Table is 8 handed 1/2 with a 300 max buy-in.



Villain: Mid 20's white guy, normal-ish. Seems relatively loose, passive preflop but has shown some aggression postflop. Has limped into multiple pots encouraging family pots. But has raised and cbet seemingly appropriate scenarios and shown some reasonable hands.

Hero: Hero bought in for max and has been playing very tight. Showing strong hands as winners and playing position. His suckout vs villain is his only perceivably spewy play.

Seems to respect Hero and we've become "friends" sharing observations about the rest of the table with eachother. He says some fishy things I can't really recall, but overall gives there rest of the table too much credit for thinking at all. Hero stacked villain earlier with a questionable call on the turn with Hero having top set and calling villains less than PSB shove on a 4 Spade board then rivering a full house against his flush.


$1/2 NL (10 handed)
UTG V1 ($520)
UTG+1 Hero ($800)



Hero is dealt KJ

V1 limps, Hero raises to $20, 6 folds, V1 calls $20

Table is rather loose and has been typically straddling. With straddle and callers my raises have varied between 25-35 and typically got 2-4 callers. They fell asleep and didn't straddle this one, so I scale my raise back a tiny bit but not enough to induce a light 3bet because I "look weak". When villain calls here I think he could have almost anything based on his VPIP. SC, SG, Axs, Kxs, pocket pairs all the way up to AA and even AK. I think he sees my range as a lot wider from this spot than it actually is just based on the likeliness of him projecting his own range onto others[/COLOR]

Flop ($34) K,J,3
V1 checks, Hero bets $25, V1 raises $50, Hero raises $150, Villain raises $300, Hero raises all-in for $200 more

I was really lost here. Every decision felt wrong and folding felt the most wrong. I was worried if I just call the flop there are a lot of turn cards that either counterfeit my hand or kill the action vs hands that I beat. Obv he can have 33. The question is how often he can limp AA, KK, or JJ? I'm one combo ahead there due to blockers. Now does he play QTss, QJss, ATss, maybe other Axss or Jxss, K3s or T9ss this way? I just felt like my hand was too good to fold and calling and seeing a turn felt gross too even though after he minraises my flop 3bet he's like never folding ldo. Should my flop raise be bigger? [/COLOR]

Unless you have seen villain play games with small raises it's best to assume a min raise is something close to the nuts. 33 becomes the most likely hand with some chance of other sets, combo draws and possibly AsJs. Against the range your action should be call flop and then play cautiously. If villain continues to bet then folding is probably best.
Until you have seen some evidence otherwise it's best to assume a min raise is a big hand. Preflop the majority of min raises will be AA and post flop they are most commonly sets. These are villains that have really big hands and want to get money in the pot without scaring you away.

Looks fine to me, although you could call his min-raise and evaluate turn. I'm fine with it vs. this guy, though.

This is a gross spot because this basically looks like 33, or KJ, but it can definitely by a flush draw/combo draw/pair + flush draw. When v limps I would think mostly KK and JJ will not be in range and there is only 1 combo of each anyways. So I think overall it was played fine.

I think calling flop min raise is going to be slightly higher EV than raising. You're like 52% vs QsTs, and 56-60% vs his other very high equity draws, and like 65% vs his lower equity draws. You are 17% vs 33. So except for his spazz hands, you are either way behind, chopping, or a little bit ahead.

His draws have the most equity on the flop. You can't expect to fold out his draws on the flop and you don't really want to. You want to be up against all his draws and his spazz hands, so just calling keeps that range in there. Then on the turn it is easier to play because on a blank we can continue to call when bet to, bet when checked, or raise when facing a bet, which gets us the most value from his draws. If turn completes draws we don't have to play for all the money and we may be able to get away from it. Or, if he has 33, he may slow down anyways on a draw completing turn and we still don't have to play for all of it. If turn and river come running blanks we still probably lose a huge pot to 33, but still get value from his draws and spazz hands. When you're this deep and equities are very likely to change on the turn and river, sometimes we make more money by letting the equity reveal itself on turn and river. Plus, we are in position. I am more eager to pile money in when villain can check back turn in position to realize all his equity.

If there is one hand that is dying to put in the flop 3bet in the flop, it is JcJh. Unblocking JsXs, and other spade/combo draws ahead of 3 combos 33 and 3 combos KJ, ahead of random Kx.

What the hell is with this dude and the min-raises, especially that last one for over 1/2 his stack?

Does this guy have a 3B range? If so, we can probably rule out KK and JJ. Have we seen him limp from EP with big PP's?

Limp-calling with 33 is possible, but check-min-raising with 33 is fishy AF. So is 3B-min-raising for less than an all-in jam when he's only got another $200 left behind. I would think if he had a hand that would call a 5B jam he would just jam himself, rather than min-clicking you to death.

The fact that you've been talking strat with this guy, and that he's said some fishy things, both make me think he might be doing something fancy here.

So, yeah, maybe he's got 33. Or maybe AJss. Or KJ, or QTss. But when a loose-passive rec-fish x/r's, then 4B's, it sure seems like he's pretty nutted.

Otherwise, when he check-min-raises flop, just flat call, and look to play some poker on later streets. No need to blast off here, when we're only way ahead of hands that don't make much sense, and otherwise either way behind 33 or not that far ahead of his good draws.

Look at the SPR when you call the $50 - the pot will be $135, with $450 back. Once we make it $150, we're basically pot-committing ourselves to stack off, so we might as well jam all-in. Better to just flat call the $50 min-raise, and see what he does on the turn.

I'm not usually in the business of trying to bluff opponents off of sets, but if the turn/river complete the flush or Broadway draw, I could see turning our 2P into a bluff. But to do that, we need to keep the pot small and the SPR high, until we see the run-out that favors our bluff attempt.