1. Sacrificing equity? I'm not sacrificing anything; i'm raising and betting for value.

2. What i said was that the board pairing doesn't help our hand in a six-way pot, because it either beats us or kills our action. Decent players are folding the draws to action on a paired board.

3. Bottom set is barely a coin flip vs five drawing hands with two cards to come.

4. Sometimes we need the 3h. Not very often, but sometimes.

I certainly don't think you're an idiot.

Keep posting!

gotta agree with this. in my limited experience at 2/5, opening to 25 doesn't guarantee a limited field. I probably open to 20 in EP, and 25 everywhere else, add 5 for each limper, etc.

15 just doesn't get respect

plz plz write this COTM. I think I know how to deal with maniacs but feel like I'm walking a tightrope, especially deep.

i like your poasts, but am also a fan of just listing $$ amounts, not bb. $200 and 40bb mean very different things to most players.

This was exactly what I was thinking, but the more I read about the virtues of calling from kmantic (sp?), the more I am having second thoughts. Thought-provoking.

Is the glass 1/2 full or 1/2 empty? (1/2 the deck hurts you or helps you?) Again, this is my POV in this EXACT spot. Consider all factors here.. not just that we flopped a set multi-way. We have a table full of deep stacks who have been playing all night on a Sat. night and there's a lot of dead money in the middle - thats chum in the water to aggression behind us. I don't always slow play sets, but I don't like playing them ABC every time either. In this exact spot, I like a flat to such a smallish open bet.

By raising, you're playing your hand face up, IMO - you're allowing them to play correctly. By raising the guys with KQ/KJ/KX usually cannot continue and especially so if they are between us and the original bettor. By flatting we're giving them rope. It might not be an "EV explosion", but it's a chance for a mistake that we take away if we raise to $150 OTF. A reasonably avg. thinking player between myself and the donk-bettor OTF with just the nut flush draw has a tough spot if we raise and he really cannot just flat the raise or continue. You can argue whether or not that's a bad thing I suppose. I think when they muck a loser and we get 0 value, it's bad.

Just because there's a draw out there, doesn't mean someone has it. There's not always monsters under the bed. I'd like to see some calculations about EV based on decisions here including possible villain hands. Are we losing value here by forcing them all out? Or is winning without having to sweat 2 cards the way to go? Run the dream scenario, 2 players show up with K 10 and 2 with flush draws, effectively holding each others outs. We're 62% against that range - that's huge for a 5 way pot. Give 2 players a King (not K10) and 2 players a flush draw, we're now 75%.

As played, you have <100bb, raised preflop, and the checked a set... c/r your ass off.

Money to middle. if its set over set, well, s--- happens. You made this bed, time to go lie in it.


(also, you effin lucksack, you raised from MP with 3/3 and smoked a tre.)

If you do raise OTF and everyone mucks, I look down at one card, then another (as if they are different).. pick one and flip a 3 up. Your fold equity just went down %40 on all subsequent hands..proceed to Valuetown, they won't fold KQ to you next time.. sit back and nit it up. Although it will probably be 8.344 hours until you hit a set again.

obviously i didnt read the whole thread but if youre raising to 6bb pre from EP w 33 , what else do you want to see? you hit your set .. this isnt a dream flop but its one of the better flops you could see that you'd get action on. Raise obviously.

A "bump check" is when someone bets such a small amount that the results are the same as if they had checked, i.e. you might as well consider the bet a check.

Let me give you an alternative that should fit your current reputation and skill set... Be a true TAG. Most people think that being TAG is playing only top quality hands, then betting for value on all streets. I think a true TAG is very (hyper?) aggressive and just happens to play tightly.

When you drive the action hard PF and post flop, even if you are only playing 2-3 hands a hour will have nearly the same results as playing 10-15 hands an hour aggressively. The noted exception is that you will tend to get more action for more BB per bet. Overbetting becomes a standard bet and gets paid off much more often. And if you can incorporate some LAG into the TAG (5-10 hands per hour), people will build games around you.

Edit to add: Almost forgot, as the regulars get used to this style of play, you will find that the size of the field post flop tends to go down. With a LAG style you should be getting 3+ MW pots most of the time. With a truly aggressive TAG style you should get used to seeing mostly HU or 3 way flops.

They really shouldn't though...

...Like I said before, it's how I think. That way it translates anywhere from $1/$2 to $10/$25+. When I look around a table I see 50bb, 100bb, 200bb, 125bb not $250, $500, $1000, $625 (it's just a habit.) It makes it easier (for me) to figure out SPR, FE, pot odds, etc.

If you're disappointed with the "results" then consider how you would feel about getting folds when you see the same flop, same action, holding something different like a big heart/broadway draw, AK/AA, KQ, QJ or whatever else you might have when you make a potsized bet in the face of a tiny donkbet.

