It's the wrong side of midnight in a town that coughs and writhes under a sky the color of gunmetal. The kind of place where hopes and dreams lie smoldering in the gutter like so many used-up cigarettes.

1/2 against a bunch of mutts and one pretty dame playing TAG on my left. When I'm in, it's for a raise, and I'm 3betting a bit wide for value. Which to these guys makes me a maniac but I'm really just playing straight ABC.

3 limps to hero in HJ with AKo, I raise 12. I get two customers, both typical bad, cally, gambly low-limit players.

The first, in EP, raises all in for 70.

The second, in MP, goes all in for a tad less, I think it was 60.

Hero?

Around here, a lrrai is almost always pocket pair, but you can see anything from 33 up. Law of averages favor mid-strength pp and that's what I put EP on.

Not sure about the caller, his range might be a little wider to account for the spaz factor. Although to be clear I haven't seen any one of these jokers do anything like this over the last couple hours I've been at the table.

My thinking is, I wouldn't have called EP, at best it's a flip and given his early position I'm quite possibly way behind.

But when Thing 2 comes along, I was thinking 2:1 odds would be good enough for a call. I figure even if they are both on a range of medium to good PP, I'm breaking even. If Thing 2 made a loose call here, I'm a bit ahead. I called alright, and I won. But just because I took it down doesn't mean it wasn't stupid, eh?

I don't mind shoving AK from time to time, but I hate calling shoves with it. Is 2:1 enough here?

Or did I play this like the sort of small-town loser who never met two cards or a cheap dame he didn't fall in love with?

I think it's pretty close. What would make me lean towards a call is V stack sizes. I used to lay to AK in spots like this only to see V turn over less than stellar hands. $60-$70 is right around the stack size where Vs are willing to put their money ai pf pretty bad. If they've got more $ than that, they tend to play poker a little more. You see a lot of spaz-like, "ah, f**K it" light shoves from Vs with these stack sizes.

I faced a pretty similar situation a few weeks ago. MP limps. I raised AK on the button to $15. SB flats. MP goes all-in for $80. I call. SB calls all-in. SB had JJ. MP shover had A6s. The MP shover had been playing solid poker for 3 hours prior to this.

My current theory is that unless someone is a nit, I'm almost always willing to gii with AK after I've raised (and am facing a re-raise ai) and no one has more than $75 in their stack. AK is only a big dog against AA. Unless some kind of spidey sense is tingling, I'm happy to call.

When you 3! for value, are you generally going 2x or 3x the initial raise? I've noticed that 2x the initial almost ALWAYS gets called while 3x the initial gets called significantly less, like maybe 20% of the time. I'm wondering if this is exploitable where I would 3! my premiums to 2x the initial so I can keep in inferior hands and 3! my mid pocket pair types to 3x to try to take down the pot then and there.

Anyway, regarding the hand, I'm likely calling here. Vs. just EP I would fold like you, but with two opponents and no further risk to your stack, seems like a decent spot to gamble a little.

I don't even consider it that much of a gamble. We have blockers to AA and KK (and even if it's KK, we have almost enough equity.) Call and feel good about it.

Good shove in this situation. Do you agree that fold is better if both shove with more chips ($200-300)?

I don't see this hypothetical situation playing out. Who LRRAI from $2 to $300?

As long as neither V has AA or KK, you're about 2:1 against winning. This holds true as long as one or both V's has a PP. If neither V has a pocket pair, you're about 1.5:1 against winning.

You're getting paid 2.5:1 because there is some preflop money in the pot. So, as long as you're pretty sure no has AA or KK, then it's EV+ to call.

Think you meant to say 1.5:1 in our favor

I meant 1.5:1 against but my math might have been off a bit.

With AK, against 2 V's with no PP, you have about a 45% chance of winning. So that's probably closer to 1.2:1 against (55:45).

Let me know if I'm doing this wrong.

Even if you are calling just the V1 for 70, it is still a snap call. you are calling 58 to win 140. It's not even close when you consider all the times that the V is going to shove with AQ and AJ.

Here is a hand I distinctly remember from my LAGier days.

1/3 and the deck had been knocking me upside the head for about 16 hours straight. I had about 3800 in front of me and I had been raising about 80% of my hands pre from any position

I straddle on the button to 6. Two limps and a very nitty OMC (600ish) makes it 40. Spewy asian calls behind him.

I look down at A2. The limpers are already mucking their hands and the spewy asian most like has some nasty piece of cheese, so if I can get OMC off of his hand, I can win this pot.

I know he would never ever make it 40 with aces. 40 is far too large. So I put him on JJ, QQ, or KK. I shove all in for 3800 and OMC starts to hem and haw. It is obvious that he is going to fold, but he just really really really doesn't like it. I was expecting that he would snap fold QQ and JJ and call with KK. After 30 seconds he folds AK face up, complaining that he never should have raised pre and that I am probably doing this with pocket 8's or something.

I was suprised that he actually raised with AK. He never raises with that from any position. And with me playing superlag and straddling on the button, there is like a 95% chance I am going to raise anyway, allowing him to just sit there and trap.

I was expecting the asian dude (250ish) to snap fold, but now he is mad at OMC. He turns up AK and complains that he would have called me, but now he can't because he knows that two of his outs are dead. Asian dude folds and I roll over A2 as I collect the pot.

Asian dude flips out. OMC racks up. I stack Asian dude a few hands later. AA > 22 all in pre.

I range EP to 66+. From EP I would normally weight AA/KK but here we should account for card removal effects. This is valid for the Tampa Hard Rock; the limp/rr move is a poker fad and things might be different where you play.

MP, I dunno, maybe 88+, maybe some Ax hands and the occasional "lucky hand" like JTs.

Might give EP one combo of AK. Maybe.

The way I stove it, in fact pretty much any way I stove it, my equity is around 30%. My thinking is, I don't mind taking a gambool against short stacks. Partially because of the "aw **** it" factor as Jesse says. Deep, I would personally fold.

Thanks for the replies. So far I feel a little less like a fish luck-box

this thread is useless without pics of the dame

This is an extremely obvious snap call with the range you assigned v1. This is only a fold against the nittiest of nitty villains who would only limp shove Kk and AA.

That's me in the suit.

???

so V1 had KK and V2 had AA and it flops QJT?

thank you

I think in this case, I would reluctantly call here, thinking Im a slight dog and hoping to hit a A or K to take the pot.

No, ace fell on the flop and they got frowny-faced, K ott and they start chucking cards, TAG-chick said I was a calling station and that was that. Guess I had em ranged right but they never showed. Because they are steely-eyed poker players

so you flipped as a slight dog pre and their QQ? or whatever was no good. and somehow you felt that this was not the right play? cmon man.

Not folding ever in this spot, unless the players were supernits. You have AK and both players are 35bbs or less deep.

Yep.

It's pretty easy for me to talk myself into doing stuff like this based on overly optimistic assumptions. To put as fine a point on it as possible, whether I was over optimistic about MP's range here. Results are irrelevant of course.

Nice.

I'm kind of thinking maybe cyberpunk for the next one