Excellent discussion. Like I said, while I'm most interested in post-flop (and especially the flop!), I am always open to and glad to hear any pre-flop feedback.

I plan to hold off on flop results for a bit longer. Also, results don't matter that much here... I made a small mistake as I played the hand, and I'll share that later / w/in the next day or two.

Re: pre-flop. From my perspective, pre-flop is a snap call. I'm 400BB deep with a middle suited connector facing a villain against whom I likely have an unusual amount of fold equity post-flop (based on a combination of villain tendencies and stack depth) regardless of my image. The plan is not and cannot be "make a hand and win." When I don't just c/f, I get to flop equity, c/r boards, lead boards, barrel boards, and make hands that are less likely to be dominated by a tight opener's range, re: diamonds, likely only premium Axs and very little Kxs, Qxs, Jxs - while RIO is an issue, it's really vs. a very small % of his range, and as a general plan pre-flop, I'm unlikely to want to build an 800BB pot, and that's OK.

That said, folding is never a terrible play with 87s oop.

I don't think 3-betting pre is good. 400BB deep, when I 3-bet I'm usually bloating the pot with 8-high as the opener likely snap calls in position with a huge % of his range, ensuring I play oop with 8-high the vast majority of the time. I'd also be bluffing with a hand that has post-flop value vs. villain's range, but I'd have to 3-bet/fold, which is too bad when he has the very hands that would 4-bet and against which my hands has OK post-flop equity: QQ+, etc. Given the lack of pre-flop fold equity, I think calling is best.

Generally thinking flat > fold >>>>> 3-bet.

Given the opening range of a true "TAG" I think the pre-flop call is fine as long as:
1) BB unlikely to squeeze.
2) Our post flop skills are good.

Even vs. AK, 87s is ~38%, no? Granted oop is a disadvantage, but being deep offsets imho.

There's a lot of strategic contradictions in your post. Putting too much trust in generalizations like ~"SCs are a good high-SPR hand"~ and ~"87s is AA's worst nightmare"~ is often going to fail you, and those seem like the best basis for much of your argument.

So you have a tendency of villain that you are trying to exploit: he folds too much postflop. Let's take your points against 3!ing 1-by-1 and see if they are actually detracting from this plan.

Does bloating the pot contribute or detract from this plan? Theoretically, it should be neutral because "bloating the pot" doesn't really mean anything from a theoretical standpoint, beyond just that it magnifies the mistakes/advantages/etc of every player involved in the pot. So if all else is equal (range, folding tendencies, etc), then magnifying the advantage we believe we have on villain of being able to make him fold too much with a hand that's great for semi-bluffing is a good thing for us. In practice, "bloating the pot" probably does actually mean something for villain, in which case it would actually probably force him to tighten up even more, which actually exacerbates the exact exploitabilities we're targeting.

So is villain calling a huge percentage of his range, minus QQ+, contribute or detract from this plan? Well, if villain's range is something like the middle 70% of his range (his original opening range, minus the bottom 25% and minus the top ~5%), then this significantly weakens villain's range, making it even easier for us to bluff him off his hand. One of your biggest contradictions in your post was the fact that you think it is a bad thing if villain 4bs QQ+, even though your plan in the SRP involved a lot of bluffing, and I imagine running into the top of his range was going to be the worst-case-scenarios for that plan.

Does "ensuring I play oop with 8-high the vast majority of the time" contribute or detract from this plan? Well, I actually don't totally know what this means. Flatting ensures that we play 8-high OOP 100% of the time, and 3!ing at least means that we sometimes take the pot down without seeing a flop. I imagine you meant to refer back to some other point that's already been addressed (like we have to play in a bloated pot the vast majority of the time, or something).

This also doesn't cover the two biggest considerations that pushed this to being a 3b for me: 1) we force the BB out of the hand, and 2) it shortens the SPR. Being in nut worst position with 30-40 SPR with a capped range against at least one uncapped range just sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks.

