Friday night a few weeks ago 1/2 table

H has built his stack up to 700 from 250 and is having a good session. H won most of this from a hand 30 minutes prior where he stacked someone with AA on a presumed TPTK situation.

V saw this hand. V is well dressed Asian man, who has been drinking, talking and enjoying himself. He lost about 150 an hour ago when he flopped trips against a better flopped trips in a limped pot. I think it was QJ vs Q8cc and flop was QQx. Rebought for 200 and has been around that since.

OTTH

V has about 250 total
H covers

H is in MP, V is in EP maybe UTG can't remember.

A limp by V, H makes it 20 with AKcc. Two callers, and V pulls the old l/rr to 125. The size of the two callers of the 20 are around the same.

Should H fold, call, or jam?

Folding seems to nitty, but we all know the l/rr is almost always QQ+. Calling would bloat the pot and almost makes certain that I call a shove if I hit any piece. Jamming seems like I am again lighting money on fire if its QQ+. Thoughts on this line of thinking?

Call, see if it won’t bring in the other two guys AK plays well multi-way for low SPR and you’ll be getting a good price to spike an A or K or big club draw if they flat behind.

If this is the first time you've seen it, just fold. Don't show.

I think calling is not a good idea. You would need some more preflop tendencies to find a super tight fold. Vs a reasonable range of JJ+/AK you are doing okay. Also there is dead money. Plus people sometimes mess around with pockets or Axs, especially after two calls.

Shove or fold. Personally, I probably shove if I'm in a gambling mood and fold if not. If it will tilt you to lose, fold.

Seriously, w/o more info, he could have TT+ (or worse), and I'm fine racing. I mean, the guy limped in w/ Q8 (unless he was blinds), and then lost $150 against what I'm sure was an obvious better Q.

Not closing the action, this is a little tougher spot than it appears at first.

We can call getting just under 2-1 in relative position against the gentleman gambler Villain. This seems okay against his range. If we jam, we offer V 3-2 on his call.

So are we better off taking ~2-1 or offering 3-2? (I'm assuming limpers are capped, likely to fold and won't squeeze us. We can and should debate the merit of this assumption!)

I think we're better off taking the ~2-1. We're probably getting the right price against his range and we're in relative position (6 overpair combos, 9 chops and 18 QQ-TT that we're racing with plus his air/spew). Jamming and offering him 3-2 allows him to play correctly - calling when he's ahead or racing, folding his air and inferior suited connectors etc.

So with no reads on limpers, I think it's a call.

Ship it in 100% of the time, the 40BBs of dead money out there make it a no-brainer.

I mean, do we really want to blow out the players behind us who have much worse hands than we do?

I get that a limp r/r is incredibly strong, but you are getting 1.75 to 1 in position on the l/raizer dude. - I kinda like a call here and then evaluate from there. If someone calls behind us to bloat the pot, all the better as I think the flop with be pretty easy to play given the likely jam.

I like AK heads up, but not multiway, especially considering the hands these guys might call with -- and being OOP to them.

Ship it. Blockers to AA and AK. Dead money. You can't call and fold the flop. No one is calling $20 and then calling a $100+ re-raise. So, the pot is already essentially head's up.

H elects to just make the call. All others fold.

Flop (300ish)

V has about 150ish left and open jams on the following run out

AdKs8c

H has to call right?

Unless he shows you his set of Aces or Kings, this is an absolute snap call for half pot in a 3bet pot. No need to think twice, this should be one of the easiest decisions you make all night.

If you're beat here it's a cooler. Yeah maybe you can make the super exploit fold pre-flop, but I wouldn't worry about this hand. Personally I would just shove pre-flop but either way it is what it is.

You also have about 4% equity against AA and a little more against KK, so every once in a while you can still win against a set here.

My only issue with this is if we call here villain will only have 75 left and the pot will be massive (especially if the CCs call after us). I think it’s shove or fold, personally.

Given the flop in the hand I snap ship it in. We lose to two combos and if we get coolered we get coolered.

Yes, call. If he has it, so be it. (I came extremely close to folding KK in this situation once, but didn't do it. Should have, but only because I knew the player so well. There was still a 1% chance he had AK.) Runner, runner clubs!

Lots of good comments .. most of them are 'right' .. it comes down to what you want to do as a Player

This game sounds pretty tight and you really don't give any reads. Players that sit on their stack for an hour and then all of a sudden pile in 50% of it are usually pretty strong, not sure if I even drop down to JJ/TT without some history or physical signs of frustration in previous hands. But a 'typical' Player as described might just have AJs IMO. Most Players get over a cooler/bad beat in an hour, so I don't think you'd see something way out of line here.

The one factor here briefly mentioned is the dead money. Players that have been snapped off will typically 'be happy' with just taking down pots without much of a fight .. and severely punish anyone who comes along. He can increase his stack by 30% without a Flop here and chalk it up as a win.

That said .. no one should fire off at you for a shove or flat here. Depending on the table I might flat here and try to build a pot as you're not going to lose any additional chips since any side pot will be pretty small. As described I don't think you'd see any callers unless they have TT+ themselves .. in my normal games I might see both of the other Players come along and we can play a big one.

AP you call it off and get to Showdown .. you do have backdoor flush and/or run-run chop Broadway and have AQ/AJ crushed. GL

fold pre to the l/rr it's always aces in a shallow 1/2 game. He just put in half his stack.