Hahahahhahhhahahaa

With no prior 3betting, hero's 3betting range is miniscule (AA, KK, ok QQ)
hero's flatting range can be (22-JJ, 89ss+, AXss, AQo+, one gappers...)

It's much easier for the LAG to proceed on the flop against hero's 3betting range. It's not that easy for the LAG to sift through a wide pre-flop flatting range that hero leads turn with

Well, you're assuming that villain thinks hero will fold his overpair. Depending on the size of the 3-bet and villain's perception of hero, villain might never bluff raise hero post-flop. As you know, making people fold overpair in LLSNL with low SPR is like burning money, and a good LAG should know that.

If villain thinks that hero is donking with a wide range on the turn, a good LAG will know that there is a lot of FE by raising the turn, and if villain has a semi-bluff hand, it's even better.

Perhaps I am not reading this sentence correctly, but it almost sounds like you're implying that a good LAG such as V2 isn't bluff raising hero out of fear that there isn't any FE, and thus you're actually saying that a donk on the turn has narrower range than 3-betting pre.

I got a PM asking me to come and comment on the QQ discussion, but I'm not sure what aspect of the discussion I should be commenting on.

I looked back at the OP regarding this hand and saw that the OP was asking for an appropriate 3 bet size, and at least one recommendation that we flat. I thought both of those issues warranted a comment, so I will start there.

3 bet size: Effective stacks are hero's $500. A 3 Bet to $50 yields us a nice round SPR of 5, and we can intend to put in stacks on a safe board. As a general rule, when we are OOP, our 3 bets should be a little bigger than when we are IP; this is simply to plus up our FE a little bit and subtract a bit from his RIO. Even with AA, we don't mind all that much winning the pot right there, as RIO hands especially suck to play OOP, and they especially especially suck to play OOP and deep. So $50 or $55 here makes him pay the highest price for feeling frisky with some trappy 97s speculative call he might make when we caught him at the bottom of his laggy iso range but he can't find the fold button because he is in position.

So if we 3 bet this guy, I like a slightly larger than normal 3 bet--$50 or $55.

But it is not clear to me that 3 betting this guy is the best play here. It might be; I am not saying it is or isn't. The OP doesn't provide enough information for me to decide.

Here are some questions I would need the answer to before deciding whether we should or should not 3 bet this guy:

1. What do we know about his 3 bet calling tendencies?
2. If we don't have sufficient info on his 3 bet calling tendencies, is he one of those cocky ass lags who will call with a stupidly wide range IP because they think they can outplay anybody?
3. Have we seen him overbet c-betting in 3 bet pots?
4. Is his bet sizing more conventional on the turn and river? Or dos he continue overbetting?
5. Is raising one limper to $15 standard for him, or is it an unusually big iso raise?
6. Have we seen him iso-ing a wide range that he'd have to fold to a 3 bet?

I guess you guys can see where I am going with this. As a lag, he presumably has a wide, weak range to be making this isolation raise. If he is sensible, he will be turbo-mucking most of it to a 3 bet. This is bad for us (but not all that bad). But if he plays penis waving poker and will call us with most of that wide range, then we definitely want to accept the opportunity to 3 bet him and get him to put in $40 more with a range that will mostly have between 19 and 33% equity against us.

So this is an easy 3 bet against a lag who calls a lot of 3 bets in position.

Against a sensible lag who doesn't feel like it is unmanly to fold to a 3 bet, our decision is quite a bit more difficult. I still lean toward 3 betting, but calling has merit against him. The main thing is we get to play against his entire isolation range, rather than just the top part of it he'd call a 3 bet with. This is GREAT, because a lot of his hands are hands that have only one overcard--AT, AJ, AT, A9, KJ, KTs, and a lot of the other hands are hands that have no overcards and have really terrible equity against us.

The downside, of course, to calling, is that we will have terrible relative and absolute position in a 4 way pot. This is a powerful argument for 3 betting in itself. But the hand can be played profitably in this spot, but mainly by semi-set-mining with it. But it's not a bad plan against a guy who we expect to fold to the vast majority of our 3 bets. Its merit lies in the fact that it keeps the SPR a little bigger (but his overbetting will still get us to the commitment threshold in this hand) and in the fact that we are playing against a weaker range with a decent amount of mostly dead money from the other two villains, and in the fact that one in 8.5 times we will bink a super well-disguised nut hand against a guy who is going to overbomb an already bloated pot--man, when i put it like that, it moves a little bit thinking about flatting here.

If we think he will fold to most of our 3 bets and decide we want to call to take advantage of the amount of dead money he will put in on an overbet c-bet, then my plan would be to surrender the pot to either an overcard or aggression from either of the two other players in the pot. Against the button lag on a safe flop, our hand becomes a bluff catcher, and we check/guess, check/guess, check/guess on most boards.

