$2/3 8handed.
V covers UTG straddle to $6. 30’s in Indian reg. Has been calling large raises ($40-50) with 92o type hands and continuing with any flop connection and getting there. Apparently his going to win them all tonight.
H $356 UTG+1 MAWG. Nothing noteworthy play wise. Been a quiet afternoon.

H gets JcJh. This is our first round on UTG straddles and H raises to $25. I believe this sizing sucks and I should have gone $35-40ish.

LP call, V calls from straddle. V’s call is literally ATC minus the top 20% which he would have raised with.

Flop $75
3c3d6c

V x, H $50, LP f, V c/r to $165, H? V had every possible 3 in his range, every 45 and every club except like broadway cars where he 3b’s pre. V also could have 33, 66 and complete air.


What’s the play here? H has $115 to call with about $281 behind.

Yeah given the villain is the one in the straddle and the way you described him I'm going a lot bigger pf.

I'm getting it in on the flop pretty easily at this depth.

you don't really talk about whether or not he bluffs. if this can only be a 3 i don't mind folding, but if there's any chance he's blasting off or has a 6 i'm jamming.

The part that sucks is he has all the 3's in his range. I would just fold instead of going broke here for 120 bb's with an upper med. PP.

If he's been seen bluffing in spots like this (in a 3 way hand) I might continue.

I limp in preflop but that's my style.

How has villain been continuing preflop? Just passively check/calling with any piece and attempting to get there, and then only getting aggro when getting there? Or just aggrotarding with any piece and getting there later? Is he the type to lol overvalue a smaller overpear here?

In general, I make hero nit folds in this spot because mostly more passive players who don't overvalue smaller overpears against nits (or at least players having a quiet afternoon) just simply have it here. But against this guy, depending on how aggrotard / clueless he is, I might continue. If continuing I just jam now as there are very few turn cards I want to see. Also, if I'm not extremely comfortable folding to a flop raise then I might consider checking the flop in an attempt to make sure I get to later streets / showdown (although admittedly I'd be a lot more comfortable checking AA than JJ).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think your open raise size preflop is just fine.
Yes, V likes calling very wide, but with the straddle on, we are less than 60x effective.

Have you seen V playing aggressively with medium strength hands or draws?
If that's the case, than this seems like a standard shove otf.

If we think that V is just the typical calling station, then it's closer.
However, gii with JJ at this stack depth cannot be terrible imo.
Even a loose passive player may decide to raise his medium PPs "for protection" in a spot like this.

So he's super wide preflop and "continuing with any flop connection and getting there".

The last part is needs important details ... how is he continuing. Like if he has 96 here, what do you think he does? What about 77/54/75/A4/cc/etc?

If he's calling with most of his draws (expecting to get there) and all 6x but raising 3x ... life sucks and you probably should fold. If he's spew raising any piece, then lol never fold.

Yeah I think it hinges a lot on how he plays his range of 44/55, 77-TT and 6x hands.

But again this shallow I would need really strong evidence of those assumptions before I'm bet folding a hand as strong as JJ.

I agree with others that it can't be bad to stack off against a maniac at this stack depth with an overpair. It sucks he can have every 3x, but he has plenty of bluffs to choose from and potentially worse value.

Wanted to question the assertion in OP that Villain's range doesn't include the top 20% of hands, since he would 3bet those. Is he actually doing that much 3betting pre-flop facing a UTG raise and 1 call? That would be extremely aggressive, and it would mean we should be eliminating medium pairs like 77 or NFD hands like A8cc.

PRE - What's wrong with the pre-flop raise sizing? Do we want to go larger because we're OOP, or because our hand is strong, or because V in straddle doesn't have a fold button?

The $25 open seems fine, at least in a vacuum.

FLOP - With a big over-pair to the board, and the Jc in our hand, this seems like a fairly safe board to check three-ways. Let LJ stab at it if he wants, and if straddle just flat-calls, we can x/r.

As played, I'm definitely not jamming here. If this guy just never check-raises without trip 3's here, then it's just a painful yet obvious fold. If we think he's x/r'ing with 6x, or 45, or any 2 clubs, then I think we have to call, and see what he does on the turn.

Does this V have x/r bluffs in his game, or is he chasing all his draws by just check-calling the whole way?

The thing I don't like about jamming here is that he's just going to snap us off with any 3x or 66, and might call with 54cc (and get there), but if we call, we can just keep calling to the river if we want, and see all five cards without committing our whole stack. We give him two more chances to check to us, and we give ourselves two more chances to get away from our hand if we need to.

Everything is fine. Just call down now.

+1. The way you describe him could easily have him with 77-TT and him putting you on missed Ax trying to take the pot down. If he hit the 3, you're gonna have to pay him - his image is the real winner here.

Calling the villain down is superior to getting it in on the flop. When we jam, we narrow villain's continuing range. I would really, really rather call a villain's turn jam, which will likely have bluffs as well as strong value, than jam the flop myself and fold out the bluffs.

If we decide to continue, I'd rather just jam now as JJ is so vulnerable to so many bad runouts; the bigger our pear the more we could slowplay here.

GcluelessslowplayingnoobG

There was nothing in OP's description about the villain being a "maniac", or even that he's the least bit aggressive. All he said was he calls pre very wide and continues with any flop connection and "gets there". To me it sounds like he's more of a passive fish than a maniac, which is why I would fold there.

If there was more info on his post flop tendencies saying he gets aggressive post flop or he ever bluffed at all then obv I wouldn't be folding.

Maybe I am mis-reading, but OP states that V would 3bet squeeze as high as 20% of hands preflop Straddle vs. UTG. He also hypothesizes about Villain's range when he check-raises flop and says it includes "complete air." Sounds like a maniac to me.

"Passive fish" is a descriptor that could apply to the vast majority of low stakes live players. Any player that is defending to massive raises with literally any two cards is clearly in a different category regardless of their post-flop tendencies.

Results: H hasn’t played poker in a month, shrug shoves and V calls with 35o.

Oof.

This just seems like a weird board for V to x/r without a very strong hand or a boat-load of equity.