Table is new at 8:30pm on a Sunday night and looks pretty juicy; this hand is after 1 or 2 orbits. Villain is unknown. He bought in for the max ($500), looks kinda fishy. I saw him play a few hands before this one, and he seems loose passive so far; he's limp called like 3 hands, and c/c c/c c/f. This is the first time villain has raised preflop. Other than that, no reads.

Hero is UTG+3 w/ TT

Effective stacks with everyone are $500, except UTG+2 fish who has $150 to start the hand.

Villain UTG raises to $25, Fish UTG+2 calls $25, Hero calls $25, old man fish on BTN calls $25, Good reg in BB calls $25.

Flop ($127): 632 BB checks, Villain bets $75, UTG+2 calls $75 ($50 behind), Hero folds

it`s ok to fold here.. He raised UTG and he bets into 4 players on a super low board.
Calling isn`t super terrible, but I don`t think that a call is +EV by a good margin.
-> fold is the low variance play and most likely the best play in general.

I maybe 3bet preflop to isolate UTG+2 with his shortstack .. 3bet to 80$

Please don't post results next time. What can we really say at this point? I'm fine with the fold, though if there hadn't been a caller in front of me I'd probably call one street as many poor players will auto c-bet and then give up unimproved, without thinking much about the number of callers, board texture, etc.

A l/p player opens UTG and you want to 3! him with TT and no history of how he'll react. No thanks, I'm good.

AP otf, fold seems fine, he cbet into several players OOP. Little nitty, but whatever, it's a small mistake. Little exploitable, but so long as you just quietly muck, no one will think anything of it. You start telling everyone you folded TT and then everyone is going to be bluffing you off pots the rest of the session

3bet/f vs him and 3bet/c vs the smallstack is a reasonable play. UTG isn`t 4betting anything but AA,KK and we will win a lot vs his AK,AQ,AJ kind of hands. Preflop and on the flop ..

Considering this is LLSNL, there is a non zero chance V1 calls with his entire range (including AA/KK). There is also a non zero chance that after we 3! And V1 calls that V2 calls or ships. So now we're stuck either having a ridiculous decision or were going to a flop with an SPR of like 2 with TT (lol)

And say we somehow get to a flop without that scenario happening against V1 and a SPR of like 3-4:

Are we cbetting when the flop comes J high or higher?

Call.

Many fishy player has no position awareness and number of people in hands. They just auto c-bet and give up once unimproved on the turn

I think this is a fine fold. Even if raiser somehow doesn't have JJ+ here you are never safely getting to showdown multiway in this spot. Over cards are coming most of the time, are you calling when someone bets an A/K/Q/J turn? Not without crazy reads. Then there's a 4 or 5 for four to a straight and you're facing 4 players so risk of already facing a set is quite high. Add in the fact these loose games are filled with players who will call sizeable preflop raises with small SC and there's non zero risk of 2pairs and the straight already too.

I've played a hand almost exactly like this a few months back. I had TT in middle position, same action preand on flop and I folded. Three players went to showdown: 99, QQ and a flopped straight.

Also I am never 3 betting this or other pocket pairs below QQ, maybe even KK preflop till I have a better read. 3bet pure value or bluffs with blockers in this spot IMO. Quite happy flatting to mostly set mine but peel one and reassess if it looks like going heads up after the flop.

I'm also happy to turn my hand into a bluff if the situation is perfect for it post flop (HU after flop, scary run out, V shows weakness, I have read he can fold strong 1 pair, my action tells believable story). What I can't do is expect to get multiple streets of value in this spot with just a pair of tens.

If it had gone heads up and V were a maniac or a bad LAG then yeah, sure, call him down. V appears passive so unless he's over valuing 88/99 you're usually behind here on the flop.

let`s say we 3bet to 80 and both UTG players smooth call (most likely scenario in my 2/5 game) .. I am cbetting 80$ (put shortstack all-in and to have control over the hand vs UTG) on most boards.

I am cbetting pretty much any J high board here for sure. Queen high / King high depends on what I am thinking about the villains and what the two other cards on the board represent. I maybe even cbet 80 to put the shortstack all in on an A high board, because UTG has to respect that and has to fold his JJ-KK while the fishy shortstack does not need to be on Ax to make that call.

So pot is 240 and you're cbetting 80 on all J high boards or worse. You normally cbet 1/3 psb?You're checking 55% of all flops??

And your possibly going to cbet A high boards into a range of roughly {JJ+, AJs+ AQo+}, a range that contains 30 combos of hands that have aces in them and 18 combos of hands that don't??? Any you feel this is profitable?

And that's only A high boards that are probably A73 or A92. You're probably not cbetting AK5 or AJ9 etc.

This doesn't sound like a solid money making strategy. This sounds like a large % of time we're checking flops or betting flops with a hope and a prayer that the loose passive fish with the strong range folds (lol, I know, loose passive fish don't fold TP)

Pro Bono, what range are you putting preflop raiser on when he 5x it UTG after a few orbits of only l/c?

