Villain: White guy in mid 40's, capable of weird bluffs with hands with showdown value. Opens light especially in later positions/limps basically every other hand. One hand limped raised KK utg. Another hand i opened 7x on the btn with QQ and he calls in the SB along with other 2 players. Donk leads half pot on AA2(2 clubs) flop into 3 other players with what he said later was 88. Stack: ($500)
Hero: Mid 20's asian guy, been pretty tight all night. Tangled with villain one hand a few orbits ago losing a 130BB+ pot where i triple barelled a Q high flush draw on a 7 high flop and comes running A then K and get a river rejam by villain. Image is slightly damaged from that hand. Stack ($600)

OTTH: Two limpers in and Hero decides to get tricky with AA in the cutoff by limping it. Villain on the button has a tendency to squeeze the button light, as well as the villain in the SB but he wasn't involved in this hand.

Villain opens on the button to $15, blinds fold and one limper calls and it's back to Hero who 3bets to $75(Discouraging set mine odds, extracting value with the current nuts) Fully expecting a call here from this Villain type. Villain calls and limper folds and it's heads up to the flop. Pot ($172)
Flop: A 9 2
Hero cbets $70, Villain tanks for 2 seconds before reraising to $175. Hero?

Um what?

Pot has $425.
Villain only has $250 left to call, and when we shove, pot will be $775 with him getting ~3:1 on a call.
Seems like a pretty easy ship here.

He obviously folded to the ship, but that doesn't mean that it's the wrong play.

I guess you could call and check the turn if you think he'll bluff at it with a wide range but I'd hate to give him a chance to take a free card off and make a flush. If you were on the button I'd be more into calling but you're not. Being oop blows. He's already put half his stack in I'd just gii on the flop and be happy if he calls and happy if he folds.

If we 3b shove --- V is folding all his bluffs and calling with flush draws and sets only. Ax is obv unlikely.

If we call (and check turn) --- Our hand is face up as AA/AK, and all his bluffs are giving up. Also, if the turn isn't a diamond, he gets to see a free river with his flush draws.

However, as he's giving up with his bluffs once we call flop, and given the stack sizes, he's never folding his flush draws to a flop 3bet regardless, so why give him an opportunity to save his money when he whiffs turn/whiffs river and checks behind?

Shove.

I'd make it $275. If you call he's going to shut down if he doesn't have AK/AQ/set/FD anyway, and he might just check down AK/AQ given how the action went. limp/raise pre + bet/call flop = AQ minimum, he should realize that if he's not a total idiot.

There are literally zero bad turn cards. Even if the turn is a diamond you still have the nutty mcnuts redraw.

Grunch


You have the nuts and V has now put in $250. Unless V has a history of hero folding after putting in 1/2 his stack, I'm just jamming here.

Easiest shove ever.

Being deep and expecting there is a decent chance someone else raises, I have zero problem with getting tricky preflop as it's the only way to setup an easy-to-play SPR postflop. If table is tighter / less raisey, I mostly just raise it myself.

With it just going 3ways, I think we have two options after the raise. We could just flat and play an SPR 10ish pot OOP, which wouldn't be horrible, especially if there is a really good chance Villain folds to our 3bet. Otherwise, if we're taking the 3bet route, I love our sizing. Ended up with a super nice result (a much better one than raising ourselves), imo, even though you'll most likely get a lotta flack for it.

SPR is 2.5, so can trivially gets stacks in postflop. Almost a little unlucky that we flopped top set as now it might be unlikely we get action. The board does have a flush draw, at this point it might just be worth it to bet just in case they have that, cuz we're unlikely to get much action from anything else. As played, awesome that we got raised. Trouble is that we're OOP and the gig might be up if we just flat, and we allow him a free card if he's on a draw. I probably just shove it in at this point and hope he's got Ax/99/22 that can't fold before the draw gets there.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This is a massive leak. Throw SPR out the window. You are destroying everyone else's range and you probably earn more than $1 on every dollar called preflop. Like, if you raise $20 and get 2 callers, your ev on the hand is >$40 right there. You will just about never have the chance to make that kind of earn at a poker table.

ap I guess just rip it in, you're already super polarized with the weird preflop line and half his chips are in the pot already, he has to put you on exactly AA to fold and if you're spazzing like that with AA you could be doing the same with a lot of other hands.

In this case here, which sounds like it was semi-expected, Hero setup a trivially easy-peasy-to-play postflop spot *and* maximized EV at the same time. As opposed to raising to $20, getting 2 callers (one who has position deep and is tricky) for only 4% of stacks preflop while having 96% of stacks left to deal with postflop in an SPR 8 spot.

Calling this a massive leak is a huge overstatement, at best.

