I like a bet/3b shove for max pressure if V decides to raise with an overpair. There's a good chance this flop checks through or gets bet small even if V does have an overpair or one of the other players decides to test the waters. C/r could fail miserably if the PFR checks and someone makes a stupidly small bet. I'm leading out for $120.

Just saw the thread, default i agree is 3-bet pre and around $150 would your number. However, hands you write down on paper can't relay very well the insight that live tells can bring, so i understand your thought of his narrow ass opening range for this hand and situation. I'd say never folding pre either cause of any live tell for $30 being $1600 deep - So on this flop, i'm probably leading out. This is a good chance for you to take control of the pot and put his narrow range on its heels. You don't really want it to check around, you might not have the best hand but you likely have a lot of fold equity plus implied odds if another spade does hit and he has KK or QQ w/ a spade. Idk, just my thoughts right now. Leading like $115ish something over $100.

Since thie PAHWM is already into to the "I going to withhold information from you that would make a difference" mode, there isn't much point in continuing to comment.

I think you need to provide any other information you have that you're keeping in reserve for anyone that still wants to participate.

There is no more information I am holding back like villain licking an oreo, I just don't want to somehow justify anything I did in the hand that might be non standard or somehow give away what my action is before the it is made.

And I gave his most likely range, and him snap raising could mean anything. Very likely he has been card dead and was going to raise anything good. But in game I thought it meant he might something closer to the top of his range and in game I made a decision to call pf.

This is pretty no brainer check.
More than likely check raising. Unless it goes like bet raise call.
Our FE here is pretty gigantic as a lot of the time I expect UTG+1 to check someone take a stab at it, we raise and it's super hard for them to call with anything but a flush.

I hate flatting here pre, 160-170 pre. I go for the c/raise as played unless their is some substantial action.

The pfr is playing tight (read: opened one hand) doubt he cbets into the world. Flop check is lol

Agree with Hand Shaker so far

Giving away our relative position on HJ and CO by leading out here is bad.

bet/shipping this flop is awful.

Not vs. villain it's not.

Bet/deciding anyone else who decides to raise my sb donking range here, but in general, god bless

Right now there's a one in four chance it's villain who raises, and realistically it's much much less.

If that's the case we don't have much relative position then either.

wat

I would think that V would be betting with an OP that has a spade in it, ya? Likely also betting AxK ya? That means that 35%+ of the time he's going to be betting here.

And for all the times that he doesn't bet, the odds that someone else behind him bets go up. Any pair+spade, pair+straight stight+flush draw is likely betting here.

Or at least in the games that I play in. People in LP love to stabs at monotone flops to try and rep the flush.
Any time that we can get someone to put money into this pot and then fold, is a huge win for us.
I agree that betting out and getting calling has some value, but if we bet out on the flop for a reasonable sized bet, and get 1-3 callers, are we shutting down on blank turns or are we firing again? Are we going to think about bluffing off our entire stack if we miss? I just can't help but feel that if we take an aggressive line on the flop we either have to be ready to commit our stack or we risk giving up some value by having to ck/fd to possible aggression later in the hand if we miss the turn.

Does anybody want to break down a good donking range, a good check calling range, and a good check raising range here?

Serious question:
Are we concerned with balance here?

Do we need to discuss donking with the stones as well as a bluff?
Or do we think that these villains in this given hand are still just mostly playing their two cards and not really thinking about what you did last time when you donked out from the SB?

I play in a small pool and all these villains have logged hundred+ hours with me. I'm not concerned with like technical balance but more perceived balance if that makes sense.

As in I don't care if I'm mathematically balanced but I care if people perceive that I can have a bluff or a value hand at any given time. It's probably why I'm more okay with flatting pf with AK than at a table of randoms where I might actually fold from the blinds if somebody who hasn't raised in an hour+ raises utg.

I can update when I get home from work or wait for more responses. I would love a bit more explaining on why some people prefer checking.

I don't know if we should really have anything other than a leading range in this spot, 5 ways on a monotone board. Guess if V was really spewy with his c-bets or if there were aggro monkeys in LP we can c/r.

