I think I ship here. Here's some basic rationale. Let's say you call the $120 and he calls the $120. Pot will be $590 on the flop. So he needs about 20% equity to make the call preflop. There's $460 to be bet left. Let's say you push the flop and he calls, he's only making an error if he calls with less than 30% equity. It's going to be tough to get him to put it in with much less than 30% equity IMO.

There's a lot of very bad things that can happen on the flop if he's only going to need 30% equity to win the hand.

If he's got a hand like 78s, I'm fairly certain he has direct odds to call preflop in order to flop something that's worth sticking in his last $460. I think it's about 25% of the time with a suited connector he can flop something that will have more than 32%+ equity on the flop (8outers+ or made hands). Plus some of the time, flop will come something like A65, A with two of his suit, or even AJ7, and he won't even have to pay to see the rest.

If he's got a hand like Axs, Kxs, he also has pretty much direct odds to call preflop, b/c I think he flops a flush draw or a top pair about 23% of the time as well which both of those times he ends +EV calling the 120 and sticking in the rest on the flop. Ocassionally he'll bluff you out with his flush draws as well.

If he's got a pocket pair, I don't think he's making much of a mistake by calling pre either. About 10% he flops a set and may or may not stack you (depending if an ace or king comes as well probably). If an Ace or King comes (43% of the time), he probably gets to see his roughly 10% extra equity to see the river making his call preflop $120 call breakeven.

I think when all is said and done, the reraise is just a little too small considering the effective stacks, and it's a little high variance for my taste so just stick it in It's just going to be very hard to make the opponent make a big mistake postflop.

Honestly your best hope for him calling the 120 to be way more +EV for you is to do that if you think you can bluff him off his flop equity very easily. Let's say the flop comes A52, you ship and he will fold AT, then you should flat all day. It just depends on how you think he'll play postflop.

To the people that flat and villain flats, give me your game plan on various flops. Pot will be $590 with $460 to bet. I don't know if you can bet/fold any flop. Are you just shipping all flops and hoping for the best? Are you bet folding any? Checking any flops down?

Yes, that is best case scenario if he does call my All-In and shows up with a hand worse than QQ. If V calls my All-In and turns up with AA or KK, then I'll just take that as a bad beat hand that I was set up on and that I played the hand to the best of my ability. I'll probably feel uncomfortable if he calls my All-In with AK.


You're still not explaining your lines on different flops. What's your line if an Ace or King or both hit the flop? What's your line if it's a monotone flop? What's your line if it's a 3 card to a straight flop? What's your line if there's a flush draw or straight draw? What's your line if it's a dry or disconnected flop?

Everything Capt. Zeebo said is correct. You don't know what the flop will be or what your (apparently passive) villain will do - poker is a game of info, and that info is not yet relevant at the time of THIS decision. At this MOMENT the most +EV and highest long term $$$ and therefor correct play is to shove preflop.

A. You clearly have the best hand 99% of the time, and it is never bad to bet with the best hand to BOTH protect it AND get the most value.

B. If you flat and allow V in and set up the something like 1:1 SPR or whatever it is, you are basically committed regardless. So you can can c-bet shove a K-high flop and fingers crossed hope for the best, or you can get it in when you KNOW it's good. I mean I guess you could fold if you are OK with donating a huge chunk of your stack.

C. In general when the pot gets big PF and you have a strong hand, be strong. Slowing down and being cute is rarely helpful. There are so many advantages to being the aggressor and dictating the way the hand goes, instead of calling and A.) hope passive guy calls THEN B.) Hope the flop is safe, THEN C.) Hope he calls your flop shove THEN D.) Hope he somehow paid you off with garbage.

I understand both sides of your guys' argument. But I just think making a play where-by you are investing 25-35%+ of your stack PF with a hand you know to be best ATM, then folding it to "scary boards", and not only losing your investment, but the AI guys dead money just sucks. It's weak, I hate it. It's bad. Shoving minimizes your chances of making an incorrect decision later and ensures you got it in ahead basically always considering the passive pre-flop calling V is doing. AND it makes the passive V make a hard choice if he has 88-JJ or AQ or AK or something. I think he can STILL make a big mistake if you shove.