But if we think he'll call a lot of 3 bets, 3 bet away. My default play in the absence of information informing the decision would be to 3 bet.

Great writeup, Mpethy. I always enjoy reading them. The OP provided some info which was the only reason I am advocating flatting here:
1) Little to no 3betting has occurred at this table
2) Villain is a good thinking LAG

I also said earlier, I actually don't mind being sandwiched between the two shortstacked fish and the good LAG. My plan would be to flat pre, check/call any cbet. If one of the fish decides to shove, then we get to see what the good LAG does before we decide what to do. At that point, each option has its unique merits:
1) one or both fish shove, the LAG folds. we can call (with an SPR of 2 against one and an SPR of 3 against the other fish)
2) one or both fish shove, the LAG calls, we have an OPPORTUNITY to get a juicy sidepot going with the LAG.

He NEVER puts us on QQ here. Obv all of this is conditional on player tendencies, board texture, and the ensuing action. However, the framework is laid out for a super +EV play

I'm from an online background, but I'm still astonished by how little live read info people include in their posts. Why is this?

2/5, 6-handed with mandatory straddle on for the round.

Villain is middle-aged white recreational player. He plays pretty loose passive. After beating a player out of a pot laughed at himself and said something to the effect of "I just close my eyes and put money in and hope for the best"

Hero has been playing somewhat tight and pretty aggresively- raising limpers and cbetting often.

Hero ($900)
Villain ($500)

Hero (9c 9s) raises straddle to $30 from UTG+1
Villain calls from MP
Straddle calls from UTG

Flop ($97) 2 6 7 rainbow
Straddle checks
Hero bets $75
Villain calls
Straddle folds

Turn ($247) 2c 6 7 Tc ($395 effective)
Hero ?

You are probably ahead here only 1/3 of the time, assuming he has OESD, sets, 2p, and overpairs in his range. I would check/fold.

I'd probably bet again. You have blockers to 98. Other than that, not much has changed. I don't really like c/c with all the bad cards that can come and I really can't see much of a reason to c/f.

Folding out his floats isn't a terrible result either.

If you're read is accurate that this villain is LP then

Against a LP, I'd bet/f $120 every time..your not gonna get raised by worse. Ch/call is meaningless as this villain doesn't bluff or vbet a worse hand. And ch/f is weak and nitty.
Betting will get called by any PP<99, any 6x, 7x, even 4-5. Sometimes you're valueowning yourself by betting tand running into sets, 2pairs... but the value you get by worse hands calling outweighs the times you valueown yourself.
You have to get at least two streets of value...Three streets of value would be golden

The problem is the dryness of the board. I know he is read as loose, but for betting to be a good plan we have to make the assumption that villain is calling a $30 raise with 54s or 98s AND that he will chase given bad odds.

And I seriously doubt villain is calling with any 6x or 7x as was stated above unless he is a complete drooler, which I suppose he might be as per the description.

You also get floated a bunch on this flop because they love to put you on high cards when you raise. I just can't see c/f. I guess you could c/c, but the pots big enough I'm fine with protecting my equity and folding out the floats and possibly getting value from a pair that thinks you're fos.

Not sure if this is the right place but.....

I have been noticing a trend lately that is new to my area. It seems that a min-raise of the PfR's c-bet is all the rage these last few weeks. This bet makes no sense what-so-ever that I can figure. Has anyone noticed this and maybe be able to clue me in on what they are thinking?

sounds to me like the perfect time to exercise the bet/fold option of $100. Remember guys this is 6 handed so hand strength goes down a bit. 99 should be pretty strong against his range imo...

depends on what they do on the turn. It can be a bunch of things. It can be an attempt at a cheap bluff, it can be "to see where they are at" or it can be a poorly sized value raise that starts to tip their hand strength while getting minimum value.

If they raise small, bomb turn, probably the nuts.

If they raise small, bet the turn small...oop it can be pricing a draw or a weak top pair hand that c/mr for no real reason other than they thought they had the best hand, but they are worried now that you called and them having top pair actually matters now.

in position it can be an attempt at a cheap showdown, unless they bomb the river too obv.

Hero (£300+): White 40+ guy in a suit, obviously just arrived after work. Am up about £100 on the evening. I'm viewed as relatively tight, definitely am viewed as aggressive when I'm in a hand (based on comments from a villain a couple of seats to my left).

Villain (£200-ish): Young kid, 20 something. Aggressive, bordering on spewy. I suspect he's possibly tilting; he's lost a few buy-ins in the last 30-40 minutes, including shoving pre-flop with AQo and losing to pocket Ts.

