I don't have much calling range there, a nitty pocket 3? Probably shoving my pocket 3 on the river there.

I can't have aces on the river there, because preflop bet is 100$, so I'm betting a whole lot of aces on 884 flop. Just one of those things that, if he has a naked 8, please take my money and please keep calling my 100$ three bets on the BB.

I believe that he (almost) can't have KJ and K10 because that would mean that he called a very reasonable 3 bet with KJ or K10, and then checked turn with a turned top pair, and then did a huge bet that is still in the range of plz give the milk I'm betting less than pot but that bet is 50% of my initial stack, with just a pair ok kicker. So when I add those three things together, it seems unlikely he has KJ or K10, and even if I do suppose he can have KJ, I think he would bet less than 200$, or check to end the pot. And if I do a no read analysis and throw in KJ and K10 in there, I still give him too much respect and have to put combos of 3's, and stuff, so KQ looks to be on the losing equity all things considered. But that's just theory, in practice I think you're ****ing dead.

Well the more I talk about it, the more I like Dream Crusher's shove. You try to play this hand and it's a world of hurt. While I don't necessarily agree with a shove that is a bluff and your whole stack against players that can have an overpair to the board. At least it looks like aces, and even 10-10 gonna think about it and perhaps fold.

There's no flush draw or up and down straight draw so yeah we are repping a big pocket pair. There are many villains that will fold pocket pairs in this spot. We also get folds from Ax which is ahead of us. Furthermore, if we check then we can get blown off our equity by worst hands. When we do get called by pocket pairs we still have some equity. This should be one of the best bluff candidates we can have in this spot. Once in a while a villain flopped trips+. So what? We have less than a pot sized bet left.

WTF

I think you missed my edit because I did it almost before your post. I added that : Well the more I talk about it, the more I like Dream Crusher's shove. You try to play this hand and it's a world of hurt. While I don't necessarily agree with a shove that is a bluff and your whole stack against players that can have an overpair to the board. At least it looks like aces, and even 10-10 gonna think about it and perhaps fold.

Yeah, it's a good bluff Dream, but uhh.. I still don't feel comfy about it because its a bluff of your whole stack, and against players that can think ABC and be well this is a call, I have jacks. Or if they dont think abc, they can think that you're bluff. So IDK what your line of such big bluff comes in in term of equity. You don't do this 100% of the time and not against all players right? I mean, you gotta give up your 3bet semi-bluff some of the time right. So yeah, I'm not sure of what are all the variables you look at before shoving there. I do completely understand that you rep aces, and aces makes everyone with a brain fold. Its just that IDK, not everybody does.

Yeah Dream yeah! He's betting half his stack, I read him of having a big hand, what's your counter argument?

My counter argument is that players bluff. This is 2/5. Players bluff quite a bit. Bad players bluff a lot more than good players. No villain description, but more than likely these are bad players. We should rarely be folding strong hands to bad players. We are super underrepped and it's only $200.

So you agree with me, the bet represents a stronger holding than KQs because you imply you're bluff catching.

So even when I pace myself with your thoughts, I'm still bluff catching, bluff catching for a total of 50% of starting stacks, that's probably not where most (bad) bluffs are.

Also what's the golden ratio of value vs bluff, 3 to 1? So all bluff catchers, you're kind of late already because villain generally has more value than fold, so in uncertainty a fold is +ev.

I agree with you, it looks like typical bad 2/5 players the way the action went, but I'm not sure if tagging him as a bad player makes
bluff catchers that much, a lot
better.

Basic question: Is it common, or "standard", to re-raise into 3 players out of the BB with KQs? Is it pot-building or thinning-the-field?

Like everything else, I’d say it depends.

There are many factors - your skill, your opponents known/perceives skill, your image, how deep you are, etc

The raise could be either/both pot building or thinning the field

Thanks. My experience has been that in 2-5 I start finding sentient players, but also bigger donks. Both can be challenging, as can be KQs. I guess it all depends on the room.

It really doesn't though.

It's certainly not something that everyone playing 2/5 should incorporate into their game to be successful. More harm could be caused by trying to incorporate this into your game. That being said, KQ functions both as a value hand and a good bluff candidate since it blocks very strong hands.

Poker is sometimes referenced as a game of chickens. I imagine you get why.

How do you win the chicken game when playing poker?

Not standard for me at least, but as noted original raiser was loose - he had just opened 35s from EP and called a 3! - and callers would have 3! anything decent themselves, so we may have the best hand.

The way you played the hand, it becomes a bluff. I don't know about random 2/5 players, but if I call 20$, and I call your 110$ raise, I have KQs beat almost always. I suspect that 2/5 bad players would call you there with a least a good ace, or pocket 8+, which beats KQs.

This may be the problem here, you thought KQs was very good, and it wasent, okay yeah you beat the loose player's open, but it seems you underestimated the cold callers behind, that probably had the loose opener beat too right from the get go. So yeah, if you think you have the best hand, kinda skews the whole hand, but if you see it as a bluff, then you can pull out Dream's play, and move all in on the flop and rep aces, now if you bind yourself to win a pot with what you think is the best hand when it probably isn't given the action, seems like a fast downhill.

Even if I don't have the best hand pre, I probably have more than enough equity against the ranges I'm up against to make this 3! profitable. You think they are flatting a loose utg open with AQ/AK/JJ? I doubt it.

What else are they gonna do? Loose guy open 4x, and you raise the open 5.2x... the guy with AQ is peeing in this pants man, what he's gonna do, his 4 bet sets you all-in, and if he has a brain, then he knows that if he reraise you there and is called, you're showing him Queens+, most likely aces. Also, the exact pair is trivial right. Weither it be 88 or JJ, you're around the same % of wins against those hands. And yeah, you will absolutely see AK, AQ and Jacks with that action preflop. Specially old men, tend to call AK AQ low key against a solid open, and then bring the price of poker up when they hit it, and you're like, where the **** did that AK came from, I never saw that much strengh in him.

This is no tournament, this is a cash game man, people aren't going to stack themselves off 100BB with relatively good hands. Unless you're Vanessa Selbst, then you can stack off with J8 of diamonds.

Where did I say anyone was an OMC in this hand? Everyone was young and probably aggressive enough to be 3!ing hands that had me in bad shape already pre. I thought this was a relatively easy 3! actually.

Anyway results:

hero snap calls river, btn peeled light pre with 84cc for the flopped boat.

Yeah, he must have been scared that you had K8, that's why he checked and bet 200$ instead of all-in, it's not like he was milking you. I think all of you, should come by, lets play some poker!

lolz, congrats on losing the min

Thanks. Funniest part was the original raiser said he folded 98 so btn was steaming that I 3! squeezed him out of a cooler situation against a deeper-stacked opponent. I winked at him and said "standard call pre with 84," gave him a smile and he got offended and started talking about getting 3:1 and he didn't need advice from ME. It was a hoot.

I have played many hours v this exact profile and I fist pump 3 ball this

Blind 🐿 find acorn

Why do you say he's peeling light, he called 110$ yeah but he was suited.

You guys just don't understand the ultimate Power of 84 of clubs.

Hi squid, thanks for chiming in, been a while. Hope all well.

It's completely irrelevant what you are calling with preflop. Live players just want to play hands and see flops. In particular, if the game has liberal 3betting then players are going to call super wide potentially even with any 2 cards. Of course, there are certain players that only call 3bets with hands that crush KQ and only bet for value on the river with hands that beat KQ but those players are a rarity in the games I play in and certainly don't represent the general 2/5 player population anywhere.

FWIW, the last time I played 1/2 players were calling $75 to $125 preflop every hand with any 2 cards.