5-10 NL home game

Same session as the previous hand I posted yesterday where I faced the double check raise with trips. https://reddit.com/r/poker/comments/...e_check_raise/ This is a little later on in the night and players are more comfortable and stacks are deeper.

Players:

H ($2800): UTG. aggressive player, reputation for running big bluffs, people are always surprised when I have a real hand, I use overbet sizings when others in the player pool just never do

V1 ($600): MP. short stack nit playing too big, still calls too much

V2 ($2500): BU. kind of a wild card player, does not generally bloat pots pre and gets in there with some weird hands. Gives a lot of info about his hand pre with his variable sizings and limps. More aggressive post than 90% of players in this pool.

9 handed

$20 Button straddle on in this hand. Action starts on the SB.

Sb folds, bb folds, I make it $50 with 65dd. I’ll be the first to admit this is a little light, especially with the straddle on making effective stacks shallower. This is the worst suited connector I’m raising from this position. I feel like I can get away with it in this game because it is playing very passive pre. I choose the $50 sizing to keep ranges wide and stacks maneuverable.

V1 calls in MP, V2 calls closing the action on the button and says “i’m just calling to break you two”

Flop ($165) 6h5s3d

Cool. I flop an unlikely top two in a spot where I raised EP and people are unlikely to think I interact with this board much.

I’m first to act. This is not a board I’m betting super often with my UTG range, but I do have all of the sets, overpairs, and 65s. Don’t have the straights. I feel like I want to bet larger with my overpairs and strong hands on this low dynamic board. I bet 1 black chip ($100). V1 folds quickly.

V2 on the button announces “$500” and throws out five blacks. Leaving about 2k behind.

Hero??

Thoughts:

V2’s range

Closing the action on the button straddle with the speech “I’m just calling to break you”, V2 has a wide range here. Does it include 74s? Maybe? Probably doesn’t include the offsuit variety.

I think he also has 53s and 63s for worse 2 pair. Probably not the offsuit combos. Could also have 65 for a chop.

V2 can have all of the sets, but I block 66 and 55, leaving only 1 combo of both available to V2. There are 3 combos of 33.

V2 has a lot of pair plus draws and I do think he is calling most of the offsuit connectors here like 45, 67, 34, possibly even 32.

Finally, v2 has some overpairs like 77-99. I do think he’s squeezing with TT+ the vast majority of the time. But like I said in OP, he seems to play passive with these types of hands pre and doesn’t like to bloat a pot pre.

Sizing:

The 5x raise in position is just screaming “go away” and feels like he’s going for protection with a vulnerable value hand or trying to get me off a lot of overcards and overpairs that I have raising from UTG.

Table talk:

When he announces $500, I act surprised and exclaim his name in a questioning voice. He holds his hand over the muck and he says “Just fold your shitty hand and let’s go on to the next one”. I sit there for a while and think. He repeats “just fold your hand and let’s go on to the next one”

What to do??

Feels like all 3 options are in play here. Give him credit for a straight or a set and fold. Call to keep his bluffs in and see if he’ll barrel off. Ship it for max value against worse 2 pair and overpairs and charge draws the max to see all 5 cards.

That being said, I don’t love calling out of position because if I call and the turn comes a brick, V2 can check back with a lot of his bluffs for a free card and realize his equity.


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Preflop whatever, but it sounds like you know your Vs so here we are.

Flop: We're probably only betting our vulnerable mid-pairs like 77-JJ and A4s with bdfd.

For this reason, we are now in a leveling war because V2 knows H has 77-JJ in range given preflop action and knows our flop betting range is pretty concentrated to those hands or semi-bluffs like A4s. His raise says that he can beat a midpair. And we block all the sets except 33 and V has very few straights here. He should want to keep our bluffs in.

I cannot find a fold here. His semi-bluffs are A4s/A2s/A7s/44. He can have something like TT-QQ which needs to deny equity against our AK/AQ etc. If he has 33, it's a cooler.

Pot is 765 after V2 bet. If we just call, it's hard to manage the turn because he's so wide. If we jam, we fold his air and semi-bluffs, which I think are a lot of his range here. I guess I'm leaning towards a jam hoping he has to call off his TT+ at ~3-2.

