Card room, 1/2 NL, $200 max buy

V1 $150, I’ve beaten him 3 times in the last 20 min with TPTK, 2P(which I had to show that I had 3B pre with 57su), and 3rd pair where I called his river bluff. He’s tiling hard.

V2 $120, I’ve stacked him twice today.

H $600, LAG and everyone knows it.

V2 in HJ makes it $10, I 3B to $35 with AA, V1 calls, V2 AI.

As I semi tanked, I got to thinking. In this hand it does it make sense to just call V2 in the hopes of building a side pot with V1 rather than a more standard approach of trying to ISO V2? What would the stack sizes need to be?

I considered not going AI vs V2 but it didn't seem like the added $120 in the main and possible $60 side pot would be worth the risk in this case but I have no idea how to calculate it mathematically.

Ultimately I went AI, V1 folded and I took it down without V2 showing.

Are the stacks correct then? He only had 30 dollars more he's not gonna fold

yes, stack sizes are correct. I told you he was tilting hard. I think he was willing to pay for a bad draw but not with his whole stack. Maybe he had a low pair? He called $35 the first time it was to him and had roughly $120 more. Had I called V2, V1 could have called with about $30 still in his stack.



I should have written the positions better.

V1 = BB
V2 = HJ
H = CO

Your saying ISO seems to imply you think your jam to $150 has some extra fold equity compared to calling $120. Which should be a bad thing, because the math says that you always want the extra action with AA.

But I don’t think you’re generating any extra fold equity by jamming $150. Honestly it probably doesn’t matter what you do. If you flat the $120, he’s never folding OTF for an extra $30 in a main pot of $360. If you raise to $150 he’s not gonna fold a hand that would have called $120.

I agree. But my question is, when should I want to build a side pot vs iso. I've been in situations where I believed I was probably beaten in the main but kept betting into the side to salvage as much out of the hand as possible. When I played a Big O home game, it seemed to happen fairly often. More often in NLHE, when someone has shoved a micro stack I feel like I can almost ignore what happens in the main to focus on playing for the side. Obviously, if the main has capped at $100 but me and a V are playing for a side and we both have $1000 at risk, the side is more important.



it seems to me there should be a math rule to know when I want to build a side and when I want to iso.

If the all in was 120 and the other player had 300 you should call and not iso. With these stacks it doesn’t matter. I would just call, maybe he can make a huge mistake post

I don’t know if there is any rule for what to do with deeper stacks. GTO strategy for multi-way pots with different stack sizes hasn’t really been explored as far as I know.

I would guess that you will always have hands that want to bet into a side pot. Whether as you get deeper with the other big stack, you want to bet more frequently or less frequently, is an interesting question.

Yah i ain't gonna comment on this hand with these stack sizes, but if V1 had a $400 stack here I'd probably flat and as said above let villain make a mistake in any side pot. The SPR is so low we aren't gonna be able to make many mistakes postflop. The dynamic here also plays into it.

If v1 was a capable opponent and we both we super deep i might consider isoing as I don't want to be playing a pot OOP with a solid opponent but at these stakes that rarely is the case. and i would probably size my iso to try to induce or just overshove to seem weaker than AA as i have a LAG image and have showed down light hands so am capable of making a move.

For that you would need to make an assumption that both you and your opponent play GTO postflop.

The preflop decision obviously depends on if your opponent calls off on the 852 flop with AK at any given stack size and if you call off on QJT at any given stack size. In order to put that into a formula, we need to know what you and him are supposed to do. Otherwise we can’t have a rule but only make decisions based on the specific stack size, flop and corresponding action.

Too late to edit, but my last post missed a half sentence:
For that you would need to make an assumption that both you and your opponent play GTO postflop. At a point where we already know from preflop (and previous history) that he doesn’t.

agreed to the bold. All I know about GTO is that I don't know GTO. I'm not sure why the V plaing GTO or not should matter, but maybe if I was a little less iggnert, it would be clear. Are you saying if he is GTO that he is more likely to GII behind post?

My thinking, though it is probably flawed, is that I'm an ~80/20 fave vs one V. And roughly 60 - 65% fave vs 2 Vs. Somehow that ratio difference ought to translate into a pot size difference where an increase in pot size is worth it for the increase in risk.

If you’re a 60% favorite versus 2vs so the pot is 3 units, then .6*3=1.8 units is your expected return.

If you’re a 80% favorite heads up the pot is 2 units, then .8*2=1.6 units is your expected return.

This is why you want action with AA when you’re all-in pre.

that's very helpful. not sure why I was stuck on it. That made it very clear.

So if I extend that to I have KK vs Axsu that's ~70% with EV 1.4 and KK vs AXsu and 98su, (not looking it up but guessing 50% fave) is roughly EV 1.5. From the looks of this, the advice I've always gotten to ISO might be better to say, "it depends". If I can build most any sort of side pot with a big fave hand pre, the EV gets even better. Am I getting this right?

The flaw is that you're considering hot & cold equity that only applies for a preflop all-in.

If you want to compare the EV of all-in vs. call, we have to consider what happens when we see a flop. Against somebody who doesn't fold when he's supposed to, doesn't call when he's supposed to and doesn't raise when he's supposed to. On 19600 different flops. And if stacks are big enough, there's a turn and potentially a river.

If you can get all of the money in preflop yes. If not then it becomes complex quickly and you can easily hose yourself.

The classic case is a side pot that is trivial compared to the main pot. V1 is all in for $100 in the main pot that is $300 but you have a $20 side pot with V2. If Hero bets into the side pot Hero is risking his equity in both the main pot and the side pot but the only additional profit he can win is the side pot. So the risk/reward ratio becomes terrible. Hero is risking his equity in both pots because V2 can always raise.

The weird cases is a large side pot. Say V1 is all in for $100 again. But now the side pot is $300 also. Now Hero and V2 both have a motivation to bluff at the side pot even if they expect to lose the main pot. The side pot is big enough it's worth taking that down to make a small profit in the hand even if you lose the main pot. Hero and V2 are in for $250 and if they bluff their opponent out get $300 from the side pot.

The classic cases is the normal one. The side pot is dry or too small to matter, in this situation the best thing to do is isolate and maximize your profits in the main pot.

No difference in fold equity here but also if you have an aggressive image and have been crushing your opponents who are now angry about that, then don't take your foot off the gas when you have the nuts.