Two situations yesterday at Borgata, would like analysis on both of them.

1. Sat at a new 2/5 NL game. Had been there for maybe 45 minutes. My stack size was ~ $550. I have QQ in early position. I raise to $25. Villain in late position 3bets to $75. After his raise he has ~ $400 behind. Folds around to me, no other money in the pot besides the blinds. From my 45 minute sample size, villain appears to be a loose-passive fish, playing almost every hand and losing, but this is the first time I've seen him 3bet.

I decided I either needed to jam or fold. If I call I'm only comfortable if I hit a set or maybe an open-ended straight draw. If I 4bet to something like $200 or $250 he's either calling or jamming. If he jams I have to call. If he calls, and the flop doesn't have an Ace or King on it, I have to jam on the flop. If the flop has an Ace or King on it, I have to check/fold. Given that I didn't feel like getting into a likely go-for-broke situation 45 minutes into my session, I folded. Villain does not show. I even remarked at the table that I was probably the only person in the room who would have folded what I had (without telling anyone what I had).



2. Same table, this time I'm maybe 2-3 hours into the session and my stack has grown to around $1500. I have JJ in early position and raise to $25. Villain in late position 3bets to $80. Villain's stack is around $1000. Villain seems like a decent player, probably looser than I am, but not a calling station or full-out LAG. I had seen him 3bet pre-flop before however. Once again, folds around to me, no other money in there besides the blinds. It's either 4bet or fold for me because most flops will either a) have an overcard or b) have low cards but leave me not knowing where I'm at. And once again, I contemplate external factors like I really don't want to lose a big part of my stack on this hand having had a great session so far. So I fold again, and villain doesn't show.

Dude, call and play poker.

Esp in 1) cuz villain is bad and passive, so just check the flop to him and he should let you know exactly what he does or doesnt have.

and

Esp in 2) cuz ur so deep. I mean u shouldnt be folding 55 here so why would u fold JJ?


Start puttig urself in these spots so u can get comfortable playing oop.

Well second hand I flat for sure....your getting great odds here (implied odds) without doing the math I think your like 11-1 maybe more...also your speach might influence people to 3bet you more Idk.

First hand....I don't fault you for folding but do you have a range this Guy could 3bet with?

Considering you said loose passive ill go on a limb and say QQ+ do You think he could do.this with AK?

I would still probably flat here...only because I always believe despite what they've shown most live players can 3bet jj+ AQ+ but I'm.an optimist.

Both these hands I say flat and.flop.depending play very cautiously.

Flatting seemed so counter-intuitive to me though. Frankly playing 55 in the second situation is easier to play because I either hit a set or don't. I hate not knowing where I'm at OOP, and if I call then I feel like I have to play both hands like small pairs since I haven't gained any information by calling.

The reason the loose-passive fish in #1 concerned me was because I hadn't seen him show aggression before this.

You we're there for only 45 minutes you said that's not even 20 hands.

I think there's a big difference between hands 1 and 2 in that our implied odds in hand 1 are only about 8:1 whereas in hand 2 they are about 20:1. Which would make calling a much more viable option in hand 2, imo.

FWIW, I guessing folding hand 1 ain't horrible, but I'd probably make a loose call and play this hand strictly for set value as it seems unlikely that villain will be the type to get away from an overpair here if we flop a set. I'm planning on check/folding all non-J flops (even if I have an overpair). Hand 2 I insta-call this deep.

Ghasplayedexactlyzero2/5hands,sowhateverG

The guy in #1 had played just about every hand and had already re-bought at this stage.

I would have felt more comfortable if he was 3betting everything but he was a calling station pre-flop, and would play one pair strongly post-flop.

if villain is bad and has a narrow 3bet range we're deep enough to set mine. if he's a tricky villain i dont mind a fold. Even on a low board, i don't like having to c/c three streets vs a villain that might bluff you off the best hand a lot or v-town you.

VH - just because you didnt steer the action preflop shouldnt inhibit you from knowing where you're at.

JJ w/ an overcard on the board doesnt necessarily mean they hit that overcard - if you dont want to play fit or fold, you could lead flop yourself (b/f).

With QQ, i hafta parrot what Riza said that even loose passives can 3bet in position w/ a range wider than QQ. Since he's loose passive preflop, your post flop play should be simple: Donk. He'll let you know when he has a hand. You dont even have to donk bet for a huge amount in a 3bet pot either.

Im suggesting you take the betting lead post flop simply because if you're villains smash the flop it sounds like both will go nuts and let you know making it easier to play.

Depending on flop i might be c/c'ing though. You probably wont get tons of money out of villain if he doesnt have something like TP+ but you can probably drain some of his dollars if he flops some kind of draw. I also doubt your villain is capable of 3 barrel bluffing you anyway so if you do c/c, its probably only 1 street when he's missed and you might not be able to eke out much more value after that.

Hand 2 is a similar situation in that just because a board has an overcard doesnt mean its bad for you. Hand 2's villain i would imagine has a much wider 3 bet in position range. I think donk leading most flops might be more beneficial since he'll be less likely to bluff in a 3bet pot this deep but if you think he's capable, you can take a more passive line til you narrowed his range. there's really only a few boards that would really make it hard to narrow villain's range if he bets when checked to such as AKxr or KQxr kind of boards but then i'd be more likely to say to you b/f'ing about 50-55% of pot shouldnt be awful.