So much awful in the above post and the bottom line is still MUBS.

Anyhow...

MP2 $190
MP $1200
Hero $650

$28 is from blinds + straddle + one limper.

MP calls $10 then calls $50 with total of $50 added to the pot.

MP2 calls $10 then shoves $180 more, total of $190 added to the pot.

Hero raised to $50 initially and has $50 invested in the pot.

$28 + $50 + $190 + $50 = $318.

$318 and $140 to call for hero and MP.

If hero shoves the remaining $600, that would make the pot $918 and $600 for MP to call.

918:600 or 1.53:1 - making ONLY a coin-flop like AK a mathematical call. $600 is also a really big bet in most 2/5, and without stating that this isn't a crazy game, $600 is not going to be called by someone that isn't on tilt or someone that is ahead of QQ. If MP had AK, he's not shoving it in after he had call $10 then call $50.

It is also very unlikely that he has AK given the action, unless this guy was labeled super tight passive.

So let's be honest here, shoving here only has one intention, which is to get a fold.

I would much rather raise something to create a side pot, but with the awkward stack sizes created by MP2's shove, I am better off simply shoving as oppose to making it a very weird situation for me on the flop.

So let's just look at flatting. If we flat here, the pot becomes $458 with $140 to call for MP.

$458 pot and hero has $460 behind - I'll round it up to $460 pot to make things little easier for calculation.

So 460:140 or 3.3:1 with 920:140 or 6.57:1 as maximum implied odds.

Assuming MP has made up his mind to continue post-flop only if he flops something good, let's create a range for MP.

Given that he had two chances to raise the straddle and only called both times, I am going to eliminate TT+, AQs+, and AQo+ from his range. Just doesn't seem to make sense without relevant reads to support it.

I know how much villains at this level like suited Ace, so I am adding A2s+ - AJs. I am also adding ATo and AJo. Less I think is folding to the $50 raise. Then I am adding all of the suited broadway cards, because again, typical villains love suited big cards. Adding all PP from 22 - 99, and lastly, I am adding 65s up to KQs.

Using PkrCruncher, I also added the 3rd player with blank cards and the calculation that only deal to flop.

Hero with QQ: 78.7% or 3.7:1F
MP (22 - 99, ATo, AJo, 65s - KQs, QTs, KTs, KJs, A2s - AJs): 13% or 6.71:1 dog.
MP2 (blank cards): 8.29% or 11.1:1 dog.

There's a lot of room to tweak MP's range, but according to this calculation, he would literally have to hit something dead on and also have us shovel all of our money in on the flop to make his $140 call close to neutral EV.

Furthermore, using PkrCruncher, I will break down the odds of villain flopping different kinds of hands.

1 pair - 1.03:1 Favorite
2 pairs - 11.4:1
3 of kind - 20.1:1

Everything else is above 200:1.

Draw hands

4 to flush - 13.5:1
Gut-shot - 12.3:1

Everything else is above 40:1

You have to also realize that our perceived range is very strong, and it does indeed include AK and AA, so hitting an A or K on the board does not automatically mean stacking off for villain either. In other words, we are once again suffering from MUBS if we think any board with A or K is atomically bad.

So all in all, I am flatting all day here.

+1000 to seaulater.

What is MUBS

Monster Under Bed Syndrome.

ship.

I'd ship it and get called by TT. Especially if villain thinks that's what I'd do with AK/AQ. A flat is possibly more likely to set off alarm bells than a ship.

I think the standard play here is to 4-bet All-in pre against Villain with no history with.

However, I do think that given enough history with V to know his tendencies and vice versa, that flatting the 3-bet here would conceal the strength of our hand and would be a polarizing play. Flatting the 3-bet with the strength of our hand would show V (assuming he's a thinking player) that we are capable of mixing things up and will keep him guessing. V will also find it more difficult to place us on a hand given this complicated play. I think that hypothetical situation will warrant flatting the 3-bet.