting QS because this was pretty much line of thinking.

Just a quick comment: If youre giving up until clear proof your opponents are opening light or limp/rr'ing light, I feel like that is terrible strategy for SH'ed poker & absolutely awful for playing HU. By that logic in a HU game I can just raise on the button to some large figure or raise out the BB to some large figure until some # that gives you definitive proof im doing it too often however, by that time I can still be getting actual hands that are clearly raise for value etc. I get 2 data points is insignificant but because its live poker 2 limp/rr is enough for me to start to build a hypothesis and want to prove its validity. Maybe thats stupid but I think waiting until we get clear proof is often times impossible and we must infer from other actions villain takes/other things to build a clear picture. I dont know, im willing to be wrong but 2 limp rr'es in a very short amount of time and the 2nd being a 4 handed straddle game, I'm going to assume this dude didnt just get dealt KK+/AKs and start to operate off the hypothesis its a little wider than that. I'm curious to hear why this might be terrible though so please, if you have a good rebuttal im ears

That said, 4 handed AJs is waaaay too strong to fold but also vs the tighter range we can hypithesize we're against, way too weak to raise - but even if we widen that range, AJs still falls in this weird territory where I feel like folding is way too weak yet maybe turning it into a bluff sometimes has merit because of its AA and JJ blocking potential, though we'd prefer villain to have JJ as its a PP he can fold to pressure.

Anyway - in hand 1 - terrible value line i level myself into calling pretty quick, i figure once i snap the 75 im basically committed and I dont think we're getting a better board than that for our hand. He has TT, shrug emoji. ****ed up thing is if he doesnt shove flop I can envision a world where I dont lose my stack as the turn was a Q. Ahh more run bad.

Hand 2 - again, same **** - im completely confused. Pre raise sizing: im surprised so many folks want to pump this up so high im wondering if I should be 8-10x'ing vs 3-5 limpers in the future. I've been experimenting with smaller bet sizes in various spots and it is absolutely destroying me as i keep having complete trash call me two streets on the logic of "oh yourr flop bet was weak so i called, and then turn bet was big so i just put you on [two cards that whiffed]" and everybody seems to just bink rivers on me left and right.

Anyway hand 2 dude has bottom set again, i'm wondering if I can fold to tank 200 in the future though because it just didnt seem like he would tank on a bluff at all & I guess mother ****ers dont ever hit TPTK vs me when I have two pair so i should just remove that from their range clearly, shrug emoji.

Today I was one of those days where you have AQ and get 3 callers they all have Q8-QJ but everybody hits their kicker and you check fold flops for 40 dollars til u bleed 2 BIs and say **** it.

Smoking Robot regarding the limp/reraise issue:

We are playing 1/3, and the vast majority of 1/3 villains have very limited experience with short handed play and they are not ex 6 max online regs,wich means that they are not adjusting their game when it comes to important stuff such as 3 bet ranges or stackoffranges.

In your example, its very very likely that villain just picked up JJ+ or AQ/AK 2 times when you witnessed him perform the limp/reraise. That is by my experience not reason good enough to start widening your callingrange considerably, as you are doing when taking AJ suited to the streets. You are dominated by so many hands with 3 winnercards, and you are flipping against all pairs below J.

Talking about HU play is just a strawmanargument. We are not talking about a HU match, where totally different dynamics/ranges and strategy comes into play. We are talking about a low stakes short handed game, where i would advice that you need to see more of villain doing this move and get a much better grasp of his range and how he plays it postflop as well. If you dont, it can and will cost you alot- like indeed it did in this hand when you lost your stack to villains set of tens. So so many villains just doesent limp/reraise wide: its a determined planned move when they have a big hand.

This could get me going on alot of topics, and alot of aspects. But i will choose one for this time: and that is the fallacy of adjusting to something that simply isnt there. Its a dangerous trap for any pokerplayer- its a very common mistake in various aspects of the game. The most likely thing from your example hand is that your villain picked up a big hand two times in two orbits- not that hard to do. Instead you are adjusting to something that probably isnt there, talking in relative cliches such as "AJ too strong to fold short handed" or "folding is too weak" here and that kind of stuff.

Another example from my game the other day. A reg goes broke to a OMC who had 3 bet the guys open 3 times in a row during 1,5 orbits. The third time reg had JJ and 4 bet got it in 150 BB preflop against OMC with KK. Reg said to me in the break that he thought OMC was hammering on him-then proceed to defend how he had to fight back and widen his 4 bet/get it in range. When the reality is he was adjusting to something that simply isnt there: OMC didnt try to exploit his weak opens by 3 betting him several times or anything like that- he simply got a little cardrush going and picked up big hands when reg was opening pots. The answer sometimes is that easy.