If the range of hands you have when you bet this flop and everyone folds is limited to hands that are begging for action, then I wonder: are you playing the big draws the same way, or are you flatting to invite action behind you before going over the top? e.g. suppose you have QJ - what's your play? AA? And yeah, I know they are all exploitable so you don't need to really "balance" as long as in their minds you have created the impression that you *could* have a draw (or air) when you make the raise.

it's funny as no matter how many times I take their money people line up to play with me (must be 50/50 between thinking I suck and wanting revenge.)

...I'm convinced, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life (a few less PF 3bets, a few less opening hands in my 'cache' and I'll be fine.)

This is not the path I would take because the board is very draw heavy, QJ, 2 , the bet looks like a blocking bet so he can see his draw cheap. It is hard to say how much to bet without knowing stack sizes but say they are all pretty deep you have to put a 30-35BB bet out there so the draws will have to pay to see the next card. If you have less then 100BB here I may just jam it in if raised and if called Jam on any non heart or 9-A turn

IME what will end up happening is that the thinking/serious players will want to beat you as they will start to see you as the better/best player at the table instead of focusing on weaker players. Revenge will leave the equation fairly quickly and bragging rights will replace the revenge motive.

The typical player (read not serious) will look at you as their lottery payoff. That will result in a nice thing... they will tighten up but at the same time will be a lot more willing to put it all in with more speculative hands. Likely not much different than you are seeing now, except they will be more tight until they snap...

Ur right, I shouldn't be that disappointed but I was, so sue me! lol



Truth be told, I was more disappointed that I was really caught off guard by EP's 'bump-raise.'

Thx Everyone

You ran into the bottom of his range. No worries.

this thread is tl;dr for a spot that's pretty straightforward so if i'm missing something after this quote then w/e this is so stanardard raise for value spot -- i make it 20bbs -- learn some poker guys so we can move off such simple spots

lol live players

OP I hope this wasn't your real question and the REAL question was later in the hand but you should know better than allow flush draw odds to make money in this spot

well the idea here is to bet an amount that reps the top and bottom of your range...if you had AK are you raising that much? The top of your range that you beat (and hand you are trying to charge the most is KJ) so the idea here is bet and amount that reps the best hand calling, ignore the donk raise treat is as a check and make the total for the hand about 60-65% of pot since that is the value of the second nuts in this hnd -- ez game

ur a little late to the party...

...and quite frankly, if there was a guest list u wouldn't be on it

Try reading a thread before u jump in with 'lol live'

i rly don't know how to respond to that -- i think you are a good player so maybe u will understand that how they percieve you does not matter in this spot -- this is a clear mathematical spot where you have the essential nuts and a whole bunch of worse hands present on board to pay you off...u could be called by a raise even if you flipped your hand over

****head made a mistake by making a bet that doesn't block better from raising...treat it as a check, you want the pot to grow organically -- make your bet sizes based on % and math charge the best hand that calls (KJ) -- ez game

(honestly -- i know you are too good to be asking this question)

Since the inception of this forum I have posted a bunch of hands; not so much because I need help (although I have found a lot of the responses 'helpful') but because I thought that they were semi-interesting and would create discussion. With this particular hand I was looking for some 'contrarian' views as raising is the obvious response (how much being in question.) 'kmantic' made a good argument for calling being a reasonable action and it started a healthy debate but then, like most of my threads, it turned into a bunch of people 'bashing' my LAGgy style of play and me operating from an almost un-defendable position.

Sorry about the 'party invitation' comments as they were a reaction to the 'lol live player' comments. I get defensive and I'm not sure why because most 'live' players are 'lol bad' and this is why we make the money we do. Chances are though, if ur posting here ur in the winning 5% or on ur way there. GL

This was bugging me and I couldn't figure out why. I agree with the statement, but then I realized that it has very little meaning for this forum: it is very rare that you can shortstack effectively in a live game.

If you are good at it, you quickly don't have a shortstack, and options to reload at a new table aren't easy to come by for most folks. If you are bad at it, or unlucky, of course, you can reload forever.

But, given that, how do we deal with a thinking maniac _after_ we've built up to a medium stack?

KUD, gg. I didn't really see anything super LAGgy about this hand, and I didn't see too much bashing except from people arguing that you'd rather setmine by limping instead of building the pot. By making the raise you can stack someone more easily and have some FE postflop if the pot is hu.

Opening 33 after 1 limper is "aggressive" and maybe some people would rather limp/call/miss/fold but I think it's a pretty common & defensible play to raise.
I would love to see some hands where you go buck wild on the turn, checkraising a protected pot with air based on a read.