I've been a reader of this forum for about five months now. This is my first new thread. I've made a few posts along the way, but mostly reading and trying to learn. The following hand took place this evening at the Greektown Casino in Detroit. I was killing about 90 minutes before I needed to be somewhere. I ran into an interesting situation.

Just over an hour into what was to be a 90 minutes session, my table broke, as slowly players lost AIs and dropped out. The table was full of passive limpers with very few PF raises seeing more than one caller and a lot of fit-or-fold, even in limped pots. After observing for a couple orbits, I started raising light form late position to take my $200 max buy-in stack to a whopping $230, before returning to $200 meeting resistance on a hand or two. Through seat changes, I positioned myself to the left of what appeared to be the only reasonably good, somewhat non-passive player, and to the immediate right of the tighter players that seemed to be the most fit-or-fold-like. The person to my right was the only player using a $5 button straddle and a couple of hands before the table broke I lost a hand with pocket 7s by raising his $5 straddle to $15 and then calling heads-up two barrels (C/$20/C, C/$40/C) with middle pair before bailing out on an all-in river bet. I had no reason to believe the Button was FOS when calling my $15 and then betting IP twice, so I wasn't all that happy with my play. This Villain and I left the table when it broke a few hands latter to join an 8 handed table where the following hand took place.

Just sat down in the big blind. I have essentially no reads on anyone but V3, who was not a major factor in the hand. Table has some deeper stacks than the one I just left, but, frankly, that's not saying much. Nobody is sitting on a huge stack, but some are up three or four buy-ins. I selected a seat with the larger stacks on my right.

Hero (BB, $125): General strategy is to start out with a nitty TAG style, try to understand the table dynamics and identify the styles of the other players at the table, and then adjust. I have no reads and the table doesn't know me. I'm leaving in about 15 minutes and am in nit/tag mode. I'm a middle-aged white guy in jeans and sweatshirt.

Villain 1 (UTG, Covers with about $400 with chips in rack ready to leave, three stacks red, four green): Middle aged white guy.

Villain 2 (UTG+2, Just covers with <$200): Black guy; late 20's early 30' with earbuds hanging off his earlobes.

Villain 3 (MP, $250): Guy from prior table. Mid-30's white guy; clean cut. Likes to button straddle and limp into limped pots.

The Hand:

Pre-Flop

V1 UTG limps, V2 UTG+1 limps, fold, V3 limps, 3 folds, button limps, SB Completes, Hero checks with Q8o. Six to the flop.

Flop ($11): 9TJr

Hero flops a straight. Not sure what it's called. It's not the bottom straight. It's not the top straight. Is it the middle straight. In any event, looks like the second nuts.

Check, Hero bets $5 into $11 pot, V1 raises to $15, V2 calls, V3 folds, folds around to Hero who calls.

Turn ($51): low off suit brick, either or 5 or 3 with no flush draws showing.

Hero checks. V1 bets $25 (one green, two reds), V2 raises to $75. Hero has $102 behind. Okay, I gotta admit, I wasn't happy with my double barrel blunder check/calling two bets from a button after that button called my 3x raise of his straddle in a passive, limply game. Slight tilt might be going on here and I don't want to (a) get MUBSY and run away holding the second nuts or (b) incorrectly play into yet another shown of clear strength by not just one, but two players. Yes, I think KQ is clearly in both players range (especially V2), but so is JT, T9, AJ, AK, 99, TT, 78.

Hero?

didn't read the first 80% of the post

You have the 2nd nuts and 60bb. This is almost the easiest first-pump jam in the world.

It's called the 2nd nuts buddy. Just shove.

The only real thing to discuss is how you played the flop and turn.
On the flop I think I would 3bet to 40 to set up a turn shove.
As played, on the turn leading for 50 is probably better, because you don't want it to check around (Say V1 checks AJ or QJ, and V2 checks QJ/QT). A QJ type hand is rarely folding to 50 on the turn at these stakes. Often QT will call and maybe even 98.
I you get raised after leading the turn for 50, just shove. If they flat, river is a shove even if the board pairs. You just don't know enough about these players to c/f (and c/f would only be for specific types of players).

My plan was to C/R, but the raise from UTG+1 seemed very strong. I'm not a big C/R fan in general (with some exceptions), but I felt my flop bet/call, followed by a turn check seemed pretty weak and I fully expected (and got) a bet from UTG. What I didn't expect was the UTG+1 to raise to $75. Again, that seem pretty strong.

3 bet after being re-raised on the flop..shove turn

This.

