Private 1/2 home game. Hero has lots of history with both villains, although they don't have as much with each other.

Hero is MAWG TAG, often the tightest player at the table. Willing to be very patient, but capable of bold moves when stars are aligned. $292.

V1 is 30-something LAG, good thinking player. Playing short-stack of $50. Has busted twice and keeps re-buying short.

V2 is late 40's bad LAG. Prone to poor decisions, tilt, oversized straddles, large bluffs when running bad. Has bought in $900 tonight, now less than $400 left, but covers.

V1 is UTG+1 raises to $6. Typical of him to raise pre very wide, yet small amounts.

Hero UTG+2 with AA 3! To $18.

V2 on BTN calls $18.

V1 shoves for $32 more.

Hero?

I can flat or raise here. Flatting almost certain to keep V2 in the hand, then will be OOP with dry side pot.

Raising might isolate V1 ($50) plus a little bit of dead money ($18 more). Or might get action from V1.

100 maybe he'll think you're just isolating the shorty and will try to get cute

just call to keep V2 in the hand. We want to play big bloated pots with V2 since he is a spewey fish. If you raise he can get away from his hand pretty easily. If he happens to have a monster hand, he will shove over you. Or, if he catches any piece of the flop, he is likely to shovel a bunch of money in, so you are basically in a dream spot right now. The worst thing you can do is blow this guy out preflop.

If you think V2 will spew off or station off his stack post flop then flatting is OK. Your giving him odds to call with ATC that call the $18 but if he will easily lose his stack post flop in a bloated pot then it's workable.

Mostly I think raising to $100 is better unless V2 is really terrible. If he has any sense at all he is going to realize one there is a good chance one of you has a big pair. It isn't likely he will lose a lot post unless he is already tilted but your going to have trouble not losing your stack if he does out flop you.

cawl

Two options for two reasons.

Either

a) Raise the minimum *to build a pot*, or
b) Flat if you feel there's a good chance *V2 will 4-bet*.

I don't think there's really any place to flat with the strategic purpose of keeping V2 in the hand... certainly a small raise will also keep him in the hand with a decent frequency.

Flatting to "get him to stay in the hand" in position on you with with somewhat deep stacks of nearly 150BB effective while he gets 6:1 on the main pot seems like a very spewy plan to me. You're kind of letting him own you if you just call. I know he's prone to mistakes, but oop, you won't be able to capitalize on those, and he's certainly not making a mistake by calling on the BTN with these odds.

If you were in position, I'd consider flatting. Here, I don't even consider flatting an option unless, again, you think there's an excellent chance he'll 4-bet. And I kinda doubt we'd ever have that read. So it's almost always a raise. Even if you just min-click. He will often call.

We have AA in what is, essentially, a heads up pot between us and V2. V1 only has 32 dollars, so we are not even concerned with their hand. We want to play AA heads up against a spewtard with a $400 stack. Even a whale knows to fold preflop to a raise of 100. Even a "small" raise to 50 will signal to him that his hand is completely owned after he witnesses 2 opponents re-raise after he flats the $18. He only has $18 invested, he is capable of getting away from his hand, especially when he knows he has no fold equity post-flop after hero bombs the pot with a 5bet.

His range here is so wide we have to keep him in. On the flop, he is never folding top pair, or any kind of draw post flop. Plus, he has so many bluffs in his range, hero is in a dream situation to make a lot of money.

Folding this guy out pre-flop would be criminal.

Ah, I misread the raise size. 32 *more*, so to 50? And a min-click would be > 80?

OK, then there is definitely a case for calling "to keep him in" given stack sizes.

I thought it was a raise TO 32, which is totally different imo.

By calling, you go to the flop with a very short stacks relative to the main pot.

If he had made the much smaller 3-bet, then I would put in the 4-bet.

Pot will be $150 with $240 behind? We should be able to get it in postflop even OOP. I normally auto-4bet AA OOP but this looks doable.

CALL. LAGs do stupid things in side pots more often when they perceive there is room to do stupid things. Even a smaller PF 4bet will be perceived as strong to where even a LAG will button up more than we'd like.

It's not like we're narrowing his range at all with a small 4bet and the hand should play out similarly even with a slightly larger SPR. If hero were deeper, I'd want to repop more often.

Call. SPR <2. The stacks go in easily (1/2 PSB flop and turn) and you play HU the rest of the hand. I'd 4! against one more opponent.

Correct... $32 more. $50 total.

Call and extract value from V2.

Zero percent chance he'll put you on aces.

Ok good feedback, some calling, others re-raising.

Hero actually re-raises to $93. V2 calls. My thinking was slightly more than CIB min-raise, so there would be some side pot to justify further action. V2's initial call of $18 came after V1's raise and hero's 3! indicating strength of some sort, and I'm giving him a chance to call $43 more to go after $193 total and don't think he'll pass up 4.5-to-1 pot odds to see a flop.

Main pot with both V1 (who is all-in) is $150. Side pot with V2 only is $86. Hero has $217 behind now and V2 covers.

Flop: Q74 rainbow.

Hero is first to act??? Check, bet $80-100, or shove?

Crazy dry board. I'd consider checking with the total SPR >1. It'll be easy to get the rest of V2's stack in. You can delay cbet on the turn if he checks and maybe he'll do the dirty work for you and bet the flop. I don't think checking looks suspicious because V1 is already all-in. You could have tried to isolate with AK/JJ and now want to get to a showdown asap.

I think checking here is best, on such a dry flop you want to give V2 a chance to make a bad bluff. Remaining stack is short enough that hero can bet turn and shove river if V2 checks behind.

Check to the spewtard that is in a hole already

Check-shove.

Check/profit.

Interesting. All the good players would check & I would bet 1/2 the side pot. Oh well.

I'd be thinkin' AQ, KQ is in his range which is 18 combos. Maybe he'd call with QJs & bdfd. Maybe he'd raise tryin' to blow me off my hand. Maybe I'm puttin' too much stock in all the maybes & should follow the recommendation of those above........probably why I'm here.

I suppose that's why we're all here.

Spoiler: hero open shoves. In hindsight, checking and letting him spazz is certainly more profitable. I had seen him raise-shove a flop earlier in the session against an aggressive pre-flop 3-better with AK on a 9-high board, so I thought he could include AK in my range. Too optimistic. In reality I just looked at all the chips and was happy to end it.

V tank/folds JJ face up. We still have to run out the board for the main pot. The turn is a J. My AA holds up against KsQs.