This is prob super simple (in the back of my mind I feel like it is) but I was confused during the hand and a day later I still haven't achieved clarity on it...

So the game is historically good. It's so good I have 0 tilt despite being completely buried and running what feels like reverse lotto lately. Having said that, my image is still completely shot with both players in this hand. I've literally turned over 2 winners in 24 hours, and they were both bluff catchers in forgettable pots. I recently lost a 17k pot (KT vs AT on KTT3A to one of the whales ) and I didn't show my hand. I've also missed a ton of draws and I've never shown. Basically these 2 villains think I'm the worst ever (and I'm starting to think they are right)...

V1 is Moby Dick. He will ship at any time- with a draw, a bluff-catcher, a bluff, whatever. I love this guy. Stack is ~ 16k.

V2 is fairly new to our table but looks super fishy and has played a few hands seemingly horrifically/he has said some really funny poker things. Stack ~ 7500.

I'm the 20 and both villains limp from middle position. Their ranges are anything that looks like it's possibly a hold em starting hand. It folds to me and I pop it to 120 with red 55. They both call with those same ranges. The pot is 375.

Flop is J85 (oh momma!). I lead 240 and they both call pretty fast. Pot is now 1095.

Turn is T and I lead 540. V1 asks me how much I started the hand with (~8k) and calls. V2 pretty quickly and confidently makes it 2300 with a little less than 5k behind.

Thoughts on the hand up to this point/what's your move?

I like your line on all streets, though I might lead bigger ott to get more value out of their draws.

As played, I can't see myself calling the turn raise as that'll give V1 a great price to call with all his draws. I'd cib/gii here with any/both V's if they raise. If they both flat and it's 3-way to the river, you'd obviously need to activate maximum soulread power if a ****ty card rolls off.

I wouldn't have lead turn, but as played I throw up call and probably call most rivers.

with read on v1, your crappy image and stack sizes, is c/r flop a viable option?

ott, based on described villain, 97 has to be a significant portion of his range when he takes this line. i mean wouldnt v2 have to think about it for a little bit on your flop cb last to act on a wet board with j10? or even combo draws. his fast call seems indicative of a draw. but yea gross spot after taking beating all night.

Seems pretty tough and not straightforward at all. At first glance I would call turn raise and check decide all non boat rivers.

c/r flop. As played check turn (and bet more on the flop).

turn is a call. what is river?

Why did you bet so small on the flop and turn against described oponnents? I think I'm jamming turn

If no diamond falls on the river are you getting stacks in? Are you actually worried about Q9 here? Turn seems like a standard spot to ship and have V1 turn over JT.

Y'all are crazy for wanting to check turn. I think the turn bet should be a couple hundred bucks bigger and is a slam dunk.

There's way too much Jx, 9x, T8, flush draws, 67, etc. in everyone's range, hero's image is terrible, we're getting called on turn by a lot of stuff, and we beat all of it. We're occasionally getting raised on turn and we're probably not in comfortable shape when v2 raises, but we're pretty happy when v1 does.

800ish on the turn imo. What sort of funny poker stuff has he said? I guess you don't need to be specific but you should have some sort of vague idea of the types of things that are going on in his head during hands at this point. It's super gross but I sort of want to jam turn.....I think he can definitely have and call off with worse stuff, and by calling we are giving v1 proper odds to call with decent drawing hands. If we think he's never raise/folding a hand like T8 and he's never bluffing I think jamming has to better than calling unless we are going to c/f rivers that don't pair the board.

Just out of curiosity why did you bet turn and to a lesser degree flop so small? IMO I'd prefer a check and either call or raise turn depending on action and what you think vills will stack off with. I think as played based on your image and possibly smallish turn bet I can't find a fold here and I'd much rather give them the chance to bluff or devalue themselves on the river.

Anyone remotely concerned about the double gutter?

Let's hear how the 17k pot went down.

bolded is prob the most important piece of info and why the turn is just a call and honestly prob a c/fold if unimproved since it will most likely be 3ways to the river.

also keep in mind it is V2 that is pushing the action here and not V1.

c/r flop is viable, I just don't do much of that at all ever this deep.

a few things:

I love your 3b preflop, but that flop texture always gets peeled so wide by those two villains that I hate your sizing on the flop.

The turn betsize is debatable, but I actually like betting smaller here because even tho v1 and 2 suck at poker, it keeps the pot protected for the river since turn action either goes call/call or some fold/call so often, and it gives you another street to outplay both of them. Although it is counter intuitive relative to what I'm telling you to do on the flop, the T gives them a lot new 2p equity, and pair + gutter equity. A lot of this equity now will go three streets, so I want to keep the weakest parts of their range still in, and try to go for 3 streets of value.

As played, I'm just calling here. I think it keeps your range widest, and let's v1 put in chips drawing to 6-9outs, and since he's moby dick, he might even ship some super small % of the time and you get to play for 24k where all of your outs are clean. Playing OOP here sucks balls, but you're the professional in this spot, and just navigate the mystery card river imo.

I think I'm in the call camp. Pretty damn gross, but I think folding river unimproved is reasonable. Yeah, villain can be overplaying T8, JT, etc, but he probably plays 79 and Q9 this way 100% of the time, and I doubt he is really ever semi bluffing.

