1/3 NLHE 9 handed

V1 - Arab guy buys in for 300 usually before either quadrupling up on some ridiculous runner runner or (more often) loses it, gets tilted, keeps rebuying for the minimum 100 and trying to ship it in pre/OTF. He has currently lost his initial 300 BI and is now on his fourth or fifth 100 BI and is monkey tilting (although I think it's somewhat of an act as this routine gets old). Pre he's extremely wide and passive and post he's also very wide. Although when he has 100 in front he just ships it with any and all draws, pairs, etc. He tried to give a speech earlier about how unlucky he is, shipped it and some other guy called and V1 showed KK. So he's doing some acting as well. 115$. CO.

V2 - Indian guy with no clue who I've never seen before who buys in for the minimum 100, calls off 25$ pre and folds flop. Hasn't won a hand yet and has bought in a few times. Seems to be having fun. 22$ (yes). SB.

H covers. LJ. Has been winning and having fun.

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One limp to Hero who opens A A to 20, V1 calls, folds to V2 who shoves 2$ more (didn't even see his chips), folds back to H who calls, V1 calls. 3-ways HU on the side.

Flop 66$ Main 0$ side - 7 5 3

Hero checks, V1 checks

Turn 66$ Main 0$ side - J

Hero checks his suits, no , checks, V1 shoves 93$.

Hero?

Id call, he most of the time just has a jack and wants to protect from spades himself or he has a lone spade and your hand is way under repped since you checked flop. Id be super happy to flick in the call.

Call. Plenty of hands he could do this with other than flushes.

Easy call he can have all sorts of single spades and any single pair thinking you whiffed.

Ok but am I correct in the math by saying I need 51% or more equity against V1s range? I always get confused in these sidepot situations... like how many combos do I need to find to calculate my equity?

i would bet yourself on either flop or turn. dc that its a dry side pot, v description and stacks make your hand good enough to go with but need protection here. as played yes you should call it off, hes probably value jamming every jack lol. when its fish and they're ridiculously wide pre i dont think you're going to be able to make any kind of meaningful range analysis / equity calculation because its alot of combos and inconsistent gameplan. just look at your hand and the board and decide how strong your hand is and act accordingly.

If I get to here in a cash game and then fold this hand…
It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Y u no bet flop?

I dunno man. I'm not trying to figure out what Ali Baba and his $115 stack are doing. I'm c-betting AA on the flop. If he calls, I'm probably jamming turn. If he's got it, he's got it.

As played, not folding to his jam.

Not quite since you have some equity in the main pot . You need to range the AI vil and calculate equity vs his range, then factor that into your equity calculations for that pot, but not for the side pot. It gets probably more complex than is worth in this spot.

This is a snap call imo. You have:
a) short stack
b) someone who jams draws
c) someone jamming into a dry side pot (overbets from competent villains into dry sidepots are vastly different from overbets from villains like you described).

As others have said - he's far more like lyto have a jack or have a spade draw himself than to have the flush. Given what you said about him liking to get it in OTF - he's jamming the flop with a spade draw.

Result:

You need to bet the flop.

His flush seems bad, semibluffing into the dry side pot in position.

you won the max

Make sure you get his info so you can send him a Christmas card.

In all seriousness - I'm not positive if it would be a better call with the As or without the As in your hand, from a pure GTO perspective.

Against a good, thinking player, I'd expect the "I got the nut-flush blocker" bluff-jam to be something done on the river, not the turn, unless he's got top pair + the nut flush draw, which you obviously beat. If a good player was jamming some AXss combo here, I'd have to wonder what AXs combo they have that just called rather than 3B'ing pre and wouldn't semi-bluff on this flop.

Against a bad player, I would expect them to shove more turns before they made their hand, rather than thinking they need to shove turn to avoid us shutting down if the river is another spade. Bad players are more prone to slow-play or bet small with the nuts here, but jam as a bluff, I'd think. So against this guy, I'd say not having the As in our hand is a good thing.

The fact that the flop checked through, and V jammed over your turn check makes me think it's even less likely he has a flush. He might have semi-bluffed the flop, and for sure wouldn't risk losing value by jamming turn when you check again.