Hey guys! xpost from PG&C but want some additional feedback.

2/5 $500 cap. $1k+~ effective to start the hand with Main V. The two other players had $500~ I believe.

Alll relevant descriptions below/included in HH.

Hero has an active image. Doubled up fairly quickly with TPTK vs. whale, nothing significant since. 8 handed.

Preflop: Recreational player in suit opens to $15 MP. We look down at Q J next to act. I call. This player had not opened once this session. Was limping, limp/calling etc. This is likely a mistake, but 3-betting this guy seemed ambitious in game... Anyways, player to my left calls BTN and BB calls.

$60 Flop: Q 4 3. BB checks. Pre flop raiser checks. I bet $40. BTN calls. BB calls. PFR folds.

$140 Turn: Q 4 3 J. BB donks $45. Probably recreational but just sat down. No significant reads. I raise to $125. BTN now raises to $300 after thinking for a little.

This V covers me and we were around $1k effective to start the hand. This V is Asian, in his 40s I would say, and was fairly active. He had raised me a few times postflop in earlier hands and I folded every time. I don’t remember V getting stacks in at any point but V was taking a good amount of pots down.

In game my thinking was that sets are sometimes/maybe even likely to raise off on the flop 4 ways, which is what had me confused. V could reasonably have the same hand, especially if V is calling all QJo preflop. We're a little on the deeper side for a 100bb cap game.

$855 behind after my bet iirc. I think all three options are on the table. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Probably shoving here. You block the hands you’d be in trouble to (QQ/JJ). Asian V could have OP, NFD’s w/ 2 overs. Should have a lot of 33/44. Shove and ride the variance train.

Sometimes this is an idiot check raise with 44/33 and he’s going to stack us. But I don’t see myself doing anything but piling it in on the turn. And if he has a set, I’m chalking it up to a cooler


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I think this is the main problem with exploitative play.

Preflop/Flop are not theoretically correct but they might be okay vs Villain's high VPIP range. The problem with that strategy is we get into situations like this where we are just playing the strength of our hand and we either make a massive mistake by calling it off vs a set or folding vs a hand we have beat.

As played just shove.

Yeah I missed the preflop. I think if we never flat QJo against an open, we will be close to correct


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Just note it’s QJs not QJo.

In my post I meant to say V shouldn’t have a ton or 33/44. Of course I typed the opposite or spell check got me again.

Then that’s probably defensible in live poker


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Everyone is stacking off here but a similar hand with hero having K9 on something like K962 everyone was saying exploit fold. Why?

Thanks for the feedback so far. V did have the 44s, but I don't think there's much we can do here? Confirmation makes me feel better when I lose hands like this (when I played it ok)

This seemed like a fairly straightforward cooler to me-- but then a few solid live regs agreed that V is "just going to have it here" so wanted to get add. thoughts.

Stack depth is also a concern in spots like this one because $1k is a lot for this game.

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I think the turn raise should be fine, but any merit to just calling the 3-bet?

Idea being that if this player type is quite unlikely to 3bet draws deepish, so we're hoping that V has an overplay here- we can just block bet/fold to raise on most rivers?

Obviously lots of action killers on this runout.

Definitely a cooler as played but this is why we 3bet or fold preflop. We don't want everyone coming into the hand because hand reading becomes more difficult in multiway pots.

We are supposed to 3bet more IP when deeper so 3betting here would be good. And then if BTN cold calls the 3bet we narrow down his range to suited hands/pocket pairs.

When we have SRP 4 way - ranges are so wide that it is going to be hard to get away from cooler situations.

Or to put it another way - people play face up in multiway pots. Our edge comes from not playing face up.

At these stakes any non-lag villain with a clue is so heavily weighted to sets but for that price i am very tempted to call and turn our hand into a bluff on some rivers.

Alternatively we can still bluff-catch many rivers, and villain may check back sets when board texture changes.

If we have any sort of reads i think call>shove and shove is probably at least a small losing play.

Keep a tally of how many times you see rec players 3! semi-bluffing on the turn in your career.

This is 33/44/JJ/QQ almost always when a rec player 3!’s you on the turn with significant money behind.

I agree with XtraScratch after thinking about this for awhile.

We need to own this guys soul and fold to the 3bet.

Would still stick to 3bet or fold mostly preflop except out of the BB - especially deeper.

A similar situation is happening to me at 50nl blitz. I keep running my AK into KK or my JJ into KK. But I need to be folding my hands instead of using the cooler excuse to hide my sub optimal play.

+1 to ^^^^

FWIW I would have folded pre
as preflop raiser desc posted by OP ; I'm not raising and a call lets several others in; fold pre is best

I am on board with this, and have stated similar things countless times in this forum. Chalking this up to a cooler for a $1000 bucks in a 2/5 game is a leak.

The range you are up against once you get 3 bet on the turn is so ****ing strong, that you cant just say this is a cooler i have to go broke. Cause its not.

But we are only 100bbs effective vs. the original raiser. So are you advocating 3b wider vs. 100bb stacks?

Folding QJs to a single raise preflop is a disaster. Absolute disaster.

If you don't 3b pre and just call, so what if multiple people call behind you? You play a suited broadway hand multiway. Big deal. So what if you let small pocket pairs in behind you. Yeah, they will flop sets once in a while. That is the game. But folding QJs pre because you are afraid someone my flop is a set is ridiculous.

Caveat: if you have a strong player behind you that 3b squeezes a lot, ok, that may be justifiable. But you should have a plan with your preflop range and how you will play it vs a tough left opponent that is deep and aggressive.

Once we raise the turn, after betting flop, our perceived range is very strong. I would expect hands like 65sshh/KTss+/A4hh/A3hh to call ip, rather than raise. A Villain call also offers an attractive price to the donker, who might be on a worse draw.

I'd opt to make a frustrating fold.

At equilibrium it's a fold at 100BB/3bet at 200BB.

We can deviate if we have a good reason too but folding is fine. QJs isn't some powerhouse hand - it's dominated very often and will get flush over flushed sometimes.

Villain's preflop calling range will also block a lot of our straight outs.

Awesome. Thanks for the response.

EV Calculations for QJs 3bet PF. Note this is 6max but it is almost the same as Seat 4 vs Seat 5 in a 9 handed game.

100BB's Deep



200BB's Deep

I was going to comment earlier about how casually and often the specific word “disaster” is thrown around in 2+2 LLSNL hh’s to describe marginal +/- EV spots, but resisted the urge. It felt like a snarky comment to drop. Much better to post the actual charts.

This is also why I hate calling preflop. Like I wanted to stack off here. I still think stacking off is best in a vacuum. But it could be a big mistake against the ranges live opponents show up with.

A lot of people use the “I’m so much better postflop” excuse to justify suspect preflop play. It’s almost always a leak


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When I used to play live a lot before corona I'd hear that excuse a ton.

Another logical fallacy I'm trying to get away from even though I still do it all the time is to set up stacks for a PSB OTR.

I don't know who came up with it, but I learned a long time ago and it stuck with me.

Old school way of play: geometric betting. Obviously now we know we choose bet sizes based on numerous factors and that we don’t just get to decide we want to make certain bets based on what outcome we want.

But yeah, you’ll still see a lot of “skill this, skill that” in this forum. The skill comes heavily from not making bad plays ahead of time.

Not saying flatting QhJh preflop is a bad play. But if we think we will play it far better than our opponents because of “skill edge”, this hand highlights the flaw in that. I fancy myself a better player than most and I’d have gone broke just like every single one of those guys I think i am better than would’ve. So am i really better, or am I just avoiding the situation entirely and cashing in that way?


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