Hero TAG 1.4k
Villain 1 very good pro that usually plays higher. Loves to put people in really tough spots. Around 2.5k
Villain 2 pretty tight ABC reg. ~650
Villain 3 fish limping every hand. But also folded a lot to raises. ~800

1 limper, villain 1 raises 25 in mp, co, villain 2 otb, villain 3 in sb, hero in bb with KJ and limper call.
Most of the time I would squeeze in this spot but didnt want to play a bloated pot this deep oop vs villain 1.
Also wanted to keep villain 3 in the hand.

Flop (150) J53
everybody checks to villain 2 otb who bets 60, villain 3 calls, hero calls, everybody else folds.
Turn (330) J538
check check check
River (330) J5389
villain 3 leads 40

Not sure if we can do anything but call otf but raising doesnt make much sense imo. Also not sure if flatting pre is good with so many players and so much dead money in the pot.

Seems fine to play this on the passive side as you did. Great hand to go multiway with. Way too nitty to fold this preflop. Calling river and folding to any raise behind.

Pre can go either way. I usually prefer to 3bet when possible, as long as the original raiser's range is normal for an MP open but with multiple players you can just play it for it's value too, esp since the 3bets gonna have to be that much bigger anyway. (I don't think hero was considering a fold pre).

And yea anything but calling otf would be over playing the hand. No need to do that, you fold out all the hands you beat and they call or raise with hands that dominate you.

Mandatory squeeze spot preflop.

MP pro who plays higher is opening all manners of marginal hands that will have to fold to the 3bet like 86s-J9s, ATo-AJo,KQo,

Once we get through the opener, everyone else’s ranges are fairly capped and they will fold a high percentage of the time.

If MP pro calls the 3bet we have a very nice hand in a 3bet pot at high SPR. We can probably range cbet almost any flop and take the pot down a good percentage of the time.

I’d go to $150 pre.

As played you have a pretty easy call on river.

This is very far from a mandatory 3bet (maybe with KJo but not KJs after 4 ppl are already in).

Do we really wanna be OOP vs a good pro that plays higher, in a bloated pot, and who likes to put pressure on people? If we did it with KJo we can easily fold to a 4bet but if we have to fold KJs to a light 4 bet we're throwing away a good value hand in a multiway pot.

IDK what the actual question is. 40 into a 370 pot with TPGK? Definite call. If someone raises behind, we can re-evaluate, but so far this hand has been super passive even after the FD got there. A straight got there but they would be gut shots calling the flop bet. The only one that really makes sense is 6d7d and that should have bet on the turn or at least bigger on the river after the turn checks through. Two pair or a set of 9s are possible, but this looks a lot like a weak blocking bet. We can never fold TPGK for this price. Just look them up.

I don't think flatting is the worst thing in the world pre, but I think this hand makes a lot more by squeezing. I would just go $175 pre.

As played flop and turn are super standard. We can't raise this hand this Multiway otf.

River is just a call as well, when we raise and are called we are not good over 50% of the time, and this is too strong to fold versus this size.

If we 3bet to 150 and MP calls, other players fold, we’ll be playing a 4.5SPR pot. It’s not that bloated. We have plenty of stack maneuverability.

3betting KJo is kind of bad at 300BB if we expect Villain to do a lot of flatting.

The deeper we get the more we favor using suited hands in our 3bet range.

At 1000BB we probably drop AQo in favor of ATs.

My point is just that we don’t really want to use a polar 3bet strategy if opponent is going to do a lot of flatting of our 3bet. If opponent is going to play 4bet or fold, then yes, offsuit hands with blockers like KJo make suitable 3bet candidates. But I wouldn’t expect that in this case because opponent is going to want to flat in position with a lot of hands in his very wide MP open range.

So you're flatting KJo then?

Idk I probably just make the nitty fold or 3bet occasionally. My flatting range is mostly small to medium pairs and suited aces. Hands that play well multi-way.

Mandatory squeeze. You should never be squeezing KJo it's just a fold multi way.

It's been proven with solvers that we should have a linear 3bet range not polar.

I guess we just call river and pray. Nothing else we can do.

Flop is also just a call

The river is tricky, as we don't close the action when we call. FD and straight got there (76s combos). I'm sill trying to understand with which hands the BTN bet the flop! He is described as a tight ABC reg. Do we beat his range that bets this flop?

I suppose we have to call at this price, but I doubt OHIG more than 20% of the time against two wide ranges with the tightest guy yet to act. I expect to get raised by the BTN more often than we're good here too, given his flop bet.

KJo here would always be a squeeze or fold for me. With KJs I thought it cant be that bad to call sometimes in this spot as suited hands obviously play way easier and better even against so many players.

Otf I thought about raising for protection because villain otb could be betting with a lot of worse hands and not Im worried about sb.

You should be squeezing here around 8-10% of your hands if MP is opening around 15-20%. I like to squeeze with a strong linear range. Like 99+,AQ+, and then balance it with strongest suited broadways, suited wheels, and suited connectors. If you choose the best 100-130 hand combos in a linear range I think you’re gonna want to include hands like KJs+,ATs+,A5s-A4s and 76s-QJs at a very high frequency. You can go either way with KQo/AJo/KTs/QTs. Probably 3bet/fold/call all close. Lean 3bet/call with KTs/QTs. All options probably close with KQo/AJo.

