Villian 1 ($475): Mid 30s male. Most active player at the table raising pre-flop and betting postflop. Plays a wide range a cards from any position.

Villian 2 ($170): Early 50s Indian. Just sat down 3 hands ago. No reads.

Hero ($140): Young mid 20s. The old geezer grinders respect my game.

In the previous pot, Villian 2 laid down a big hand against Villian 1, who turned a straight or better. Villian 2 was fuming after this, and proceeds to UTG straddle.

Preflop (straddled to $4 by Villian 2, who is UTG): Villian 1 in EP limps, MP limps, SB folds, Hero calls $2 in BB with TT. Villian 2 options to raise to $44. Villian 1 tanks for 1 min. and decides to call. Folds to Hero. What should Hero do?

During Villian 1's tank, I narrow his range to unpaired face cards but not AK-AT, as I believe he would've raised preflop. Pockets pairs lower than 77 and sooted Ax and Kx. Villian 2 is on a pure steam raise with just about anything.

Call and see what the flop gives us? Shove 70BB with the best hand? Or make the long-term, low variance play...fold?

Buy in Full.

Shove.

Calling to hit a 'set' or blank board for 31% of my stack is a serious no no. Hence my reasoning to shove.

If villain 2 is on a clear steam raise with just about anything then this is a clear shove.

But how can you know that after only 3 hands?

If all the money goes in, we're essentially risking 136 to win 289 more. That's pot odds of 32%. That's how good our equity needs to be against their range. It seems like we easily have that.

Obviously, we're assuming you have a bankroll of x thousand dollars and can make these plays without too much concern for the variance.

I'm guessing that about 40% of the time, your stack is going to be $425 after this hand.

You should come up with a range for villain 1 and then you could check your equity.

Set mining is no longer part of the game plan indeed so I don't expect anybody promoting a call.

I just want to see other members reasons for either pushing or folding.

Seems an easy shove. So many folks seem to love to straddle and than steal the limps with massive ridonkulous raises.

I could see the EP villain with a hand better than you described a decent amount of time. A fuming villain that straddles is usually a prime target for limp/raise line with a big hand from EP for a lot of people.

Its still a shove for me, without any particularly relevant read and a somewhat short stack.

Why did you limp initially? The only reason I can think of is because you expected a fuming straddler to raise his option with a wide range. You got what you wanted. You got more than you wanted in fact when V1 limp called this raise with a wide range to provide dead money overlay. Shove all day.

^^^+1 and then follow through on your plan. And V1 was tanking over your potential shove and not worried about V2 anyway.

I prefer the line: raise to $20 initially and then see if V2 re-raises. If he does, V1 is out of the picture and you are in a dynamic with the monkey.

As a side note, I believe that a straddle is a spew play and as such, I believe someone at the table should raise the straddler. If no one does (and I just can't with my cards), I fully expect any decent straddler to pound the table with ATC as a statement (as well as cbet 100%). I only call a staddler with a premium hand assuming that someone (including the straddler) will raise. In this case, you played it this way. I personally would'nt with TT, but would with QQ+, AK+.

Concur with buy-in full or go study until confident enough to buy-in full at all times.

instashove.

Is it normal for a limp-call for $44 with a range of KQo, KJo, QJo, A9s-, KTs-, and 77- in this game? I think this is extremely ambitious for V1's range. I would think his range is much wider and higher than that although I would think he recognizes that TT+ or AJ+ is ahead of the straddlers range and would push.

V2's range could be anything but to imply that he is on a "pure steam raise" even though he has been at the table for three hands is also pretty ambitious.

I think if you are, as you said, "shoving 70BBs with the best hand" then the answer is pretty obvious. I think a shove is +EV but not as slanted as you would think.

as played shove

Your should raise pre yourself as numerous posters have said

I wouldn't be surprised if V1 shows up with something nutted here if he is a thinking player at all that limped with KK + AA and hoping someone would raise pre.

That being said as played it is still a shove

Agree with shove . Add fold equity to the fact that you are clearly over 30% and it is easy decision.

Disagree with buy in full. Buy in short to exploit deep stack players who do not know short stack strategy and develop a tight image. If you discover that villains' leaks are more exploitable with a full stack, chip up. This is way better than chipping down to exploit table.

raise to 21-25 pre

as played shove

probably a coinflip or an underpair (in his hand)

I respectfully disagree. It's true that a short stack can force big stacks to play sub-optimally, but I don't think this example qualifies.

If the hero had 50 and the villains had 500 each, the hero could shove PF and the big stacks would have to make loose calls because they are playing each other. With the stacks in this example, I don't think the villains have to change their play much because of the hero's short-ish stack.