I’m trying to help but you’re not making it easy. Stop digging.

You think my dilemma isn’t legit?

Well the pot would definitely be bigger but not as big as you think it would be. raise $40 pre. cbet half pot.

Fold. AJo is trash.

you are correct
fold pre
there are plenty of spots where you have position on V and can cash in
defending SB is not one of them

So position doesn't even matter? It's just something that would be nice, but it's not necessary? Even when deep? Even when playing someone that isn't going to turn his hand face up on the table postflop?

I feel the importance of position mainly just gets lip service on this forum. Or we hear a bunch of "learn to play better OOP" comments. You're allowed to decide not to play OOP, and lol at it meaning you're not playing your A game (it's likely means the exact opposite).

G1)position2)position3)position4)cards5)someothers tuff,imoG

Position is very important. However, in this specific situation, 3betting this player from SB w/ AJ is a very good play. (I don't think Hero is on his A game this deep at all, because he chose to flat, which is the worst of three options.)

As stated, if H would normally 3bet this from OOP not deep, the he should be able to do it deep -- or he should be working on it. If you are scared to play big pots OOP, you need to start learning to do so unless you are happy where you are -- never moving up in stakes, never taking advantage of players who always raise their button, etc. Fine.

It's not a marginal spot or a marginal hand, we have a monster vs villain's range.

And yes 11bb is worth everything. You rarely get more valuable spots in poker.

Yes. I'm not cbetting large. Probably 30-40% with my entire range. I think that's preferable to cbetting 60-70% with fewer hands, causing you to risk more on bluffs, causing you to require a check-call range, causing you to place some of your value hands in your check-call range for balance. Plus, you hate having to check/call down with a capped range against an aggro opponent, and so do I

Generally you should be cbetting more often when your range is tighter, and it's not like we are 3betting airballs here. AJ might be one of our weakest hands. We have KQ, AK, KJ, JJ and AA too.

Because V is opening far too loosely preflop, you can exploit him by 3betting a correct range. If V defends those 3bets at a balanced percentage, so that your 3bets don't immediately make money, then you can exploit him on the flop because his range will be far too weak.

Suppose T4s is the absolute bottom of villain's range. So he has all better suited combos, all pairs, let's be generous and say he's fairly tight with offsuit hands and only calls broadway combos.

If your range is AJo+, ATs, TT+, KQ, KJs, QJs, QTs, you have villain absolutely buried on the flop. He shouldn't even be continuing with most of his paired hands. Every additional dollar he puts in the pot is lit on fire.

I think you’re agrandizing the points you’re trying to make which likely means that you’re either over emotional and prone letting it affect your game or possible don’t understand the options available to you. In your mythical KJ7cc flop scenario you should be c-betting AJo 100% of the time.

Why is everyone now talking about what he should have done with AJ from the SB, when he was actually in the BB, and the shorter stacked SB had already called. Seems like a significantly different spot to me.

I think you might be over-estimating how valuable of a spot this is given our lack of position. Let me give you an example:

In the very next orbit, SB from above hand open limps in HJ, I iso $10 with KTo in CO, SB BB and HJ limper call.

FLOP ($40): 742r
SB checks, BB donks $15, HJ folds, I look at SB (and see he’s ready to fold) and raise to $50, SB folds, BB tanks for a minute and lays down 7x saying my overpair is good. I nod.

In this case, BB was a very ABC player who views me as a tight winning reg and respects my game. I pretty much know exactly what some of their lines mean. In this case, it’s obv TP trying to find out where it’s at.

You see it wasn’t so hard to make 22.5 BBs in this hand.

Now compare it to my AJo hand where we go into super-grey territory OOP vs an unpredictable aggro player with our entire stack at risk in an attempt to steal 11 BBs.

Although I do like the idea of cbetting, I have this deep inert fear of looking weak and being played back at when I cbet SMALLER than my original preflop raise. In this case, cbetting $30-40 after 3b to $50 pre may send of wrong signals to these guys, don’t you think? I have no clarity on his range.

