Thursday afternoon @ 4:30pm, GVC Elgin, IL

9 handed 1/3 with $6 utg straddle on. Table is typical loose/passive with lots of limp/calling and almost no 3 betting, except for...

V1 ($400) Very active Mexican fella who can 3 bet light. Post he will bet almost %100 if the person with the lead checks a street. Sticky post flop and loves to chase.

V2 ($350) BB late 20s/early 30s white male. This dude plays poker like I play poker. Not just similar, but straight up exactly how I play. He rarely limps, but will over limp in position with nut making hands, he opens tight af from ep but a bit wider from lp, he 3 bets at about my frequency (so a bunch compared to the typical player), especially out of the blinds, and he uses sizings I would choose. He folds his SB in limped pots, and he plays super tight overall and value bets relentlessly. One thing to note is after 2 hrs of play, a seat two to my left opened up and he snap took it despite having just paid his blinds (he was about to be btn) and having to immediately post to be delt in.

H: ($400) OTB 39yo white male. Playing just like V2. Up a bit with a good image. The three of us have been at the table for about 4 hours.

***OTTH***

$6 UTG straddle is on. V1 ($400) limps from +1, 3 other ppl ($200-$600) limp to H OTB w/ JsTs

My first question: Facing 4 limps (and V2 in the BB), do most just over limp here? Should I be raising this sometimes?

Thanks gang.

I prefer Isoing this hand on the button. Better the less people and it plays well as the aggressor in position.

I would make it $36 and take it from there.

From the sounds of that table it plays like a lot of tables I play at. The rest of the players are rarely going to fold to your raise and then on top of it you will have a possible squeeze you will not be able to call from the BB if he wants to take that route.

If BB is only rarely squeezing and folding the rest, I like a raise to $21 to $25 . A smallish amount to keep SPR high vs most of the table but big enough most wont notice you are sizing down. If he is squeezing a lot I am overlimping and fine playing a limped pot or possibly even a pot with five callers when he makes it under $30 and you get to close the action. I dont think it matter much who has the betting lead in 5 person pots. I like to keep the SPR high vs multiple players with this particular hand. Sounds like we have a similar strategy at the table so that should fit into your game pretty well.

For guys a little tighter, or if you are playing particularly tight in a session I like a raise to 35-45 to make my hand look like a big pair. And willing to check fold and lose 10bb for a chance to win 200 or 300bb in position vs a big field, or play like we have AA if we only get one caller. Im about the same age as you and play similarly and people hate folding preflop to me for whatever reason until the bet size gets over $50. Maybe thats true for mostly everyone at 1/2 and 1/3?

Also when a guy whose game I respect seat changes to my left (kind of rare), I ask for a seat change button and play musical chairs. Only When its obvious he moved to get position on me, I have zero shame. We can play musical chairs until 7am if thats what he wants to do. This situation comes up at least a couple times a session I play vs players I dont respect. But mostly I let them move. Most of them are either worse off because they are too aggressive or doing me a favor because they are too tight and are just scared and not affecting anything by moving but putting better players to my right. Once in my life ive musical chaired all night and it was pretty good natured by both of us until at some point we ended up 4 seats between.

Yes, you should raise when you have a huge hand on the Button.

Given straddle of $6 and 4 limps, I'm raising to $50 here, hoping to get 2 callers at most.

My first priority is to see if I can figure out why V2 seat changed.

In the actual hand I would limp almost all the time and raise almost never. (I might even fold a very small but nonzero percentage of the time.) The straddle being on plus not having fold equity preflop means bloating the pot isn’t good. The presence of V2 who might 3bet light but probably wouldn’t raise light also means I don’t want to raise.

Finally, this is not a huge hand. I think OP knows this.

With V2 in the BB, I am not raising here. Having this turn into a 3-bet pot without initiative against the best player on the table would be the suck, though we do at least have position. I'd be much happier to play this nut-making hand in position multi-way, which I think we can do if he raises or not, as more callers are likely of his raise than of his potential 3-bet.

