Playing Sunday afternoon at a super-tight 1/2 table. I'm usually pretty tight, but I've been playing aggressively, since I've been on a sick heater, and interspersing monster hands with thin raises to $8 from LP. Unlike most 1/2 tables I play at, $8 is enough to get me heads-up, and players repeatedly fold to $12 c-bet.

Hero: UTG(~500) : Running very hot and playing strong in position, probably seen as LAG

V1: UTG+2 (~300). Mid-50s suuuuper tight villain. Seen him pf raise 2-3 times in 3 hours. Postflop bets only w/ nuts or near nuts. Never seen him 3-bet pf.

V2: HJ ($120) - 30ish loose passive player. Relatively inexperienced, he's made some weak calls, including a few hands ago drawing to a straight amidst heavy turn action on a paired aces board. He hit his straight and I stacked him w/ my flopped boat...

Hero wakes up UTG with two black aces (At a normal table I'd go for l/rr, but I couldn't anticipate a raiser, plus I've been loose in LP and I hoped no one would notice the out-of-character raise from EP). Raise to $8

V1 3bets to $16. Folds to V2

V2 raises to $45. Folds to hero.

Hero thinks for 20 seconds or so. Raises to $120.

V1 tanks for like 5 minutes. I was about to go to the bathroom or something. Finally told him to save his money, and he folded. V2 snap calls for his remaining $70 in chips. V1 shows his folded KK, V2 shows his QQ, and I show my AA. Aces hold up and I win ~$240.

My question is whether I'm losing value here. V1 had very little dead money in pot, so though I lose showdown percentage w/ two callers (I lose to any K or Q), I wonder if the increased pot size would more than make up for the increased number of times I'd get sucked out on by having two players. My thought was that if I raised V1 would fold and V2 would call, and I just wanted to get heads-up w/ my AA. Is this playing scared money?

V2 said afterward he was getting ready to shove, but if he flats, I'm not too happy about going to the flop OOP in a bloated pot.

Any thoughts on flatting vs. shoving here?

Missing out on so much value! He has like 300$ so if you come in 2nd place to QQ you can win a side pot and profit. This is a dream scenario given stack sizes imo

True...I forgot I'd only be playing against 3-hands for the next $70 or so, and would still be headsup for twice as much. Doh.

With our aggro image, I probably just shove after the action preflop. I find it amazing that V1 is able to fold KK here, especially with our image. V2 is of course never folding anything once he's 4bet this much of his stack.

V1's raise is also pretty small, so who knows if he has anything really good at the time. Getting this HU with a little dead money is plain win. I wouldn't slowplay here just in case V1 shows up with TT/JJ and doesn't feel like getting any more money in postflop on a A/K/Q flop, but let's put him to a decision postflop (where he can make a giant mistake). ETA: If we knew V1 had KK, then I'd smoothcall and hope he goes nuts himself; but I just don't see how we can narrow his hand that much preflop.

ETA: Not sure what the "save your money" comment was about; were you truthfully telling him to get out of the pot? If that's the case (unless it's some weird hollywooding trick you are trying), then really bad - I don't get it, are you feeling sorry for him or what? This is poker; I wouldn't softplay my grandmother.

5bet is always AA. i dont think ive ever seen a 5b not be AA in a 1-2 game.

90% of 4b are AA. i def dont see a problem with him folding KK here 150bb deep after a cold 4b and a 5b


OP you def cost yourself $, but aside from that fact, you shouldnt be talking about the hand in multiway pots. im never flatting there as the 4b is never folding.

Weighing the merits:

Keeping V1 in the hand = 238 Sklansky Bucks
Telling V1 to save for college = 90 Sklansky Bucks

Keeping your mouth shut in this hand would have won you an additional 148 Sklansky bucks!

Ahhhhhhhhh......noooooooooooooooooo! That is a lot of bucks.

Flat call. Given the stack size of V2 he's mostly pushing on the flop, given most boards. He's not getting away from his hand after 4-betting pf and having so little behind. I'd try to keep V1 in for added value. Although I don't see him calling with KK after V2 pushes and you call. Best bet in this situation (I believe) would be to lead on the flop and 4bet V2's all in. (V1 may raise here also, but doubtful).

Note: If you did flat, I don't see V1 coming back over with KK 3-way pf given he's supertight, so I don't see you ever getting the best case 3-way all in pf.

Notice that you told him to SAVE his money. Where would all that money go that he ends up saving? It would go to you. You didn't tell him to stay in the hand and make money against your AA.

I'd rather go all-in PF with my AA against the entire table than go all-in with my AA against just one person.

I'm not trying to be a dick or a douche but am going to give you some tough love.

The above highlighted bold is Fish and Donk think. This is what 90% of the players think. Notice the emotional language, "get sucked out on".

INternalize this statement. "When I have the best hand, I want as much money in the pot as POSSIBLE!"

Winning and losing is 100% irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is making the most optimal +EV play, and the most optimal +EV play with AA preflop is to get as much money in the pot as possible. The range of hands that call your 4bet pre are QQ-AA, AK. AA is unlikely since you have AA so you are really looking at QQ, KK, AKs. IN fact, you may even be up against two players with KK which would just be awesome.

Fish and donks never think of themselves as fish or donks. They always rationalize their beliefs and make special exceptions for themselves. Don't. Recognize that the above is what fish do. Do some soul searching and work to erase these scared money tendencies.

The only reason for you to say "save your money" is if you have an inferior hand and are trying to get a better hand to fold.

I made a squeeze to isolate against a short stacker who went all in. I had TT, shoved, and the last player to act, a semi-nit was tanking and about to call. I knew he had JJ-QQ type hand so I said, "save your money, I got aces." He then folded his QQ hand face up, the short stacker had AQ, my TT holds up.