Solid analysis. You’re absolutely right on my flop betting range and I would mostly check with my higher overpairs that need less protection.

It’s also worth noting that this player thinks I’m full of **** most of the time. It’s not out of the question that he thinks that I’m betting with random overcards.


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If he thinks you're FoS, then this raise size means he most likely has something vulnerable, like just 1 pair (3x suited, etc). I would think anything stronger than 1 pair he would raise smaller to keep in all your "****."

1. Fold, too nitty.
2. Call. Once you call he will know you have at bare minimum a pair, like 44+. If he is competent, he can barrel a lot of turn cards to target your single pair (any straightening card to rep 2pr+ and any overcard to put pressure on all pairs below the overcard).
3. Raise all in. Deny equity to pair + straight draws and higher 2 pair draws. But it also feels like an overplay @250BBs deep. The result is you win what is in the middle now, or get stacked by a cooler. The good things is you have outs against a cooler, unless against 66.

I would rip it all in while we are most likely ahead and deny that 20-30%~ equity. I'm not worried about folding out his air because we will be in absolute no man's land in later streets unless we improve.

Why aren't we betting our sets (except for 6s), two pairs and strong straight draws? That's how you protect your overpairs!

I do think we are betting less on this board since it's multiway and doesn't favor our range.

Btw, I don't mind the 65s raise, but you should be raising the same amount you would with all of your hands. Moreover, since this is a Button straddle, 50 is too low, because you are giving him odds to defend very very wide and live players don't need much excuse to call.

Even if you raise to 90, it's still alright IMO, because you are sitting at $2500 effective.

"Flop: We're probably only betting our vulnerable mid-pairs like 77-JJ and A4s with bdfd."

I think we're in agreement. I only omitted them because we don't have as many, and when we do, we'd rather xr them. H c-bet right out here.

Open sizing 65 min - 80 Being so deep.

Your read villain is a wild one... I think that's says it all. Not that he can't ever flop big but if he did you're just gonna have to charge it to the game. Vs said aggressive flop villain who's range is wide and in position you're gonna be doing alot of check/calling turns and river after his flop aggression.

I flat flop to keep bluffs in. check/calling turn n river as well unless they are really bad turn n river cards.

I think your flop analysis to bet larger is flawed tho... With our biggest pairs that need less protection we can bet smaller to keep a calling range wider. You gone be better larger with your top two, set and 7's to j's you're capping your range to never have A's K's n Q's. An aggressive Villian can really exploit you.

Also I don't kno how we can have all the sets on that board.

Regarding preflop sizing: my general strategy facing a straddle in a 5-10 game (where my standard open is 30), is to raise to 50. Now that I'm thinking about it though, I think I want to go to 60 facing a button straddle and keep the $50 sizing for the UTG straddle. This way I can incentivize the UTG straddle to stick around with any 2 (a range which I obviously crush) and charge the Button straddle a little more if he wants to play in position.

This is why I like these hand discussions, it gives me an opportunity to think about why I'm doing the things that I'm doing.

Regarding flop cbet strategy: I'm running into this issue a lot where I have a medium to strong hand on a board that doesn't favor my range out of position multiway. I think I'm going to default to a split strategy based on the type of game that I'm in. Where players in the game are defaulting to a passive strategy, i.e. over calling and under bluffing, I want to bet my strong hands on bad boards. In games where players are more aggressive, I think I gain more EV by strengthening my check range with some calls multiway (with like top pair or on over pair, for example) and throwing in some check raises with my sets, 2p, etc.

I play a lot with this stupid button straddle unfortunately, I think your open size is ok from early position. You get 3bet quite a bit and regarding BTN it's kind of whatever, they're going to call too many hands vs any sizing. With 2.5x and villain description his range is very close to atc. You almost never take it down pre in this structure anyway so you might as well make him call all sorts of dominated trash. This dynamic doesn't work in favour of 65s ofc, but not going to hate on the open much.

