Recent 1/3 game

V is mid 50's ATC played with him about an hour. He played nearly every hand from every position. Doubled up with J3s against AA a few hands earlier and had well over $500 stack.

Hero ($235) had been playing pretty straight forward raising from position and regularly c-bet and double barreling (usually with very strong hands) Blew V out of a big pot early on with double barrel air from position, and victim was openly unhappy about it telling everyone I was bluffing etc. after that V started playing a little wilder raising pre from every spot.

V (550) raises to $15 UTG

2 limp calls in between

Hero (235) calls OTB with 10h8h

Pot (60)

Flop
Kh 9h 2h

V bets $40
Fold
Fold
Pot (100)
Hero raises to $100
Pot (200)
V tanks for a long time verbally asking if I got the nut flush, and then goes all in
Pot (415)

Question: is the raise good? It left me only about $115 behind, should I shove here? Don't quite understand SPR yet...working on it...

Thanks

I think your raise size is fine and it's an instant call when he shoves.

You have to have limped to limp/call. These are cold calls.

Raise on this flop is mandatory, as so many turn cards kill either our hand or our action. I make it bigger, actually. With your call, the pot is $140, so a $60 raise is less than half pot. I go at least $120.

As played, obvious call is obvious. You have a flush against a steaming and wild vilaain and have already committed half of your stack. Get it in.

This is really a question of commitment threshold, rather than SPR. your SPR is under 4, so you usually will be committing with TPTK+, but once more than 1/3 of your stack is in the pot with a made hand, you are almost always right to get the rest in rather than folding.

Especially with the speech, V rarely has a NF here, so really the only hands you're worried about are Q and J-high flushes. Sure, they're in his range, but never, ever, folding here.

The odds of one person flopping a flush are pretty low. The odds of two people are even lower. GII. Regarding raise size, I would probably go to $120. 3x the initial bet is always a good starting point to work off of.

Obviously I called, that's not really my question. I'm trying to figure out my raise sizing. If I raise $140, what's really the point of holding back $70? But if I shove, I'm worried its too much.

What do you think is villain's range on the flop?

Honestly I thought he possibly had a flush also with like I said earlier literally ATC, or I thought he had a pair with a heart something like KJh.... He kept asking if I had AQ hearts, so I was leaning towards JJ with Jh or KJh.

What do YOU think he had on the flop? I'm sure you guys are better at hand reading even with my vague description of the hand

JhX is the majority of his range after that speech, I would think where X=K-9 offsuit. K9, 99, 22, low flush, 7hKx maybe?

These are good questions to ask yourself, but this particular hand is just one where the stack sizes are awkward and there is no single correct answer. There is nothing wrong with holding $70 back here, because as others have noted, we understand that our money is GAI regardless. Whatever raise size you think will allow us to do so and also get V's money in as well is how you should play it.

You should be thinking about ranges and combinatorics rather than statements like this. Because while it is true that two players flopping a flush is rather unlikely, it becomes significantly more likely given that one player has flopped a flush. The only thing that makes it any less likely villain has a flush is that you block some combinations with your hand. The odds of him having any one flush combo is the same as him having any one 2p combo or single Ax combo.

I'm getting it in here too but this line of thinking is a leak.

The point is that you just have an awkward stack size. You've got a flopped flush, you want to get paid. If you shove, you offer only 310:210 = ~ 1.5:1 odds and you blow him off the hand, while your raise laid 200:60 = ~3.3:1, which can profitably be called by allot of V's range.

How did you come up with those numbers?

Is it 310(dollars in stack) divided by the 210 pot?

A little lost here.

At what point in your playing career did you begin thinking about combinatorics? I see a decent amount of people mention it on the forum here but I don't quite think I am "there" yet to fully understand it or incorporate it into my game when doing live range assessments.

Hero $235 stack
V covers.

Preflop: Hero $15, 2limpers $15 each, Villain $15.
Flop($60) V bets $40, others fold, hero raises to $100.
So at this point, V has to call $60 more to win $200(60+40+100) in the pot. He is getting roughly 200to60 or ~3.3 to1 which may incentivize him to continue with wider hands.

If on the otherhand, hero shoves his stack after v bets on the flop then...
Flop($60) v bets $40, others fold, hero shoves all in for $220
Now v has to call $180 to win $320(60+40+220). He's now getting ~1.8 to 1 pot odds to call.

We all know V shoved AI anyways, so these odds aren't relevent at that point, but at least it may gives OP an idea of the various options he could have laid in front of villain.

Hope it clarifies the numbers for those confused.

Any reason we aren't topped off to maximum buy in?

Preflop is borderline simply because we don't have a great stack size. It's not for a great price (6.3% of stack), but it is an ok multiway hand, plus we'll be going at least 4 ways to the flop, in position, with callers trapped between us and the raiser. It's not horrendous.

With an SPR of < 4 and a T high flush, we are absolutely 100% committed on this flop. We should look to be getting in the money ASAP before another heart comes to kill our hand/action. In most situations, I raise to amount that offers poor 2:1 odds, so that would be to $180. But in this case that would leave a lol amount behind for the turn. I think with our image vs this guy (he thinks we've barrelled him off a hand before), and the fact he looks strong (he just bet into 3 opponents OOP after raising preflop), I would simply shove the flop (which looks bluffy/drawy).

As played, snap call.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think this line of thinking is fine. I agree that putting in $140 to create a $340 pot with only a mere $70 left for the turn (a turn bet that would offer 5.9:1 odds) is pointless. So even though the shove is a little bit of a slight overbet, I still think it's the best bet size. Also, we have a great image / history with villain to make this work (he thinks we are FOS here a lot), plus his actions state a strong hand that he is going to have a hard time releasing. Plus if he has a hand like JJ (no heart) there's a decent chance we don't get anything more out of him anyways (especially if another heart falls), although he might level himself into calling a bluffy looky shove.

GimoG

V is never tanking with a flopped flush after you raise and are pretty clearly pot committed. Snap call.

Albeit not very important in this scenario, why wouldn't villain tank with a flopped flush?

Max buy in in this game is $300, I had $235 when the hand started. I usually don't rebuy until im under $200...is that a mistake?

If you are properly rolled you should chip up after every hand. I buy in for $200 at $1/2 and am constantly adding red chips early in my session until I hit my groove. May look OCD to the rest of the table but you want to have your usual BI on the table at all times for when you get a chance to double up.

Would you rather double up from $235 to $470 or $300 to $600?

I usually rebuy at $100 increments cause its easier to keep track of on poker journal that way haha

If you feel you are one of the best players at the table, and feel you are good at playing a ~100bb stack (assuming that is the maximum BI), you should always maintain an approximately topped up stack. Just buy an extra $100 worth of reds (so easy to keep track of for accounting) and keep them in your pocket, topping up after every hand.

Gneverletsmystackdropbelow$296G

I was listening to a bart Hansen podcast a couple weeks ago and he mentioned something about stack sizes to get the right odds to play hands preflop. This is all table dependent but he said stack sizes (in relation to the raise)

10x for setmining pp
20x for calling with sc
30x for s1g

I would definitely lower it vs. this villain with the callers in between (assuming you cover them), but with your stack size your really pushing the limits of making this a profitable call pre.

Very early. It's simple enough once you get it and will vastly improve your decision-making since you are then making decisions based on numbers rather than feel.

I think there's a COTW thread on it in the Micro Full Ring forum.