1/2. Hero is the small stack with 355.

V1 UTG loose passive in a suit stressed out from work. As he drinks beer, he feels better.

V2 UTG+1 loose passive but also a thinking player who showed after laying down AcQc against a raise by V4 on the river with a runout of 7cKcJh8cKs—that is, he laid down the A-high flush after the board paired.

V3 LJ loose passive calling station.

V4 CO Foxwoods dealer, showed KJs after V2 folded his AQs. He’s also showed his cards when he bluffed another hand. Most dealers are better than he.

Hero BB 55 years old but looks 35, nerdy glasses, TAG but no one is paying attention.

OTTH

V1 raises to 15. V2, V3, and V4 call. SB folds. Hero with AcJc calls.

Flop (67 after rake) As7c5s

Hero checks. Vs all check

Turn (67) 3h

Hero bets 40. V1 folds. V2 calls. V3 and V4 fold.

River (167) 9s

Hero?

b/f 75

I don't like calling with AJs from a blind but your getting great odds after a raise and 3 calls. So call and hope for flop good enough or bad enough you know where stand.
Flop lands you clearly in the twilight zone and is clearly a check. When V1 doesn't c-bet and nobody else steps in your situation looks better. There is much less chance of AK/AQ/two pair. Turn bet on a brick is pretty mandatory.
On the river bet/fold. Yes V2 can have a flush or AQ and there is some chance of other hands. Villain can also have a worse AX and lower pairs. I like something in the $50 - $75 range. AQ is the only better hand that might fold so your not trying to pressure out hand, your trying to get called by worse.

What is V2’s stack?

Because V2 shouldn’t have many offsuit Ax calling next to act after a UTG open, and he likely bets a lot of his Ax on the flop, I would just check/fold. You could also bet small, like $50, and fold to a raise.

V2 covers hero, maybe 550

Bet flop.

As played mostly check river but block bet is an option.

I'd bet $50 and fold to a raise, hard to get value from worse aces here as most have 2 paired up. A smaller bet might bet looked up by 7x, maybe 9x if he peeled w/a gutter

Hero has often read “good poker is aggressive poker,” but when hero called pre and checked the flop with TPGK, he wondered, what’s wrong here, the hero or the aphorism?

I’d go with check/fold or bet/fold $40 or even less.

I read it incorrectly as loose aggro initially, but against loose passive, this is just a pretty crap spot. Don’t think V is calling with worse against anything bigger than $60.

It's a good idea when your heads up or deciding if you should raise/call. At low stakes you will end up in these multiway pots with meh made hands that make evaluating where things stand hard. Aggression in these situations is often firing blind, you don't know how many good hands might be out there and how many bad hands might call. Your hand has showdown value but if the pot is big it's probably not the winning hand. Maximizing your EV in these situations involves getting money in the pot while keeping the pot small enough that villains call with lots of worse hands.

I'd 3bet here at least half the time preflop.

Lot's of dead money and we have good card removal. And hand doesn't play bad heads up if we get one caller. If we get 4 callers to the 3bet, might have to ship or call off this flop. But you'll usually either take the pot down or go heads up when you 3bet to around $100.



As played, check flop. Not sure why anyone would donk this flop into 4 people. There are lots of sets and 2p that will be in the cumulative calling range you're facing. Plus combo draws that might want to go nuts on this flop.


Turn bet is fine.


River, I'd likely check/call reasonable bets. We are fine taking this pot down for the amount it's at after going to a 5 way flop and only having top pair.

As QuadJ writes, the 3! pre in certain games may be more profitable but also has more variance. Enough of these passive are calling with AQ or small and medium pairs that hero is mostly behind. Hero profits only because these Vs might fold with better. But a raise to around 80 pre bloats the pot and leaves only one bet left, and a single bullet folds out worse with less force than two or three. This makes flop decisions super hard. At my skill level, I prefer the passive line. I like checking the flop because hero got information without paying.

What a primo squeeze spot pre. As played I check river, everything got there.

3b and reducing the spr oop will make the hand really easier to play.

This is a slam dunk 3b pre.

AP b/f 75

3bet pre all day.

As played, bet/fold ~$75.

Results

Hero checked the river. V checked. Hero showed his top pair. V scooped the pot with 5d3d.

Hero thought V was a better player with a range around ATo-AQo, A5s, A7s, A9s, maybe some other cards. Maybe a bet on the river would fold out 53, but probably not.

Don’t you think hero is way behind the raising range of the UTG? Loose passives who open 7.5 BB UTG, ones who with worse hands always limp, are on TT+, AT+. Why do you want to isolate such a UTG with AJs?

Not until you see quite a few shown down hands to be confident. Otherwise, it's just assumptions. And you want to ISO because our AJs still has more equity against UTG's single range, than the collective range of 4.


For example, against TT+, ATs+, KQs, ATo+, KQo you are 45% (and there's going to be dead money in pot)


Against the typical 30% or so loose passive calling ranges with 4 villains, you drop down to 20%.



Not to mention, flopping TP with either A or J.....against that collective range, is going to put you in spots like this. It's been shown and harped on time and time again that taking passive lines is not the best way to beat passive players.

And this is why I'm always on my soap box about playing closer to a solid balanced theoretical game until you have the required information to make exploits.



Exploits like playing AJs passively in a squeeze spot shouldn't be made on general assumptions. All the descriptions you listed for V's aren't really any good until you have enough actual data to back it up.

Also, might want to adjust what you consider a "better player." If V was better player, he would be 3betting with some of the hands you listed in his range. Not flatting in +1 to allow the rest of table to start a calling
spree.



Good check on river though. Against the combined ranges, TP good kicker isn't a value bet here.

Can anyone favoring a 3! pre answer my question?

Our hand has far more equity hu than multi-way. With the betting lead we are going to over realize our equity as he’s going to be in tough spots with TT or AQ and there are plenty of hands we are ahead of.

Also with a big squeeze we are going to gobble up and win pre a lot.

In other words, when a loose passive forks bets and makes his large bet only 20 percent of the time, one should proceed cautiously. In this hand, ending the preflop action with a call also conceals an excellent hand, since even bad players know a villain calling in the blinds has a wide range.

I agree squeezing becomes less attractive if we have seen villain open to 10 or less frequently.

[QUOTE=OmahaDonk;58122904 there are plenty of hands we are ahead of. .[/QUOTE]

Which ones?

89 9T TJ JQ QK JK TQ and suited aces