Super user in a live game? That's a new one. The likelihood of someone attempting a float in a multiway pot goes down in value.

Also, if he's such a great player I also doubt he would float on such a static board. Great players float and bluff with equity and there isn't much to have on that board 3 way.

Nothing better than having position on passive players that have shown weakness.

Isn't it amazing how often aggressive players in position when pots.

c/r the flop is bad. You have competing poker concepts working here- you can't just focus on one. SPR is a line you want to be careful about crossing, but don't let the concept trick you into overplaying a weak hand.

The key here is, I am willing to get it in with a spewey player's betting range, but not his calling range.

Ideally we don't want the third player in the hand, but our hand is not strong enough to make a move to isolate, so we just have to live with a bad situation.

One of my favorite poker concepts is "don't make bets that can't win you money", and a c/r here is pretty close to one of those kinds of bets. The only way it makes you money is if you push him off a better hand (unlikely), get him to call with a worse hand (also unlikely, given how dry the board is), or you fold out a hand that would have improved to beat you (more likely, but not the best way to maximize against those types of hands). If he IS drawing, it's not like he has a ton of outs, so you want to give him the chance to either bluff or overplay a weaker hand.

Add to this that you really have no idea what the third villain has, sticking more money in the pot than it takes to call and see the turn seems -ev.

Turn is an easy fold.

Preflop, I think this is a good spot to raise to $150 as a bluff. I thinking raising is best, folding is second best, and calling is worst.

As played, on the flop, I think check/call is best and it's not close. You only have one pair, out of position. This isn't much to get excited about. You do not want to go broke with this hand. Your plan is to check on the turn and river and try to figure out what your opponents have by watching what they do, and either call or fold if they decide to bet (probably fold).

As played, I check/fold the turn. V2 was probably ahead of you the whole way. By check/calling on the flop, you gave yourself a chance to get away from your marginal hand cheaply.

I'm a noob but I check fold this flop after v2 calls. I see no reason to get involved. Treat this hand like setmining OOP. You missed your set. Move on.

Begin flame:

collectively the analysis from all is focusing most on the spewy villain and not much including the line that the more sold button villain is taking who has flatted behind us. I feel like we still have not included enough of solid villain's potential range and incorporated that into our flop decision enough?

Perhaps I lost it in the back and forth? does anyone care to elaborate on the flop as related to the button villain. Maybe it's not important as I think it is but I think that could be the deciding factor here and still we keep talking about what the spewy villain could fold out, or not fold out bluff at etc. It may not even get to that point with our friend on the button involved yes?

On a related side note, Ax is a terrible turn card because I think a lot of the button's range on this flop includes A's that he's peeling the flop with, not just because it's an ace.

SOOOOOOO this.

I'm surprised it took this long for anyone to suggest this. There is no other reason to be calling a bet OOP against 3 players other than to nut mine for the straight, flush, or 2pair (even 2p might give you a headache). Think about it this way, would you do this with KJo? Because that's how this is playing out right now.

Otherwise, good luck trying to win a pot at showdown with TPGK OOP against 2 highly interested players and a dry board where nobody is likely to be drawing.

*high fives maltbarley*

This might be a good way to think if you are a noob. It will keep you from getting in difficult spots where you might make big mistakes.

For anyone with more experience or anyone looking to improve their game a c/f on this flop is pretty bad. Hero likely has the best hand; c/c the flop and reevaluate on the turn.

this lol bad

One of the poker philosophies I'get had a lot of success with deals with commitment.

It has been my experience that one of the worst things you can do in poker is to play your hands half assed.

If you are going to play KJ OOP in a preflop raised pot, get this board and get this big a pot and not be aggressive with it and be willing to go to war, then don't play KJ.

Lets look at the reverse of this. Let's say you are V in position pre, what is your raising range? Similarly, what type of villians do you prefer? I prefer passive villians, you can pot control when you are drawing and value town them when you hit and fold when they show aggression because they aren't ever raising you without the near nuts...

There is a reason why aggressive players tend to win more than passive players in these spots.

And to the c/c crowd. Why are we c/cing if we think we are behind? Are we hoping to turn a 3h so we can grow some balls and then make a play for the pot?

To be clear, I'm not thrilled about the spot we are in. But given the size of the pot and board texture, being aggressive is not lol bad by any stretch.

