5/10, very good game with passive stations. Not a lot of aggression (b4 villain sat down), just huge stations.

Hero: 30 yo white male. Probably look like a nit.

Villain: Mid twenties white male. Sat down 40 minutes ago. Has 3bet 4 times (including this one) in approx. 20 hands. 3 of the 4 have been vs me, lol. I've never seen him before, he looks like nerdy engineering student type, clean cut, friendly with whale on his left, etc. Certainly not wanabe baller pro. He MAY know that I predominantly play 2/5, as he seems to be friends with a good reg who knows me well. That said, if the reg gave him any history, I don't think it would be that I was scared money, but mostly an ABC nit who has the nuts most of the time.

History: Villain is 2 to my left. (I haz seat change btn)

1) As he is sitting down, I iso $40 an UTG limp in UTG+2 with KQ. Villain make its $130 while still unracking, we are $1K eff, I fold.

2) A few hands later, 2 limps to me otb, I $60 with JT, sb calls, villain $240 from bb, I fold.

Villain 3bet squeezed one other hand. So all have been squeezes but the first. No hands went to flop. He hasn't vpip any other times. Just 3bets.

Hand:

One orbit later.

Mp1: limps $10
Mp2: limps $10
BTN (Hero, $1.1K): $60 with 99
Sb ($800): Calls $60
BB (Villain, covers):$240

Mp1: folds
Mp2: folds
Hero?

My thoughts are mixed between him just always having it here or this being a fistpump. Curious on the thoughts you guys have on this specific hand and also adjustments you'd be making overall. I know the standard tighten up ...play strong value range etc. etc., but for medium value hands with great playability how do you adjust. For example would you overlimp btn with JTss/88 etc. Flat premiums when he is in position for a likely backraise opportunity?

I'm all in.

At this point it is reasonable to assume he is 3betting light in these BTN vs Blinds battles. His sizing is annoying for our stack depths (and pretty bad in general) and I think raise/folding JTs and KQs in the background hands were reasonable (imo KQs mostly because we're OOP and he just sat down / unracking).

Here we have to defend 99. I lean toward calling over jamming. 99 is too strong vs his range to turn into a bluff and we can extract value from him postflop in position rather than jam and be "flipping or f*cked" since he folds out everything we beat, esp after we folded to the first two 3 bets and have a nitty image.

you should be calling in all three of those hands (he should continue to exploit this extremely hi f23b%)

Position is decreased to near worthlessness with the ~1.5 SPR we're going to be in should we flat, surprised to see anyone recommend it. I'm either jamming or folding and given our history I'm happily jamming 110 bbs here vs this guy with 99.

I wouldn't fold the KQ. I wouldn't 6x the JT. Ship 99 obv.

Edit: live sample sizes r the best!

KQs I would call, I think you can achieve an EV of >33% pot with this hand vs the average described player.

This hand I think I might just fold, incredulous that he would have a wide 3-betting range for the third/fourth time here. Also, I think many of his decent hands like AJ/KQ would find overcalling irresistible here. Like Jimmy, I think it's a shove or fold spot with this specific hand, though I see calling as a legitimate option with suited broadways, AQ, and big pairs. I would certainly be shoving TT here and I see a large difference between the two hands. Don't hate a shove here though, obviously.

edit: also agree with dgaf, I don't think you need to be 6xing from the button with hands like 99/JTs when you only are 100bb deep.

+1 to all in

Not deep enough to call

Super sick spot. I actually am leaning towards folding.

Reason being that 99 shove, if you are called you are at best 55% ish and at worst 20%ish when dominated by JJ+. But there's 24 combos of JJ+ and only 16 of AK (I don't think a worse non-paired holding calls jam) so we are usually ****ed when called there, making it kind of bluffy.

Calling is worse yet than shoving. It's too bad about the sizing because if it were a standard 3x open from you vs a 10x 3bet you can just flat to set mine and/or possibly float or value. Def no set mine odds here.