In my experience V's PFR range Is too tight and too strong for TT to 3bet for value (expecting to be called by more worse hands than better hands). Maybe V has 88+ AJ+ KQ, you'll get some folds but mostly from the hands you beat. You end up isolating yourself against a range of bigger pairs over cards. You won't know which V has postflop till you bet a load more chips and he calls.

That means you're turning TT, the 5th best starting hand, into a bluff against a deep stacked fish because you want to isolate a short stacked fish. You're risking losing $160 to win tonly a little more. If you flat you risk only $25 for chance to flop a set, a straight, a pair plus straight draw, something you can possibly stack a player with a range containing greater than normal % big pairs and win $500+.

Your risk and your opportunity cost are both high when you 3bet TT here. Flat is much better.

Easy call preflop. If he has AK, AQ, AJ, the original raiser will most likely check when he misses and we can bet on boards where we hold an overpair.

I never said that flatting is bad and 3betting is the only way to approach this hand. I only wanted to point out, that there is a 2nd scenario that I would consider.

3betting allows us to control the hand a bit more and like never lose to a worse hand from UTG. If we post this hand from UTGs perspective with JJ,QQ,AQ or AK .. We will get a lot of people to tell us that we should fold these hands in this scenario. 4 betting is a bad option with anything but AA,KK and on the same hand, he can be outplayed on a lot of boards by Hero when he has JJ, QQ.

Obv. I would rather 3bet if we were deeper, because then it`s easy to get folds from JJ,QQ .. I think we can get him to fold JJ on a lot of runouts and he will play his hand faceup anyway.

It`s a bit weird, because we are (kinda) semi-bluffing against UTG and value raising vs UTG+1 .. I just think that UTG is only comfortable of stacking off vs us with AA,KK and we can outplay all his other holdings while UTG+1 being in the middle of this makes us look less bluffy.

But yeah .. There is no need for that play and flat calling pre is more than fine. It`s just not as bad as this the likeable poster "Jonny-on-the-spot" thinks it is ..

^ Effective stacks are only 500. Good luck thinking you can fold out QQ. QQ and AK could easily 4bet jam on you forcing you to fold. Also, If UTG flats your 3bet and UTG+2 jams all in for like 20 dollars more, we are now in a bloated 3 bet pot that is now protected since UTG+2 is all in.

3betting is so much worse than calling here.

Not sure why it matters that if we posted this hand from UTGs perspective that everyone would say to fold JJ, QQ, AK, AQ to a 3!... V is a loose passive fish. He doesn't give 2 ****s what the "correct" thing to do is. All he knows is that he has a big enough hand to open 5x UTG. He's probably not folding preflop unless we do something excessive. Fish don't drive all the way to the casino to fold big hands preflop.

Plain and simple, 3! here is pretty terrible. We fold out everything were way ahead of. He calls with some combination of things were coin flips against and hands we're way behind. Maybe he 4! us with hands were dominated against, in which case, we A) just missed a prime opportunity to stack a loose passive fish who would play his hand face up and B) paid 3x more than we needed to to figure out the same information.

Pro Bono; you shouldn't be at much risk of losing many chips with TT vs raiser's JJ+ when you flat, not if you're as nitty as me anyway

Like Bodybuilder and Johnny say; loose fishy players aren't folding TT+ or AK to a 3bet ever. They also aren't folding over pairs postflop. Even when when they cease to be over pairs they'll sigh-call to the river because they've got to see what beat them.

What's the difference between posting Hero folds and "Hero ? and I think folding is best." I'm genuinely curious.

These aren't the results of what hole cards people had and I don't think it biases the answers to say I folded.

I agree with what you are saying. He could fold JJ,AK,AQ later on in the hand, where as I agree that folding QQ+ is super unlikely.

I would flat here as a default as well. I am 3betting if I think UTG is wider than we assume he is (opening way wider than 99+,AQ+), because I want to play this spot IP vs the shortstack fish and control the hand vs UTG 3way.

Whatever .. I never said that the 3bet is the best way to go, I just pointed out that there are more than one ways of approaching a spot.

@jonny:

Run a simulation (I am on my vacation home computer .. sry) of TT vs a range of JJ+,AQ+ .. It`s -EV for sure, but not really terrible and UTG is probably wider than that.

Can I hire you as a coach. Good advice coupled with a funny delivery

No, it really does bias the answers, though not as much as giving actual holdings would. Don't say "Hero ? and I think folding is best" either, just say "Hero ?" Give people some time to post uninfluenced before adding your thoughts.

TT is a 40% against that range. I'd be willing to bet that a loose passive UTG open range isn't much wider than that, and that is probably very close to his continuing range. Maybe he drops AQo, idk. But this is also assuming we get to showdown, which is not guaranteed

Jack or higher flops come ~2/3 of the time. Sometimes we get lucky and hit a set. Many times we don't. Many times we end up in a bloated pot with 2nd or 3rd pair and a short stack acting before us that could easily shove any flop and pin us between his action and the impending action of the UTG raiser

I just don't like where this is going by playing it like this. I'm not saying never 3! TT, I'm merely saying that I feel this is a very bad spot to do so.