Since it's been said a few times ITT (though not explicitly by willy), let me address a huge misconception in this spot: 87s does not benefit from us being this deep here. The further you get past like 80bbs, stack depth is pretty much always a good thing for IP and a bad thing for OOP. BTN gets to control the size of the pot, and if he's as tight as you say he is, then he's going to make it so that the 400bbs only come into play when he has <50% equity. The only way we can force him to put all of it in play in a SRP is to x/r the flop and then make like 1.5 PSB overbets on the turn and river, which is a really bad strategy because villain will be totally uncapped in any SRP as he will pretty much have every combo of set, every combo of nut-flush, etc.

So we are much better off when we are 200bbs deep because then villain forces himself to potentially play for his entire stack whenever he cbets the flop (because we can x/r -> bet -> shove). At 400bbs deep, villain is essentially freerolling us for that entire second half of the stack. This is not a good thing for us, almost regardless of what we hold (though a hand like ATs that makes the actual nuts a good amount of the time may or may not have a slight preflop EV boost when we're deeper).

So getting SPR to a spot where we can PSB -> PSB -> Shove with an uncapped range against an uncapped range is a HUGE benefit.

It cant be correct that fold >>>>>> 3bet pre.

Would surprise me a lot, especially when you say he folds too much post flop. I dont see any reason to believe he suddenly becomes super sticky in position post flop when hes not the aggressor.

That said, I would flat most of the time unless BB was a habitual squeezer. Would 3bet some times and dont see myself folding ever against described V.

great post. i was thinking the same thing

fold pre

i kind of like checking flop with the intention of c/c flop/c/r turn/b/f river against mp

Probably my number one (recently) fixed leak.

But NGE, didn't willy say he felt that V1's flop call was not from strength. Others have piped in with "V1's call is WTF is happening....I have the nuts". Not willy.

I 4B raise the flop $175-200.

While I agree with the above, it is much harder to play oop against two opponents. Our options for bluffing, pot control, and maximizing value all go down. Position becomes even more important deepstacked.

I think fold/call are fine, as is an occasional 3!. All have merit for the reasons discussed ITT.

Raising to figure out where you're at is horrible. That is what fish do.

I am only raising here if I'm comfortable getting it in on a re-raise but I'm not.

no

This is a very good post, couldn't agree more. It's not so much "raising to see where we're at" so much as we are happy to get it in against one villain and in doing so we get information from the other villain with the deeper stack. So the information we gain is an extra benefit but not the sole objective of a flop 3-bet.

FTR, I pretty much agree with this, and have only been vehemently for or against certain reasoning, rather than certain lines.

Though I do think this spot (with described BB, etc) is an especially bad one to flat. I think there are going to be surprisingly few favorable outcomes of this plan.

I believe he said it was more a soul read. A cold-call on a 3-flush board signifies a lot of strength. His body language could be strength or weakness. It's hard to say.

I weight the evidence of villain's betting action much more than physical tells.

He's right. That really is a bad reason to raise.

Typically yes, but I think in this exact spot it has the most merit.

Blindly thinking stuff like "x is bad, never do x" is what regfish do.

Exactly.

I think this plan to 3! OTF is pretty ballsy/creative/interesting. Maybe we can discuss it more?

So...if we raise, V2 puts it in, V1 calls, we call getting big odds (if we didn´t already raise enough to put V2 all in).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
V1´s range is:

AdKx-AdTx, KdQx

QQ,99,AdAx,KdKx

AdKd, AdJd, AdTd, KdJd, KdTd, JdTd--discounted to AdKd,KdJd,JdTd (because of OP's soul read)
-----------------------------------------------------------
V2´s range is:

QQ(discounted to 1 combo),99,44

AdQc, AdQs, AdQh, AdKh, AdKs, AdKc, AdJh, AdJs, AdJc, AdTh, AdTs, AdTc, KdQh, KdQs, KdQc ----(I PM'd OP and he said he didn't think V2 could have AQ/KQ without a diamond)

AdJd, KdJd, AdTd, KdTd, JdTd, Ad6d, Kd6d, Ad5d, Kd5d, 6d5d, Ad3d, Kd3d, Ad2d, Kd2d
-----------------------------------------------------------
Can we agree on this?