Gotta take into account that it's possible this dude has had 4 3-bet worthy hands in that short time frame. Maybe he isn't a preflop maniac with 20% 3bet but more like 6-9% with some run good in that 40 minutes (i.e
AJ/AQ vs btn, AK, TT+, JTs stuff vs btn, any 4 of those). If he is a true 6-9% guy, shoving 99 here is really really bad. I would fold and see if it continues. Probably 4bet Bluff next situation if appropriate but unfortunately 99 too much value to 4bet Bluff and not enough to jam imo

I play in mostly aggro, high 3bet freq games with at least 1-2 players with true 12-15% 3bet% and most with 6-9% 3bet (6max). 4bet bluffs are usually effective way to combat them especially the 8%+ guys.

I just generally stick to 3x + limper(s) sizing, in both hands there were 2 mp limpers. The table was so loose passive though I added 1bb to my sizing strictly out of value. How should I be thinking about this differently?

As for the KQ hand knowing what I know now Id want to play differently but as for first hand/unracking etc I just shrugged and folded since we were so shallow.

You prefer calling over stuffing here with AQo/KQs here in this hand Renton?

With KQs, definitely. AQo is a judgment call.

As for the raise sizing, it's a pretty minor quibble, but the main thing is just that when you're only 100bb deep, making it 4-5x sets up a perfectly fine SPR for you to bet bet shove when called by 2 opponents. The thing is you're on the button, so there's far less of a need to isolate. With hands like 99 and JTs in particular, you aren't even that interested in increasing the chance of a heads-up pot, and would prefer the BB to call. A fringe benefit is that you're more capable of defending vs 3-bets.

shove

I'd isolate smaller.

There is no way I fold 99 after already watching him squeeze you before (on the button no less). You are probably getting called and are flipping or slightly ahead but that's all you can do at this point. As others have said less pre so you don't have to fold j10s on the bu. If he isn't in the hand 60 is fine.

Shove 99. Def call first two hands if deeper, I prob call anyway at 100BB because I hate folding.

Start isoing smaller and perhaps limping behind with medium PPs then seeing how action plays out. I would fold btw, have never had good experiences live with medium PPs aipf for reasons noted in lilu post

Unless I see villain 3! Often with SCs I would fold 100bbs eff

Important to note in the three hand sample size we have gotten good 3! Hands each time. If we had those hands but were in position and 3! Each time a certain player opened then I am sure table would think we are lag

Pretty straight forward math problem here. He 3-bets and calls your shove probably 100% with TT+ AK (46 combos) here and almost never with anything else.

You have 31% equity when called. You are semi-bluffing for 1040 to win 380. He needs to 3-bet/fold with X additional combos (10 dollar rake assumed):

EV = 380*(x/(x+46)) + (2270*0.31 - 1040)*(46/(x+46))

x = 41 bluff combos @ 0 EV. (47% frequency)

If he's a psycho and calls you with AQ, you would then have 37% vs 62 combos:

EV = 380*(x/(x+62)) + (2270*0.37 - 1040)*(62/(x+62))

x = 33 bluff combos @ 0 EV. (35% frequency)

He is definitely calling with AQ here if he 3b it.

+1

Really interested now in a potential leak I might have.

How do you guys approach high vpip stationy games with 80-120bb effective stacks when it comes to opening / iso'ing sizing?

Like I said I predominantly play 2/5 & 2/5/10 these days and esp. in the 2/5/10 there are just so many open limps I play a pretty face up tight value range and just 3x+x*(# of limpers) where x = bb. And I tend to add on a bb the deeper we get or the more stationy the players.

Should I be capping my iso at a certain threshold or just tuning it down a bb? What thoughts/strategy pertains to these situations?

Appreciate all of the feedback so far.

Rip it in

Im all in

trivial jam with everything we know about villain

I am not pushing. Whenever I decide that someone is picking on me in a live setting, the vast majority of the time it's just variance and they happened to pick up big hands against me in a very small sample. Without more info on the villain as a known light 3 bettor, I chalk this up to variance and move on to the next hand. Very few 30 something white males 3 bet light in live games these days, and 4 times in 3 orbits isn't enough info to assume he is doing it light. I'm folding and seeing if this pattern continues before ripping in 110 bigs preflop with 9's

Does anyone have any sizing insight in loose passive games where stacks are at or around 100bbs?

I'm starting to think that is a much bigger room of improvement than what I should do with nines here.