£1/£1 table. Table had been loose passive but has been playing a lot more aggressively recently. Straddle is on.

Hero is in the BB with 96s. There are five callers (!) so £10 in the pot already and costs me £1 to call. I debate raising to try and collect the dead money, decide that too many people will come along for the ride anyway, so figure I'll see a cheap flop getting 10-to-1. I call, straddle just checks so 7 to the flop.

Flop (£15): 967 rainbow; I have a backdoor flush draw.

I bet £10. UTG folds. MP calls. Villain shoves all in for £190. Folds around to hero.

Hero...?

losing a few buy-ins in a half hour makes you a candidate for being on tilt. So does an overbet of £145. He might be tired of amateurs sucking out on his JJ and ready to take it down now.

This is what I mianly have been seeing. The problem is that after they have c/mr me and then led the turn with a similarily weak turn bet, and I am sitting with tptk or better I feel that when I then raise I am getting too many folds. When I don't raise I am losing value because they have bet the turn too small. It is as though this super weak play they have dreamed up is saving them money to some extent. So maybe at small stakes it is not so super weak. When I just flat the weak turn bet they invariably check the river and I seem forced to make my value bet smaller.

That's exactly what I thought as well. I call, villain flips over pocket 7s, board bricks out and I lose half my stack.

Even spewy idiots on tilt can get a hand I guess....

You actually have between 40% and 50% equity against his range. I don't know if it was a bad call since pretty much any 8 would be played in the same way by him.

ok this situation happens to me alot, villain has $150 left and I have $500+ left in a HU pot . I want to put them All-in, do I put out $200 or just shove all-in myself? I usually just shove all-in myself with both bluff and value hands.

v1. unremarkable loose weak 43 yo UTG raises to $9 in crazy game, v2 borderline maniac/lag calls, v3. loose passive reg calls, v4someone else calls unremarkable. I make it $60 w/QsQc. v1-3 calls. I and v2 are about $540

Similar pf action occured earlier and maniac donked with 45o in a 789 flop. He then barrelled the turn into 3 players big, and barrelled the river for 66 bbs and then showed the 3 barrel bluff. He had gambled a good bit and everyone is ready to take a stand (over and over...).

Flop ($250) Jh7c3h
check, maniac bets $110, v3 calls all-in for about $70, I push for $370 more, villain barely covers...

Does anyone object to making it more, pf? I haven't been at a table as crazy as this, but it isn't wrong that we don't want to play QQ multi-way if we can help it, and we expect to be ahead of all of our villains' ranges. Make it $85 or $100. If everyone folds, we picked up a bunch of dead money. And maybe, maybe, we can this to the flop heads up.

I have a hand that I'd like some feedback on. This is from a 1/2 game

Hero (~$190) - young player, card dead, down about $100 after trying some weird spewy bluff against a guy that I thought was weak, but actually just had the nuts. Admittedly, I was playing pretty spewy. Calling raises pre with suited gappers, unsuited connectors, baby pairs without the right odds. My usual preflop leaks.

Villain (covers) - mid-30s guy. Is drinking but isn't drunk. kind of a maniac. Calls 5x raises from UTG+1 with 72o, 72s, 43o, etc. Never folds pre. Often raises pre with similar hands. Has a hard time folding post flop if he hits anything. Recently called a $40 shove pre with 43o and hit a straight.

1 limper pre, Hero has AKo in the cutoff. Raises to 12. Villain 3bets to 25. Limper folds.

I hadn't seen him 3bet yet, so I immediately figured he probably had a strong range. Something like JJ+ and AKs/AKo. Maybe AQ suited and not as well. I just call figuring it's only 13 more and I have a pretty strong hand.

Flop ($50 accounting for rake): K 7 4

I check hoping to get one more bet out of him if he has QQ or JJ. I plan on check/calling then leading out on the turn. Villain checks.

Turn ($50): 2

I lead out for $30. Villain cuts out some calling chips. Shuffles them a bit, then cuts out $30 and min raises me. At this point I'm pretty confused. I hadn't seen him slowplay any big hands up until this point, but I have seen him bluff a few times. I don't feel good about it, but I call basically hoping this was another one of his random bluffs.

River ($170): 7

I check. He bets $40. At this point I basically think he's never bluffing here. It looks like a value bet with AA/KK/AK, but I have to call 40 to win 210, meaning I have to be right 16% of the time to break even. Even against a range of just KK+ and AK, I'm 30% (obv to only chop). Since I can only expect to chop the pot, I'm basically calling 40 to win 105, which means he has to have AK 27% of the time for this call to be break even.

Should I be bet/folding the turn? Should I check/fold the river? Should I have donk bet the flop?

Fold pre