Hint: I've been inspired by this post.

Thought I'd present a hand from a month ago or so which I found very interesting. It's 3am on a Monday night (Tuesday morning) and I'm playing one of my regular £1/2 NL games. The regs here are very weak players.

Prehand descriptions:
UTG: Middle age business man-type who is more interested in the roulette wheel next to the poker tables. Has taken to going all in preflop in unraised pots a few times (about 4 times so far) in the last few orbits, mainly when there's a straddle. Every time the table has folded. The first time he shows 77, then some King-rag hand, then QT from the SB when BB showed that he folded KQo. Nobody has called so far and he's not shoved for about 2 orbits now.

MP2: Late-20s/early-30s recreational player. Friendly, not very good (standard stuff: too loose pre, doesn't vbet enough, not aggro enough, etc), but has been winning. He is the only other player at the table with a stack comparable to mine, everyone else has £200 and below.

Me: Young university-age kid, music player in one ear, chatty. I'm not sure about how people perceive me (my definition of tight =/= most other people's definition), but I think I have a pretty laggy image, tho almost exclusively in spots where I have position (if people are noticing). I have been winning and have the biggest stack at the table, probably sat down with the most chips as well.

Stacks:
UTG (straddle): ~£100
MP2: £500
Me (SB): £600

In this hand the UTG businessman decides to straddle to £4. There is a definite risk of him going AIPF if there are a bunch of limps to him. Somehow people aren't wisening up to the idea that it doesn't makes sense to limp-fold here.

I am dealt QJ in the SB.

UTG+2 folds, MP1 limps, MP2 limps, some folds, BTN limps, action is on me.

Question 1: Do I raise/call/fold?

Action continues in spoiler:

Call.

Seems like an easy fold, getting 50 bbs in with qj seems bad, especially when your deep and oop vs mp2 whos range for calling 100 preflop is probably stronger than qj.

I like a fold preflop the first time, and a jam the second time.

Question#1 I'm torn between flat and fold.Other table dynamics would influence that decision.Side note:does a squeeze ever work? You mentioned his "all in move" happened in unraised pots.

Question#2 I feel it's a pretty clear fold.You are certainly behind,and may very well be dominated,so calling can't be good as you are OOP.(Maybe if MP is willing to check it down,ala tourney) To reraise is to shove,don't like that with stack sizes involved.You better be sure MP2 is going to fold.

Lemme guess,you flat. Flop is QQJ. MP2 has JJ. You win large pot and can't help but smile.

He hasn't pulled this move in 2 orbits...ok...maybe he is switching gears...or maybe an opportunity with a lot of dead money hasn't presented itself yet. Here we go: he did it. Construct a range for him, and one for the caller. I'm pretty sure you're not going to get above 30% equity needed to make this call if everyone is all-in, but it may be close. You can easily imagine utg having 99, mp1 with A-10, and you with QJo. For that scenario I have you at 33% equity. (But of course, players need to be assigned ranges, not specific hands) I gave MP a pretty tight range, excluding the big pocket pairs, and your equity kinda sucks.

Hero: 25.417% { QJo }
UTG: 34.435% { 22+, A8s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, A9o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo }
MP: 40.148% { JJ-77, A7s+, KTs+, QJs, ATo+, KQo }

What bothers me more is playing a £300 pot out of position against the other big stack. You're probably going to spend at least £100 postflop to find out whether you're beat or not, but you will risk giving free cards or getting trapped by protecting your hand if you flop TP.

So we can discuss the possibility of shoving at this point. If successful, I think it will clear up the problem of being -EV by creating dead money. Realize that line is going to confuse MP, and while you do have some fold equity if he is paying attention (if he "sees" that you set a trap when you flat called & planned to let UTG do his thing and then come over the top) but if either a) he is just playing his 2 cards and not giving you credit and b) he has no regard for money, then this is a big waste of money to the end of isolating when you are in a marginal spot to begin with.

My recommendation is a fold. And I am wondering why you think it would be worth calling UTG's shove in the first place. I don't see how you are in good shape against a range of broadways, pocket pairs, and Ax hands.

Pick a better spot with a better hand to stack him with. I'd fold and be thinking, no matter which one of them wins this hand, I'm still ending up with their chips.

I like the use of relative position in this hand.

I would like to see more hands from the primary villain for his PFAI hands, before I go hunting with QJo. He seems to be picking his spots fairly well in regards to random hands for this move.

