Result:
I bet 120, he cr to 450, I folded and he showed me 85o

Sucks, but I think he made the max, especially considering it was a limped pot. (I was in the check behind on river camp.)

Curious if you would have called if he bet ~$120 on the river?

I would fold to a river lead; those tend to be nutted when there aren't obvious draws that missed

Not calling a river donk

Bingo. Like I said, I think player description is off. TAG's don't limp 85o. This is neither a tight, nor aggressive strategy. I'm not saying that a TAG never completes the SB, I would with pp, and sc's... but never with 85o. That is a LP play, not a TAG play.

Sorry you lost the hand. I think that the river bet was pretty optimistic to get called by worse, but against a LP i'd likely do the same.

This is why I almost always ignore player descriptions. Too much subjectivity in player evaluation.


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I think it's too loose but not that bad. I'd complete slightly better hands. I don't like the flop peel though.

Its very bad in my opinion to complete 5-8 off from the SB. That is a clear -EV play,100 percent.

Many players overestimate how wide they can play from the SB and still make money on it.

It’s like bad live reg 101 to totally melt down and regress into a loose passive focus from the small blind.

I tend to ignore non-explicit reads (like actually detailing how someone played a hand is explicit, “TAG” isn’t) in HHs. Because TAGs don’t play 85o in the SB. If we knew he had 85o in his range, who knows how this would affect advice.


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Exactly. If i observed a player taking 8-5 off to the streets from the SB i would be thinking "fish" pretty quickly rather than "TAG".

There are significant differences between 40%, 50% and 60% small blind formats. If this were 2|5 SB would be getting 3.33:1 post rake, but here they're getting 5.5:1. Your completing strategy should be much looser in 3|5 than in 2|5. OP's squeeze frequency is less than 10% if he's not doing it with KQo and UTG is most likely a wide range fish because that's what most UTG limpers are. It's easier to realize equity against wide ranges which are less likely to bet, and raw equity is better also.

I'll double down on the assertion that it's not that bad, if it's even -EV at all. I'd 100% complete 85s and defend doing so, and probably 86o too. If it were 2|5, yeah, easy fold.

The thing about pre-flop in live poker is that nobody really knows what's +EV. There are no databases to track profitability of hands, and good luck finding solver solutions including an UTG limp in 3|5 format. You'd have to make your own and they wouldn't really apply well anyway because UTG's strategy is going to be nowhere near what a playable UTG limping strategy would look like.

I know the general consensus is that you shouldn't complete trash in the SB, but I don't completely agree. There is some nuance. For example, a single additional limper would mean our completion would bring the pot to $20, where $4 will be lost to rake. $15 is conveniently just below the next rake threshold, and only $2 is taken. Also, nobody else seems to be considering that this blind format offers better pot odds than other more common formats.

Does anybody else remember being shocked when they learned how wide BB can defend against small raise sizes in tournaments? Pot odds are a really big deal and small differences significantly impact the range of hands which can profitably call.