Posting this for a friend, hand is in a $1500 max game:

Hero ($2500): Early 20's reg, probably seen as solid by V but no real history

V (covers): Young LAG wearing headphones, probably a reg/solid player, not many reads but has 3b a number of hands pre and hasn't shown anything down yet.

Player in EP opens $30, V 3b $130, hero 4b KK $380 from BB, EP player folds, V calls.

Flop ($805): 789

Hero leads $580, V calls.

Turn ($1865): 2

Hero? Thoughts so far on sizing pre and post? What is a good LAG V's range for flatting flop instead of raising/shoving, and what's our best option for turn? What range would/should we check the flop with instead of leading? What if turn is 2 instead of 2?

What was villain's position? It seems like most of the flush draws would have raised flop, so the turn is an effective blank other than the fact that it gives QQ/JJ with heart some equity against you. KQh/KJh could probably be in his range though. As far as other hands you lose to, I think you need to give him some AA. QQ/JJ should still make up the majority of his range here though, so I think you have a safe shove. It's probably a spot where you will usually be drawing to two outs when called, but there is 1865 out there and protection is worth something. I'm really not a big fan of choosing sizes that can't be bluffs (on pre and flop), though.

Edit - hero has $2700, V is in CO

Grunch. Pre sizing is big but if that sizing is getting called by worse in this game then by all means go for it. Just be prepared to make stackoff or give up decision on the flop which it seems you have already done here. His overs+fd should raise flop some % of the time so i dont we need to be scared of the heart. I just jam it in and hope to get called by TT-QQ and random combo draws. Plus the sets and odd flushes in his range.

tank shove.

He def should have some AA if he's any good but all the other options suck. If he sucked out, you got him to put in enough pre that you aren't really making a mistake no matter what long term.

Renton- what size do you like pre?

Kind of important who raised ep. If it was a total nit id be more wary of 4! KK. but whatevs

ship turn imo

Player that raised EP is a reg with wide range.

All in.

Depending on what range of hands you think he sees a flop with, I might opt to check flop.

As played I think we just shove turn now but like another poster said I think this is largely a protection bet.

What you do on flop really depends on his range. If you think he's heavily weighted toward TT-QQ then check shoving probably isn't a bad idea. Think it makes our hand look a bit bluffy and we get looked up from time to time whereas I don't think we are thrilled with the results if we are called after a bet-bet line.

Hmm i like check shove flop alot actually

Are we check/shoving if V bets something small like $250-300 on flop? That's a huge overbet. What hands in our 4b range should we be checking on the flop? If we have two overs and FD, are we looking to c/shove or lead? c/f AK/AQ and only betting overpairs seems exploitable, no?

What should we bet on the flop so that our hand isn't face up? Initially I appreciated and respects the crai on this flop as a poster advised but I feel as if that lets him play perfectly vs us preflop if we put it all in on this board.

Renton can you explain this further please (using the amounts in this hand as an example)

Preflop it doesn't make sense for hero to make it 380 with any hand except KK+, AK, and maybe QQ. It's likely that there is no other preflop hand that could show a profit at that size, exposing 380 to two tight ranges in an attempt to win less than half that amount. As a result, the AK and QQ become the bottom of your range and are essentially semi-bluffing, and both of the villains (should) have a somewhat standard fold with all but KK+. Even if you're never weaker than QQ+ AK here, which is probably fine, you should at least choose a size where a light 4-bet is plausible, and give a lag playmaster a bit better price to take a flop against your superior range. I'm not sure what the best size is. Probably around 300 vs a good player and maybe 330 vs this guy.

On the flop, I'm even more confident that hero's range is QQ at minimum when he bets >25% of his stack. Similar to pre, there is probably nothing worse than QQ that could profit making that bet other than a flush draw or TT/T9. Now, one could argue that this board is so wet and heavy that "pure" bluffs aren't a part of reasonable strategy, and "getting out of line" is just semibluffing too light (like stacking off with 76 here). So IMO he should check this hand (with his entire range) or bet a smaller size, a size that a hand like AhKc might plausibly bet.

