I have dreamt about this hand for the last 2 nights, and need people better to me to weigh in with their thoughts. All serious replies are greatly appreciated. The following hand occurred in a private game which I frequent sometime.

I think their view of me is, they don't respect me and think I am one of the weaker players at the table.

Effective stack is 200bbs. UTG has ~200bbs, CO has ~400bbs and I have ~400bbs.

Utg (solid winning pro) raises to $12, Utg+1 (solid LAG winning pro) calls, folds around to the CO (loose bluffing fish who constantly calls raises light) who calls, folds to me in the SB with Qd,Qs. I raise to $50, thinking I will take it down right there.

Utg and CO call.

flop is.. Ad, 3c, Ah

check ( I swear someone has an A) , check, check

Turn is.. 8s

check, check, loose player bets $90, I tank for 3-4 minutes, listen to speech from CO about how he never has anything & loves to bluff(mostly true) and fold, UTG folds and CO turns over 5d 7c.

i think i may have brutally butchered this hand. i was tired, ready to leave and had gotten my $ back from earlier in the night to finally be even.

i was afraid to c-bet because i was unsure & did not know what to do if i was raised.

any analysis of this hand would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

I think it's fairly simple. If I don't continue at the flop, I definitely bet the turn after it is checked through, probably about $85, and I likely fold to a raise. You are making it way too easy on them by checking 2 streets.

Checking the flop is fine - you don't get called by worse unless someone floats you because they perceive you as a spot. You are deep enough to put in a min-ish raise ott and fold to a RR. Your line looks strong with a raise ott. If he's really super-fishy, maybe he calls with 44-JJ and you gain value.

Fish probably uses his image to bet on the flop when checked to if he actually has the A. Because he checks behind, and then gets checked to AGAIN ott, he stabs. Use your read, call, and snap off the river. Given your read I never fold.

Grunch

I had a similar hand with KK a while back on this board and I didn't c-bet.
I think if you don't c-bet this flop then you're basically folding so I think a c-bet would be best. As far as the bet size, if you were to have an Ace in your hand, how much would bet on this flop? I think you can bet $60 and be done if someone calls or raises. I still have difficulty with this situation, especially with a player like CO in the hand. He could easily float/raise this flop with a bluff as you already pointed out.

You should not be playing in this game. Why would you want to play against two pros?

What was your thought process with a $50 raise pre flop. How would you expect that bet to take the pot? Once you did the pre flop raise as small as you did you set yourself up for some difficult times.

After the checks to me I am betting the flop for $100. Yeah, I am giving money to Ax possibly. But difficult times call for difficult actions and I don't mind spew in this case.

pre is fine, I like flop as long as you check AK here too.

bet the turn for sure. we need to start getting value from other PPs and 8x hands, and to protect from getting 2/3 outed.

as played I'm not folding turn...400bbs isn't SUPER deep fwiw.

I rarely get in deep stack situations, so I might be out to lunch, but...

I just call preflop. We're OOP. We're deepstacked, so we'll probably get some callers, so all we're doing is creating a bloated pot OOP deepstacked, so basically a nightmare situation. If we are trying to take this down preflop, I think we have to raise a lot more here.

On the flop, we're WA/WB, so I'm fine with checking and seeing what happens. We're never folding better with a bet (other than perhaps KK), and worse hands are probably folding.

I find the turn difficult. The turn bet is a fairly decent sized bet; would an A really bet that much? Plus it's vs a known bluffer (although speech is always scary). Plus we're seen as a weak player (who can probably be bluffed off hands). Plus, if we call the pot will be $340 and we'll only have $260 left. Will villain double barrel big bluffs, or give up if we call the turn?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I have read a few replies saying that I should raise more PF. I am a bit confused. I raised 4x. How much more should it be ?? How much more do I raise to compensate for being OOP & having 1 caller??

When I raised, I swore they would fold PF. If I raised or called a raise of $12 and the SB 3-bet to $50, I would only call with very few hands. This may be a leak in my game also.

Are live raise sizes more than I would use online ?? I should have definitely bet the turn.

