I probably play it the same way as you. I'm def. not raising flop.

yes, but if they check, u b/f or b/c depending on the action...I just try to take advantage of the fact they will always chase, and they will only raise nutty hands...vs ur villain i don't think i wanna fold there

His flop donk is kind of weakish..$27 into 60. It could be seen as one of two things:
1) to induce a raise from the PFR (you) so he could then 3bet..he would do this mostly with sets and sometimes with NFDs
2) to get a feel for how strong/weak the field is...he would mainly do this with Ax imo, maybe some weaker draws trying to set his own price

On turn he bets much stronger $100 into $16x...he could be doing this with his entire value range, as he didn't pick up any signs of strength from you on the flop..so he can easily figure Ax is the best hand

imo, looking at the hand you can certainly fold flop and wait for reads to establish a better line in the future. But if deciding to continue, I would mostly flat her (at the expense of a flush completing) to keep the pot manageable and keep his range widest (you don't want him shoving over your flop raise with a combo draw, etc)
If you flat flop, then I would reevaluate turn play and either fold to a large bet or just call down and play passive if the bets are reasonable...i

AP, I think the safest thing is to fold turn...but now that he has shown an Ace, you can take note of the types of hands he won't donk flop with in future (sets, FDs)

While visiting family, I played at a local card room that runs only 1/2. Fortunately, max buy-in is 500.

Hero (680) - Not sure if primary villain notices, but I'm on the tighter/aggressive side. Earlier, I took a peculiar multi-street line with an open overbet on the river where I thought he was inelastic. He hemmed and hawed but found a fold, though I'm pretty sure he questioned whether I "had it." Prior to that hand but against a different player, I successfully turned QQ into a bluff and fired 3 barrels for most of my stack. Showed the bluff to loosen my image.

Villain 1 (225) - Almost solely a level 1 thinker. Very passive preflop. Limps way, way too often (70%+). Poor understanding of position. Doubt he ever bluffs.

Villain 2 (600) - Extremely loose but thinking player who suffers from WEPS and has tilt issues. Irrelevant to hand, though his presence did slightly affect my flop decision.

Hand:

I raise AKo utg to 10. Villain 2 calls in lp, while the primary villain calls in the bb.

Flop (30): KJ3r

Villain 1 donks 25.

My initial thinking is that Villain 1 usually check-raises JJ or 33... or at least leads smaller with those holdings. If we're chopping, I think I can sometimes get him to fold. AA makes little sense. Given how dry the board is, I don't worry too much about Villain 2; however, I also don't want to play oop position against a deep player who is capable of attacking weak, indecisive play.

I... ?

call

call him down and win the kicker batter most of the time.

^^^^
I agree completely. The times we hit we can still win a lot of $ by calling as compared to raising (though not quite as much) plus we lose a loooot less by just calling the times we don't hit....the result = greater net profit in the long run

you're a coinflip vs. top pair here, if you don't think you can get folds, then take your equity in position. Nothing wrong with that.

Well if your read was that she wasn't folding KQ/KJ on the flop, then what good is shoving the turn? That's just getting your money in as a 3:1 dog.

Work through what you're trying to accomplish with your bet, and your chances of accomplishing it.

Against people who can fold hands plus aren't payoff monkeys when the obvious draw comes in, by all means, raise.

But against payoff station morons who we have 0 FE against and will pay us off every time, super easy call to hit. And I'm not voluntarily putting any more money into this pot unless I hit or have the implied odds (i.e. I ain't shoving blank turns if checked to).

Preflop spot

2/5 game with a few spots on the table, Villian 1 is one of the biggest losing players in the game. Has top 5% hand 100% of the time when he 3bets here. Villian 2 is also a fish but has been on a heater for a while, plays pretty ABC preflop with a very small 3b % and probably no 4b % besides AA and KK.

Hero is UTG with $500 and villians cover, dealt QQ
Hero raises to $30 (raising an extra BB in this game because players are calling really wide and I want extra value/bigger pots), MP calls, V1 snap makes it $200, V2 is very deep and flats $200 after some thought (not thinking about my stack or v1s 800 stack), back to Hero?

Not worried about MP, hes folding here basically always.

Is our hand too strong too fold despite knowing V1s range is strong and V2s range is mediumish strong (my read on V2 is 99s to AK so QQ should be good against him)

i hate all three options with just $470 behind. V2 could have the same hand as you right? i mean, you say he will 4-bet AA or KK and he didn't 4-bet.

i can live with folding or shipping, but not calling. i guess i'm shipping here with 100 BBs and a proper bankroll.

Just a simple preflop checkup.

There's this sorta tilty guy at the table last night who is down to his last 35-40 BBs. A few times he has shipped preflop, once just over a single straddle, another time over a few calls of a raise, another time just open shipping. One time he was called and he just had KJo, so I'm assuming he's doing this with any two paint cards / etc.

Anyhoo, what's the minimum pocket pair we're calling these with? I happened to wake up with 88 and 77 against two of these shoves and folded both times, thinking that I'm either (a) slightly ahead versus overcards or (b) way behind to an overpair. Course I realize I can't call in too early of position for fear of a bigger hand behind me, let's assume I'm close to closing the action. Standard?

Do things get more difficult knowing that villain *probably* (?) isn't playing huge pairs (JJ+?) this way for fear of only winning the blinds? I'm also not exactly sure if he's capable of doing this with small pairs cuz I'm assuming he'd just setmine instead of wasting such a great hand (i.e. maybe there is a slight chance I'm actually way ahead with a hand like 88/77)?

GcluelessNLnoobG

gg - depends on the player, action so far, players left, etc.

In a heads up pot, especially if you open raised, I'd call down to 22 against someone I thought was just clicking buttons.

