Hero (420) Been at the table for a little over an hour. Viewed as playing pretty straight forward thus far since sitting down.

Villian 1 (200): Male in his 50s, knows a few people at the table. Continues on most flops if he has connected in some sort of way. Will over play top pair

Villian 2 (1100): Male in his 30s. Reg, knows the dealers, other players etc. hasnt done anything out of the oridnary, just had got his money in good and gotten paid


Villian 1 is UTG and limps... Raises to 5$ by the UTG+2, villian 2 calls. Hero [AhAc] raises to 35. Villian one calls, original raiser folds and villian 2 calls.
Flop: Jh5hJc

Villian 1 donks for $50, villian 2 calls.....hero?

Fold. V2 flatted looking for an overcall/raise from Hero.

So V1 donked a paired FD board for about half pot after limp/flat big 3bet pre? He has a PP 55-TT almost always, but the occasional random jack.

V2 has a lot of FDs and PPs he thinks might be bigger than V1s, with a bit of QJ-AJ he's letting V1 have rope with.

Pot is about $200 when it gets to us ($250 with our call). I'm def committed against V1 here. Not so sure about V2. If we make it $150 we've put in half our stack with an overpair, and I think folding thereafter would be awful. OTOH, if we flat we're getting silly POs on future streets, so hard to fold, while also letting FDs draw cheap.

Although my first instinct was to raise, I think flatting here is better. We should have no trouble getting stacks in if turn card and action are favorable, and it they go crazy we can likely safely fold.

Bad spot.

I'm not sure if this is serious, but I remind you that trolling strat threads is not allowed. If you really mean it, you'd better explain your weird soul read here.

What he said definitely a possibility. It's not often that a good player is flatting with a flush draw/med PPs on a paired board when he should expect Hero to raise behind.

I'm not saying it's not possible. My range had Js in it too. I'm just saying making it an absolute declaration makes little sense to me.

This isn't even remotely a soulread 220bb deep. V2 limp-called pre and is now overcalling again fully expecting Hero to make it 150-185 to go with his overpair.

I'd rather not raise-fold in the most obvious backraise spot ever. Calling is horrific.

This is pretty typically bad LLSNL advice: villains could have a range that includes FD on paired board, med pairs in mp facing a likely raise from PFR, and also occasionally the nuts...??! That's not a range, that's just all the hand that could have connected with the board (or not).

CALLING if "they go crazy" ott is just lighting money on fire. Do you expect the turn to check through? Are we pot controlling if it did? Are we ever vbetting? If so, what turn cards?

And how can you be committed against V1, but NOT V2? You're not playing them separately. V2's range is super narrowed, sandwiched between V1 and Hero.

Before you call someone out for trolling who has a long track record of serious LLSNL strat posts, maybe work on your own game for a bit.

+1

Alarm bells are going off for me in this spot. V2 seems competent and Im really worried he's spiked a set here or to a lesser degree has a hand like JT, QT.

V1 could even have us beat and is donking out Jx to 'protect his hand agaisnt the flush' depending how bad he is.

I hate this spot. I'm finding a fold here

I contemplated folding but decided to raise to 150. V1 put his chips in. V2 ended up folding (He had Qh6h). V1 tabled KJ

Might want to work on your read on V2.

By flatting, what is our plan on the turn? What are we hoping to avoid that we feel confident putting our stack in with

I was at the table for a little over an hour. Not to much to go off. He showed down 3 hands prior in which he had top set twice and nut flush

I really wish OP hadn't posted results already, as this could have been a good conversation. Cliffs: the mistake we make at 1/2 is much more often giving V's too much credit and/or mirror-imaging how we would play in a situation.

If a V is calling, even one we have pegged as decent, it's usually because they have a draw or a medium strength hand.

So a V that "hasn't done anything out of line" is 100% calling to backraise in this spot against a Hero whose only image is "pretty straightforward?"


Not the bolded. Vs are huge non-believers on paired boards. His range isn't super-narrow at all. With a straightforward Hero, he's going to assume we're folding AK, AQ, and maybe a few other whiffs that we raised IP on this scary board a lot. His FDs are getting a good price, and there are a lot of them in his range if he has "winners tilt," which is quite possible given his stack.

As for V1 it wouldn't surprise me if he showed down A5s and said something like "I knew you didn't have a Jack."

We are avoiding the potential flat/back-raise from V2, which while I don't consider it inevitable, is a gross potential.

On a blank turn, we can GII with V1 if he bets and V2 folds (this is how we could be committed against one, but not the other, btw), or decide that we actually are beat if V1 bets and V2 raises, etc.

On a heart turn, we can fold or check back our overpair with the NFD (note, this is not a draw to the nuts, just the NF). etc.

How about this:

If Hero didn't 3-bet preflop 7x more than the original raise of 2.5x, the decision to be committed on the flop would be a lot less difficult considering Hero and V1's stack sizes. Even a 3-bet of $15-20 would probably render a $25-30 flop donk by V1. Now, Hero will have some room to raise, and calling this smaller flop donk by V1 is less committing to your stack.

OK, but how about this? This ridiculous raise size got called by two crap hands. Passing up on all that value just because you're afraid of tough spots post is silly.If V2 hadn't called also, we'd have an SPR of ~2 with an overpair. Never a bad place to be committed, imo.

Don't know if I'd be disciplined enough to fold AA in this spot OTF;

But a LLSNL rule of thumb for me is that if there is a bet and a call on a Broadway card paired board, one of em usually has trips.

Get as much in there as u can pre. Vs at 1/2 often have a hard time folding to a 3 bet after they've already opened or called an open.

Sizing down is a big mistake

Yes, it did get called by two craps hands. I feel there would be more value in raising less, though, and using your position as a better advantage preflop, then later post-flop. Why not raise to $50 then? Or $10? Or $75? Why is $35 the most acceptable raise right here? What number would be your best raise then? Raising less allows you more play, despite not gaining the extra dollars preflop and increased FE.

That's just how I see it. I want to see the flop with better IO, and the chance to be able to exploit the turn and river. That's just me though and my bread and butter is on the turn and river. I just can't see people calling 14.5x consistently, then giving flop action OOP often. ****ty board.

Nah that's nonsense. With AA, obviously raise as much as ppl will call with. Pretty intuitive.

You don't need IOs, you already have a made hand. By raising less, you are giving them better IOs.

SPR of 1 to 4 is great for AA. 7 to 13 sucks.

This is pretty much complete nonsense. Why do you want IO when you have the best hand in poker? No one is saying that $35 is definitely the best size here. The best size is the maximum that V's will call, as with AA, the more money you get in PF, the better. In this case, hero's raise got called by two terrible hands, against which he had ~70% equity.

As for the actual hand, this spot depends heavily on reads for V1. What types of hands does he like to lead out with? Would he do this with something like 88 or QhTh? In general though, I'm flatting flop and re-evaluating turn. Raising is overplaying our hand IMO and folding is too weak.