KJs plays fine as a +EV flat but I think it is better as a 3bet. There’s so much dead money out there and MP is gonna be opening wide. KJs is a very strong hand and plays well if MP continues against our 3bet, and it blocks villains 4bet range.

KJo is a snap fold, it's a horrible hand to squeeze. Suited hands go way up in value the deeper we get, as making the nuts is so much more valuable (whereas the more shallow we are, making top pair becomes more valuable.)

Im not saying that I would always squeeze KJo. I mean that I would either fold or squeeze and that Im more inclined to squeeze KJo here as a bluff to take it down pre because the playability of KJs multiway with some bigger stacks isnt bad.

Im not sure if it is more profitable to squeeze pre and try to take it down or try to make a nutted hand in a multiway pot with some bigger stacks involved.
What do you guys think?

KJs is somewhat overrated in multi-way very deep spots. When you flop a pair, you’re somewhat frequently outkicked by field callers who have KQo/AJo/sometimes AKo in range. When you hit a flush, you sometimes get RIOed by field callers who have all Axs in range.

It’s okay to sometimes flat KJs, but that just means you should be finding other hands to squeeze with. Because you aren’t squeezing KJs pure (which is probably what I’d do), you squeeze other stuff like KTs/QTs more frequently. As long as you’re squeezing 8% or more, and doing so mostly with suited hands, I think it’s fine.

But you said “Most of the time I would squeeze in this spot but didnt want to play a bloated pot this deep oop vs villain 1.“

This sentence seems contradictory. Are you squeezing the hand most of the time in this spot? Or are you never squeezing because you’re uncomfortable playing a 3b pot deep against the pro?

In general, you should be squeezing most of your suited Broadway hands and folding most of your offsuit Broadway hands. If you squeeze too frequently with trash like KJo, your range will be too difficult to play on a lot of board textures those times that MP pro continues. You won’t be able to find enough high equity turn bluffs, for one, since offsuit hands won’t turn backdoor equity nearly as frequently as suited hands.

You need to think about the pros/cons of different range constructions. If MP pro is overfolding to your 3bet squeezes then it can be fine to go polar. Otherwise you should go linear. KJo isn’t part of a linear 10% range, so we should look to mostly fold it.

So if you don't know what you would do it certainly explains a lot so here's the scoop with 3betting/squeezing KJo vs KJs.

When someone raises in MP or LP and they're just a regular guy with a regular range (all PP's, SC's two bdwy's, etc.), KJo is a great 3betting candidate either IP or OP because we block a lot of hands like AK, KK, and JJ and we're not raising because we think we have the best hand and wanna get value. We're raising to simply take the initiative in the hand and be the aggressor which forces the original raiser to call usually and fold otf when they don't connect (for the most part). And if they 4bet us, we can easily throw away our almost trashy hand, whereas, if we think KJs might get 4bet light, and we already have like 5 players in the hand while we're closing the action, we have the option to play the hand for it's multiway value and flat, rather than raise with the possibility that we might have to throw it away to a raise. I would rather throw away KJo rather than KJs, and never flat with KJo pre unless I'm in a meta game with someone and will play it creative post flop.

Of course if it's heads up I prefer to 3bet KJs, but when we have the option to play it multiway, and don't wanna risk throwing it away to a 4bet (of it the original raiser is tight), flatting pre is fine.

“IDK” meant dependent on game conditions. If I’ve been card dead and haven’t been active with 3bets (I have tight image), I’ll throw in a 3bet occasionally with KJo. Otherwise it just gets tossed in the muck. I’d rather 3bet KQo over KJo and if I 3bet all KQo and some KJo then my range is f’ed up with too many offsuit combinations and difficult to play across streets if MP flats the 3bet.

You’re making standard arguments in favor of using polarized 3bet strategy. For polar to be right you have to expect opponent to fold a lot of his opening range and just relinquish the pot to us. This might be the wrong approach if we’re against a pro who is probably opening correct frequencies and flatting our 3bet frequently. Then we want to use a linear 3bet range, favoring suited hands over offsuit hands.

We’re not going to get 4-bet all that frequently, especially at low-stakes where even pros respect the 3-bet a bit by force of habit. I’m not worried about throwing away KJs 10-15% of the time we get 4bet. I’d rather have KJs over KJo the 40% of the time that MP pro flats our 3bet.

Thanks a lot for the feedback

Valuable takeaways here for me. A mistake I made often was playing too aggressive pre without thinking too much about it. Like 3b/squeezing oop too much especially with offsuit hands like AJo against players that dont like folding and having to x/f a lot of flops multiway which is obviously just burning money. Just thinking AJo is way ahead of their wide range but ignoring the fact that they dont fold much pre.

Otr hero called the 40 from villain 3, villain 2 folded, villain 3 had 76o

Villain 1 loves to put opponents in difficult spots. Thinking about preflop, which spot looks more difficult to you: (1) playing out of position against a tough player and an ABC reg, plus a fish in the SB, with a capped range; or (2) playing out of position against that single tough player, but with an uncapped range?

I mean, really. It is always easier to play heads-up than multiway, even out of position. It is always easier to play with an uncapped range than with a capped/condensed range, even out of position.

And if we "bloat the pot" -- seriously, you would be better off if you dropped that phrase from your vocabulary -- we lower the SPR and thus reduce other players' positional advantage.

As played, on the river, we only have to be good one time in ten to turn a profit. I would need a strong read that V3's river betting range has no one-pair hands in it before I folded.