GimoG

You can fold AA to postflop action

or you can get in a lot of money super good if it's remotely possible another player can get a deep stack in with a worse hand

or you can just valuebet streets in position which is how it's going to play out nearly always

You're advocating passing on one of the most profitable value raises there is just to avoid the possibility of having to make a decision.

I just don't understand how you can't see OPs line as being the trivially optimal line this deep with 2 active openers behind him still to act. He got in huge 15% of stacks plus dead money and setup a trivial postflop spot. If his table is anything like mine, I'd go so far as to say his preflop line is pretty much a no brainer.

ETA: My limp/reraise line gets a lotta flack, but I really think it just comes down to the game I play in. I often get *multiple* callers to my limp/3bet; I can think of two recent spots where I limp/reraised in EP and got 3 callers in one case and 2 callers in another. If you're playing at a table like this, it just really is a no brainer to always limp/raise your big hands, almost regardless of position. If your table doesn't play like this, well, obviously it's not as attractive an option.

Gwe'llagreetodisagreeG

Depends how often you're getting raised and how many ways that raise is getting called. EP is a lot different and if l/rring always gets 60bb in the pot somehow then can't argue with that.

being in the CO, my guess is not very often. Even if there is a habitual button raiser behind you, if he's not raising hands as weak as Q3s or T7o, then 60% of the time he doesn't raise.

That's fair enough, but it sounds like between the CO and SB we can still expect a raise a decent amount of the time. I admittedly don't overlimp big hands too often in LP, but if I was going to, this seems like the perfect conditions for it.

Even if the "worst" case scenario happens and it limps thru, this doesn't mean it's -EV; we still win money in these scenarios too (and I think you'd be hard pressed to prove we win less on average in these spots than in a raised pot, although I wouldn't necessarily argue against you either).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Call and x/c his shove OTT.

Whether or not he has the case ace, the pot's going to be too big for him to check back, which means we can basically entrap the rest of his stack by simply calling and putting him in a very awkward spot.

Shoving flop has a greater chance of getting V to not put any more money in the pot than calling flop and checking the turn. It's close to a toss-up in that case between checking the turn and shipping the turn, but either way the chance of villain not folding goes way, way, WAY up when we see a turn with more play left.

I think you should shove flop or flat and then lead turn. You simply cannot let the flush draws see a free river and then fold. Chance of him improving on a turn with a hand that fold on the flop are very small (he has to hit a 2 or 3 outer). So if he has lots of flush draws, shoving flop is best, if he's low on flush draws just flat and then lead shove turn.

What range do you think he calls a 3bet click it back with that won't call a 3bet shove?

Esp one that is only $150 more.

I don't want him to call, I want him to shove so that he has to show first. But if he calls that's fine.

Yeah, agreeing with what everyone said. He has put in half his stack so getting 3:1 if i was to shove all flush draws will call. 99/22 will call too obviously.
The issue is if he is turning JJ/TT into a bluff or finding out where he is with AQ and smaller Aces that isn't two pair i'm allowing him the possibility of hero folding. Flatting and checking the turn, lets flush draws see free rivers.
Just would suck if i flat and a diamond turn comes and A9/A2/22/99 becomes timid now. Dont mind if it comes diamond turns and he does have like KQ or like JT, as we have a nut redraw.
I Like the idea of flatting and leading turns, as long as i don't range him on air bluffs.

Results: I tanked and bought time charge twice (1min) and eventually rejammed flop. Villain buys time once and makes the call, i flip over the nuts and he cringes and says he is drawing dead. Went to muck his cards but showed the bottom one to the table being the Case Ace.

You're not thinking about the disastrous and common situation of when it just limps around after we overlimp CO and we've just missed out on $20+ pre and decreased our equity.
OP even says V will limp fairly often.
Barring a drunk idiot opening 100% blind behind us while NOT 3betting, limping just isn't correct.

To the OP: this is a trivial shove. If we were in position then we could consider a call as then we don't risk the turn checking through.

Not much of a "tank" is it????

Anyway easy peasy shove.

Your intuition here is askew. You actually may not 'still win money' over some significant sample when considering the impact limping AA in LP has on variance and what that might actually do to your overall EV w the hand compared to playing it for a raise.

You're either getting to showdown too often badly or not getting to showdown enough gladly...too much FE or not enough...and this doesn't even touch upon pot geometry, in-hand ranging/EV estimation, yada yada...

I've never limped aces in a cash game, ever.

If the right table dynamics are met, it isn't a bad idea.

congratulations, i'm sure your sample size is yuge also. that doesn't mean there isn't a time where it's warranted.

(ftr, i don't think this is one of them, but whatever)