I was going to post this without running it through cruncher first since I already knew it would be close but I decided to anyway.

H should be viewed as TAG reg. V1 and V2 know I can be making a play here but know I still raise pre usually with a strong range of hands. JTs should be the bottom of my range here pre.

V1 is a decent/breakeven player who likes to gamble

V2 is a donator who likes to call with a wide range including bad+good 1 pair hands. Doesn't 3bet unless its AK or big PP's. I don't think he is super spewy in multiway all ins though.

1/3

($500)UTG limps. (limping 50% of hands, donator)
($900)H CO J 9 raises to 20 (isolating fish)
($170)V1 BTN calls
($170)V2 BB calls
UTG calls

$80 Flop: A T 2
x,x, H bets 50
V1 shoves 150
V2 calls 150
UTG folds

H needs to call $100 to win $430. I put V1 and V2 on similar ranges.

V1: All A3hh-AJhh, KQhh, K9hh, 54hh, AJo, ATo, A2s, TT, 33.
V2: All A3hh-AQhh, KQhh, K9hh, 54hh, AQo, AJo, ATo, A2s, TT, 33.

I can give V1 who is the initial shover some spazzy flushdraws as well who just wants to gamble and double up but I didnt put those in because I am unsure if he would call or shove here.

Vs these ranges I am 23.3% to win. What do?

Check flop 4-way. Ap call is probably losing money since Axhh crushes you

I am supposed to have a lot of aces here and its still a fairly dry board. The problem is mid stackers dont leave much room for imagination. I will double barrel a lot of Tx hands out as well as weaker aces so I don't know if this is 100% a flop check. Those ranges I gave are the allin ranges of course, not the pre flop call ranges which are way wider.

I would jam vs V1 on the turn. V2 and UTG I have position on so Ill get to see a river. Of course I didn't think about all of this in the moment but thinking about it now the average hand on this board would play out this way.

I know Ahxh is crushing me but that is a part of the equation I punched in and I am literally breakeven here considering all of those in their ranges. Theres also sets, big aces and 2 pairs and possible lower FD's that I am getting an awesome price against.

I like raising to $15 preflop, unless 20 is a normal open at this table? I get your trying to isolate the fish but you only have to get through the button and the blinds, so 15$ saves you $ in the long run IMO.
check flop sure you have a lot of aces but you made it 20 preflop which is pretty big so, they also have a ton of aces. Are you ever getting an ace to fold this flop? Check call / fold facing heavy action. You don’t have the best draw here multi-way sometimes so I can’t really see a reason to bet.
AP fold after you get raised. Sure you might see to random hands and the heart hits so you think you made an awful fold, but in the long run I think it’s best

+1

It doesn't matter what we're supposed to have. In a multi-way pot, if we don't have it, someone likely does. Furthermore, we have an SPR of less than 2 vs the blinds. They don't have the stacks for multi-street stunts nor the fold equity we want. Someone calling flop doesn't have many folds OTT.

You need 19%. If you say you're 23% to win, then just shrug call.

Check flop, as others said. No idea why you think you can double barrel a couple of gambly, donating halfstacks off an ace here. Maybe in Fantasyland. Probably not even there.

19% is over 5:1 so I dont understand where you get that from. I think if it was HU with V1 he would call with JT/QT/KT maybe T9 and fold turn but that is stretching it with 2 behind him.

Maybe you need to learn how pot odds work?

The pot is 430, you have to call 100. The pot odds are 4.3:1, so you need 18.87 percent.

I have to say, it continues to amaze me how many people here on Twoplustwo don't seem to know how to calculate basic pot odds and think 4:1 actually equals 25% instead of 20%....

I dont have all the answers, thats why I play 1 buck 3 buck. Most threads here aren't even talking about pot odds but more generic questions.

If the ranges I gave are pretty close to reality why isn't anyone saying call? Ya I could be drawing dead but if Im against TPGK/2p/set am I not getting a good price and factoring all of those hands is saying I should call or am I applying poker crunchers numbers wrong to this scenario?

Well, in a lot of your posts you do seem to think you have all the answers, though. Glad to see you don't. (I know I definitely don't either, that's for sure.)

Board is not dry at all, and being 3-way and especially 4-way your cbet range needs to tighten significantly. We dont want to get blown off our equity, and i suspect most people play worse against a check here as well. Also with the Ah out there im way less inclined to bet. We also dont have much FE here 4-way so you’re mostly putting in money when behind and usually getting called, these donks have almost every Ax in their range

If it is $100 to win $430, it might be close and be a call. Didnt check the math and pokerstove it as im lazy. But yeah Homey’s calculations seem right, 4:1 does not imply needing 25% equity

+1.
Me either.
Definitely check flop though.

Also, with the two short stacks to your left, just limping behind pre might be better with this hand honestly.