Similarly, unless you think villians ranges are exclusively JJ-AA, we more than have enough equity to feel comfortable being aggressive in this spot.

Again, everyone claiming my line is lol bad is doing so without any math whatsoever backing them up.

My last post on the matter.

We will agree to disagree.

There are much better ways to improve your game than seeking out crappy spots to play in.

Thank you for finally shedding some light on the reasons behind the okay you should make. I was unsure how I would have handled this situation, and after 3 pages of people saying to call or raise because "only an idiot would make the other decision," its refreshing and helpful to hear all the angles and variables in this hand considered. This all makes perfect sense.

I'm not c/cing because I think I'm behind. I think I'm likely ahead or I'd fold. However, villain can have a range of hands here, some which are better, some which are worse. I think worse hands make up the majority of his range, hence the reason I don't want to fold. However, if we raise then he for sure dumps the weakest part of his range, making our chances of winning the pot a whole lot less after he calls. Of course we get him to fold the hands we're crushing and protect ourselves from 5 outers, but if he'd stick any more money in the pot with those hands if we call rather than raise (and from the description, he will), then we get more money by letting those hands stay in and throw money at us.

Your whole view of aggression vs passive thing is drawing a lot of false conclusions. In poker you win by recognizing when you have and edge and pushing it hard. Against a spewey player your edge is that you know he'll put too much in with a weak hand if he's the one driving the action. Pushing that edge means letting him.

As far as draws go- it happens. Sometimes you get outdrawn and lose a pot. It's better to let a weak draw get a free card when you have a weak hand than it is to overcommit and lose it all because you've isolated the strongest part of villan's range.

The whole concept of SPR is about making sure you are playing the right sized pot for your hand. Pot control is more important than charging draw, imo, and with a weak hand that still rates to be the best in a lot of cases, you don't want to bloat the pot.

Equating calling with KJ pre to 'set mining' is not good. You will not flop good enough, often enough, to play KJ that way OOP. You are losing money by calling OOP with KJ and this mindset.

I absolutely call pre with KJ because I'm pretty confident in my ability to play well in marginal situations against bad players. If you are not so confident and feel that it's best to fold this flop when there's a reasonable chance you have the best hand, you need to fold pre.

I do not hate folding or calling pre (raising is sexy if you are comfortable with the table), as the value of KJ OOP in a multiway pot is pretty low even if you can play it profitably, but if you do call and then c/f this flop, I think the preflop call was bad. Most of the time, this is as good a flop as you are going to see with this hand.

Imo this is an example of a weakness in your game. I think you put too much emphasis on V1 without considering V2, his description is of a competent player and the last thing you want to do is play passive oop against this type of player. At no point in the hand did you show any strenght and a capable player can just run over you in those spots. I have to say I like V2 play regardless of whether he had the nuts or just recognized a great spot. If you start to consider the situations before you encounter them, you will be better prepared.

No one's ignoring V2 (or at least, I'm not). V2 has to be somewhat honest here due to it being a multi-way pot, especially with a spewy player in the mix. V1 creates somewhat of a protected pot for us, because V2 can move us off of our obviously good hand (we showed a reasonable amount of strength by calling on the flop after a bet and a call) and still lose the pot due to V1 sticking around. Or to say it another way, V2 has to convince both players, who obviously like their hands, to fold if he's running a play. That's just not a great spot if he's on air here.

If V2 raises the turn with a hand worse than ours on the basis that we think we have the best hand but he can make us, along with V1, fold, then more power to him. After seeing both us and V1 liking our hands and still choosing to raise, I think he has it way more often than he doesn't.

That's not even close to what I said.

I was pointing out that avoiding a spot like this because it might lead to a difficult decision restricts a player in the short-term (they fold this hand on the flop when they likely have the best hand) and the long-term (they don't learn how to deal with these situations).

A person doesn't need to seek out tough spots in order to get better but everyone finds themselves in tough spots no matter what their skill level. Being able to deal with it is one of the skills that separates a good player and a bad player.

I guess there's a middle ground between avoiding and seeking out a spot. I just can't comprehend why we are trudging along in this awful situation but I suppose it's because we disagree on "we likely have the best hand."

What do we expect villains to show up with here? QJ and T9? That's really the only situation in which we are good.

