1/3 NLHE 9 handed.

V - House LAG. Plays for a living. Crushes 1/3 and plays higher stakes frequently. His game at 1/3 isn't really "LAG" in a sense as he knows he has zero FE. He plays for pure profit. This is his job. He comes in every day with his BI and plays his typical game. Now - that said - he will smooth call behind with 45s and T8s, hands with huge IO. He will bluff raise, etc etc. Sometimes he spews a little imo for 1/3. Tries to force the issue. He knows me well, not sure how he sees me. HJ Covers.

H - Is up big from 2/5 and came over to 1/3 to cool off. Just having fun. Haven't been at the table long and just playing a quiet friendly game with less thinking more auto-pilot. 300$ CO on V's left.

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UTG straddles, two limps, V opens to 26, H raises A J to 100, folds back to V who calls, HU IP. (Thoughts? is this too wide? He can be quite wide here so I would estimate its for value - AJo being about the 8th percentile of hand).

Flop 200 - 8 6 4 (eep)

check, check

Turn 200 - 9

V bets 70, H folds.

Pre flop raise size seems a bit large. I'll let others argue if AJo is even a hand we should raise.

C-betting flop seems pretty standard.

AP, folding turn seems fairly automatic.

Even from a lag, one who is competent should actually be a lot tighter here than normal in earlier position vs 2 limps. AJs 3bet, AJo fold. As for post flop, with no club I like give up as you did.

You only have a pot sized bet left on the flop which doesn't give you many options. You're only 50BB deep to begin with. Maybe go a touch smaller, 80-90, CO vs HJ with AJo is probably just about OK, but it's on the light side.

On this complete whiff perhaps the best option is going 25% pot and trying to buy yourself two cheap cards, with the option of bombing the turn on a card like an offsuit King. As played yeah fold turn.

backwards re aj. while unintuitive u usually want to flat ajss in these types of situations pre and 3b the offsuit ones. doubt its a situation u want to play 3b or fold given limpers but i guess maybe

post seems good to me, pre sizing also too big

ok thanks everyone

Fold pre. AJo is already a marginal 3bet from HJ, but with two limps I think we are too weak.

Pre sizing is too big. So we are 50 straddles deep, but we are facing an ISO that is about 4x the BB. So in a way this is more like playing 25-40bb deep, except it is a tighter configuration vs the iso raise. At this stack depth we probably want to size down. In position something like 2.5x + the limp money when in position, so about $75 makes sense. Although I still would rather fold this hand pre.

At this SPR I think checking the flop with the plan of folding unimproved and facing action later is okay. If we werdeer, it is nice thst we have at least 1 spade to block some backdoor floats and give us some barreling opportunities on a turned spade. But this short we won't be able to bluff effectively too often and we don't have enough behind to be too thrilled about the implied odds of spiking top pair or the value of realizing our equity. We could bet to deny equity from worse hands, but we may get floated by even AQ which we lose too, and we can get called by draws which can bluff us off our hand on the river even if they don't hit. We also have some bad reverse implied odds when we hit sometimes, especially on Ac or Jc. So overall we just don't have much going on with our hand.

interesting

Not really a fan of the 3b unless you think he's super wide here - I also think he's not calling your 3b that wide if he is a solid winning player. On the flop I would bet - could just bet 70 to win 200, so you don't need him folding that often to make money here and your range looks insanely strong.

I gave him an opening range of 19.5% which we have a little over 50% equity vs. preflop. If I did the math right we are risking 100 to win 140 preflop and need him to fold ~72.5% of the time to break even. That leaves him a continuing range of TT+, AQo+, AJs. That seems about right theoretically, but doubt villain is that tight and we're only breaking even on the bet anyways. AJo 4+ ways preflop doesn't sound like a fist pumping spot, but might be higher EV and less variance if the limpers are loose/passive postflop.

I really don't like this spot given villain's description. I think folding pf is probably best if villain is a tricky opponent for us. If we're 3betting, I like 3 betting smaller to give us better immediate odds to profit off of him folding. I can't find a continuing range in poker stove that makes AJo a value bet preflop for this villain though. Anyone?

AP postflop I like betting small here. It seems your ranges are sort of mirrored with more unpaired combos and the first one to bet is going to take the pot here. Your ace is also a dirty out some significant portion of the time so I think the flop is where we make our move.

What's the plan for the hand when 3-betting? To win the $30 in the pot (risking $100 to win $30)?

AJ is going to completely miss the flop more often than not. So, I think you should have a pretty good idea what flops you're going to barrel (or check-fold) before you 3-bet.

Personally, I see no reason to get involved with professional LAG with AJ in this spot.

If he's someone you play with regularly, you could just ship it with your overpairs/AK/AQ/AJ. The times you get caught bluffing will get you more action when you've got the big pair.

3-bet pre and then checking a flop with all medium to low cards smells of AK. You're almost inviting him to stab at the pot the 2 out of 3 times you don't flop a pair.