Basically +1 to Petrucci's comments. Until proven otherwise, your default should be to assume the live player doesn't give a rats ass that it is 4 handed; he 3bet cuz he has a monster. Hurp durping a stack to find that out ain't good (and my guess is even then you'd probably still question yourself the next time he does it). I recently 3bet a good loose opener twice in 5 hands; he suspiciously said "I sense a pattern here..." but made the disciplined fold both times. Was I getting out-of-line at a lol loose table and taking advantage of his loose opens? No, I simply had KK twice in 5 hands. Coincidentally, it is also a very good reason I should probably just be reverting to my default and sigh folding my TT hand that I was planning to limp/reraise (still open to opinions on this, BTW).

Regarding your raise sizing with QTo, what's your goal with your raise? If your goal is to take it down preflop or isolate to one caller, then $15 will *never* accomplish this task after 4 limpers in any 1/3 NL game I've ever played in. Heck, most games I play in (which are admittedly quite loose preflop) I'd be leaning to $30+ easily here if that was my goal. The problem then becomes that basically we should only be doing this with premiums, cuz otherwise we're simply putting in far too much of our stack with a lol hand (and usually get called by dominating hands such as the AQ hand someone just limped in with). Which is why I consider this play setting money on fire. But that's me in the games I play in (although your preflop result suggests your game is similar to mine).

Regarding removing TPTK from a person's range when they check/raise you, while I know you're basically just venting here, it isn't a bad idea. You raised preflop vs the world. You continued vs the world. Does a guy who's passive enough to just limp AQ then go nuts with TPTK on a Q high flop? I mean, it's definitely possible, and why this hand is sorta difficult postflop cuz he certainly probably could *some* of the time. But a large part of the time he just passively check/calls cuz you obviously have AA/KK/QQ and most people don't want to play for stacks, even if there is a draw on board they'd like to protect against.

GcluelessNLnoobG

@SmokingRobot,

yeah, I've gone through those stretches too. What's weird is I've had a few hands recently where I was near the top of my range but just had a weird gut feeling that my opponent had only the literal handful of combos that beat me. Really makes me wonder if I'm not listening to my own poker intuition, or actually am trying to be more logical & not just "play by feel." Sometimes I think about human communication & how many facial muscles we have because we've evolved to communicate visually long before we evolved language & it makes me wonder if I'm picking up reads subconsciously but don't utilize them because I don't want write in my notes that I made a certain move based on feel... but then wonder if there is something to it...

Lol, this is my last two months.

For me, it really just boils down to what someone else said recently (I can't remember who it was) that "they just have it". They just do, at least in the games I play in. When the money goes in, unless you're playing against a very aggressive or tricky or lol poor player, you're simply up against a better hand if they are willing to get in all the chips against you.

For me it has nothing to do with feel or subconscious stuff (I consider that all crap, but that's just me). It just has to do with knowing the general player pool and how big chips go in certain spots and what hands are required for people to do that on certain boards against certain people.

Course, it's possible I'm a little too close to the situation given my current downswing, and that's biasing my response.

Gclueless"theyjusthaveit"noobG

GG, on average I don't see 22-99 being in live 1/2 or 1/3 players' 3b range. Sooooooooo rare. It's almost engraved in stone that they want to limp/flat these hands and set mine with them.

If I'm on the fence, I'll typically fold TT to an EP 3bet, particularly in your case, where you aren't getting odds to set mine, either. I think, in this case, your short stack is impairing your ability to play TT two-ways (as an overpair and a set mine both).

If I think the 3b has a wide enough range or is a rec player just invoking some action, with your stack, I'd shove. I don't think flatting is an option here since you lose your fold equity against JJ/AQ/AJ, too.

RE: 3betting 22-99, yeah, for the most part I think I'd agree. Even with 99 and some dead money in the pot and versus a known loose open, most would probably just flat here and see what happens. So yeah, rarely am I crushing hands like this with my TT.

However, against a loose open I could definitely see most players play big Ax play this way (course I'm just barely ahead in those cases although with decent dead money). For me it really comes down to how often this guy is attacking the loose open + dead money with more speculative hands (like JTs and stuff like that), which I'm doing ok against; the answer is probably "not enough of the time"?

Agreed that flatting isn't an option with this stack.

GcluelessNLnoobG