2/5 NL live at local casino.

Hero BB (100bb) .

Villain directly to my right (250bb) Average seems tight but made a silly comment about almost calling 50bb qj on the flop with middle pair on a aj2 board about 15 mins before this hand his reasoning was he had a feeling q was coming. Every hand on this table is $25-$40 pre flop.. and 3bets are called by 2-3 players.

Preflop:

Utg+1 raises to $25 3 callers including villan (directly to my right) calls.
Hero calls with $AQ in cutoff
button folds, sb folds
bb calls

5 handed to the flop

Flop:

A97

checked around to villan: bets out $85
hero: was gonna raise here but bb had $200 and looked like he was about to shove. So I called.
BB: just calls??
other two guys fold


Turn 3

BB checks
V bets out $180
Hero: ??

I raise to $225 or so OTF.

Flat turn. Shoving isn't terrible but I think that forces him to fold a bunch of hands he might bet again. Call off on most rivers.

Pre fine, Raise on the flop around 200 ish, shove turn.
But asp call or raises depends on bb if you think bb will fold raise if you think he is never folding call.

Based on the first three comments.. is it safe to assume that if Villan has, a set, AK, or two pair, we are getting stacked.
If i raise $225 on the flop I am committed.
As played if I call turn I am committed.

hmm maybe I am being results oriented here, I guess what I am wondering is does anyone FOLD turn?

Results :

FYI: If someone is grabbing chips before its their turn, they want you to check.. but will sometimes call. They are never raising.

TBH i was hoping BB shoves so I would see what villan does. If BB soved $200 and villan re-raised, it would've changed my mind about the strength of villan's hand.

it sucks that he had AK here, but in terms of his range based on the image you describe of him and the table in general, i like my hand most of the time. I think I pop the flop or just smooth turn to induce river 3rd barrel. As played, still not bad - just ****ty he's at the top of his range.

I like flat flop, flat turn fold river/bet if checked to.

I hate flatting the turn because you are calling $180 when you have only $390 left. This is a very player specific type read. If on the tighter side, I would just fold the turn. However, that donkish remark of his makes me want to play it the way you did. Just a tough spot in general.

Preflop: What are your reads on UTG? Just because lots of hands are being raised doesn't mean UTG is raising with lots of hands. If he's either TAG or any variation of passive his EP raising range has AQ crushed, and it's even worse than it seems because if you hit top pair you'll lose big pots to the hands in his range that are ahead of you, but you won't win more than a c-bet from him if you have him beat.

On the other hand, if UTG is one of the guys who is splashing around with his preflop raises, then 3bet to $115ish with the intention of finding a way to get it all-in if you flop top pair.

Unless all of your opponents play passively and predictably postflop, flat calling is a bad mistake.

Flop: I don't want to come across as overly harsh, but your bad preflop play put you in this position. As played, if you think BB is going to shove and you think BBs shoving range is ahead of AQ, then fold. It's hard to say specifically what you should do because you didn't give any description of BB.

The two things you should get out your thread are 1) understand how AQ and similar hands don't fare well against EP raises from non-LAGs, and 2) include reads on all relevant players in the hand when you post so that you'll get better responses.

Just my opinion...

You should be asking yourself 1) what is the guys opening range, 2) how often he bets, and fires 2nd barrel with AJ, and 3) whether he could be doing this with air or some kind of draw. Against tight players who only open with value hands AQ is garbage.

Still, its hard not to lose at least some money in this spot.

I don't mean to be a douche, but this is what players with big bleeding vajay-jays complain about to justify why they play weak preflop.

conversely, lots of times those same players will have no qualms about stacking off with TPGK come flop....

Preflop is a super easy Squeeze, I raise $200ish all day long.

Seriously, one raise and 3 players limp, we have position and a hand that is most likely the best hand...

why on EARTH would we ever ever EVER flat in this spot?

If we had AA or KK would we flat here and say, "Well, Villains call 3bets anyways so I'll just be a little girl and flat here..."

No, we would raise because our hand has significant value.

Same thing here, AQ vs villains that love to call preflop raises has tremendous value. Pop it pre $200ish pre and its not even close.

Because you misplayed pre, it makes it more difficult to play post, which is what happens when we make mistakes.

As played, shove turn to get max value out of flush draws as well as get value from AJ, AT hands.

Let me give you another perspective on this...

When you underrep your hand, then when you hit your hand, you need to be willing to stack off, otherwise, what the hell was the point of underrepping your hand to begin with?

Think on it.

You flatted pre which means you kept in 22-JJ, A2s-AJs type hands....

Against this range, you have more than enough equity here to shove turn for under 100bb so shove turn.

