Game is generally playing loose passive - 2/3/400.

UTG - $223. Too loose preflop but plays competently postflop. On the passive side. When I sat next to him, he showed me a few relatively disciplined sigh folds.

SB - $800ish. Older Asian who plays LAG. Not a maniac by any means, but I have seem him semi-bluff hands and bluff rivers. Typically will slow down when played back at and saw a few good folds.

I have LAG image with $450. On button I get dealt AJ

5 limpers. I make it $23. UTG and SB call and rest fold.

Flop: AT8

SB donks out $40. UTG calls. I call.

Turn: K SB checks, UTG goes all in for $160. While I am thinking, SB looks disgusted and seems like he wants to fold, but I am not positive of this.

Would love input on the three streets. Thanks.

I find preflop really tough in my game now, in that I'd typically have to raise a really large amount after 5 limpers to have any chance at thinning the field (thanks to the field being so loose), but at the same time there are passive players in the game who are limping decent hands here (such as dominating AK/AQ and bigger pairs). It's a real catch 22 and a hand like AJo in this spot is really giving me problems lately (although it's possible I'm just being short term results oriented, but I'm getting murdered with this hand as of late). In a lot of my games, I'd have to go $35+ in order to have a chance at thinning the field, which seems like too much with a hand that can easily be crushed by one of the limpers. Lately I've thought that overlimping in these spots can't be horrendous and simply using my position to play some postflop poker, although I'm not exactly in love with this idea either.

Kinda shocked that our raise was called by a blind and the first limper and yet we managed to get this 3ways (not a bad result); this would have went 6ways at my table for sure after the EP calls. However, it still results in a very gross spot, in that against the shorter stack we've got a lol SPR of ~2.5 with TP, so we should feel committed, and yet at the same time feel absolutely gross in doing so (especially since AT/A8 have also moved ahead). This is partly why I'm not convinced on preflop.

I mean, I think I just sigh fold the flop, and yet that doesn't seem great either. But what are we hoping happens on the turn? UTG will have << PSB left. Pot is getting fricken huge against SB. Are we just going to evaluate turn card / action and then make a decision (which will be for our stack against UTG, and will be facing a commitment decision against SB)?

As played, I probably sigh fold the turn, but again I'm feeling torn as on the flop we should feel committed against UTG and yet at the same time hate it.

GrethinkingpreflopG

SB most likely has TPWK. He bet out to protect his TP hand, but was unhappy when he got two callers. He properly figured out that someone else has a better TP hand. It gets worse for him because the UTG jams. The pot becomes protected and he isn't going to be able to bluff raise to push you out.

While the UTG jammed the turn, it is just a 80% PSB. When a passive player starts getting aggressive, TPMK doesn't look good. I'd let it go.

As long as you folded on the turn, you played this fine.

Dump it facing this action given reads+player to act (no matter what his dumb face is doing). You're ahead of a few hands, but not many, and you easily can be drawing to a 1 out chop.

What about the fact that we have no heart and no spade, making flush draws more likely? Our J blocks QJo hands (which may call flop given double gutter) but not having A or J of hearts/spades means hands like AXs and KJs type hands more likely. I know UTG was a little passive, but I felt like a flush draw was definitely possible here.

Is a call on the turn here that bad?

The SPR is ~2.5x vs. UTG with multiple draws out there. I would be looking to raise the flop and conditionally GII vs. UTG.

I don't see how the turn changes anything. He's got plenty of KX hands that can semi-bluff shove the turn to fold out our Ax, and if he somehow does have KT then we still have 12 outs to pull ahead.

More likely, yes. Significantly more likely, no. Passive players don't jam on a FD.

For me, it comes down whether the villain can jam in this situation A7. I don't think so.