I'm a big proponent of not choosing sizings that can't be bluffs, but I think 380 is fine as a standard here 2500 effective. And I think you'll eke out a profit cold 4betting LAG with some hands that aren't QQ+/AK.

Renton, thanks for the in depth response.

1). When we are bluffing, should we not be choosing a larger sizing? I realize fold equity is not directly correlated to sizing but it does have a relationship. I also realize that in a perfect world we would bluff with the exact amount required to elicit folds and not a cent higher.

2). This is my biggest quandary in live poker. Seriously, the thing that keeps me up at night.

If, hypothetically, >50% of the table dgaf what your range is, what your sizing is, etc, should you still make any attempt to balance at all? If we are still going to get called, should we not choose the highest possible sizing we can, and play a nitty face up range?

Put another way, at the 2/5 level, what is the difference between playing 20% of hands and opening 3x, or playing 10% of hands and opening 5x.

A recent example. I didn't play a hand for 4 hours. Entire table is mocking me. Even the cocktail waitress is looking at me with disgust. Tight guy opens 5bb UTG. He gets 3 callers. I 35bb. I get 2 flats. What needs to be changed here? What are the benefits of smaller sizings/wider ranges in these game types?

The two big answers I can think of are we play more hands profitably than most, and smaller sizings don't bloat pots when we still have marginal equity vs. shallow stacks. (3betting AK huge for example and getting 3 calls and flopping garbage)

What are some good hands to 4! The lag with besides AK+

Of course you should do max exploitey things in 25 hand per hour poker, I just think that people underestimate the ability of fish and weak regs to be perceptive in spots like this. Again, I really don't mind not having a bluffing range in many spots, but I'd still rather choose a line that makes a bluff seem more plausible to a novice-intermediate handreader, which I give most live regs credit for being.

ATs A5s KJs KTs come to mind. These hands play the best postflop while having the most to gain by folding out the original opener.

I would be developing a pretty substantial checking range on this board in this spot, and would certainly include KK (no heart) in that range.

KK no heart is not a hand I would give a free card with OTT, would hate to get beat by a 4 straight/flush that is folding OTT. Unless you have a history in 3bet pots with this guy. Like he floats you and give up after one bullet. If there's any chance he checks it back I don't like it. Too much in the pot.

The time to check KK no heart would be on the flop looking to C/RAI and look full of crap.

In theory, on this dynamic of a board, we should have a *substantial* checking range OOP, and KK no hearts would certainly be in the discussion.

In practice (in a live game with a EPvEPvBB 4b pot where the 3b was huge and the 4b was quite large), I think ranges are so narrow and everyone is so far out of their comfort zone and the SPR is so reasonable that I'm not worried about a cbet getting abused.

So we should bet fold the flop?

Not sure if you're replying to me, but I was talking about our strategy with our entire range. In theory, we should have a defensive strategy, and that strategy might very well include checking KK no heart. So when I'm saying we can comfortably bet KK here, I'm saying we can comfortably b/f a wide range, which means we can bet a lot of non-value hands, which means we don't need to worry about forming a decent checking range, which means we don't need to rob the in-a-vacuum value of betting KK here and turn it into a check.

In other words, I feel comfortable expanding our b/f range, though that doesn't necessarily mean I'm saying KK would be part of it.

Here, even though I expect to get raised a smaller percentage of the time, I don't know if that means a raise is necessarily stronger. I would be kinda confused and go in the tank if we were raised, but ultimately, we manage to have one of the hands we're representing and we don't block any bluffs, so I'd feel obligated to click All-In.

Good discussion itt!
Not trying to hijack the thread, just thinking that a good extension of this discussion would be a spot where hero is in position (say, MP PFR vs BB), same stack sizes.
Now, does KK no heart go into our cbet or check-back range? If we do have check-back range (should we?), then I am inclined to check back KK with a heart and cbet KK no heart. Which is the opposite of what looks like concensus here when discussing the OP (out of position) spot.