Hero has been playing for a long time and has made a few moves but mostly playing solid as the table is playing way too loose. Raises of $20 - $25 are getting called very light.

V1 - Doesn't seem to be very good - called someones all in of $100 with K6 on a flop of T92. No idea what he was doing. After that hand he seemed to play much better and actually have a pair. Maybe he misread his hand? He ran his stack up to around $400

V2 - way too aggressive. likes making plays and bluff raises. at first I would fold top pair to his check raises but now I just call him down pretty light and i'm generally good. He is on his 3rd buy in - $140ish stack

Hero - $650
V1 - $400
V2 - $140

Hero is BTN with QQ
UTG stradles
3 callers
Hero makes it $30

V1 calls / V2 calls

Flop is 49Tr

Checks to hero who bets small - $45 hoping V2 raises
V1 calls
V2 shoves all in.

Hero thinks for about 2 minutes and raises to $245


I was hoping V1 didn't flop a set or 2 pair because i'm pretty sure I get him off every other hand.

If V1 didn't flop a set or two pair, why would you want to get rid of him? Board is pretty dry and your raise is likely losing value against everything you beat and only getting called by hands that beat you.

I agree with Garick.

Best case you prevent V1 from giving you 95 dollars.

Worst case you give him a gift of 150 dollars.

Your bet/reasoning makes no sense to me at all.

I call the shove and gii on all non T, or maybe even 9 (I still gii on 9 turns like a boss, who am I kidding) turns if V1 calls. His range is should be wide enoughthat we can't really shut down if an over card shows up. Not unless he is some tell box. Hope the 2 binks the turn and print money though.

Also, your make him fold a worse hand logic is a bit off. We may want him to fold big draws, but that's about it.

When V1 is ahead of us otf, whether we 3b or not doesn't make much difference; stacks are usually going in. V1 is actually not getting terrible odds to call otf if we flat; he's calling ~65 into a pot of ~365, with ~260 effective going to the turn. The reason to flat is if we think he's likely to overcall with Tx and then stack off unimproved ott (which this Villain is, given description).

Imo, this would be a closer decision against a thinking V with a fold button who would only overcall with the parts of his range that had enough IO; in that case, it might not be unreasonable to 3b to fold out his equity.

I figured there would be a lot of turn cards imma hate. Only thing I like is a 6 or lower and a queen but that completes a straight possibility.

I kinda liked folding him out but I can see the reason to keep him in.

you have to realize that V1 doesn't have magical cards. they don't change based on what card peels off, he's got what he's got and they stay the same.

if a K comes on the turn for instance sure there are a few more hands you lose to (QJ, KT) but you're still getting called by jt, qt, at, perhaps more.

you have to embrace the uncertainty in poker. for every time you bet a scary turn and get owned by some hand that sucked out, you're still getting called twice by worse, and in the long run you profit from that.

He's got odds to call though but raising takes his equity from him. I like the raise

Exactly. He's never folding a hand that beats you, and is likely to call with a hand that you are way ahead of. Let him call, and shove nearly any turn card

Results - V1 folded after a minute of thinking and the board bricked for V2 who just mucked when I said I had queens.

V1 looked disgusted when I turned my hand over. Who knows what he had but he claimed he woulda won.

I won a nice pot and i'm happy with how it worked out.

Sizing seems terrible. Wish I knew what the blinds were. If its 3-5 with a 10 straddle, this is way too small, 45 seems right. 1-2-4, 30 is huge with position

Cbet seems fine, actually its perfect since 55+ wouldn't reopen the betting if shortie shoves. The 245 re-raise is awful. Call, click it back to 155, or shove. Probably Click > Shove > Call. 245 leaves V1 with 125 in a 700 pot and is pointless. 155 leaves him with 215 in 600. I think this is optimal since calling is a complete disaster when villain should peel with everything and can play turns perfectly. JQ and sets seem like the only hands you can flat with here.

^Villain definitely should not peel with everything. Overcalling with Tx is -EV, even if we turn our hand face up and jam 100% of turns. He's paying ~$65 to fold 90% of the time (he has 5 outs to improve), and would win just about enough the other 10% of the time (~$625) if he had 100% equity after improving. The problem is he doesn't have 100% equity after improving. Say he has T8 and the turn is an 8, we redraw on him about 1/4 of the time.

Note: Is this a 1/2 game? It appears to be 1/2.

PF: How much is the straddle? I'll assume it's $4. Raise is fine.

F: (3) handed. Pot is $97. (I'm assuming that your villains were not the UTG straddler and the straddle was $4) SPR is 4 (V1) and 1 (V2). Checks to us, and we fire a little less than half pot. Fine. V2 shoves $110, doesn't matter what he has since the SPR is 1.

You stated, "I was hoping V1 didn't flop a set or 2 pair because i'm pretty sure I get him off every other hand.", so it sounds like we are raising to charge draws. We have blockers to QJ, so it's unlikely he has that OESD. 87 is possible.

If we just call, the pot odds to V2 will be (97+45+45+110+65:65) 5.6:1 (15%). He probably doesn't have AK, but if he does he's only got a 12% (7.3:1) chance of hitting on the turn. If he's got 67, then he's got a 16% (5.3:1) chance of hitting on the turn. Just calling does give 67 the direct odds for V2 to call.

When we raise to $245, we've put in 69% of V2's stack. If V2 shoves, are you going to call?

Since the board is rainbow and we have blockers to QJ, I think I'd rather just call here and then play the turn against V2 IP.

Edit: You are being results oriented. I agree with others, that the raise is not good.