What's our plan for various turn cards?

Great analysis. How are people arguing that his positional advantage is mitigated by being deeper? That's absolutely absurd.

I am on board with this. I understand the merits in 3b/folding the flop to see what the deep stack does but I think calling and seeing a safe turn AND both their actions helps us more. There aren't a lot of great runouts for our hand even though we are likely ahead now. I don't see the turn checking through a lot on a brick because both villains will want value/protect their hand.

3betting to fold 100bbs just feels gross with an 8 high flush when I don't see a lot of value off worse vs the deep stack.

we're 400 big blinds deep so I'm not about to inflate the pot when it will only help our second villain who has us covered if we're drawing dead. He calls (or raises) with his made flushes that beat us and we lose value when he folds his set or OPw/ type hands.

I do think forcing a dry side to make BTN play more straightforward is very interesting, though it's not at all insignificant that we have to invest almost 100 more bbs to achieve that instead of flatting and seeing a turn card + 2 more actions before deciding how much more we want to invest with our hand.

Basically, I think in pretty much all scenarios where we flat, and then continue to invest another 100bbs, I think we're going to gain AT LEAST as much information as what we gain by forcing a dry side on the flop.

The fact that we have a ton of cards to dodge on the turn is actually a massive incentive to flat now and reevaluate OTT. Sure, it's unpleasant that we don't get to protect against sets boating up, but this is kinda the classic dilemma of being OOP with a non-nut hand; there sometimes just isn't enough value in a 3b, and you just kinda have to flat and pray over potentially two streets.

My 2c:
I think the hand is a good example of why in the given situation it's clearly wrong to call here from the SB. I'm happy to call if at least one clear donator is in the hand but based on OP's description they are two winning players, they may not play all situations correctly (in the mind of OP) but maybe so does OP, it is not enough info to assign enough of a skill edge to OP to outweigh all the other disadvantages. There was recently a good post in another thread by mpethy which did a good job of describing the main edges that you can have in a poker game. If we look at this:
Skill: At best a small skill edge
Hand strength: Inferior to opp
Position: Inferior
Initiative: Inferior

And you're not "getting a great price" you still have to pay 7/8ths, that's not much of a discount, and you still have the LAG in the BB. And position becomes more important the deeper you play, here you are 400BB deep against one V. In sum IMO this is clearly -EV to call here PF. You can make an argument for raising here but that's a different story.

As played I think betting and c/r are pretty close, you can also make an argument for c/c but as soon as you have the situation with a raise and a a call and the read I think this is a must raise. Your goal is to get it in with V2 and also to protect you from losing 400 BB to V1, you can only do this with a raise. I'll probably raise another 80-90, call if V2 shoves (we are ahead of his range). If V2 shoves and V1 calls, I'll fold. You could be ahead, but it's unlikely you can extract anymore money ahead but you can still lose a lot more if you are behind.
If V2 folds and V1 calls it gets interesting. I'll probably c/f most turns.

If we've already decided that V1 doesn't have a flush, then I'm going to go ahead and CRAI any turn that isn't a or doesn't pair the board. If it checks around and the river bricks, I'm sticking with my 4th st plan.

King Spew in the house!

Hope all is well.

For the youngsters in the thread, King Spew was one of the first regular posters I had the courage to PM asking a strat question back in my early micro full ring forum days. It has probably saved me hundreds of dollars over the years.

I'm good, family is well. Thanks. Black Friday put me outta business until recently when I moved to WA and started playing live about once a month......hence my return here. Don't suppose Matt will give me my green back after I left in a huff over Jah Onion. lol

I just checked and STILL have a PM from you saved where you PATIENTLY helped me through a math problem. You probably saved me hundreds of nickels over the years......

I just hope I can get back to understanding poker as well (or better) as I did back then. Still can't take it to the tables as I am a moron.......

BTT.... I still prefer 4B>>call>>>>>>>>>>fold.