Calling ranges won´t get any wider than they are on the flop.

Get it in. With only 60bb and a really wet board like that there are tons of hands that are calling that are worse and there are only 12 combinations of hands that beat you.

If you shoved and some guy boated with his set of 9s, that's just life, but you should always be very happy getting it in with these stacks and the amount of money in the pot.

+1

Ship it

Results this evening.

So far it's 7-0 in favor of shipping. Any opposing views or is this just oh-so-simple?

It's oh so simple. Results!

yeah you have the 'second' nuts, but with these chip stacks you have no choice but to treat it as though it's the stone-cold nuts. and in this case, you probably could treat it as though it were the stone-cold nuts anyway, because anyone with KQ would almost certainly have raised pre-flop. so you have the 'effective' nuts. this isn't a concern in this hand because of your chip stacks, but you have to look back all the way to the beginning and determine whether your opponent could in fact have the hands you think he might have, based on what he's done up that point. in this case, no one has KQ here, almost for sure.

anyway, with a flopped Q high straight, you can bet more on the flop -- must bet more -- because you're gonna get called if anybody has anything. JT, J9, T9, sets, etc. all will call or raise 10, 15, even 20 here. since you'll get called with the best hand, bet. another thing is, two pair will get scared by lots of turn cards -- aces, kings, pairs that don't hit them -- and that will kill your action. the flop is the spot to bloat this pot, and you want it bloated big time.

^^^ Thanks for this. Interesting and helpful.

Not sure if KQ is always/usually a PF raise in a limpy/passive game. Should be, but I'm not sure if it always is.

Poker is an emotional game, and results undoubtedly cloud our perception of whether our decision was right or wrong. When we stack off with the second or third nuts against the nuts, we look back and think, it was obvious, how did I not get away from that?

The consensus on this hand is in favour of shoving not just because we have the second nuts, but that there are so many worse hands that will call a big bet on the flop here, and only one hand that beats you, so a big raise on the flop is undoutedly a value bet.

Even on the turn, you answer your own question.

And most of those aren´t folding.

In a mathematical analysis: Shove = win money; Fold = lose money.

QED.

^^ This. I fully expect V to show up with 78 sooted more often than KQ.

you would know how limpy/passive it is. you're right, KQ is not 100 percent raise.

This was very well said and all true obv.

OP: cliffs to what everyone is saying. 1). There are a hella lot of worse hands that are calling and 2) your stack is too shallow to make this a difficult decision.

I suggest you continue your learnings on here and especially focus on stack sizes and variance theory.

Clearly he had KQ but the other thousand times he will have j10 or a set of 99s or Q9, etc. over time this is a profitable shove given our low amount of variance with our small stack size and high range we could be up against.

Results

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and posts. In my five short months of reading this forum, I noticed most all threads fit into one of two groups. Group One are the posts descirbed by dgiharris as "rare, difficult, and atypical situations that comprise less than 4% of our encounters." Fireworks often ensue on these threads, with a litany of complex, competing analysis couched in colorful language with a smattering of useless one liners with unsupported jabs like "awful" or "terribad." Group Two are posts by those who suffered a bad beat or cooler and wanted to console themselves for a good move gone bad.

This post clearly falls into Group Two.

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Hand:

Pre-Flop: V1 UTG limps, V2 UTG+1 limps, fold, V3 limps, 3 folds, button limps, SB Completes, Hero checks with Q8o. Six to the flop.

Flop ($11): 9TJr; Check, Hero bets $5 into $11 pot, V1 raises to $15, V2 calls, V3 folds, folds around to Hero who calls.

Turn ($51): low off suit brick, either or 5 or 3 with no flush draws showing; Hero checks. V1 bets $25 (one green, two reds), V2 raises to $75. Hero has $102 behind....

.... Hero shoves. V2 calls and shows KQ. River is a blank. Next hand.


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My shove was the right move on the turn. I knew that. What I didn't realize was how bad other elements of my play were on this rather straight forward hand. I should have led for more on the flop (10 or more and not 5) and I should have three-bet. I should have led the turn. I tell myself to generally avoid slow playing, but then, looking at this hand, I missed a 3-bet and then tried a c/r. Terribad. In this case, the results were the same -- I wanted AI and got AI on the turn. But that is hardly the point.

Oh well. Life is learning.

Thanks again.

Im shocked this was not the 1st and only post. Lock thread/

BTW bet more on flop, as played reraise flop.

Lead turn, as played snap....frown, from the fact that you posted.