1/2

Cast

V1 (SB) Quite bad. Very loose preflop. Likes to call post flop as well, but not a complete drooler. The best I can say about him is that he's willing to put money in without the nuts. Along with that, he does not have a very good sense of relative hand s, trength or position. He looks like Ham from the Sandlot. Stack $250

V2 (MP) He sat down about an hour ago clearly stoned. He proceeded to 3 bet and call my 4 bet shove ($100) with A8ss. 3 hands later he called 3 barrels with tpnk and lost again. He went to the ATM and came back. Now he sits on $200. He looks like Jax Teller without the leather.

Hero (HJ) Strikingly handsome and dominating the table. Been tighter than all but a couple nits at the table but by far the most aggressive. Everybody knows me as a winner currently. Current state of the table in general is loose passive which I love. Stack ~$900

Hand

Preflop:
UTG straddles to $6. Jax calls. Hero raises AT to $24. Ham says "You're killing me Smalls," and calls. Folds to Jax who calls.

Flop: T64 ($80)
Ham donks $25. Jax calls. hero?

Making it like 65-70 assuming they won't fold their flush draw

I flat. Let Jax's worse fd hit and then we get his stack plus at least a turn bet from Ham. I don't think we're behind, I just want $ from both not one. I don't think Jax will fold a fd, but if we raise, we let Ham 3bet, which then I think would get Jax to fold.

I've raised in pos. for value in 3way pots and allowed the first guy to act (whose hand I was crushing) to reraise and scare out the 2nd guy.

I think that you have to raise now. Both players have already proven that they will call off with less than premium holdings, but they can't call if you don't bet. In addition to that, there are a bunch of cards that could come on the turn that wouldn't look great for you and it would be a shame to be facing an all in bet on the turn that could have you priced out (although you'd probably have to call anyway given player hx). A club could also kill the action on the turn from one or both players. I'd raise to $80 here, it gets both players to commit over half of their starting stack to the pot now, and sets up an easy all in (or call) on the turn.

Glad to see posts again, I always find them entertaining. (And fun to try to match the character descriptions with V's I know in that room.)

I'm torn between raising to about $60 and flatting. Raising is good if we think both of the villains will call thinking that we're FOS for being so aggro. But since we're IP flatting isn't bad either. I suspect Ham will donk $50 on nearly all turns, and we're probably raising/shoving all of them anyway. I expect Jax to flat Ham again on the turn, then when we raise he'll be getting what he thinks is a great price to chase with a hand that's drawing thin. So I lean towards flatting.



(This is exactly a spot where I expect to hit my FD on the turn, get all in, and have Justin pair the board and hand the pot to Ham's runner-runner boat.)

Obviously raise. Clubs kill your action against non fds, and you want to charge fd's the most when they think they have the most equity. You can't raise on cards J-A and expect V's to come along with worse. On top of that both of these players sound like they're ready to give you their money.
Don't be scared of Ham 3-betting because the stuck high meth-head station is putting his money in if he likes his hand regardless.


Raise now. Flatting is really bad.

Raise to 70. Too many action killers on the turn. This should set up a pot sized bet as all in on any turn

1 caller 208 pot
2 callers 278 pot

So the turn will kill action too often. So when we shove on any turn, what are we expecting to call? Turning our hand into a bluff?

Raise to $75 imo. If Ham shoves and stoner folds, then great, we've got 125bb in as (almost certainly) a favourite, I don't think we need to get too greedy worrying about the 75bb that stoner has left. If they both call it's a trivial shove on any turn card (pot $305, effective stacks $150), even if only Ham calls then pot is $255 with $150 stacks so again an easy turn shove.

I don't hate flatting, but I prefer the smallish raise.

If you raise here, please make it a shove. If you call, that puts $155 in the pot; Ham has about $150 behind and Jax about $200. It's not a gross overbet, plus when you make it that big there's a chance you get called by both: Ham could hero-call you with a worse T and Jax would call with worse flush draws if it's 3 ways. (Even if Ham folds, I've seen people in the spot Jax would be in call getting preposterously bad odds).