I get that you rather play an unsound strategy cbetting your strong hands on bad boards because villains are passive, but I don't know why you apply it here. He is aggro, has an insane wide range with some nutted hands you don't have, but also infinite potential spew bluffs, that are essentially drawing dead. I'd just check/call down on basically any runout. First I wanted to x/r, but now that I think about it it shuts down his nonsense bluffs and you just let him finally fold T7 or random Q8 that's stabbing. Also, I wouldn't be too happy about stacking off otf but we just can't fold.

I think your flop sizing is quite bad vs somewhat competent villains. You're repping mostly pps that want to bet for protection, but they definitely don't want to bloat the pot oop, because they will be put in horrible spots on straight completing or board pairing runuots. If you went for the cbet, 1/3 is the way. It still folds out hands like JT that has 6 outs vs 77-99, but things don't get out of hand that much.

AP I'd flat and xrai non disgusting turns, just to let him hang himself. It's a reasonable spot for villain to go for it and try to make you fold an overpair. Shoving is decent too, you can get called by worse and it's ok result if he lets go of a naked 4. Folding is out of the question ofc.

id check flop but now just call. also i dont think the logic for betting large on this board really makes sense given situation / positions or in general. i wouldnt actually do it in practice but if you're terrified hes going to check the turn w his bluffs after raising the flop you can lead brick turns

Not disagreeing with you necessarily, just giving you my general strategy:

When I play a low frequency bet strategy on a certain board, I want to bet a larger amount. This is because I want to pile money in with my low frequency very strong hands (like the sets and top 2) and I want max fold equity with my bluffs (like 78s, A4s, etc.) Maybe not the best board for this specific strategy in hindsight (I think I prefer a flush draw on the flop so I can bomb it with my nut flush draws), but that's what I was thinking about at the time.


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Fold pre especially at low depths.

Bet flop the same amount as you would with AA/KK. I like the size you chose. He feels very strong when he raises an uncapped range represented by a large multi-way bet to a large size of 5x AND he’s announcing it. He has you crushed or he has 40% equity at minimum. Folding flop would be too nitty but I’m proceeding with caution. Raising to this flop action would be a major mistake imo. He never has worse value.

About pre, I will say unless you are way more skilled than your opponents, or there is a whale in the game, the suited connectors below T9s are just not going to play well from out of position, especially in loose live games, especially when you open to such a small size which will incentivize multiway action. I think this is not a very close spot and you should fold pre. Knowing the straddle is sticky just makes me want to dump speculative hands all the more. You need to generate some fold equity postflop for suited connectors to be profitable, and that fold equity just doesn’t materialize in multi-way pots, which your small open raise sizing has encouraged.

Also, I would say sizing pre is a bit small considering the straddle can enter the pot so cheaply with position postflop. I think you want to open larger when you are out of position to a blind, similar to how we 3bet to a larger size from the blinds than from the BTN — that is partly because raising larger from OOP reduces postflop SPR, which in turn negates positional disadvantage. We are pretty deep here at 140Straddles versus the table (and 120Straddles versus the sticky BTN). We don’t have to size down to improve maneuverability, or whatever.

Flop I would typically bet smaller given multi-way, maybe around 30% pot. Most opponents these days are aware enough to recognize that large bets in multi-way pots generally represent strong ranges, but YMMV. If there’s some competitive dynamic between you and the BTN the larger sizing can be fine.

Facing the raise it sucks that you lose to so many combos of straights — 74s is an auto-call for me on the BTN closing the action for $30 in a pot of $135. Live players probably show up wider with 74o and 42s here because you raised so small, and they justify the call because they have the BTN and are closing the action. Given you have shown a propensity to open wide in UTG, and V is apparently trying to bust you, he could be very wide in this spot.

And it sucks he raises after you make such a strong bet multi-way. Your flop bet is polarizing to strong overpairs and bluffs, and his flop raise should be polarizing to hands that can beat overpairs and bluffs. Unless the guy is really special he should not be piling it in here with a medium pp at 15 flop SPR.

But, we obviously can’t fold — he can definitely have some draws and some combos of worse value (63/53). Raising will fold out the draws. I prefer a call.

