This is a loose late night game. Villain 1 has recently gone broke and rebought. He had a $400 stack and gave most of it away to Villain 2 on a hand that occurred an orbit before this one, which gives an idea of the dynamic:

V1 raised to $12 preflop OTB. V2 called in BB.
Flop was A-J-J. V1 c-bet $15 and V2 c/r to $30.
Turn K, bet $35, call.
River 6, bet $35, raise to $200, call.
V1 shows A3o for the bluffing TP and V2 had JTo FTW.

Both players are very active, in >50% of pots.

OTTH:
V1 stack $240; Hero $260; V2 covers.

V1 is in the SB and V2 straddles to $4. Hero calls the $4 in MP with KJ, LP and button call, and V1 pops it to $19. V2, Hero and BTN (short stack) call.

Pot ($76) K 9 8
V1 bets $40, V2 calls, Hero...?

Raise, call, fold?
If you call, plan for the turn?

raise or fold pre but given table dynamics, probably a fold as you will just go multi-way with a bloated pot OOP with a KJo.

This is a tough spot because we've seen V1 bet TPNK on flops so we can certainly be ahead, but at the same time - what is a good turn for us? Is a J good? What if V2 or V1 have a hand like QcTc/QhTh/T7s (they sound loose enough to have these cards), then a J has a us drawing nearly dead. Is another K a good card for us? Probably but not always. A million turn cards are terrible for us (clubs, Ace, T, 7, etc)

It also seems like both V's are sticky. As in if you choose to just call the flop and re-evaluate, it looks like you will be facing multiple barrels. So I think we need to think about not just "what do I do on this flop" but also what our plan is on all 3 streets. I think the latter just sucks because I'm having trouble imagining good turn cards or river cards for us.

IMO, I nit it up and fold. we have no plan for later streets. we've invested $19 and my guess is that it will be very expensive to see a river card. + these players sound really bad (like V1 turning a hand that has decent SDV into a bluff on the river) and they're very active - basically there will be much better spots.

Calling or raising commits you to the pot and I'm not doing that with 3 opponents with TP meh kicker. I make a nitty fold. It's just too likely your going to run into somebody with a better hand and/or a good draw.

I would also fold to the raise preflop and wouldn't always call the $4 to begin with. For $4 your priced in against fish to look for a good flop some of the time, for $19 your not. Raising is also a viable option if they will call with worse, which seems likely.

I don't mint limp/call pre-flop. Not a huge fan. But it's alright. You have to get it in on this flop. I probably just ship it. Both players seem loose and raising probably doesn't make a draw fold. So I just make them commit now with their draws at max price. Sucks if we are losing. But too many turns we hate.

If you're not willing to get it in here, don't limp/call from MP.

If LP is a nit, I'm fine with the limp FWIW. If they are aggro, I don't limp. If V1 in the blinds is raising wide from his blinds. I don't hate calling, espeically if our BTN is going to fold a fair % to the raise after we call. What sucks is, I don't see us really getting into too many spots where we are crushing anyone other than when we hit our 2p/straights, etc...

But in spots like this on this wet of a board vs these opponents. You can't really ever fold if you get in this spot. Calling is an option but it's super variance heavy, probably more than jamming. Folding is just way too nitty and it's a huge leak if you're going to limp/call pre-flop and fold here.

Limping pre is better than folding but I'd rather just raise it.

As played call.

Calling is going to put you in a super gross spot on every turn. You're likely folding a lot of turns. Sure jamming we're probably behind V1 if he calls but, I doubt we're behind all the time vs his call range and I doubt we're always behind his range OTF. I would not be surprised to see this guy snap off QQ thinking you are on a draw same with JJ or JTs/Axs. Not surprised if V2 is on a draw or has some pair. Unlucky if he has a set/2p or BTN has us beat.

Im never loving too many turns, other than a K643 or 2. I hate any club, any 5,7,8,9,q,j,a.

I can't really see calling being an option. It's jam or fold in my opinion. If I limp called KJo I'm not folding one of the better boards for us in a bloated up pot vs 1 wide range and a fair % chance at another.


FWIW pre-flop 15 to win 50 IP vs 2 seemingly goofballs with a pretty straightforward hand in a low SPR. I can't see folding.

V1s raise is soo small. It just bloats the pot. Little butthurt if he did this with AA.

I think the limp is meh, but not terrible. Fold pre to V1's raise.

I make a nit fold. I don't want to get involved in a potential buzzsaw between two players with recent history with TPWK. This is the definition of RIO. Snap calling if V2 folded.

tbh I didn't notice that V2 called V1's cbet otf.

Ugh that makes the spot a lot worse and I probably fold otf. Yeah I fold flop.

Also, although I probably wouldn't ever open-limp this pre, I'm not folding pre after the raise.

If I was going to play this hand I would come in for a raise the first time around, but KJo is a pretty garbage hand in MP, especially with two loose players behind.

I think fold pre >> raise pre >>>> limp/fold pre >>>>>>>>>>>> limp/call pre

Like honestly, what is the point of limp/calling if we are even going to consider folding the flop when we have top pair and there are no straights or flushes currently available? That is a massive leak. We knew LP and BTN were going to call behind so we have no business being in this hand if we are just going to start folding top pairs on the flop.