EDIT:

I just reread the OP. Villain 1 could have Jx or air if he really is in hardcore "spewtard" mode, leaving us more or less HU against the competent player. Even if the read is right, I'd rather err on the side of caution and assume he has something decent. Still a tough spot because we're likely to face a shove somewhere along the line and I'm not comfortable calling that with TPGK.

JEFF76 WINS THE THREAD

i hope dgi reads his posts to see exactly why c/c makes sense and the whole logic of you must be aggressive with these hands is probably not the best course of action

also i didnt know that we had to play for stacks every single time we are in a hand.

well kenji is on the c/c side so that gives more credit to it at least.

i just dont understand how a passive c/c line is ever going to work w/ 2 villains behind, one of whom is very tricky and capable of floating / bluffing w/ anything. we have so few outs that improve our hand and one or both of villains will most likely continue betting, forcing us off the hand.

and i dont check raise trying to get stacks in on the flop, but i would have no problem stacking off against spewtard if he did call and it came to a turn decision (would think about calling a flop shove). the only likely hand he has that beats us imo is aj, and there is plenty of worse he could still call w/, any straight / flush draw, weaker jacks, even mid pairs.

everyone agree's that were most likely ahead on the flop. raising and winning a small pot (like 30% added to your stack), MAYBE getting spewtard to stack off w/ smaller jack / draws sounds better than c/c'ing half my stack in a hand i can easily be pushed off of on later streets.

if there was EVER a flop to check-raise, this is it.

+1

im gonna take a page from dgi though and stop posting in this thread cuz i dont think im ever going to agree w/ cc / cc / cc w/out better reasons than were given

no you are correct

ill add another reason for raising the flop is that we get to find out where we are rather than having to guess on the turn - by raising now we make our opponents have to do the thinking

I'd agree with c/c'ing down as well.

I know it's cliche, but I strongly believe there are only 2 legitimate reasons to bet or raise:

1. For value (Worse hands will call)

2. As a bluff (Better hands will fold)

(Note that betting 'to see where we're at' and 'to win the pot before 2 pair catches up' are not legitimate reasons to bet.

Any time I'm faced with a tough spot I stop and ask this and it usually makes the decision a lot easier. In this spot, if we raise we likely do the exact opposite of this, anything ahead of us calls/ships, and almost everything we beat folds.

If a spewtard is in bluff-crazy mode the only thing that's slowing him down is when he faces a hefty raise, which is why I avoid doing this now. Would not be surprised to see V2 show up with A8 here, in which case tough break, but we're not playing poker to win hands at the cost of a higher long term winrate, we need to make the best over-all choice.

Finally, has no-one else noticed that in this particular spot TPGK is nothing more than a bluff catcher and people are wanting to raise/stack off? Seems odd to me.

+1. IMO, the options are raise>>fold>>call. Calling seems the worst.

I play a very laggy style so I put myself in the Vs shoes. What would I want OP to do? If I have position and a hand with outs, I want him to c/c. That way I can pot control if I want, steal using my position and reads if I miss, and bomb value if we hit our draw. Between the two Vs, OP is dodging a bunch of outs, and DOESN'T know which cards are good or bad (V1 could have 4-5,6-7, Q-10, 8-9, 9-10, Etc, Etc. You win the minimum if you are ahead and stay ahead, and lose a bunch if they draw out on you (with your equity in the pot + the large bet you will pay off on the river). Major Reverse Implied Odds. So calling seems out.

Fold-Not unreasonable in a vacuum. However, just calling OOP w/ K-Js against a LAG maniac and then c/f TP (even with the caller in between) seems like burning money.

Raise-Best of all 3 options. Since it isn't a perfect option, I think that might strengthen the case for 3bet pre. I disagree with the "worst hands won't call". A Laggy spewtard is going to fold Q-J or J-10 or 9-10 b/c of one c/r?? I don't think so.

Raise to maybe $195-245 (less than $200 for psych reasons to increase calling range), bomb turn.

I know that as a LAG, I make a TON of money by raising a wide range of hands in position and then outplaying the c/c passive opponents. I can give up very easily with minimum $ lost if I miss on any street, I can bet scare cards/reads, and I can make significant $ when I do hit with minimum risk. If it is a good strategy for the LAG, then we need to look out how to exploit the strategy, not play to his strength.

Just my .02. I think this is a great discussion. I am relatively new here and find it to be a great help.