We have 47% vs {JT,T8,Q9,97}. If we cut it to just 12 combos of 2p instead of 18, we drop all the way to 40%. We miss stacking worse value hands on a lot of rivers, we can't really fold river on complete bricks, and the whale can have a ton of hands with equity that we get to fold out, or that say **** it and gamble.

Don't think we're getting hero folds from 2p with our image, so just sack up, ship it, and take your lumps when you're behind.

I raise pf very (very) often in games like these. I cbet very often as well. I generally c-bet smallish and then open up the toolbox on the turn depending on my equity, texture, stacks, reads, etc.

Not only did I not want to stray from ^^^/set off any alarm bells (even whales recognize when a pattern is broken), but in their minds my 240 range is atc (as it was pre flop). I want them continuing with everything/more than just draws to beat me and if I was lucky enough to cold deck Jx.

I don't think c/r flop is a great idea with bottom set on wet/multi-draw boards in general at this depth. It would be much better/something I'd be way more inclined to do with a hand that wouldn't have a good redraw if it got sucked out on, like KJ or QQ or whatever. And V1 being in the middle makes me want to be aggro on the flop (with sizing or a check raise) even less--> I want him comfortable and always seeing that turn/never potentially hero folding a pair or something because he's "put in a bad spot".

The turn just makes thinks wetter obv. And since I'm never looking to fold a set on a board like this (to these guys especially), I like betting smallish so I can call a raise/not get shipped on by 97/Q9. 540 also keeps my perceived range insanely wide which is something I'm pretty obsessed with obv. And because I can call a raise/I have decent equity against the hands that now beat me, I don't feel like I need to pot control beyond just betting small (aka I don't think I need to check).

These are my thoughts, which I initially wasn't going to share because I play against a lot of 2p2ers/lurkers and they use this **** against me sometimes, but then I realized that would be pretty hypocritical (to be button-lipped) after starting a strat thread and asking for feedback . Doesn't matter too much I guess though since anyone who reads this is prob not a fish/will get played against differently obv...

Looking forward to feedback on this post. If I'm off/illogical/suboptimal somewhere (I know I am not playing/thinking anywhere near my best latey cuz I'm downswinging/running like **** so hard), I'm more than excited to have it pointed out. Thx.

He like quadruple over limped the button one hand, maniac pro squeezed to 300 from the sb, my friend (solid pro) lrr to like 1100, villain 1 from my hand called the 2 raises next to act after over limping himself/not closing the action (awesome obv), and villain 2 from my hand folded as expected. The flop came 223 and villain 1 shipped over my friend's cbet and won a ridiculous pot with 55 on the 223J4 runout. Villain 2 immediately tells my friend (who just lost like 6k in the hand) that he "got lucky" maniac pro was behind him pre, because he had J2 of diamonds and was def gonna limp/call the 1100 with it otherwise haha. And then when I dumbed things down even more and asked him if his J2 would have flopped trips or something, he said, "yeah, AND I HIT THE JACK ON THE TURN!", which of course would have been irrelevant to winning the pot but super relevant to just making a crazy badass absolute value hold em hand with a suited 8 gapper.

Idk, I might not be capturing it well, but he literally had me loling at the table. And I knew he was someone I wanted in the game (for multiple reasons).

I was vaguely concerned when I bet turn. Much more concerned when villain 2 made it 2300 after villain 1 called.


The KT hand was like a bunch of limps, I make it a lot in the cutoff. Everyone calls. Flop is OK for my hand (KTT). They check and I bet reasonable. Good player calls on button and whale calls from whatever position 3rd overlimper pre is. Turn is a 3 and now I bet a million cuz I'm "a bluffer". Good player takes a while and folds, whale snap calls. River is an A and he open ships with quickness. I tank and try to talk to him but he's either smart or antisocial enough to just keep his mouth shut. I don't like it, but I "pay that man his money".

fyp

If we jam turn, what does V1 do with 2pair? The nightmare scenario is we have one out vs their respective top 2 and straight, so getting V1 to fold 2pair isn't as huge a loss of value as it would be heads up.

I thought this was a pretty clear ship reading op. I guess not exactly as clear as I thought reading responses but I still don't think calling is anywhere near shipping.

I also would not check at any point in this hand unless turn called through and river pairs but even then I think inducing trumps that.

Agree with sizing flop/turn larger as well.

My thoughts are basically in line with NeverScared.

This seems like a fairly sizable leak. We should be able to segment our range such that we can bet large on this flop with some percentage of our range, and if betting large really would set off alarm bells, do you bet large on this flop with any air hands? You have a near nut hand to be betting large on this flop, since you block minimum middle/top pairs, so if we do have a betting large range on this flop, 55 should be in it.

Especially given your ****ty image + villain 1, I expect that breaking your pattern here increases the action you get, not decreases it. Moreover, if V2 wasn't just talking bull**** (I trust your read here), I don't expect him to fold a gutshot to any bet less then 1.5x pot. Finally, we only have 375 in the pot and 16k more to go - 42 times the pot. We need to get money in there. I think $600 works, though we might be able to go even bigger.