1/2 9 handed

Hero (500) Main villain (covers) LJ (150 ish) everyone else 300

Reads on villain: I would classify this person as tight passive. Seen him nit roll at least 5 times previously, and only seems to be raising the top 5 ish percent of hands, limping everything else. He limps aces (3 hand sample on this where he limped and ended up showing aces). He also has some sizing tells preflop where something like 3-4x is something like a Broadway hand, but upwards of 10 he has shown down big Ax.

Villain is in UTG + 1 and raises to 10 this time

UTG + 2 calls (older white male, don’t have much history with, but he tried to check out of turn and then min clicked me on a post flop hand right after he sat down)

LJ calls (another unknown, but seems fishy)
HJ calls (slot machine type player. Just tries hit hit flops and gambles with draws)
CO calls (loose passive)

Hero is on the BTN with AQo (don’t remember suits but within the scope of discussion is irrelevant)

This is an awkward spot where we have a nit raising from EP with 4 other fishy callers behind him. AQo doesn’t play the greatest multi-way, but squeezing seems uncomfortable given the tightness of UTG + 1. But folding also seems way to tight. Every option seems to not be great. There isn’t enough data on if this villain only continues with the absolute top of his range against 3 bets as I haven’t had a hand to do it with against him yet, and I’m playing 1/2 so nobody 3 bets like ever anyway.

What does hero do here?


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I think raising is bad unless you know villain can fold his strong but non-nut hands. Your read indicates he has something like 99->KK, AQ+ and maybe some hands like ATs/AJs/KQs here. Folding seems meh with nut position. I think I call and proceed with caution. You are not looking to go broke on A high or Q high flops.

Against the described villain I don’t think folding is terrible, but we can also call looking to win a small or medium pot with position and a hand that should be best if we make top pair and people don’t seem interested. I might do either depending on game flow.

With AQs I would be calling here always, I think.

Doyle Brunson listed AQo as the chief "trouble" hand. I think this a situation where you can win a small pot or lose a big one. I'm fine with a fold and suspect most players would lose money in this situation.

Call seems good. PFR can still have TT/JJ even if he is as tight as you think. If you call you can cooler one of the other players on Q/A-hi boards. If you flop top pair and PFR remains interested in the hand I would proceed with caution, calling a flop bet most likely, but folding to further aggression on later streets.

^ This.

Calling is totally horrible. This is a standard squeeze spot. I would squeeze lighter here too. Raise ainec at all.

Regarding the read on UTG+1, his 10dollar raises are Ax hands. He's probably tryna l/rr with his aces. Calling will lose the most money, more than folding.

With AQs we have the option to call or raise, but I would still raise unless I felt the original raiser has a range that will 4bet me, then I lose the value of calling it.

1/2 is full of mostly fit or fold players. I have experience playing it a couple times a week while waiting for other games, it's incredible how many people are there to play bingo/hit the board or fold.

I agree with this fella here. Calling to play a multi way pot where your calling a flop bet on favorable flops anyways seems like a bad idea. You don’t even know what flop you’re looking for.

I’d make it ~$65-75 of so trying to take down the $50 dead money. All callers in between PFR and H are likely folds. Put V in a spot instead of letting him keep you in a spot. If he 4b’s you turbo muck. If he calls play some poker.

I think there's a sound argument for both calling and raising. Calling obviously minimizes your exposure, given that you'll probably miss the flop and you'll have NO fold equity. Raising gets you down to heads up with position--IF V just calls. If he 4-bets, gulp. In the latter scenario, I hate the possibility of being blown off my AQ (say he has, oh, JJ and I can no longer see a flop).

I don't think you can lay this down in position, so I call and wait for divine inspiration and/or a flop with two Queens in it.

Noob perspective:

I think this is a call for me and play cautiously in position.

If you 3-bet you pretty much have to fold to a 4-bet. If you 3-bet and get called, you still might not be ahead. Is that worth it just to take down some dead money? Not sure.

I don't know if this is the best play, and I'm admittedly on the nittier side, but I'm just calling and seeing what develops.

If u raise you just force the table to fold their AJ/AT/KQ type hands and you lose the ability to cooler people postflop. You also lose the maximum the times that UTG has us dominated, which sounds like it could be the case at least 30-40% of the time.

Maybe raise is better than call, but I strongly disagree with the assessment that it’s not even close.

At least with calling we let the PFR reveal his hand strength by his cbet size postflop. Why wouldn’t you want the PFR to tell us what his hand is on the next street?

I agree with your analysis and description of most 1/2 players. It is SO true especially at my games. I was thinking the same thing if it were suited, I’m free to call or raise. Against a standard open raiser (which is actually less common than not at 1/2) I am looking to squeeze here all the time. I wish I had a better sample to determine if this player would fold to 3 bets more. But given his tendencies to make big folds and nit roll post flop, I think I should have just pulled the trigger and squeezed. 3 bets and raises get an unbelievable amount of respect at 1/2


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I agree as well. In game, I ended up calling, and getting in a weird multi-way spot against 2 pair and a set on an A67 rainbow board. Good thing these players were terrible and I lost what I believe to be close to the min


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I don't lose the maximum because I have position and I don't care if we dominate people pre flop, we have ace high. I don't mind either taking it down or getting it heads up, then taking it down with a cbet (whether or not we "hit" anything) or a turn/river jam against a tight pro who will never get his stack in w/o the nuts.

The way you get coolered is when you call pre in a multiway pot when you don't have a hand that plays well multiway.

No, this is ludacris and it can get you into a lot of trouble.

You should care about dominating ppl preflop because that’s how you cooler people postflop. This is a potential negative of raising pre. They fold hands that you crush and only get action from main villain with hands that are flipping or crush you. Do you acknowledge this is a negative of raising? Not saying there aren’t positives to raising pre, but we have to look at all factors of the issue here.

I think AQ/AK play great multi-way in position. Especially when some of the players have all Ax in range. There is a lot of value in coolering players on A-hi boards. With position we can navigate well post and get away from the hand if someone out flops us with an unlikely two pair or set. That’s what I was referring to in basically taking a flop and letting the rest of the table give away their hand because they take ridiculously face up value lines. Idk why you think that this point is ludicrous.


Raising is fine in general, of course. Versus a guy who is opening a lot of Broadway hands, I would always raise. Problem is that V is described as opening 5% which is TT+,AK, maybe AQ. We’re not doing too hot versus that range. We get 4bet a lot and forced to fold all our equity, or best case he just calls with hands that have us crushed equitywise like QQ+.

I would rather use a total crap hand like KQo if we’re just making an iso play to take down the pot pre.

In this exact spot live I would 'put on the show' here and 3-bet for sure.

"Dealer, how much is the bet?"
"LJ, how much do you have behind?"
"Ok, let's go $xx" (And most certainly an amount that would reopen the betting if LJ shoves

I do this to make sure that any Nits know that I know that I can reopen the betting if LJ shoves. This will force them, IMO, to be more conservative with their play/range. Granted we may still go 3-4 ways to a bloated Flop with pretty much anyone who connected committed to the pot, but that's low stakes life!

If I'm going to stay in the hand I want more information PF and I'm probably going to lose less in the long run than getting caught up in Flops that I marginally connect with. GL