Against a tight player I'm going to tighten up a lot.

But I don't get this. A hand like 22 is either (a) just a slight favourite or (b) a massive underdog. If there's no other dead money in the pot to offset this, why are we calling, even if we know he's doing this with any two paint cards? I'm guessing 88/77 gets a little trickier since they could actually be crushing some hands (depending on whether he does this with small pairs instead of setmining), but with 55-, meh?

2/2 Live - Villain (foreigner, in his forties, seems Persian or something, ~$150) opens UTG+1 to 12, one caller, I (cover) raise to 42 with black Aces, villain calls, caller folds.

Flop AQQ - check, check
Turn Q - check, check
River X - villain bets 34 into 100 (~70 behind), I ... ?

shove? I understand you had the deck crushed, but I like a bet OTT. If he has any PP, you should be able to get it in OTR. Zeebo Theorem, imo. AP, you have toppest FH and only a random Q beats you. He's Persian-esque, so Zeebo Theorem is even more likely, he's not folding a FH, and there's a lot more PPs and random chopping Aces in his range than Q's.

+1 hes so short this is such an easy shove

Seriously if hero doesn't shove here he is leaving so much money on the table in the longrun

Opinions please...

When first into the pot.
Opening slightly larger than normal (with our opening range) from early positions to compensate for being out of position. [field thinning]
Mid to late positions- opening standard sizing.
example:
1/2 live: 15 from utg-+1-2
10 bucks mid to late pos

Do we like this or is it...??

This is an interesting dicussion because I can see merits to both opening larger in EP and just going 4-5bb (5bb in 1/2 for sure though)

I shy away from the $15 raise at 1/2 UTG - UTG +2 because at some tables it just makes it so only better hands call. I like the reverse of what you are doing (raise normal in EP, charge limpers in LP) because:

1) In LP we can charge limpers, who often don't have regard to position and can both charge limpers and take control IP.
2) In EP if we make it $15, its a bad spot for KQo, 77-99 because there are plenty of hands that we have marginally beat that will just fold + better hands will flat and we are OOP.

I think the conclusion I am making is that if you are going to raise to $15 with entire range, you better be willing to muck KQ and AJ more often than not even at 1/2 tables. If you raise mostly premiums in EP then it can compensate for being OOP+ value, but I guarentee you you will get a good amount of folds and win $3 with AA 1/3 times, which is really disgusting since we get AA once every 7 hours.

By making it so large, Villains will flat with medium pairs up to JJ and better broadways than our marginal bottom range, Also, worse hands we crush won't call as much now that they haven't even limped. Remember, villains overall dont value position so I would raise rather large IP over limpers. Once they invest $2, they act like they have to call and especially with one other caller.

So imo, at 1/2 make it 5-6 bb in EP unless table is considerably loose, but if you must raise to $15 early, cut out AJ and KQ. IMO if you just make it $10 everytime or so you will allow worse to call, and villains don't float or make life hard even when we are OOP and hands should be fairly easy to play postflop (most the time) assuming you are a good player. Even if we make it fairly small (5bb) in EP we may loose more pots, but in the long run we win more $$ with our top range of good hands.

All the stuff I said goes out the window if dynamics are radical, I.e. game is super loose or super tight. But in the average 1/2 game I would go with above.

imo it depends alot on what we are holding...

If its a hand like AKo that I want to play heads up, I will make it $15 at 1/2 trying to get it heads up / 3 way... if I get tons of callers I proceed with caution.

If its a hand that plays great multiway read: big sooted cards
I will make it whatever I think the person next to me will call easily... typically $10 in hopes of triggering everyone thinking they have "POT ODDS" to call the $10 because the last 3 people did. This allows us to play nut draw hands in a biggish pots while I have only invested $10 and we can play for stacks.

This assumes we are playing at a deeper 1/2 and some fish has 100bigs+

LOL yeah, I actually agree that it's a shove. I actually flatted river and he had AQ. Table couldn't believe their eyes. But it's a shove no doubt.

If villain has case Q, snap muck act like you were buying the pot and make a snarky comment, rinse and repeat

How often in a passive game are we limping in late position with low pocket pairs (say 22-77), after 2-4 limpers? I used to raise this virtually all the time, but thought it might be a leak in a live game. So often I would make a pot size raise, get 2-4 callers, then either shut down on flop or c-bet and get called and then shut down on the turn. Thanks.

you have several advantages working for you because of the nature of these games regarding getting in cheap, which in a vacuum may be fundamentally questionable.

1] if it's against really weak players, and at 1/2 it oughta be, you can bloat the pot whenever you want, when youve seen some cards. you don't have to 'build the pot' early so you can get all in when you hit. they arent aware of pot size, bet-sizing so much, that you can overbet when you hit and still get it in in a limped pot, which against better players would be an impossibility.

2] technically you have the best hand, just like you technically have the best hand with A8 in a limped pot a lot of the time, and IP it gets tempting to want to raise it, and i'm sure online it's 100% correct, but the way the 2 games play is like night and day. the prob w/ the 'best hand' here is that
a.] it flops pretty badly
b.] villians routinely make pre flop equity mistakes in droves, so your c bet vig gets destroyed, because you are going to have to fade a gazillion callers when you miss.

also, because they make so many mistakes all the more reason to be willing to limp in with small-mid pairs, depending on your position.
you have such a strong hand compared to the garbage they are limping in with, so there are oppurtunities to cooler them, sets over 2 pair, ect... it's worth considering, and the value you may be passing up in getting them to play correctly, and fold Q6 type hands.
these oppurtunities arent there so much in tougher games, online, w/e, so you arent taking advantage of anything by limping in w/ these hands.