^ Pot when he calls is about 430. 65/430 is 15%. 4 outs is 8.5%. So he loses $32.50 in EV. 5 outs is 10.6% so he loses $19. He more than makes up for this with implied odds when he gets it in on turns with 70%+ equity in just the side pot. Only reason I can think to flat is if you intend on folding to his shove.

one of the biggest differences in a good winning successful pro poker players is they want people to call and put more money into the pot when we are ahead of them rather then bet to fold them out to "take it down" because of mubsy thinking.

If you are a 75% favorite and they are 25% to win, you should make bets that they will call (which are their incorrect calling odds) instead of trying to fold them out. You will make a lot more money doing this in the long run since we're not always in these +EV situations.

Also the stakes are important to properly analyze the hand. If this is 2/5, you need to raise more pre.

No he doesn't. That's the point I was making above, though maybe I should've made the EV calcs more explicit. 90% of the time he loses $65. That's -$58.5 of EV. 10% of the time, he improves to (lets say) 80% equity against us, obviously sometime it's more, sometimes it's less. So 8% of the time, he wins $625, and 2% of the time, he loses $325. That's +$43.5 of EV. Total works out to -$15.

Hmmm...not sure where you are getting $430.

I do actually have the flop pot incorrect. I add the flop pot to be $101: $1 (SB), $2 (BB), $4 (UTG Straddle), $4 (caller 1), $4 (V1), $4 (V2), $30 (Hero), $26 (V1), $26 (V2).

Doesn't matter though, $97 is close.

If Hero just calls the V1 shove, pot is $101 (pot)+$45 (hero bet)+$45 (V1 call)+$110 (V2's remaining stack after he called $30 PF - he started the hand with $140)+$65 (Hero's call of $110) : $65 (Amount V2 needs to call). So that's $366:$65 or 5.6:1.

Anyway...could you explain what "So he loses $32.50 in EV. 5 outs is 10.6% so he loses $19." means? I don't understand what this means. I understand were you get 5 outs equals 10.6%, but how does "he" (who is "he", hero?) loses a certain amount of money.

By raising to almost 70% of the effective stack, we are only getting V2 to fold the hands we beat, and call with the hands that are beating us. Also if we raise this much and V2 shoves on the flop, are we going to fold? We probably should not after putting in 70% of the effective stack.

You also stated, "Only reason I can think to flat is if you intend on folding to his shove" Do you mean if we flat on the flop and V2 shoves into us on the turn?

I'm having a lot of trouble grasping how allowing V1 to make a $15 mistake by calling the $65 in a $430 pot that may escalate to a about $1k is a good idea. As described I'm sure he's willing to make this kind of mistake as are 90% of the players in this game. I'm all for exploiting every edge, but is he really going to make a big enough mistake on turns with the $260 left. Hero looks strong and V1 gets to realize his equity on the turn super cheaply.

1. Yes, this Villain is absolutely sometimes going to call $260 on the turn with Tx.

2. Even if he weren't, +EV is +EV. As Playbig said above, one of the things that makes successful players successful is getting opponents to put in money incorrectly rather than getting them to fold because we don't like being drawn out on in big pots. That often requires a ride on the variance train

Sorry boys - the game is $1/2 and a $5 straddle is in effect


also the whole point of betting $45 was to open up the betting incase V2 shoved. I'm not really looking forward to going 3way to the turn.

I think my raise may of been a bit too large and I possibly should of clicked it back like someone said. If I didn't want to open up the betting again I would made it $55 - $60 and than just called V2 shove because the betting would not of been reopened.

Too much PLO ingrained in my brain, so I think this is what has been driving me to question calling without realizing it. We lose a ton of equity by allowing V1 to peel very cheaply. Ran some EV calculations with an identical ridiculously wide range weighted towards suited crap w/o TT and 99.

3 handed. $430 pot
Board: Td9h4c
Equity Win Tie
Hero 45.03% 44.70% 0.33% { QQ }
V1 27.48% 26.40% 1.09% { 44, ATs-A9s, KTs, QTs+, JTs, J8s, T8s+, T4s, 98s, 94s, 76s, ATo, QJo, JTo, T9o }
V2 27.48% 26.40% 1.09% { 44, ATs-A9s, KTs, QTs+, JTs, J8s, T8s+, T4s, 98s, 94s, 76s, ATo, QJo, JTo, T9o }

HU $365 pot
Board: Td9h4c
Equity Win Tie
Hero 65.10% 64.93% 0.17% { QQ }
V1 34.90% 34.72% 0.17% { 44, ATs-A9s, KTs, QTs+, JTs, J8s, T8s+, T4s, 98s, 94s, 76s, ATo, QJo, JTo, T9o }

3 Handed Hero nets $53.63
HU Hero nets $97.61

Yeah the ranges may be really off and V1 isn't going to be seeing rivers some amount of the time. But my point is we instantly lose EV by allowing V1 to come in. And if he plays perfect turns it's a disaster. Not sure whats +EV. But i think taking on variance in what may be a negligible edge may be unnecessary.

That comparison is flawed; the the HU case only captures the times V1 folds, while the 3-handed case includes sets & 2-pair hands he'd never fold to a raise, so of course it's going to come out worse. The relevant comparison would be between the HU case and a 3-handed case where V1's range only has the hands he'd fold to a raise. And even that would be off, because, as you suggested, he's only going to get to see one more card with his draws, and will also sometimes fold weaker made hands to a turn shove.

But in any case, all I was trying to say before is that when V1 has a hand like JT, we WANT HIM TO CALL. The EV calcs behind that are not complicated, and the underlying concept is an important one that's lost on a lot of players.

This!