Also, what is "oot" ??

just no. calling here preflop is horrific

This is such weak sauce, no offense. If we're going to play it this way, we might as well rack up and go home.

I go to war with this hand. Or, at least I make 'em believe that's what I'm doing.

Pre is ok. You have to c-bet flop here if you're always c-betting AK and you haven't been c-bet/folding much. Keep your war face on and make it look like you're willing to go all the f@#king way. Of course, similar aggressive play in previous hands would support the cause. This way, they believe you're not being pushed off your hand and a raise from one of them likely means you're beaten. If that raise does come in, you can change gears and dump it without the nightmares.

90 into 165 is a decent sized bet? Yeah it is, and I would bet that much or even more with an ace. I love the "Would trips really bet that much" reasoning, cause it makes me a lot of money.

OP: I'd check that flop with almost all of my aces too, so that's fine imo. Just call turn and see what he does on river. Preflop I'd raise a little more, but it's not a big deal.

Exactly. Playing QQ in a 4-5 player pot is near impossible. His preflop was fine. I would have b/f on the turn. Other than that, you did fine.

I think rr preflop is bad.

A "solid winning pro" opens from utg for 6x and gets called by another pro who are both deep. QQ doesn't play well enough to rr 200x deep.

The solid utg pro prolly has a very tight utg range + the laggy pro. will likely make it tough to play your hand postflop cause it is at the lowest end of a range that is pretty face up.

Lol at calling preflop being horrific. Folding (with our immense implied odds) is horrific. Calling is a genuine option. So is reraising. What do we do if we get reraised? I'm guessing we're folding (or do we considering risking upwards of 400 BB preflop?). What do we if we're called in one or two spots? We're now OOP against two solid winning pros in a huge pot with deep stacks with a hand that might be considered kinda face up, not exactly an awesome spot. So I'd much rather play conservatively here. Give me smaller stacks and worse/straightforward players, then I'd probably lean towards 3betting.

GweaksauceG

I am raising more pre since there is already so much in the pot. Our goal here should be to get HU. Once this happens with this flop we are either way ahead or way behind right? I have no problem with a little pot control on the flop and then going for two streets of value obv folding to any major resistance.

I agree it's not horrific, but is it the most +EV choice we have?

It's probably lowest variance, but the two are not always the same.

Raising has to be +EV. If you aren't 3betting QQ here, do you have a 3bet range in this spot?

The key for me in this spot is that we're OOP with big stacks against two players described as pros who think we are weak (and if we don't let our ego get in the way here, this is probably a fair description). Is this really a good spot to be building a huge pot preflop with almost any hand? So yeah, you're right, I probably coldcall with AA here.

And if most other players at the table are as the same description as these villains, there is no possible way we are going to make money at this table, so the best decision (as someone actually mentioned sarcastically) is to rack up and go home.

GcluelessNLnoobG

pre-flop is fine, i also think the flop check is fine, im betting the turn though, its unlikely villian has an ace when he checks behind on the flop. As played i would call the turn bet and check/call the river

Assuming these guys are all good and whatever, isn't 3betting (I even like his sizing) going to thin the field? If we get the other 400bb stack guy to fold, we are playing a 2-3handed pot with eff stacks at 200bbs which seems totally manageable.

I'm not saying flatting is bad, but you are basically playing QQ/KK/AA for set value at that point.

If you coldcall AA here, you have no 3bet range from this position? 200-400bbs deep? That seems questionable.

This pot will most likely only be 3 ways unless BB tags along (so, yes, at least 3betting would guarantee that). But we ended up in a 3way pot anyways (which is why I said if we're going to 3bet then it should be for more).

I don't think we're playing playing big pockets for set value 3ways. We can passively call down reasonable bets against aggressive opponents, which also keeps the pot reasonable with a small hand (i.e. one pair).

But, as I say, I'm probably really bad at deepstack play and don't find myself involved in these spots too often, and I definitely err on the side on being conservative here. But I don't think that's a bad thing, since I consider the most important thing to keep in mind at the poker table is avoiding the "big mistake" (which we've set ourselves up to make in this case, in my opinion).