Meh. Pre is OK, but with two shorties behind and a hand that is good multi-way vs. these players, I probably just limp. Definitely check the flop. You are repping an A, but you don't have one, and someone else most likely does, and they don't call pre to fold with top pair.

Now that I am here, I go for it. It's a gamble, but it's basically 50bb (total) -- losing is no big deal, and winning would be pretty great

Preflop is such a standard result (lol 4ways and even OOP from the CO and not remotely close to isolating anyone plus getting in a huge percentage of stacks with J high against shortstacks) that I'm now totally fine just simply overlimping here. I'm guessing the result is unexpected so obviously won't hate at all on the attempt, but it just happens far too often that I now question this attempt more (especially with shortstacks behind).

If we're betting the flop there isn't any reason to bet so much, imo; just put out a like 1/3 PSB (or no more than 1/2 PSB) and if no one has an Ace then we mostly take this down; otherwise if someone has an Ace we're just donating more than we need to. I don't mind the bet in general as it can setup a free turn card play (and it's not as if we're betting with little equity), but with shortstacks involved that will feel committed on this board with this pot size it's more meh and I might just try to take my free card.

We're getting over 4:1 to call the raise closing the action and in position against the donator with stacks behind. Obviously we're a little concerned about the times he has a bigger draw, but I think we're forced to call here. We're basically forced to lie in the bed we made due to preflop raise and flop bet, and that ain't always great, imo (or perhaps I'm just risk averse to needless high variance spots).

GcluelessNLnoobG

LMAO I love your wording here. The comments in this thread and the other I made are telling me to raise even more pre. Ill see what I can do tonight. Ya these extra calls pre dont always happen but people really arent factoring in their own stack sizes in their decisions. IMO the bad cbet commited me. I called and V1 had AhXh. We hit the flush too.

If it doesn't get heads up, everyone on this forum will tell you to raise more pre. If you raise more pre and get no callers, it's not a post, but if it were, they'd tell you to raise less!

Ya I mean I am not getting 2+ callers every PFR or anything but the 3-4ways happen enough that I'll try adding on another 5 and see what happens. Maybe 30 open the first 3 EP's, 25 for MP and 15 for CO/BTN depending on whos on my left. I always add +5 for every limper.

This hand pissed me off because I would usually just fold here but I am trying to open my game up a little and especially iso fish more and getting snap called by 2 on my left out of the blue was surprising. I think I need to make a little check list in my head and go through it every time when the flop comes out.

Probably true for some people, but I think this is almost an ideal hand to limp behind with two shortstackz on our left. Even if they aren’t playing optimal shortstack strat there’s still plenty of reason that limping is likely better than trying to iso UTG here. We’re still going to have position with a hand that plays well multiway.

Totally agree. Limp behind is what I advocated for in my original post.

OP, what happened?

V2 had AQo.

FWIW, I used to be of the mind that if we're facing 0/1 limpers (and sometimes even upwards of 2 limpers) that we should be raising any hand we're playing in LP. And if we're playing deep (such as we are against the limper) that still might not be a terrible strategy by any means. But since I've more purposely gone to a shortstack strategy (where I'm often sitting on 66bbs) I've really rethought that idea, especially if there are shortstacks behind us (even when we're deep). This hand is a good example why.

In the end, our preflop raise got in a huge 12% of stacks as a decent dog against the shorter stacks (which raising with J high mostly will). Yeah, it was only 4% against the donator in position, but now all that is meaningless since the shorterstacks have gotten involved. And thanks to preflop (and perhaps the flop cbet) we then handcuffed ourselves into getting in the remaining 88% of stacks ~drawing dead.

Now all this is admittedly slightly results oriented. After all, sometimes our preflop isolation attempt against the donator will work and we'll get it HU in position, which will likely make some money (although with J high it's not as if we're printing huge money). But the question then becomes will the times this doesn't happen and we get in huge percentages of stacks as a decent dog (such as we did here) decimate our earnings from the successful isolation cases.

Having said all that, even if we overlimped this hand we were going to lose some money in this hand. Would we lose our effective shortstack? Debatable in position (but still possible).

Gpokerishard,imoG

Read this today, relevant. can we post links ?
https://upswingpoker.com/vs-multiple...bae13bfcb46658

Having short/midstacks to our left really handcuffs me and its something I should have been thinking about more. I don't make a lot of iso raises light but only occasionally which I usually get away with because of my tight preflop image.

I made a similar play tonight against a spazzy reg with T9s and he raised me on the turn trying to claim the hand that I actually had and got stacks in with him drawing dead. I don't think making these kinds of moves with sc's is bad in the long run as long as you aren't doing them every single time and stack sizes permit it. I think if the table lets you get away with it you can iso a fish who has a fold button with pretty much anything and be profitable but that is a big IF.

im starting to feel hands like these are overrated in low stakes NL and should be folded preflop except in extreme circumstances (like multiple limpers, we can limp OTB). convince me otherwise