Calling isn't bad either for reasons others have mentioned, but I would not raise to an amount that isn't all-in.

Raising here will accomplish a few things:

- Get either (both) players to commit more money into the pot with their inferior draws; straight draws, flush draws, (lol) two pair draws, and whatever else they are holding before the turn comes and ruins all of their plans.
- Allows us to commit more money while we are a favorite in the hand.
- Makes it harder for them to fold their hand on the turn or the river when scare cards come in that might make them worry that they are not winning anymore.

From the descriptions, we don't have to worry about them folding here too often. If they were more competent, and the 'donk to see where I'm at' type it might be different.

The only question is sizing. I orginially thought about $125, but I think that might be too big here as we don't want either to fold really. I think something in the range of $85-$95 total should be a good amount. If you break it up and put the $25 separate from the $60 raise that you make it will make it look less intimidating also. Or put it out in little stacks of $20 each. Shorter looks less imposing to them.

I'd make it about $75. They both are willing to put money in and you have an aggro image so they might think you are full of it. Plus, you want as much in as possible, so get a little more now and the rest on the turn.

Given villain descriptions the only question is how much to raise.

This is a rare spot where I think we keep it small and suck them in.

Click it back. Hope that the 9 hits.

We have to raise for value here vs. the described V, especially V1.

Ham isn't folding when he bets flop.

I'm on board with the value raise everyone else is talking about. I'd make it somewhere between $75-$95 total to get them committed with worse hands.

I have a theory I'd like to test out as well. Does anyone think we make it more likely to get calls in a situation like this by announcing our raise, putting in the $25 to call, and then putting out a separate $50 for the villains to call? I think that this may make a difference psychologically for the other players. If they see a big stack of $75 their initial reaction tends to be, "Hmm...do I really have a hand worth this much on this flop?" But if they see a separate $50 to call, they may be more inclined to look at it as, "Well, it's already a big pot, what's $50 more really?"

This would be totally out of character with the way I operate plus it's unnecessary. You can't confuse the clueless.

On my phone now. Looking for some more discussion. Flop and turn play when I get home.

"taking down this pot" is not a good outcome since we are crushing their ranges and we have the nut draw

We only want to "take down the pot" when it means we're folding out something that beats us now or something that can beat us on a future street. We don't bet to fold out worse.

You can't do both one and two at the same time. Either you're raising to get folds or you're raising to get value. Dude seriously wtf are you thinking about when you type?

It's not a slam dunk raise.

It is a bad thing to get 2 folds here. Unless somehow we get AA or a set to fold.

Raise to $85 and shove any turn card.

LOLOLOLOL

I pray for your sake this is a level.

Because, yes, there are lots of times where not betting/raising is the optimal line even though we are ahead of their range.

It's not a value raise if it folds out everything/nearly everything we are beating.

Like, raising AT on T64 is very good if V will call with crap like QT and generally bad if V is folding KT-JT. Of course it's a little different with a flush draw on board, but I think the point is pretty obvious.

People are going to fold a lot of the time when we try to value raise and that doesn't make raising inherently bad. But, we shouldn't be hoping they fold worse - we should be hoping they call with it!

Flush draw on the board is even more reason to raise flop...if you overflush them they get stacked anyway, and a flush draw isn't folding for another $60 on the flop. They may shove a flush draw so they can see both cards, and hero is never folding this flop anyway, so just raise and get it in or shove the turn if called...

Absolutely and I advocated a raise above for that reason + the good read on Ham.

Do you bother reading the thread before spouting bad logic and making spurious claims about the play of others?

Not looking to get this down into a pissing contest but while your line is fine the justification for it and for "taking down the pot" being ok are laughably wrong wrong wrong.

Ok but what does that have to do with anything? Like, this is just a random point detached from anything of worth. Of course we have to bet or raise to get value in most spots, but that doesn't mean we bet or raise every time we have a hand.