Epic table...

V sat down about 10 min ago, never seen him before, said he was waiting on 2-5. Bought in for 150, only hand I've seen him play was when he straddled on the button, UTG+1 raises to 50, he flats, flop KK4, raiser jams, he tank calls with 99 and loses to QQ. He reloads for 300.

Hero (1k): Only hand he's seen on me: EP raises to 8, 3 callers, I call on button with 5s7s, flop 6s8c2c, EP raiser bets 30, hero flats, 9h (straight), EP checks, hero bets 80, river 9s, EP jams for 230, hero tank calls, EP shows AA (lol), hero wins with straight.

V had a few things to say about my hand, he talks the talk, but his preflop call for 50 was fairly ******ed.

Hand:

Eff stacks 330

Hero straddles button for 5. Villain is in SB. V calls, 3 more calls, hero looks down at QQ. Hero raises to 40, V 3! to 80. 1 Caller in LP who is all in for 80, up to hero. (~200)

95% of the time a limp 3! in 1-2 - 2-5 is KK/AA, however after watching him flat 50 with 99 I really wasn't sure.

Hero flats (~240)

Flop 10,6,5r

V jams for 250.

Hero? Fold pre? Fold flop? Call flop?

Egh.

This is true. Now you've donated enough to him, fold.

Even if he 3b light again, 77-TT would be in his range too.

It works out for maniacs sometimes too.

The main pot is protected since we have a 40bb stack who's going to see all 5 cards.

This is a really bad spot for Hero I think.

Doesn't seem like calling the $40 extra to go for only $250 in the side pot is a good idea.

IDK... not really sure what to do with this one.

With a V that takes this line, hes going to cbet shove otf at least 90% of the time - so by flatting pf you are essentially set mining because no non-queen flop is going to make us comfortable calling. Over cards are scary, and low cards still doesnt help us if he had us beat pf with aa/kk..
That being said, i think you have to decide based on reads whether you are good against the V pf now, and gii or fold. If im not sure i might just fold now without giving that extra 40. Gii pf also has the small benefit of the v potentially folding, this avoiding us seeing 5 cards against 2 hands with queens. Its a tricky spot though however, im wondering if anyone would advocate smoothing the min raise and call off any low card flops?

What range would you assign him? AA and KK only?

If so fold. If it is possible that he is min repopping with a wider range, then call.

Without reads that help this question, I would get it in.....

I smooth called the minraise to setmine knowing its a superhigh probability that he's jamming any flop. 40 to win 450 was good for me. I did fold to the jam going with my 'limp 3! is usually AA/KK'. He scooped the sidepot with 67o and lost the main pot to 10js.

He said he though I was trying to steal it with my raise to 40 pre where in actuality I was raising for value expecting to get a caller on this table.

With the small amount of info I had on him, should I have been able to range him on donklite 3!s and called it off? Its so rare to see a lite 3! at 1/2 and even at the 2/5 games I play in. Or is this going to be AA/KK so often that calling it off here is not profitable? I see limp reraises with AK quite often but usually its a limp 3!jam.

Meh... this HH is w/e.

The answer is of course, no way you can put him on full-****** with essentially zero info.

But now you know and can adjust accordingly. Try to play as many pots with him as possible with a range that is better then his range. Follow him around like a hungry puppy.

Gut says fold.

I think his range is wider than everyone seems to think. He seems like a spaz who can have a very wide range here. I think he is shoving any T and JJ+ AJ+ and maybe even 77-99. I would call and expect to be ahead a good portion of the tome

I think there are a few key pieces of info that might allow me to talk myself into both calling the 3bet and calling the jam.

You've seen him ready to play for money when he picked up a straddled 99.
You straddled into Queens, so you having a really premium PP is significantly discounted in his mind. I can easily see him 3 betting with 99+,AQ+, and a few bluff combos, because he is not going to believe your raise. So I would feel pretty fine with calling his 3bet.

