I just sat down. No reads at all. I was still putting away my card, recording my buyin when I got both these hands. At the 1/2 table, no one 3bet over five orbits. It was my second night at 2/5. After the second hand I thought, how often do they 3bet at 2/5? Do you just call here?

Hero has just over 500 in both hands. Vs cover. JJ and AQs are my 4bet bluffs against players 3betting light.

Hand 1

UTG limps. Hero in HJ bets 20 AQs. CO unknown raises to 60. Limper folds. Hero folds.

Hand 2

Button straddle 10. Hero in the BB raises to 30 with JJ. CO raises to 110. Here tanks considering a 4bet. Hero folds.

1 is rough I hate spots like that and not sure what's technically right. No reads I'm normally calling here being suited and can fold offsuit AQ

2 this is an easy all in unless you know the guy is super super tight. 150 in there already even if you assign him a fairly slim range I think its still profitable

I'd assume the 2/5 will have more aggressive players than your 1/2. Is it a small room where people might know you are moving up too?

JJ is not a good hand to use as a 4bet bluff. Both folds seem fine.

Being suited in hand 1 I call 100% and fold the offsuit AQ. Its not a massive 3bet and we are certainly deep enough to play postflop. Plus its later positions, not like you raise UTG1 and villain 3bets UTG2 to 90. There I might find a fold if the villain is pretty nitty and straightforward.

Hand 2 because its a button straddle we have a very tight opening range from BB and CO has made a pretty sizeable 3bet so I rather fold that.

Is this the same villain in both hands?

By the way, with youtube videos and all the material out there 3bets are not as tight as they used to be. I think folding AQs to a normal 3bet in your example is too tight. Im noticing even a lot of recs are pretty knowledgeable about preflop 3bet ranges nowadays. I played for a little bit last night with an older asian lady that was 100% a rec and made big postflop mistakes but she 3bet frequently with correct hands including suited connector bluffs and she always did the 3x in position sizing. Ive seen this from a lot of other rec players too that make big postflop mistakes. So i think youre losing a good amount of EV folding AQs.

It was the only 2/5 game. I felt that I could very well have “I’m buying in for 500 because this is only my second time playing 2/5” on my face. But I had no reads at all.

If you use AQs and JJ as 4bet bluffs vs light 3bettors, what hands do you call 3bets with??

I would call in the first hand and I would 4bet jam for value in the second hand. The second hand in particular I think is way too tight. You are only playing 50 straddles deep. Players are likely 3betting hands like AQ and TT, possibly even wider, as well as all 16 combos of AK that will always call your jam. I played 1/2 at your room last week and had a player 3bet my UTG open with TT. I 4bet KK and he 5bet jammed his TT for 125bb. It's not always AA and KK, and especially so at 2/5.

Call hand 1.

Fold hand 2.

At 2/5 I think the players are more likely to see the straddle as making it 50bb effective in which case you can play for stacks. But I hesitate to say it's an easy value jam with JJ since the 3b is over a raise from the blinds - should be comparable to a 3b vs utg, hero has a narrow range. Use judgment, physical tells, etc

Hand 1 I am trained to make the tight fold in 1/2 or 1/3 but against the higher positional aggression in 2/5 I would call.

I would fold both against unknowns. They are both marginal situations and playing the hands shouldn't be terrible. I think the first is more debatable and I likely call AQs sometimes. This is a matter of getting a cold read on opponent. The second is more clear cut. The straddle makes effective stacks small and puts hero in an awkward spot where shoving is too much but flatting OOP puts hero at a big disadvantage.
Both of these are hands that could be fold, call or raise against a known opponent. The second in particular, if villain like 3 bet bluffs from LP then shove over top and see how it works out. The awkward stack size now works in hero's favor and leaves villain with few calling hands.

Hand 1 - with no reads, I call.

No straddle on, so we're deeper. We opened in a later position, so our range isn't as strong. V is only raising 3X, which could be a sizing tell indicating weakness. Our hand has a lot of ways to improve. Let's see a flop.

Hand 2 - with no reads, I fold.

BTN straddle on, we're opening a very tight range from the BB, and V is raising almost 4X. Our hand only has two outs to improve, and we're going to hate the flop well over half the time. We don't have the stack depth to flat call and set-mine.

FWIW, 3B's are a lot more common at 2/5, so you're going to be put in a lot of awkward spots when you're only buying in for $500. When stacks get deep, you'll see more 4B'ing and 5B'ing less than all-in. There's a wild 2/5 game in my local card room that runs every week. Last night I walked by, and saw several players sitting over $5k deep.

So, in H1, if we were $1k eff or more, we might consider a 4B, because the CO's range doesn't need to be that strong when he's 3B'ing to 3X over a HJ open for 4bb. In H2, if we were $1200 eff, we could flat call to set mine.

Also, if we were at least $1k eff in H2, V might give our raise more respect, and not 3B quite as large. If he made it $90 or $100, we'd have enough stack depth to set-mine.

Think about the guys you see buying in for a short stack at 1/2 or 1/3. Regs will target those shorter stacks with relentless aggression. That's even more true at 2/5.

Rather than buy in for $500, and get put into tough positions like this, I think I'd rather buy in for $200, and just 4B-jam 99+/AJs-AK in spots like these. The upside is that regs hate doubling up the short stacks, so they'll be less likely to 3B you light, knowing you'll be 4B jamming a lot.

Next time, I’m calling hand 1 and folding hand 2. But I’m glad I folded hand 1 in the context. The informational disadvantage in the first orbit with unknown players dictates nitty play.

I think its important to remember 4betting JJ and AQs isnt bluffing against some players, its value betting.

Not folding either. Probably calling hand 1. Stuffing hand 2.

i wouldnt use AQs and JJ as bluffs vs light 3bettors. if they are in fact light, would those possibly become value?

but more importantly, they're great hands to call with if villains arent just auto bet when checked to type opponents.

If you dont think the opponents are particularly good players Id advocate keeping your 4bet range polarized with true bluffs than either smash a flop or whiff so hard its easy to just fold and move on (A5s etc)

The better my opponents are the more likely I am going to start to form a more linear 3bet range (in this hypothetical, i am also half decent at least too). If you are not confident in your post flop play then keep it polar.

CO vs HJ - AQs id argue is value and not a bluff if they're 3betting light.

with the JJ hand I make it a little bigger cuz its live poker and I expect action-y villains to aggressively defend their straddle pretty wide. In a scenario like this I would opt to put AQs and JJ into calls here to strengthen that calling range though as you should also be raising with some wonky nonsense out the BB most of the time too. This gives you good board coverage as well.

Surely you call both and play some poker on later streets? 4b bluffs will be more like A5s although probably you need to be deeper. AK has great card removal for a 4b. JJ makes no sense as a 4b bluff. What better hand folds? QQ maaaaybe? You have bad card removal eg you block 3b bluff like qjs jts ajs kts j9s.

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Hand 1 you shouldn't be folding. That's very playable post flop.

Hand 2 - It's a low quality game with clueless people straddling on a table that's low stacked. You basically have 50bb to start with. You call, then the pot is 225. You have 39 left. There's not a lot of skilled play left at that point. This is an easy fold. Really not a fan of places that allow straddling anywhere like this. Find a game with smarter people (ie deeper stacked) or a table with people who aren't straddling.