If you wanted to rep 2+ for some reason then you should at least pot it. But it makes zero sense to do that in this spot, BB have many missed hands but a big nut advantage, you piling the money just works in his favour. Just because you bet rarely, you don't have to go big.

Nice post. Lots to consider.

I agree with you on preflop. I do vary my range a lot depending on the game I’m in. For example, I was in a 5-T game at the Bellagio last weekend with all aggressive pros and mostly shallow stacks. In that games I snap mucked hands like AJo and pocket 5s utg. I would definitely fold 65s in that game. Here, meh, these guys are mostly 2-5 players and I want to get in there and mix it up with people who don’t want to lose their stack.

The other point to consider is the frequency of the straddle in this game. This game was definitely not one of those games where the $20 is on all the time. It was on sporadically and only by certain players. I think the straddle in this game has the nervy shortstackers playing too tight.

As for sizing, yeah, I wish I went bigger here. I like 60 or maybe even 75 to disincentivize MW or button shenanigans. However, as mentioned above, I think at a certain point if my preflop sizing is too big, im narrowing the fields range down to super strong hands that can’t fold post because SPR is too low.

I think we disagree on buttons range. I still think he’s folding a small percent of his range. I think he probably has 74s for $50. I still don’t think he has 74o. I don’t think he has 42s or 42o.

So, yeah, I’ll give him credit for 4 combos of straights here. Add that to the 5 combos of sets and I’m losing to 9 combos. We could call it 12 combos and give him some very low frequency 74o or 42s.

As you said though, his range is wide. He can have a lot of worse vulnerable value hands that outnumber the combos that beat me. For example, I think he has at least 24 combos of overpairs 77-TT. Not to mention worse 2 pairs and all of the bluffs that I’m beating.


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About the preflop range, I just think the borderline hands we have in mind are a bit different. I would consider 74s a standard call OTB closing the action for $30, given the pot odds, probably near the bottom of my own range. The offsuit stuff should be folded, but people play too loose. There’s even a thread here where GG, who is one of the tighter players on the forum, advocates limping behind on BTN in a multi-way pot with 74o at 1/3: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...=#post57999119 .

Hard to know how other people think, but anyway, you know the guy, so I won’t argue the point.

I am really doubtful the guy is raising 5x over a 2/3psb cbet with 77-JJ. That’s an incredibly large raise sizing. If he were going to raise a medium pocket pair, I’d think he’d make it $300 or so. That’d still an overplay considering you cbet so large, but, somewhat more consistent with a weak hand that just wants protection versus your high cards.

Anyway, maybe you can give him a partial number of combos of an overpair, if you really think he’d 5x it with those hands.

Even then, I think it’s not so relevant to the decision point—- if you 3b flop you are taking such a strong line that you should fold out all his overpairs . Maybe he GII with some 54/64s type hands (you also block those), along with 9 combos of sets/straights and 2 combos of worse two-pair. I think his GII range has you in somewhat poor shape, so, I’m still inclined to flat flop.

Thanks for responses all. Results:

Best case scenario. I three bet ship the flop. He quickly calls.

I say what do you have? “He says I just have two pair” and shows me the 63ss. I flip over the 65dd and he’s dead to 2 outs. Wow. Run it twice and boards are both clean. Ship the 5k pot in a super sketchy spot. Happy birthday to me.

Anyways. I don’t know. I didn’t play the hand great. Big sizings by both of us on the flop led to a weird SPR. I’m often drawing slim against a straight or a set when all of the money goes in obviously. I win a lot when he folds out bluffs and overpairs, which is fine. It would have been extremely hard to realize my equity on a ton of runouts. Rarely will I actually get called by worse when I ship it. Luckily, I did this time.

He said he called because I could still have overpairs.


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look at the board. you dont have anything and the board is going to change over the course of the hand in a way thats going to be bad for you. you dont want to isolate him into just continuing with a strong range. it makes more sense to bet big on boards they are capped / rarely have a strong hand on. both players probably have more sets than you, and button for sure has a large nut advantage on this board. i think range check makes the most sense from a strategy perspective