On the dry flop, following his shove: Either he had the AA/KK and youre beat, possibly got crazy lucky with 10s and its a cooler, or you're ahead. I would guess with a reasonable range here of 99+,AQ+ and a very small "bluffing" range say just A5s combos, you probably have about 60% equity here. I think you should be making the call against this Villain.

The critical feature being his 3bet range is significantly wider because you straddled combined with the fact you've seen him play for stacks with a medium PP.

But physical info and my gut feeling would probably play a big role in my decision here.

Meh I call but not really loving it. Mostly because it's a straddled pot and people tend to spazz with any pair preflop.

I just don't see him shoving KK/AA 100% on this dry flop into a protected pot.

I probably would have 4! him to $160 and folded to a 5! or folded to the 3!. I think stacks are just too shallow to set mine here. He could be doing this AQ AK just as likely as AA,KK.

Why?

GRUNCH (means I didn't read any responses)

Villain is a thinking player waiting for the big game. You also straddled on the BTN so V should be expecting you to squeeze with a much wider range especially since you BUTTON STRADDLED.

The above combined facts means that V's 3-bet range is going to be much wider than the typical KK+, AK. I feel V can easily raise you with 99+, AK, AQ, KQs and that this same V has it in him to make a move on the flop.

Basically, in spots like this vs thinking players when there are metagame components like straddles and button straddles and thinking one player is making a move... ranges get much wider.

So in this spot, I'm comfortable playing for stacks on this flop with QQ and expect V to have a wide range of hands we beat like 99 and JJ as well as airballs like AK, AQ, KQ and even hands like KTs and ATs can show up here (albeit a much smaller % of the time)...

I consider this a high variance +EV spot and I'm fine playing for 100bb stacks with QQ here.

I 100% swear to god I posted my reply without reading this

(Lets ignore the results for a second)
Would we take into consideration the size of the reraise? If he thinks we are trying to steal on the straddle with bs wouldnt he raise more, as min raise is pretty much getting a call?
Furthermore, why would he go all in otf in a dry sidepot, knowing his 67 is probably not good against the shortstack? If he's a thinking player, seems weird that he hasnt shut down yet after being called by two players, if he had the hand he did.

Although, like jambre said, we can also argue that aa/kk wouldnt play that way on the flop - can we use that as a tell to call off with QQ?

because most LLSNL have serious leaks in their game and they butcher poker concepts and during the execution they only are partly correct in their actions.

I see this all the time. Thinking player makes a move but doesn't do it in the right spot or in the right way and then compounds his mistakes in future actions.

This happens so often that I lose track.

One of the hardest aspects of this game is figuring out the nature of our villains leaks and mistakes and exploiting them without leveling ourselves by our own biases about what a "thinking" player (i.e. ourselves) would do.

Give you an example.

I remember once in a SATELLITE tournament we were down to 9 players, top 6 players get a seat... a short stack goes all-in for 2bb and 3 of us (all healthy in chips) call.

Flop(8bb) 8 2 2
V1 (donk) bets 8bb, we fold, V1 is heads up with short stack all-in

Turn/river (8bb) 4/J

V1 shows 76 for the missed flush
All-in short stack wins with A3o

short stack proceeds to double up later and ends up getting a seat...

I remember my disbelief at how a player could be so stupid in that spot... but then I remember that 95% of the players out there have never heard of 2+2 and out of the 5% that have heard of 2+2, only 5% of that 5% are active members if that...

So my point basically is that even when players show signs of being a "thinking player" odds are that they still have significant leaks and will make mistakes.

these mistakes will almost always tend to be magnified whenever they are facing an atypical situation that is a bit out of the box, like a button straddle...

^ so true.
[Rant] If I'm ever being tilted by one thing at the tables, it's when their massively flawed thinking ends up working out in their favour - like in op's case here. Oh and the best part is their explanation afterwards. [/Rant]