But again, you really need to rethink preflop.

All that, "Well, they just call my raises anyways..." is just your vajay-jay talking.

When you have a hand that has value and likely is ahead of your opponents then you want to raise. And when you have a situation to isolate some dead money then you definitely raise. And when you have position on top of all this....

Super easy raise pre AINEC.

Raise pre, everyday and twice on Sundays....

Interesting.

Poor dynamics for calling a raise with AQ. Raise is from UTG+1...followed by 3 callers.

Because of this my instinct was to fold but i think io just got talked into a raise. I think this is a good spot to squeeze with a suited connector as well.

I'll have to think about this but my first instinct is that raising with SCs is not the way to go. I'd rather keep my implied odds as high as possible, call with SCs and hope to flop gin or flop something in which I can use my position post flop.

This is different than AQ because AQ has value and is likely the best hand thus a squeeze here with AQ should be profitable.

A squeeze with SC is more of a bluff really because unless we flop gin we most likely won't have the best hand if called. Then we are playing in an inflated pot with an inferior hand which is just not a good spot to be in

You have the right idea of 3-betting PF, but the wrong sizing. Raising to $200 unneccesarily commits us. What if UTG+1 reshoves for $300 more? I'd hate to have to get it in for 100BBs PF in that scenario. 3-betting to something like $140 accomplishes the same thing as to $200 without committing us PF, since its still very tough for any of the callers to continue with their hand PF.

Don't call a tight player's open raise from utg+1 with AQ

Treat the disease and not the symptoms

great point on the bet size. there's $100 in the pot....we could raise to $100 (4 times the initial raise) with any two cards in this position - if it works 50% of the time we're breaking even. Hard for original raiser to continue without AA,KK,QQ,AK - which is certainly less than 50% of his opening range.

Nvm I completely misread the action

Yeah I'd probably go broke here as well

Your only chance of getting away is to raise/fold the flop but there are so many draws that are willing to jam the flop you are kind of forced to raise/call.

3bet pre and if you're just not comfortable potentially playing a 3bet pot multiway then just fold AQo here.

Raise or fold preflop. Playing tp hands multiway is bad and puts you in awful situations making really tough decisions for your stack.

Grunch.

I'd be tempted to 3bet pre. There's a lot already in there. You have blockers to AK/AA/QQ and your hand doesn't play that well multi way.

Flop: I'm fine with just calling. I guess you could raise to protect your equity, but it puts any worse hands in a terrible spot.

Turn I fold. I think you are behind the range that open EP and two balls into more than one opponent.

There was some really bad stuff in that post. The quoted part was probably the worse. Don't shut off your brain ad ignore the situation simply because you flatted preflop.

For one, it's highly debatable that your hand is under repped b/c it wasn't 3bet. 3betting AQ here for most live players is not even close to standard, and hero did not provide his image.

You don't have over rep your hand post flop, b/c you may have not taken an optimal line pre.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Secondly, I don't see how what I said is bad.

I see this all the time, Hero flats with a hand that has significant value and then flops his hand and then looks for any excuse to fold...

which is why aggressive players do better than passive players.

I stand by what I said, if you have a hand that is significantly strong and has lots of value and you choose to play that hand in a deceptive "weak" manner, then when you hit your hand and face big bets by villains, you should be willing to call...

I don't see how that is bad advice.

Of course in poker everything is an "it depends" situation but in general, I don't see how that is bad advice.

Incidentally, the pain you feel in paying off V's two pair gutter ball garbage is the same pain that will alter your play so that you don't get cute in the future and you raise your hands that have value...

What you said is bad is because you put way too much significance into the preflop call, and want to just ignore all the other info you have in this hand. You should never think to yourself: "ok, I flatted preflop, if I hit the flop I'm getting the other 95bb in no matter what." Things change postflop, ranges change based on actions.

You want to stack off post flop here because you flatted preflop. I think stacking off here is pretty bad. I guess I can't speak for your 1/2nl games, but in mine your AQ isn't doing very good on a A973 board that had 5 to the flop, 3 to the turn and the ep raiser is still barreling into us. You are hoping he has what? AJ, AT and just betting because he doesn't know what else to do? Someone said "unlucky you ran into top of his range" when the results were revealed and EP had AK. At best, AK is middle of the guys range, and probably closer to bottom. AA, 99, 77, maybe A9s, A7s, all are ahead of AK. For weaker hands, maybe JTdd or something with tonnes of equity, and unlikely AJ, AT.

Hero should have thought, "ok I'm flatting here and it's 5 ways, I'm going to need to tread carefully postflop with one pair." instead of "flop a pair, go broke. claim I was unlucky".