Hero is on the 2/5 list playing 1/2 but the table is pretty sweet. 2 stacks over 1.5k and 3 more stacks from 600-1000. Fish, whales, you name it.

V is young Asian guy sitting about $600 OTB. Limited reads as the last table broke a short while back (30 mins?). Seems aggressive, raises in position mostly with large sizing, seems to want to induce folds. Hasn't shown down yet.

Hero is MA guy and the effective stack around $300. Very low VPIP, maybe one prior raise. Also no show downs.

OTTH:

Less than usual limp fest in front (2 or 3 limps), and Hero raises pre to $20 in the HJ with 99. V, 3 bets the button to $60. Folds back to Hero who legit considers all three options. After about 5-10 seconds we settle on a call as I can imagine this guy including hands like AJs+ and 77+ in his 3b range given stacks and position and aggression over last 30 mins. So we aren't just set mining. Reads and ranges can be bad though so this could be spew decision number one. Flame away.

Flop: (~$125 after rake) Q 6 3
Super dry board in a 3 bet pot. We decide to check. V bets something like $70 and for some reason Hero is getting a strong gut feel that V is weak. It's probably mostly body language as bet sizing seems reasonable although he could go much smaller if he's really strong and wants to get more value given SPR. Hero is never flatting this weak with so many bad turn cards so raise or fold it is. With only $240 behind any raise is committing. We ponder for about 15 seconds. Vs heart is beating through his chest and he wont make eye contact. We decide to full on spew and jam it in. V immediately gives a mini Eastgate sick face then looks at the size of the pot, pauses for about 5 seconds. Shrugs and puts it in.

Thoughts?

Seems fine to me. I don’t mind a jam pre either, but I think I like this better when you get boards like this. WP imo.

Fold or 4bet pre imo.

We got the about the best board possible and we still aren't too sure what to so. If we were $500+ deep maybe we find a call pre, and being in position would help, but this is just meh.

Against the described range pre we are a 55/45 dog, OOP, against what we think to be a non drooler, with short effective stacks based on the raise size, with no reads, and normally when we get it in post we are losing except against exactly 88/77 on low flops. Just fold pre.

I'd probably adjust the last two sentences of your post -- we shouldn't know whether V calls, just what you did/what you knew at the time you made your decision.

I don't hate this. I think I'd rather do it faster and rather not look like I'm making a read on them (because while you're making that read on him he's also making a read on you). But this is decently merged, he'll c-bet his whole range, you may fold TT/JJ, you'll definitely fold out the overcard equity of AK/AJ, and overall if this person has been playing a fair number of pots, he could be even wider than AJ/77.

Thanks, felt decent at the time but as I thought it about it more and given limited reads it seemed more and more spewy.

This is interesting. I did consider folding pre but do not think we need to fold with 100% frequency in this spot. To me your post implies 99 is only a set mining hand in this spot where I didn't think it was. I didn't mean to imply that was Vs whole range in OP. I meant to imply that we are a 55/45 dog against his value range. I assume a player as described with position and a stack would also have some 3b bluffs like small suited Aces and maybe even small pairs or suited broadway blockers. I felt that V had enough AK/AJ here and would be cbetting his whole range to make a profitable jam or fold. I would have been more worried if he down bet or checked back. Considering our HJ position it seems pretty tight to fold 99- vs an aggressive button V raise. I can definitely see folding here and waiting until we have a better read though.

Too late to edit. Agree, it gives away at least a portion of results. Not sure why I included actions after the shove.

I tend to get more folds when I pause longer then raise / shove although this one may have looked more transparent. I do need to work on being more consistent with timing though. I get a bit lazy sometimes, especially at 1/2. I thought similarly about folding out a large portion of Vs range with the jam including some TT-JJ which is a huge bonus. Qx and overpairs are just never folding but with no draws I felt V would give me a stronger jaming range.

I mostly agree with iraisetoomuch here. Include more calls pre if you’re deeper.
But since you did call pre, if you flop a board like this, and you suspect V is weak, x/r is wayyyy better than giving up. Jam or fold pre is likely best though.

With limited reads and oop, this seems like a fold pre unless we want to flip for stacks. Discussion of our equity against his range is appropriate but must be put in the context of our positional disadvantage and ability to realize equity.

This may be true but I wasn't sold. Even against weaker Vs I expect to be ranged something like AK, QQ+ when I 4b jam here. I expect to only be called by hands that crush me. So we win 33 BB often and loose our stack mostly when called. We also only take the 10 BB hit when we fold. SPR is low when we call but don't we create a way bigger upside and still give ourselves chances to fold later without being stacked? Maybe I'm just not respecting Vs enough when I play 1/2. This could be a legit leak but I had flatting and folding about equal on my egotistical EV rankings with jamming still a viable option but less desirable for reasons listed above.

I guess I need to hear this more. Consensus is overwhelming that this is a fold pre which was listed as spew number 1. Post flop seems mostly ok though which is encouraging.

CornBr34d: in fairness, your decision was further complicated by the V being OTB. I recently ran my JJ into KK in a nearly identical situation a few weeks ago. Our tendency is obviously to range Younger, positionally aware Vs much wider in these circumstances.

I try to pick my spots with 99-Jj and I need a lot of evidence that a V is re-raising light, even otb, behind me before trying this play.

snap fold pre and flop

him being otb is irrelevant when a reg squeezes 3 limps in front of him
you're going to see much tighter ranges than your paranoia would have you believe

if you picked up smth from his body language otf and wanted to ship, that's fine but understand he needs to fold flop like 50% of the time for you to break even

Don't like ripping the flop, are we doing this as a bluff, or trying to deny equity here.
If you really thought he was FOS can you not c/call down otf, ott

low vpip meaning he was tightest player so far since you sat down, right? sounds like he was playing tight/aggressive. you give him credit to have 66/77/88 here? I would fold pre but I'm not a 2/5 playing a 1/2. I also think if you are trying to make a live read maybe just calling would be better here.

I don’t like ripping flop either. I feel like we win the minimum or lose the max too often. I wasn’t crazy about calling down with second pair not sure if we are dodging the Ace, K, J, T, some under set, or if we need a 9. Large stack will barrel at high frequency against our OOP passive calls. He’s described as aggressive. We got a reasonably favorable flop and a read, why not try to take it down OOP? We may both deny over-card equity and possibly fold out TT, JJ.

No, hero was the one playing tight pre with the low VPIP. V was using aggression often and seemed to be positionally aware. I may have jumped the gun on early reads tho

Yea I can’t argue with this. Shouldn’t be making reads this significant this early for pre flop action. Agree post flop as well.

This is spot on and what everyone is saying. Hero isn’t some pro who can call out hands after 30-45 mins at the table. Fold and pick a better spot pre.

For all the reasons you listed and ranging him as wide as you did, I am shoving preflop. I don't expect him to slow down on the flop so the idea of playing this hand OOP with stacks this shallow is unattractive. Jamming preflop will also allow you to extract any Fold Equity you may have.

Folding PF is fine as well, but calling OOP seems like the least fun and profitable way to play this hand.

If our ranging is right then our raw equity combined with fold equity makes jamming pre +EV and also the easiest play. I just feel like against a player we expect to cbet 100% that it's not terrible to see a flop and plan to continue on Q high, J high, T high boards with one over, obviously flopped sets, and low boards. If there's a bunch of over cards or and Ace or King show up we can always get away. It gives us a chance to lose smaller and win bigger more. In general I agree this is a bad flat. Raise or fold pre. But I kind of equated this to calling down against a LAG with a marginal hand (even though V isn't considered LAG at this point, but I've already conceded the problems with our premature reads).