I know its hard, but you've got to start divorcing yourself from the money and only caring about +EV play. You've got to divorce yourself from the "emotion" and stop thinking in terms of "being sucked out on".

Fish and donks are always worried about "being sucked out on" and that influences a host of -EV decisions and bad play.

sorry to be a dick, but i don't know any other way to make this point

I wouldn't post if I wasnt looking for honest feedback, so I definitely appreciate it. At the time, I was thinking that AA doesn't play well against multiple opponents. By raising I figured I'd commit our stacks preflop so the board will just have to run itself out however it does. I do remember trying to think of percentages and EV at the time, but I couldn't for the life of.me remember what the mathematical answer was. I felt the safe play was to get HU, and I remember thinking that I had had a big winning day that day, and that all my money had gone in w flushes, houses, etc, and this villain could seriously ruin my day if I had miscalculated, so I opted for the cautious play. Not.my best moment, I admit. I played 899 or so other hands this weekend that were involved mostly +EV decisions. I guess this one was a lapse...I don't.often find myself with aces facing serious action from multiple players preflop, so I didn't have a shorthand routine.memorized for the event. Now I do.

To be fair, I'm worried about being sucked out on, I just don't let it change my stance of getting it all in with aces.

As far as aces not playing well multiway, this is with the assumption that you're going to the flop. Aces play great when you're all in pre.

I believe with AA, we'd love for everyone at the table to be all-in preflop (and thus no postflop play). Obviously our chances at winning the pot diminishes as every opponent is added, but we make huge money because we will win it far more than "our fair share"; for example, with 10 players all-in, our fair share would be 1/10, but with AA we're probably sitting at 1/3 equity (or whatever it is), so it will be a massive money winner long term.

I think this is MUCH different than seeing a flop with AA 10 ways in NL and then having to play postflop with large stacks still behind, where now we're really in no mans land playing for stacks where everyone else can usually play a lot better (total whiffs are folding whereas total monsters are going to put us to difficult decisions for stacks).

My question would be this first.

What hand other than AA do you make this 4 bet with? Are they braindead and cannot figure that out? (Could be, I dunno)

So yea, tanking a bit and calling the $120 would have netted a TON more EV in this spot. The KK hand would have come all day long.

And know this for live poker. Most of the time when you earnestly tell someone something, they believe you. Thus the folded KK. Sort of like they all know that "the speech" kills these days. That cinched up lost value.

I raised to 120....if I had flatter, it would have been 29 more to the mp nit w KK. Thus my reason for raising. The mp player started the hand w 300, so if he flatter it still would have left a lot if wiggle room. So I guess raising and keeping my mouth shut would have been the.most +EV

ANL def misread the OP phull, because he called your bet a 4b.

OP raise 8
KK raise 16
QQ raise 45
OP raise 120

flatting there would be pretty horrendous OOP to 2 other players

Stopped reading the OP at "Players repeatedly fold to a $12 c-bet."

In such a case, go to $11. If they fold to $11, go to $10. Doing so makes your c-bets more profitable. Take care whenever possible to introduce a lower standard c-bet amount with a value bet, but always strive to find the lowest possible c-bet size.

then you missed the point of the thread mpethy

reread the OP

In order to reread the OP, I would first have to read the OP.

I didn't read the OP past the point I identified because I spotted a leak in his set up that I chose to stop and plug.

Having now dutifully read the OP:

Do we really need a thread in whether we should encourage an opponent to fold a hand worse than ours?

OP, it is a relatively simple math problem. You gave up about 64% of KK's contribution to the main pot, and 81% of his contribution to the side pot. Just swagging here, that works out to about $230 of missed value, or roughly $75 per word.

Also: if villains are repeatedly folding to $12 c-bets, go to $11, and if they fold to $11, try $10. It makes your c-bets more profitable.

Doesn't op have the 2 bet labeled as a 3bet? Are you serious nobody picked up on that.

lol, i should have reread my post

im just used to so many people on 2p2 who post, 'stopped at XYZ', and never return to the thread. didn't know if you were going back to the thread and just posting on that one topic on the bet sizing, which unfortunately, too many people do.


this is the essence of the thread. we do not need it as a community of poker players in the sheer sense of the thread itself. however i feel there may be an underlying issue here. BANKROLL

i have had this problem in the past and i think why would i want to be against 5 other player with my AA, im going to lose the majority of the time to one of them. its results oriented thinking, because if everyone goes all in 6 ways for 100 and your equity of the pot is say 50% then we have a net of 250$, where heads up, sure we will win 80% of the time vs a PP but now we net only 80$. when the money means something, you would rather have it be against one person, for a decent amount of money, and it comes down to you not being properly rolled for the game. im guilty of this thinking in the past, and it still probably creeps in from time to time with certain bet sizing.

its only when you realize its not just you against everyone else and thinking im only going to win half the time against 5 other players, but you realize you make more in the long run with all those other players in. if you dont have enough money in your roll to GET to the long run, its easy to take the near sighted approach to the easiest money available.

call = 1 bet
raise = 2 bet
reraise = 3 bet
rereraise = 4 bet

$8 is a 2 bet and $16 is a 3b in the OP

Really? Are we now teaching how to count to 3. I guess this site is called 2+2...

All true about missed value. I don't think KK was gonna call either way. It was almost like a 'get it over with' statement. Not sure if I could have said anything to get him to call because, as another poster mentioned, my 5bet screams aces.

Machine says flat is bad, and flatting was really what I was worried about...wonder if there was a way to raise enough to commit ourselves without scaring out KK, but I do think no matter how much I raise it looks hella scary to any hand other than AA. Maybe he just got lucky to be in the right place to see 2 more raises after hi min 3bet. If he had been on the button after a raise and reraise, he probably would have pushed into me.