Yeah after seeing that A6o hand i would 3b huge here to like 75 to set up a flop shove if she flats.

Try to work out some SPR situations for yourself in 3bet pots (where your hand may be a little "face up" and you will most likely be playing for stacks postflop). Your comfort level may differ than mine, but I've decided 1/6 effective stacks in a typical general case is where I'm cool stacking off postflop with TP.

Flop bet size all depends on flop texture, number of opponents and opponent tendencies. This flop most likely smashes at least one of our 3 opponents, and they are most likely never folding the flop to a reasonable bet, and a PSB is reasonable.

The deeper we are on the turn, and the more nitty our opponent(s) is, and the more ugly the turn card, the more we can consider a fold. I'm not sure where the magic line is, but it definitely ain't at 1/2 PSB in this case.

GcluelessNLnoobG

1/6 effective pre flop stacks in the middle, so we only have and SPR of around 3, or 1/6 effective stacks on the flop so we have an SPR of 6?

I'm pretty much ok getting in TPTK with either in games, and with my image, just curious which one you're advocating for.

I advocate getting in 1/6 effective stacks preflop, to setup an SPR of 2.5 which we can then commit too easily postflop on anything but the worse boards.

You can work out yourself if you're comfortable with getting in less preflop and stacking off postflop, but if you do some SPR examples yourself you'll find that anything much less in a typical example is simply giving villain too good of implied odds with a most likely "face up" hand in a pot where we are playing for stacks.

ETA: Let's take your example where you've setup an SPR of 6 with your 3bet. So, for example, you start with $780 effective stacks in a 1/3 game (260bbs, so we're deep). Opponent opens to $20, you 3bet your AA to your standard 3x of $60, he calls, which means the pot is now $120 with $720 left, so an SPR of 6. So the villain called $40 preflop to win $720 + $80 so getting total implied odds of a rather awesome 20x. I think stacking off postflop would be horrendous, and yet we're in a difficult spot because the SPR is pretty small and our hand is sorta face upish (if we don't 3bet a lot). In this particular case, since a 1/6 3bet would be to $130 (and therefore highly unlikely to be called) I would much rather flat. It does have the danger of inviting a multiway pot, but we could also have a cowboy 3bet behind us (enabling us to setup the comfortable SPR), and if does end up HU we are dealing with a very comfortable SPR of 19 (which is fine for an overpair who is now willing to play for a small-mediocre pot UI).


Ginbefore"3betmore"G

Here's an interesting preflop spot that came up last week:

2/5 game on the weekend. All opponents in the hand are calling stations.

UTG limps (1500), HJ limps (500), CO limps (2000), SB completes (500). Hero (covers) is BB with 9 9

Assume that a raise will get a minimum of 3 callers, unless it's a stupid amount like 75 that will make everyone play perfectly. We have the best hand right now, but is there any merit to raising here, when at least one overcard will hit the flop ~80% of the time and we'll have to play a bloated multi-way pot OOP?

Some very nice posts ITT by GG regarding stack/pot/ratio and stackoff comfortable level with top pair type of hands.

If we were IP raise for value.
But being OOP, just check.

Then what, when overcards come otf....check, or bet out?

Check.

In game I'm prob checking, but raising is probably better even though its adding variance. Our hand is gonna be pretty easy to play postflop because theyre all so passive. $45?

No reason to build a bloated pot OOP with 99 especially against loose players. Much easier to check pre. 80% of the time I'm checking the flop as well. It also disguises your hand if you check pre and if you flop a set you're likely to get paid off regardless if they are all calling stations. Actually one of my favorite positions to be in haha.

$45-50 all day, proceed from there

it isn't the end of the world if it goes 3way and one overcard shows up...

Meh I'm just checking. Why should we narrow the field and bloat the pot when we're OOP and we get to setmine essentially for free?

Because its more profitable.

No it's not. We're OOP so we can never expect to realize more than like 80% of our equity even if we're crushing. By checking we 1) double our implied odds on a set, 2) get better odds of one or more people playing along if we hit, and 3) play for a smaller pot OOP.

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know what you're talking about in bold. Could you please elaborate a little? Where does this 80% come from, and how do our implied odds double?

I think the fact that we're oop shouldn't matter as much as you're saying because our opponents in this hand are passive and incapable of owning us postflop.

We have double the implied odds because the ESS:money invested ratio is half. Hell, we haven't put in any money voluntarily if we check, so anything we make is clean profit. As for the first bit, you never, ever make as much money OOP as you do IP, even if villains are passive. You won't usually be in marginal spots OOP vs passive donks, but you may miss out on the occasional spazz, opportunities to raise over someone's bet with a set, etc.

I mean, if we're going to own them anyway, why not set ourselves up to let more people catch a piece of the flop and get more money out of them post with our set, or even get thin value out of a naked pair in a small pot a lot of the time? It's easier to do if their range is weaker.

1-2 NLHE

Hero has $193 UTG, been relatively quiet.

Open to $10 with Ad Ks

Called by 2 villains.

Pot is $30
Flop is As 8s 5h

I bet $20 called by short stack who started hand with $100.

Pot $70
Turn 9s

Go ahead and get it in is best right?

Pretty sure this is a fold on the turn, but draw was so big I kind of wanted to ship:

V1 younger Asian guy in BB who is pretty aggressive.

V2 is young guy on the heater of his life. Seems like a solid player, but he's flopping so many sets and quads it's kind of hard to be sure.

Hero is 51-year-old guy. Probably playing a little looser/more aggressive in position than other nights.

Hero has Kd Td OTB and raises to $25 over limpesr. V1 and V2 call.

Flop is AJ9 with one diamond. Checks to me and I bet $30. Both call. Pot is $165.

Turn is the 8d. V1 checks. V2 bets $140. I have $235 total.

The A is not the diamond. So it's possible he's got TP and picked up the nut flush draw. But not likely.

I tank fold. BB folds and shows QxQd, taking away some of my outs.

V2 says he had A8 and turned two pair.

He only has $70 behind? Yeah, PSB you can just get it in.

I dont really like the flop sizing. With your stack I would consider check/folding or betting bigger (say $55-60) with the intention of semi bluffing AI on the turn for a pot sized bet when a good turn card comes. Just feel like < half pot sized bet on the flop leaves us with an awkward turb bet size.

How often are you cbetting here? Maybe it's a leak, but I'm checking this flop.

Depends on the villain, the table, stack sizes, my image, and time of day (i.e. some random whatever factor).

50% or so I'd say, maybe more if I have a strong image and V's who like to fold.
Much less if I'm against OMC types who won't bet their AX but will always call with it.

Pretty standard?

5 handed:
3 limps
Hero completes the SB with 86
BB checks

5flop ($9) 862
Hero leads $8
V calls
Random calls

3Turn ($29) A
Hero bets $25
V calls
Random folds

2River ($73) 4
Hero bets $30
V tanks for a bit, and raises to $100
Hero folds

That's a big bet that he called on a scary turn. I don't think we're getting value from worse hands enough to bet the river. I would c/f.