If you literally have a read that Villain is doing this with ATC, or at worst with at least 55% of his range, your line is fine. (You must live with the variance that ensues, as QJ is only 58-41 ahead of two random cards.) Otherwise, fold both times.

Thanks for all the replies. Some responses:

A squeeze? Vs. whom? This pot is unraised and villain's PFAIs so far have been in unraised pots so far. Other hands so far when he's in the blinds and I've raised in LP (as I do with ~50% of my range) he has just folded pre.

Hahaha oh dear no, I'm never flatting the second time vs. MP2 here. (Also I don't run that good vs. JJ)

Good point, and I appreciate the ranges which you've assigned. Personally at the time I thought MP2's range was pretty heavily weighted towards the weaker part of that range, so we discount TT+ pairs, even maybe AK. While there was a distinct possibility that the straddler was jamming pre, the table just wasn't adjusting and I was pretty certain MP2 would have chosen to open raise the strongest hands in his range.

As to why I even felt like stacking off with QJo, I refer to AKQJ10's post:

I was pretty certain villain was jamming a pretty vast range pre. The impression I got was that he started off jamming 77 as a "kind of strong hand but I don't know how to play it postflop so I'll just jam" kind of thing, then proceeded to attack unraised pots pre with random cards just because it was working. When he jammed with K-rag (K4o or some sort) I'm pretty sure he didn't recognise the fact that the K in hand gave him high card value and added massively to the hot/cold equity of the hand.

In that sense QJo does slightly above average against his range (pstove gives me a 4-5% edge, LOL), and because I'm a value fiend/variance monkey who loves getting into these marginally +ev spots, I was willing to flip.

What ended up happening was this, plus my justifications:


But I completely agree with those who say that there are going to be much better spots, and QJo doesn't have very good hot/cold equity even vs. a random range. In that sense it's perfectly valid to just muck when the first action was on me.

But I love the marginal spots, I love the variance, and if I bust I just insta-pull up to cover the table anyway.

Hooray for backraise jamming.

Good point, actually! Given that I didn't think anyone else on the table was ever tagging along with villain's PFAI, I didn't think there were massive relative position concerns, but you're right.

Sorry, I missed that MP2 called. Overcalling with QJ is just awful.

Well, now you're depending on two pretty unconventional reads to be marginally profitable. If either of your reads is off -- say the straddle is only shoving 40% and MP2 is top 30% -- then you're just spewing:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
QJo	30.15%	172,814	17,198
30%	36.67%	209,365	22,402
40%	33.18%	189,125	20,915

If we give straddle a range of:

JJ-44,AQs-A2s,K2s+,Q4s+,J7s+,T7s+,97s+,87s,AQo-A3o,K7o+,Q8o+,J8o+,T9o

(40% minus the very top, because he might not shove aces or kings here)

and MP3 a range of:

88-55,A9s-A2s,KTs-K5s,QTs-Q7s,J9s-J8s,T8s+,98s,ATo-A5o,K9o+,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o

(assuming your read there is correct and he's raising the top of his range)

then QJ is just about break-even.

But you can't be sure of your range for MP2, because he's adjusting to UTG. For all you know he has QQ or AQ or something and has decided to counter UTG the same way you have. So once there are two players in the pot, it's pretty clearly time to abandon ship and wait until you can have UTG heads up with a good hand.

(It sounds like you made a good intuitive read but with only the info you've given us, I think backraising rather than folding is pretty dubious.)

Slightly -EV table talk. Maybe someone at the table actually thinks QJ is a good hand, or maybe they think you think it's a good hand. Once you declare it to be marginal, you lose a little of the image benefit of this play.

This would be so sexy, but I'd never do it with QJo. 77 though...

Squeeze the whole table. Make it maybe 28-30. He has folded to your pfs before. Not the optimal play. Would use it only to balance range and thwart villians PFAI in unraised pot move. Was just a thought. I still like my orig advice. Fold pre.

nice thread sean

q1 i complete evry time, all day

q2: at first i was like, no way u can call, but when i thought bout it i really like the way u played it

if u can get the limper to fold the strqaddlers cards doesnt reallly mtter coz of all the dead maney. overcalling is just plain bad
what if the limper shoves aswell, ur raise folding 150bb ?

and regarding to ur image, maybe some people are viewing u as an asian gamblOr coz u really like to push small edges?? which should widen (?) their ranges, right?

and as a tip, try out a lower variance style, it works really well and u can grind it out v comfortably. on an avergae 200nl table there are plenty of good spots (best one is isoraise 1-2 limper IP, cbet, profit?) but maybe thats im just a nit

greetz