Now that we're here, I think jamming is slightly more favorable than calling. I don't love jamming because we are just taking a stab in the dark that we have the best hand and can charge draws/get called by worse, BUT we only have a pot sized bet left after calling the flop so might as well stick it all in there and ensure we realize our equity. There is a non-zero chance we get bluffed out of the pot if we just call and somebody behind semi-bluff shoves.

V1 is liable to spazz given previous hand history so I wouldn't mind it too much if it wasn't for V2. I'd probably call/call/call. With V2 in the hand it's just a ****ty situation, I guess fold flop. If you aren't going to fold, jam it in there because otherwise the turn sucks no matter what happens.

Well, sometimes you find yourself in the dark because you've never considered limp-calling KJo in MP before but against these dudes it just seems like a slam dunk equity play to be in position with such a hand. Then you get to the flop and it continues to feel weird AF so you just bail out then when the money starts to get big.

It's by repeatedly playing weird situations I might get a better feel for this, but I think I agree that raising pre feels a lot better than limp/calling which is something I don't normally do with many mediocre TP type hands.

LP ended up folding to the $19 raise. I'm not worried about BTN, who I didn't mention but plays superloose pre and mostly fit or fold post.

v2 flat calling flop lead is a wide range; I imagine he is very zoomed in on playing against V1 and is not too concerned about what happens behind.

I honestly think Fold Pre is possibly the worst option. Once you limp, and it gets raised this small. I'm never folding with anything I limp with. Just too good of a price and we're not going to make too many mistakes post-flop with this stack.

People advocating fold on this flop. No. This is not a tournament with ICM implications. V1 has a wider range than a normal BB raiser (with presumption, Hero never clarified we're just operating on that considering his iso with A3o) then V2s range is already wide because they have history with V1 and they like to play vs each other.

I just don't see it ever being good to fold here it's a bet/call not a bet/raise. Calling the flop bet is just losing money because you're going to fold most turns. Jamming is going to net money because of the money in the pot vs 2 wider ranges with call happy buttons on draws. You may even get called off by A9s, I dont know. The pot is so big, they might just feel obligated to call with junk to hit. Also when V1 raises pre-flop he might just feel obligated to c-bet with his QQ/JJ/TT. AT/AJ/AQ/KT/KJ/ 77/66, etc.

If you give us information to narrows V1 range, it could make this a fold. For now, no, it's a jam.

Did V2 bet-snap the JTo? Not critically important but if he induced w that sizing then he has some clue what's up. Anyway it's only mildly relevant, just wondering.

Either way, V2 is likely the more aware of the 2, so I like the idea of overcalling your KJ as long as you think you're in control vs V1s range. V2 can get squeezed out a bit on brick turns if V1 bets big, so as long as you're continuing on V1 turn barrels (assuming a safe card and V2 folds) then peel flop and see what happens. It's probably not even that thin to just shove/call a shove over V1 turn barrels if V2 folds.

V1 is on tilt and V2 is going to be in every hand with him. Both are playing >50% of hands. Shove.

For the sake of brevity, just write "Turn it into a bluff, baby!"

OP, don't play KJ unless your opponent has KT. The problem with KJ is you always think you are priced in, but you never are. It's one of the worst hands in NLH and will lead to sorrow, if not in the near term, then over time. It stinks.

OTF, you can't beat any real hands and there's no particular sense in taking a card off. So calling is probably not correct. In a multi-way pot I would tend to release. HU I think popping it is correct.

Another good time to play KJ is when you have 3 hole cards and everyone else has 2.

Per Equilab, if we give both players top 9.2% hands, we have a mere 34.31% equity on a flop that connected pretty damn well with our cards.

We want to get called by all draws and tilty V1's Kx, 9x, 8x range. V2 possibly has a fold in him even if he's better. Not going to do the math as I'm on the road but I wouldn't go with top 9.2% based on reads

Actually KJ is in the top ~13% or something like that.

That's when you're playing against the deck. We're NEVER playing against the deck. We're playing against living breathing opponents who are fighting back.

With a $50 stack in a $1 $2 game, there will obviously be spots where it's playable. And 4 or 5-handed as well.

Agreed. It was just a quick example to show how thin these spots really are. I'm just showing the fundamental problem with KJo (see also QTo). We're liable to put in a bunch of chips in spots that don't actually pay very well.

If we give them both 14.7% then we're up to 43.83% and we have an overlay. That doesn't solve the problem of collecting.

Sooooo you're saying we have explicit odds to call then?

Um, yes. But that analysis is one sided. If there was no more action this is an obvious call and I don't think any of the participants in the discussion would ever dispute that. However, that's not how the game is played; we can't run down the clock and the card room isn't closing immediately after we make our call.

I wouldn't restrict their ranges to top 9.2%! If we're at 34% equity against such strong ranges, then I guess we're doing pretty damn well against their actual ranges...but we are not all-in with that call and have close to 100BB's left. After reading responses, there is more support for making a shove here.

In the actual hand, I continued to play like a bag of ass by calling the flop and then folding to a shove and call on the A turn. V1 had JT and V2 had some K4o.

Not a snap bet. He measured out the chips in a calm manner. He kinda snapped back in his chair when V1 raised to $200 then made the call after about 30 seconds. He said he didn't buy that V1 had the straight (board was A-J-J-K-x).