Thanks for the replies so far. Anyone else have strong feelings about preflop?

No strong feelings. Leaning limp but iso raise is fine. It doesn't matter too much if your overlimp range is overly condensed and unbalanced. Obviously the more multiway it goes the more cautious you'll have to be when you hit a pair (or indeed a flush)

Yeah, leaning call mostly due to the short stack depth. I think raising is also +EV but the particular setup of the table suggests that V1 is almost surely calling your iso and you probably will get 1-2 more callers, and we will be playing a fairly bloated low SPR pot with a hand that is dominated multi-way by a lot of offsuit broadway hands in opponents’ ranges. Risk of V2 3betting is also a factor, though, I don’t expect him to 3bet more than 10-15% of the time if he’s appropriately wide, so the risk there is somewhat limited. Also need to consider risk that one of the $200 stacks backjams. Call and raise both fine, honestly not sure which is best but leaning call.

With straddle on and so many limpers, most of whom we'll likely call our raise, I think effective stacks are to shallow to iso-raise here.
JTs doesn't play well multi-way and with low SPR, despite initiative and position.

I just over-limp.

Cool, my thoughts at the time echoed CIE and CMV so...

$6 UTG straddle is on. V1 ($400) limps from +1, 3 other ppl ($200-$600) limp to H OTB w/ JsTs

H over limps, SB folds, BB (V2) calls, straddle checks. 7 ways to a flop...

Flop: ($37) Ad 4s 6s

Checks all the way around to us otb. Any reason to do anything but check?

Checking. Someone has an ace they arent folding. Maybe Axss.

No reason to bet.

Yup easy CB get the free card to punish the person who has an Ace, 44 or 66.

The best reason to bet is if we think we can get 2 cards for the price of one. In other words, I am checking somewhere here but it might be the turn instead of the flop.

The problem is when you get CR'd and you can still get donked into which is not out of the question. Best to get the guaranteed thing by checking now and you keep the pot smaller for calling any potential bets on the turn.

If I did raise pre, I'd make it 50 ... but just limp this hand in this spot. Hard to not see a flop with a limp and somewhat easy for a $200 stack limper to decide to shove 88 if you raise to 50.


Only mix betting flop if people are folding a lot, which is not V1 or V2, plus good chance both know you don't have any good Ax hands.

If we check behind flop it's very likely we only have to call one bet to see the river. IME people don't overbet turn with 66, so worst case is someone bets pot on blank turns vs. our half pot bet on flop ... but as Spy said, I've seen x/c hoping for a raise or more calls and then donk big on blanks too much (horrifically unbalanced, but not much we can do with this hand).

Yeah, I’m not saying I think betting is clearly correct or anything. I’m just saying if we did bet here, betting now for a free card on the turn is the best reason. I think we all agree this is not a good time to go barrel/barrel, for example. I would not be betting to set up a turn bluff—even if the turn improves my draw by putting a Broadway card out.

Also, I think you guys are overestimating how bad it is to bet/fold this draw.

I figured this was a fairly clear check, so I'll move on.

$6 UTG straddle is on. V1 ($400) limps from +1, 3 other ppl ($200-$600) limp to H OTB w/ JsTs

H over limps, SB folds, BB (V2) calls, straddle checks. 7 ways to a flop...

Flop: ($37) Ad 4s 6s

Checks to H otb, I check.

Turn: ($37) Ad 4s 6s 8s

V2 bets $20, folds to V1 who immediately calls. Folds to H.

H?

Raising to $100, Plenty of Naked As, 2 pairs and sets to get value from, and you may even get **** like AJo coming along. Probably cry calling a jam.

GII on River as long as its not a spade or doesn't pair the board.

The only possible way I would consider a raise here is if I'm ready to fold if V2 3bets me. So I guess let's call? I hate potentially missing value against V1, but being ahead of V1 isn't enough to make me want to raise. V2 just bet into a 7-player field.

I like call. Small raise to $60 is probably ok too.

I like call over small raise to 60 also. Lots of people involved. Lots of moving parts.