If he calls the 1/3 flop cbet, I’m just so lost on the turn when I have a mediocre strength hand like AJ. If I check and he bets, I won’t know if he’s betting because I induced him to continue with ATC by signaling weakness OTF or because he has a better hand. Sort of leaves me in the dark.

Following thread
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Grunch and late to the party. Didnt see results

Pre is a must squeeze, $60 this deep. It’s a squeeze for VALUE. If he folds trash like 92s that’s cool too, he folds ALL his equity which he will OVERrealize IP and if he calls with A2o-A10o at any freq and doesnt fold you own him there, alongside his A2s-A10s which im gonna assume he folds 0%. OOP without the initiative you end up folding too much of your equity esp with offsuit hands. People need to man up when 3betting from blinds, with many holdings it’s way more profitable than just flatting eso again BTN/CO open.

Ie 54s should always be a 3b over a call vs a btn/co rfi from BB as long as they have reasonable ft3b and assuming they open a standard range (20-30% CO, 30-60% BTN). Flatting w/ 5 high is so weak and it’s the std play for most people. Now if they are a nit opener that’s a different story, we should either get out of the way or flat if they stack off to light post

Flop ez call, turn bringing in another straight draw and having the best kicker vs a LAG seems like an easy call too. He literally have a gazillion bluff combos that we can never fold this turn

River is tough if we face a 3rd barrel

But it's hard for him to have a better hand on the turn if his range is so wide, that's the key. We can check-call turn really easily. AJ is well above mediocre strength in that spot.

River depends on a lot of factors. The runout, the action, the sizing, how often V can float and double barrel bluff, how high up AJ is in our range given the action. I don't think getting there after x/c'ing a hypothetical turn is a nightmare spot though.

If you don't know how to play AJo in a big pot, just call. Then play using the {Premium Hand, Drawing Hand, Marginal Hand, Junk Hand} breakdown to determine how to play from flop to river. If it's a premium hand (tpgk+), bet. If it's a draw (bdd, sd, fd, combo draw - anything other than NFD), bet. If it's a marginal hand (tpnk down to bottom pair), x/c. If it's junk (no pair, no draw, opponent betting into you), x/f. Also realize that these change at each street, so J63 would give you a premium hand. If the turn is a K, it becomes a marginal hand. If your opponent x's the K, it moves back to premium again. This is very basic, but it will help make your decisions less stressful.

In your particular situation, I'd call with your marginal hand otf. Ott nothing has really changed, and since V is playing aggressively, I'd call ott also. If he continues on a safe river, he most likely has something, because if he didn't, he should be worried you do and are sandbagging him.

I called this out to GG in another thread. I think in some cases it can actually be lower variance to 3-bet.

When your playing bad it's time to leave the game. The button is clearly the mark/spot/whale. It's almost always a sprint to get their money, because they are literally giving it away. AJ is crushing this guy's range, and hero butchered the hand. It's time to call it a night.

The biggest problem in this thread is that you are playing with scared money. Yes AJ off is not that great, but as Doyle Brunson says in the supersystem, sometimes you have to take a random handom and stand up against a bully. Look at this video and it will give you a clear idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od1VDkOM5Jc

Winning poker is aggressive. I don’t think u can just substitute passive play for aggressive play, especially not with a hand like AJo

Flatting pre is honestly fine, so is 3 bet. Given that sb is probably flatting too wide, button is opening too wide and likely not 4 betting enough, we should be looking to 3 bet a good amount but this isn’t a manadatory 3 bet.

Seems like a very standard turn call against an aggressive opponent. We 3 bet a lot of Kx, we don’t block clubs, he’s pretty aggressive and we have a decent hand. If we fold AJ we are over-folding and this isn’t a guy or a board where I want to be over-folding.

I would plan on calling most rivers against a 2/3 pot sizing. Probably folding on a 9 or a club.