9 handed
Hero (UTG)(450) A10
Villain (200) (CO) No history with V. He is a 20's WG and have never seen him in the room before. I had the impression he was trying to enjoy himself and is a casual poker player.

Hero bets 15, 2 callers behind (including V) and 1 caller in the BB

(61)
KQ7
checks to hero who bets 30, Villain calls behind and the rest fold

(121)
6
hero 35, villain calls

(191)
2
hero checks, villain 35 (villain only has about $100 left)


Couple questions:
- Am I being overly ambitious raising this PF UTG? I usually have a laggy/aggressive image that hopefully gets me paid more often in early position with my premiums, but is this opening too wide UTG?

- Well, I guess this is what I wanted on the flop.. gotta cbet right?

- From out of position, I wanted to make a blocking bet with this many outs. I felt that I needed to see the river and knew that the villain would charge me a lot more than a $35 to do it. Am I just charging myself for my draw?

- This all leads up to a very weak fold proposition on the river, leading me to believe that I went horribly horribly wrong somewhere along the way.

Please help me understand the folly of my ways.

It can be ambitious, but it depends on the table. Getting three callers is not great, so a bit ambitious. If anyone is going to 3bet, even light, definitely ambitious.

Flop is good. Turn either bet bigger or check. River is a fold. you don't beat anything, and I doubt he's folding now.

Fold pre.

Flop cbet std.

Turn shove or check, you have 1.1x psb left. Prefer just checking probably, he’s not folding much and you can get him to spaz with low equity hands

River fold, you rep nothing

What is the bottom of your early position opening range? 99+ AJss+ KQo+?

Is suited Broadway that doesn't fall into that category worth a call early? Or just dump it?

the money should all be in on the turn

pre is fine

I'm always outvoted by a large margin on this, but I think ATs is a really simple open limp in EP and open raising with these stacks sizes (assuming there are lots of others like Villain with just $200 stacks) and going the expected ~4ways OOP with these stack sizes is actually quite poor.

Thanks to preflop the SPR is a lol 3, which means stacks can trivially get in by the turn (or to any flop raise) and our first bet is often a committing one. Problem is that very rarely will we flop well enough to actually want to comfortably commit. This is actually one of those rare times. With this SPR I would actually check to shove, which maximizes our FE (a bet does not do this) plus we have a bunch of outs if someone looks us up. It also doesn't leave us hanging in no man's land OOP if someone calls. This is assuming $200 stacks, things might change a bit if everyone is as deep as we are.

I wouldn't have gotten myself into this awkward spot on the turn (just over a PSB left and whiffed OOP), but I probably just ship it at this point.

I'm check/folding the river cuz nothing is going to fold with only a 1/2 PSB left at this point and all the draws busted. Sometimes our busted draw is better.

GcluelessNLnoobG

First to act something like AQo+, AJs+, 99+. Utg + 1 and + 2 can get a little looser but not by much. Esp if you have leaks post you’d want to be playing tighter from ep.

Not sure what you mean by the second ? But if youre talking about cold calling generally you shouldnt be doing a bunch of cold calling from EP/MP

I think the pre-flop open is right on the borderline so I think it's fine to open this or fold it depending on the situation;

I agree with people ^ saying to bet bigger on the turn or check; your not really generating any folds with a small sizing and you have a great hand to semi bluff bc of the amount of outs you have

I think several of you are way off here.

If you can name an outrageously good price to draw to your FD and gutshot, that's awesome and part of why LSNL is great. Particularly since you will often get paid when you hit.

I'd much rather do that than try to blast someone off a strong hand and give myself a bad price to draw.

9 handed poker is nut low (my casino now spreads 10 handed mostly)

Playing from UTG just plain sucks. If you fold A10s your likely better off. I still manage to play 30%+ hands. With using uber tight UTG range. Nobody has noticed in 2 years either.

this. bigger flop, ship turn

If you just straddled UTG all the time you would never be in this spot. Anyways, at tough tables I would fold this pre and at soft tables I would open limp.

You really can't find a way to make a profit with ATs? Even in a 1-2 game? Even if you just limp?

It was directed towards OP. Look how he plays postflop. Even for very good players it’s at best marginally +EV.

There’s no information given that no one would try to iso if we limped UTG, but yes if no one is raising/isoing anything but AK, JJ+ i am limping

If table is somewhat competent it’s a turbo muck

The majority of players would do better from EP by tightening up and nitting it up. Folding A10s here is never a huge mistake (even if you’re god’s gift to poker) but if you cant navigate post opening here is pretty -EV

Preflop: Super standard raise pre. This isn't even marginal; it's a clearly +EV hand. Think of ATs as being equivalent to AQo. You wouldn't fold AQo UTG, so no need to fold this either.

Flop: You want to size up to something like $45 here with your entire betting range. Your combo draw has a lot of equity now, but could lose equity on future streets, so best to get the money in ASAP.

Turn: You need to be betting waaaaay bigger here. With stack sizes being what they are, you should be jamming $155 here for a slight overbet. This is a great semibluff spot for you, as this board favours your range, but you need to size up if you want to benefit from that fold equity.

River: As played, there's nothing you can do here except to give up and x/fold.

Other than your pre advice I agree with this.

There are tables where I would not open this. Most of the time I'm opening it though but folding A10o.

there are definitely some tables where this is too loose of an open and you have to either be prepared to 4bet, call, or fold vs re-raises behind you, so folding is fine

the more passive they play the better it is to raise, if they start getting really ag behind you it's not comfortable

limping is fine but it's not great, we expect to have some RIO behind us, so fold can be perfectly standard