$300 Effective
After a limp I raise to $10 with AJs of hearts. Two late position players call as well as the BB and limper. 5 to the flop with $50 in the middle.

Flop is 4A2 with two hearts. The limper leads into me for $15, I just call, the BTN calls and now the BB makes it $70. The original bettor of $15 folds and it’s on me. What’s my play?

The BB is a very good player that respects my play and I have a hard time thinking he doesn’t have a decent hand. He is also someone that I believe would fold to a large bet with top pair. Thoughts?


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Call.
You're only trying to fold out AQ/AK with a raise. There are very few turn cards you don't like.

Just call. We can fold river if we dont improve and he keeps bombing

Call. So many cards help us on the turn. I also think V can have a draw and is trying to see both cards for the flop raise so you might get to the river with a call.

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Button is also still to act after us, with this BB c/r. With our draw, I think we're cool with whatever they do, even a shove.

We're not ecstatic vs a set but it could be worse.

I think the first time it's close between raise and call. Donk lead is often going to be worse Ax hands so we get a lot of value from raises, but this is a bad board for us in theory and calling can bring dominated draws in.


I think some of the comments overestimate BB's range and how many good cards we have (often going to be sets and 53, maybe A4, but there are no real draws) ... but I'm also not folding flop.

It's a weird spot because the limper donked into you, and you just flat called with multiple opponents left to act. It's possible BB suspects you just have a PP under AX, or a heart draw with a hand like KQhh.

He's repping 2P+, but the raise size is suspicious. It's $70 into $95, laying us 3:1 on a call, and BTN will be getting 4:1. That doesn't scream 2P+ to me. It looks more like weak AX.

If you flat call and the BTN comes along, there will be $275 in the pot and $220 behind. Hard to see how we'll get to the river without all the money going in on the turn. Are we folding if he jams turn on a brick? We'll be getting over 2:1 pot odds, and over 3:1 implied odds if we think the BTN will over-call.

Think I'd just jam here, to push BTN out of the pot and ISO that dead money. I want to see all five cards, and put max pressure on BB's draws and weak value.

BB is probably going to fold most of his draws, and most 1P hands, and continue with all his 2P+, so we're at a slight disadvantage to his continuing range. But we've got 9 outs to a flush, 5 to improve to top 2 or a set, and we can go runner runner to make a wheel. We're a slight favorite over A2 and 42, a slight dog versus A4, 40% against 53, and 30% against 44/22. We're crushing all his worse AX.

Given his raise size, I think his range has enough AX and 42 that will call a jam to offset the risk we're running into A4, 53, 44, or 22.





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It's also possible BB is nutted and is just raising based on the size of the bets: 15; call; call; 70

If we hit a heart we have the nuts ... why do we want players to fold?
BB has to have a _lot_ of "oh, all those calls are weak I guess I just raise to 70 with KhQh/6h5h" to make us want to fold out everyone, and again we are way ahead of those draw hands so getting folds isn't worth much.


If we just take the three obvious options:

1. We keep calling and see what happens at showdown.
2. We raise flop and get folds.
3. We raise flop and get calls.

...I don't see how #1 is ever worse than the other options.
Yes, sometimes BB will have decided to raise ATs and would fold to a jam but hits a 2 outer by the river to have the best hand ... but that's only happening ~8% of the time.
Does BB ever fold AK/AQ here? A2?


I would happily shove AA/44/Ah5h ... but there seems little value in shoving this.

I respect your view and everyone else's. I'm not positive I'm right in my view, and I don't exactly hate a call. I don't expect a lot of agreement, but here are my random thoughts.

1) I don't like flat calling with a strong value hand and the BTN behind, giving him 4:1. We're not going to know what to do on a lot of turns. I think there's added value in iso'ing his dead money, and generating some FE with a raise.

2) Our hand is under-repped when we just flat call the donk lead from the limper. We could have raised with all our AXhh, AA, A4, A2, and some A5s/A3s. When we flat call, and the BTN over-calls, hero and the BTN look weak, opening the door for BB to do this with a lot of worse AX hands, which he might reasonably think are best at this point.

3) In this configuration, I'd think the BB would be donking out a lot with 2P+, because this is a flop that's going to check through very often. We can give him 53, 44, 22, and all the 2P combos, but if he was going to go for the check-raise rather than donking out, I'd think he'd check-raise larger, to build the pot and protect against the flush draw. A lot of those hands just want to take it down on the flop when they're OOP, not screw around by laying oppponents >3:1. I feel like the combination of his going for the x/r instead of donking and smallish raise size allows us to discount the likelihood that he has a nutted hand.

4) Whatever we give the BB for a range, we have to consider that the BTN could out-draw us, just by calling with any PP and binking a set or straight on the turn. There are scenarios where we improve to a hand that beats the BB, like top 2 against his bottom 2, but we still lose to the BTN, so a raise to fold out the BTN denies a lot of equity.

5) If we flat call, and the BTN over-calls, it'll be obvious someone has a flush draw, making it harder for us to get paid when the flush comes in, and making it more likely BB will jam a brick turn, forcing us to fold, and we might be folding the best hand. I'm fine taking the pot down here, or continuing with 14 outs to improve to top 2+, if we're not already. BB could level himself into calling with worse AX.

6) It'll be hard for us to get away from our hand if the turn is an A, J, 5, 4, 3 or 2, improving our equity and / or reducing the number of nutted combos BB can have. Even if the turn is a brick, our hand is so under-repped that BB could fire again with a worse AX for value, and we won't know where we are. Are we folding in that scenario, because we think BB can only have better hands? How, when we played our hand so passively? BB might be putting us on 99-KK with a heart. If we're not going to fold turn, we should think about just getting it in now.

Responding to your point about BB having AT - he can have any AX and hit his kicker on turn or river, but we'll never know when it happens. Looking at the pre-flop action, BB could be super-wide here, with every combo of AX, such that we'll have a hard time knowing if he made 2P, when we let him drive the betting.

If we're just going to call down the whole way, we'll be playing our hand as a bluff-catcher, which just doesn't sit well with me, especially not if we let the BTN continue.

We might argue that if BB doesn't improve by the river, he might slow down and check But even if he checks, it'll be hard for us to bet and call a raise, because we'll be right back to where we were on the flop, wondering if this is 2P+, worse AX turned into an unintentional value-bluff, or just a straight up bluff.

Does the BB fold AK? I don't think he ever has AK here when he flats pre, but obviously he wouldn't fold if he did.

Does he fold AQ? I think AQs is a 3B pre, AQo might be a 3B pre or a donk-lead on flop, so I might give him 2 or 3 combos of AQo, and if he folds at any frequency, it's a win. If he only continues with AxQh, he stands to lose a lot of money if we hit our flush, and he might fold to continued aggression on a later street. I'm not too worried BB has AQ here.

Does he fold A2? Probably not, but we're a slight favorite over A2, so I don't care if he calls with A2.

The way this was played, if BB is actually a good player, I think his range here is weighted more towards AX that we have crushed and might level itself into a call than 2P+ that will be thrilled to call off a jam. Even if he does call with 2P+, we're a slight favorite over A2/42, only a slight dog to A4, and not in terrible shape against 44/22 or 53.