It's seven handed. I do this sometimes even nine handed because I'm seen as tight. I'll raise a marginal hand from EP. Usually I get folds, and when I get called, they almost never put me on 34s, etc., and I can play my hand perfectly.

As to this turn, I can go either way. If he's been at all station-y, check.

34 is way to loose open from UTG. It doesent really matter what your reasoning is to do it, its still -EV to open this wide UTG. Hand selection preflop is something that many players think they can do whatever they want basically, and its still being fine. Its really not.

If you want to sometimes balance out a tight opening range from early pos for x amount of reasons i get that, but its alot better hands to choose for this purpose than a hand like 34.

He said UTG +1 or MP, seven handed. It works for me. Sometimes I don't even look at my hand. (This is not vs. unknowns.)

Lol, its works for me. Samplesize, resultoriented short term thinking and all that kind of stuff. I am thinking fish pretty quickly if i see stuff like that played from early pos in a full ring game.

Its a losing play to open that kind of garbage from early pos, its all i am telling you. Basic hand selection knowledge doesent go out the window just because you want to raise it up with 43.

At full ring you can throw in some combos of 78s or 89s if the table is allowing you to do so (low amount of 3 betting for example), but 4 high is just way too wide from early pos.

Seriously there’s no justifying opening 43s from EP. if someone is shown to be opening that from EP, this is far, far more valuable information than any wall of text player description that often is used in this forum.

Just because he might be thinking coherently postflop doesn’t make him any less of a fish that you’d want to attack here. When you’re playing way looser than equilibrium, it really doesn’t matter how “well” you play, someone 3 betting you with a well constructed and significantly stronger range is going to obliterate you.


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Not saying this to you specifically, but positions should be relative to BU, not UTG. UTG+1 7-handed is just the LJ.

You don’t need to loosen up 7-handed. Play the same ranges for the same positions.

43s isnt even a standard open from the BU. From LJ there’s almost no benefit to playing it over other hands. You’re having no problem on A25 as PFR, on 33x/22x A3s/A2s smash and are stronger opens, and overpairs are really strong on low paired boards anyway. On any low boards you aren’t expected to have hit you can have sets. On monotone boards you have tons of better flushes. There’s no benefit to have 43s for deception when other hands do the same thing better. With 43s you’re mostly only flopping bottom pair, nut low flush draws and non nut straight draws, if you’re lucky enough to flop anything.

It doesn’t matter if you have a handle on your table. Like 40-50% of hands are better candidates to get funky.

It helps to know your opponents. If someone is 3betting, I don't open lightly, and with my image, if I open EP, they think I have a big hand almost always. They are rarely going to see my hand, and if they do, it's because I won the hand I mean, I do this once a session. LOL. It's not every other orbit.

I'm just saying that because you saw someone open one time from EP in a seven handed game with 34s doesn't mean they are loosey goosey! Maybe they were board and did it once because they hadn't raised in three orbits? Who knows?

Edit: As stated, I do it blind sometimes. It doesn't always matter what your cards are, but I realize most of you play more by the book than I do And I know most of my opponents pretty well.

Smart to say we dont know our opponents as good as you do. For the record i played 1500 hours+ in 2020 alone. Most of them with the same group of 20-30 players in different homegames.

My speciality is actually knowing my opponents inside out. Everyone of them. But that doesnt magically make 4 high open from early pos +EV.

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If your point was that seeing someone get out of line once doesn't mean they're loose overall then I completely agree. People sometimes do things that seem out of character.

What your cards are is pretty important in this game. There's no strategic reason to open blind. There's little reason to play 43s and fold 98s, or more generally prefer a worse hand over a better one, and there are a lot of hands better than 43s. In some preflop spots a weaker hand can outperform a strong one due to range interactions, but opening isn't one of them because no ranges are defined yet.

I do goofy stuff for fun sometimes if it's the right kind of table. If you like to derp around every once in awhile for fun that's great, but it's not good strategy.

Alright, seems like this thread is going in a different direction than I was hoping for.


Is anyone leaning shoving over checking on the turn for any reason?

Ap, hero shoved as planned.

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Yeet the stack.

seriously how did you expect it to go?

you: ok now I'm here how do I play it.

the point is you should NEVER EVER be here to begin with.


as played I check/fold ; pick up my remaining chips and go home as my A,B, and C game have already left the building.

I did answer you. If he's at all station-y, check, if not, a bet is fine. I'm not sure I shove, but it might have more FE and I don't have a problem with it. If you are planning to gii regardless, I think a trappy looking bet might be better, say $250 -$275. It looks scary since he knows you're committed and a shove might look a little bluffy. If he shoves, you can call (it was your plan, anyway), and if he flats, you get to see a river.

Edit: If you would shove w/ KK, TT, AK or AA, then shove.

Shove isn't necessarily terrible but at every step you took the rare option not the standard play. Preflop the occasional light 3 bet is fine against most opponents. On the flop the c-bet on a pretty ugly board is something you should do but rarely. Turn shove should be even less common unless villain is particularly timid.

The thing on the turn is that villain was likely expecting a shove. If villain was paying attention they would be aware that shoving was your only bet. They would have had some idea what they planned for the turn before calling the flop. This wouldn't always be a call, it's possible they had something like AT or QT and called to see if you would continue or turn would help them. Some of the calls though where just giving you a chance to bluff off the rest of your stack.

I make it $90 pre. $100 is fine. $125 is large IP, but it’s fine.

I don’t love bluffing this texture, especially when we are targeting a strong range due to our show down value, but if you have a solid image and he’s wide pre I would mix in some bets here with your hand. He will connect with this board reasonably often but the K is good for us and can help us get some folds vs pairs. I would randomize some bets and checks here unless I have a live read or game flow reason to do one or the other. I would make it $100 if I bet. I wish I had a more clear answer on bet vs check but it’s just a close spot and you can’t really go wrong.

If I bet the flop, I’m going to be betting this turn very often. I’m betting the flop because he has marginal holdings that I can potentially pressure. That doesn’t change when he calls a small ish sizing and a brick comes out that also improves our equity.

Just to weigh in on the preflop debate, I’m not opening 34s +2 unless I am in an amazing unicorn of a game where I can play circles around everyone. If the stars align and it’s like all nits on my left and whales in the blinds then fine.