Why wouldn't villain be cbetting most of his range? He has 27 combos of AK thru AJs and 21 combos of pairs > 99

checking lets us see what vill hj and co do. There is possible action behind us that we are happily folding to.

checking through on the flop is not a bad outcome for our hand

donking minimizes fe and gets us called by a lot of hands which fold to a check raise.

It comes down to how do you want to play this hand. If you want to represent a set, then donk bet. If there is a bet and you call, you represent a FD. If there is a bet and a raise, you represent a flush. If it checks around, you have either a FD or the flush with future action on later streets.

You have the most FE now, so I'd donk bet the flop. A 4 to a flush board on the turn is only getting paid off by another flush. Nothing else is calling. If we get called on the flop and hit the turn or river, we're getting another bet.

Kind of hard for a weaker flush to call two streets if I lead a turn spade. Ill update after I eat dinner.

Game and Stake:

$2/$5 with $T UTG straddle

Reads: - game is 9 handed but here are the relevant players

BB ($800) - nitty older player

UTG Straddle ($1,000) - older biker guy. Been playing poker many years. I wouldn't consider him "bad" but definitely not good either. He isn't a spot in the game. He can thin value bet, run big bluffs, likes to call a bit too much.

UTG+1 ($1,700) - Recently got back from a trip. He has slowly changed his game over the years of playing with him, he used to be much more LAG and run a lot of really weird bluffs but he tends to play pretty snug although when he goes on tilt it is one hell of an implosion. He has historically been giving me way too much respect because he doesn't want to call three barrels.

HJ ($500) - Not a very good nitty player

CO ($800) - Loose passive older player

Image:

Hero in the SB ($1,600) - I am in the game for like $4,000, which is definitely out of the ordinary and I'm getting some well timed needles by other players for how stuck I am. Given a lot of respect by the players at the table, all of whom know I can bluff and triple barrel etc... I haven't pulled off any bluffs recently and should have a pretty clean image.

Preflop ($17) - Hero has AK

Assume UTG+1's range is TT+, AQ+, AJs+

UTG straddles to $T, UTG+1 raises to $30, HJ calls, CO calls, folds to Hero who calls, BB folds, straddle calls

So I figured this would be a pretty big source of WTF bruhness in posting this hand, and the reason why I wanted to post it is I think every street/decision is interesting and there is going to be a lot of good discussion. I remember a Tommy Angelo video where he talks about how in poker there are many instances where 2 decisions are likely of equal value, yet you never hear that in a discussion. Both parties form battle lines and duke it out for the optimal strategy to rule them all. I think that in his particular instance both 3b pf and calling are close in EV and I actually think villains range might be slightly tighter than what I posted. He and I have a lot of inter session history, but in this particular session, which is the first time I've played with him since he got back from a several week long trip to Asia, in the first hour we have played together he hasn't raised once (which is very abnormal) and I haven't 3b once.

I was in the SB and looked at my cards the second I got them and then looked over at the players to my left. He looked at his cards and snap raised which, to me, indicated it was a hand that was a 100% open from UTG+1 in a straddle pot and that he had a hand he really liked. Now, I didn't mention this to begin with because I hate "gaming" these discussions and reverse engineering a decision in hind sight to make myself look smart, but thats why I called. I think that as a default play, 3b here is 100% correct, especially if hes opening wider. I think that with my read folding might even be correct since playing AK vs JJ+/AK/AQs is probably a dumb idea; but I have AK and I don't like folding. Also, if he does have a pair TT thru QQ and an A/K flops I can just bet/fold for value versus the other players in the pot, who aren't too tricky, and likely stack them when they made a terrible call with ATs or w/e versus the UTG+1 raise.

Flop ($150) - 845

Hero checks, Straddle checks, PFR bets $60, fold, fold, Hero...

As the flop hits I look to my left again and see the straddle (UTG) straddle and the PFR (UTG+1) check their hands.

The pfr paused briefly and thought for about 10 seconds before betting.

C/r and setup bet sizing for a PSB river shove.