+16bb EV for shoving if his range is 50% and he calls with all of it.

But is calling better? idk, need some skills

I'd buckle up and shove

One thing I do to avoid spots like this is to basically min raise rather than limp. I play 1/2 and I have an EP range (actually somewhat balanced) where I will just make it $5 with small-medium pairs, some suited connectors and some broadway hands. In my experience players like the villain in your hand will tend to just flat the $5 rather than raise with almost their whole range, even hands he was planning to raise to $35 with. It's player dependent obv but works almost as a blocker bet for me to set mine/try to flop a big drawing hand without having to limp/call a 10x raise. If he still decides to 3bet to $35 or something, I generally just fold. Seems very exploitable, I know. But I've played 100s of hours doing it and have never had anyone exploit it. I have however, had a lot of situations like yours where villain looks down at QJ, would have raised to $35, but instead goes "meh" and calls your $7 raise. Flop 27Q. Get it in. Boom.

If he does decide to 3bet big, I assume his 3bet to $35 range is much stronger than his open to $35 range, so I ask for a seat change button, give up my $7 and fold.

As played, I fold.

Yes, there are many better spots. Yes, he can have a hand better than ours.

However, he probably doesn't have a hand better than ours. In order to maximize our winrate, we need to take advantage of spots where we have the advantage.

Not taking advantage of a profitable spot now because there will be better spots later is like not picking up $5 on the ground now because you'll find $20 later. I'd rather have $20 + $5 than just $20.

A guy like this must have some serious/obvious tells and weaknesses that I feel fine with flatting preflop (not for just set mining). Even OOP versus this guy you probably have a huge, huge edge.

I would start by not limping preflop.


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Unless this guy has a wild 3b range, I'd always limp. We want him to continue raising wide. Anything we do to reduce that is working to get him to play better.

I don't like making my opponents play better.

Also, limping gives us better preflop position. We can see what at least some people do before action gets back to us.

I can't offer much help with being variance averse. We're attempting to avoid negative EV situations already. Avoiding variance is therefore necessarily avoiding some positive EV situations because of the variance. Avoiding positive EV situations necessarily reduces winrate. Reducing winrate is presumably not our goal.

I thought limping here was ideal? I fully expect this guy to raise (often times for more "reasonable" amount) and then get a lot of the world behind him to call. I can then make a decision as to whether I can simply play low variance setmine, or higher variance shipping with huge dead money.

Definitely seems better than raising, where I will no longer have the option of shipping preflop with huge dead money, plus could perhaps face a 3bet where I won't have the stack behind to be able to call after putting in 5x-7x a limp.

And should we really be folding here with this guy's money in play (especially since he'll often be driving the action with a lot of people trapped between the two of us)? Attempting a cheap flyer and then perhaps making a mistake by folding in this exact situation (as it looks like my folding is being considered a mistake here by most) is still going to be a fairly cheap mistake in the long haul.

No?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think limping was fine, but I don't think jamming is good here. If we jam preflop we give him a chance to stack us if he's got a hand or get out of the hand for no more money, neither of which we really want. I'm on board with the plan to flat this and see what kind of board we get. A set would be nice, but I'll call down on good boards when I think he's FOS. A lot of it depends on his postflop tendencies which your details were a tad light on. If he barrels air a lot then I think we just let him keep firing. If he's more straightforward we can fold if he bets a bad board for us.

Although if we don't have a good feel for his postflop game I think this is a fold now. It's too easy for him to play perfect against our hand IP. There are going to be a lot of overcards in his range and on the board, and we don't know if he bluffs enough to profitably call down.

Limp, back-shoving 77 after the "world" flats equity-rich/fish-adjusted value ranges is not a high variance value play, it's a low quality/high variance bluff which you'd likely never execute in the first place. Just an unfortunate preflop outcome that doesn't necessarily make your decision to limp in the first lace a bad thing by any means.

Your limp shoving range actually should be woefully imbalanced at JJ+\AK w AQs mixed in as your "bluff". The only reason this post happened, more or less, was because everyone folded and a lot of the planned set/OESD mining value has been sucked out of your play.

A lot will depend on how well I have picked up on his postflop tendencies/betting patterns. If he has some really predictable lines (like c-betting a lot but then checking turn when he missed) then I feel much better about playing him OOP postflop and just call the raise PF. That way I'm not just set-mining. Otherwise I'd just fold it PF. Hopefully he won't fire more on the turn against you because he thinks you're really nitty.