Just because you're hand is under repped pre shouldnt deter you from entering a pot. However if you're uncomfortable w/o taking a preflop initiative, then fold both.

The reason I folded the hands was precisely because I felt that calling wasn't a great option. But it appears that the consensus is to indeed call both the hands.

So if the flops on either of these hands comes out something like T42r, what am I doing? Checking or betting? That's precisely a scenario I wanted to avoid since I'll have to bet another $100 to find out where I'm at and I'm betting I'm 50/50 at BEST that I'm good there.

You gain information by letting a flop come down and seeing how V reacts. Even tho ur oop. If player in H1 is passive/bad it shouldnt be too tough to find out where ur at w/o having to go broke when ur beat. And in H2 youre OR-calling range in EP is gonna be really strong so V shouldnt be messing around too much postflop.

We cant just up and fold QQ to a likely bad player w/o knowing what his 3bet range is. We may well have the best hand here.

c/c and let a bad villain value own himself imo. moreso in hand 2 than hand 1 only because it sounds like from description, V2 has a wider range and therefor you probably have more equity than you think.

but like i said above - if you dont like taking a c/c down line, fold i guess?

By the way, the other thing that concerned me was that in both situations, there was no other money in the pot besides the blinds. If there were multiple callers then I can see someone making a play with something like 77, 88 or even suited connectors hoping that everyone folds, but if they do get called, at least they have something. One of the things that went through my mind was, "What's the motivation to 3bet without a top 5 hand, with no other money in the pot?"

Whats the motivation for 1/2 players to limp Q6s utg? Whats the motivation for them to open for $13 on the BTN just to steal $2 in blinds?

Dont assume these players are thinking logically. And stop being such a nit. Sometimes its okay to potentially lose 50 or 60bb to find out whether or not u have the best of it.

VH - by your logic, HU play must look ridiculous.

There's the antes. If i raise in an unopened pot and scoop, im showing a huge profit over the long run.

Alternatively, you dont see it as much live because everyone chops, but some folks play pretty aggressively in BvB. i pretty much try to steal 100% if my opponents have not shown me one ounce of willingness to either play back or only play back w/ a monster. Additionally, a lot of folks are pretty fit or fold in 3bet pots. Now, our villains in your cases probably arent thinking of it exactly like this - but i'm sure there's the thought process of "Hey, i raise, i can rep a monster, lets see if someone calls and then i can bet again and take it down." or "I raise and everyone folds, ez game." Obviously this is a partial truth - there are instances where individuals are simply raising for value as well here. But I dont think you're getting a lot of opponents thinking "when i raise out of the CO w/ a top 5% hand they'll never put me on KK/AA because my perceived range is so wide".

Unless they're nits, then its probably like "i raise because i ahve KK/AA"

I def see the fold in hand 1. If a loose passive starts raising with ~100 BB stacks,, I don't want to be playing QQ OOP.

Hand 2, IMO, fold is terrible. You're deep enough to have implied odds even if you just play your JJ for set-value. Add in an ability to fold a whiffed AK (as V seems likely to have given description) and it seems like an obv call to me.

I appreciate the responses guys.

The big hang-up I had was convincing myself that I couldn't just call in these situations. I limited myself to either 4betting or folding, with calling being the poorest option. But given that just about all of you are advocating calls (especially in situation #2), and not one of you has advocated a 4bet for either situation, it's clear to me that I should be calling and then more often than not, leading on the flop for my information. Instead of trying to get the information pre-flop and not allowing myself to at least see a flop with a premium hand.

I wouldnt be auto-donking flops vs all villains in 3bet pots. A lot of live villains will spazz on donkbets out of reflex. And when ur vs a loose-passive and u donk and get called, it really doesnt narrow his range as much as u need it to.

Actually I would seldom ever donk unless I wanted to get stacks in. Donking to "see where we're at", where we're not sure if we're VBing or bluffing, I dont like bets like that. I'd much rather check/decide.


And as for calling 3bets with QQ and JJ... When stacks are shallowish like in H1 folding may be the best play if villain's 3bet range is narrow enough. The problem in H1 is that we dont know V well enough to determine that.
And when we're deep we're calling ofc, but we may need to be treating our hand like a set-mining pair. Just something to keep in mind.

I fold hand 1 for sure. When callingstationpassivefish put in a raise --> get out.

Hand 2 is debatable because of stack depth. I don't hate the fold because I do hate playing OOP, especially against a competent player.

+1

I do think that in both these spots, calling > 4betting. Doesn't mean that it's better than folding though.

Just because you COULD have the best hand doesn't mean that flatting a 3bet is +EV. I will certainly remember all of the above responses next time I 3bet vs an EP open and then villain leads into me on flop. I had no idea so many people would think that is a good idea. (I don't think it is)

Hand 2 is probably closer to a call if villain will 3bet AK (sounds like he will). If his 3bet range is QQ+, AK then there are 16 combos of AK and 18 combos of QQ+. You get marginally acceptable implied odds to setmine as well.

I still think a fold is ok here if you aren't comfortable, since you still aren't in a very +EV spot above. You have to be stacking the opponent a LOT of the time you hit a set in order to turn a profit. If villain is good enough to not stack off when you hit a set, calling is probably -EV.