The table is running quite bad. Fish is being bruttaly murdered and we are running low on natures gifts. We are 6 handed and dropping. The game is $1/2 THNL.

Players:

Hero [$500] Was stuck (rare occurence) early this session, when J2 have put my AA all in on a QJ5 flop and sucked out. Now back in black, playing TAG because of the high overall quality of the table.

Villain 1 [$500] in this hand is a young recreational breakeven/winning regular, neither quite tight or loose, but definetly aggressive and a good overall player. He is stuck $500 this session, but is not tilting or whatever. He is playing a reasonable range pre, he never open limps. He does 3bet light given the right situation. He plays well postflop.

Villain 2 [$300] is a usually LAG regular, but not a maniac. He is young, white and earns a living playing poker. His ego, though, is quite big, as is his faith in his ability to outplay anyone postflop is unshakable. He plays tighter then usual today bcs of table dynamics.

Villain 3 [$600] is a fish. He plays a weird game, sometimes floating 2 streets with Q5, sometimes 3betting pre, when c/f QQ on a 578 board :/ Haven't figured his game out yet.

Villain 4 [$150] is a fish, but he is sitting out this hand, so nm.

Villain 5 [$1k] is a fish. He has big time betsizing tells, small=weak & big=strong, he bluffs with small bets, nothing hard playing with him. He straddles everytime and 2nd straddles then he feels the cosmic vibes coming. Is quite statonary with made hands. On a heater today.


Villain 1&2 are the same as in this hand.


Seating:
V3[SB] - V5[BB] - V1 [UTG] - Hero[CO] - V2[BU]

The hand:
Villain 1 [$500] raises $10.
Hero [$500] is dealt AJ and ..?
Villain 2 [$300] ..?
Villain 3 [$600] ..?
Villain 4 [$1k] ..?

Call to allow the fish in the blinds to join the party OOP with tons of dominated hands.

i actually like to go ahead and 3bet here. this is one of those situations where the bottom of our 3bet range is ahead of what he's opening. if he never open limps and it's 6 handed, he should be opening a pretty wide range here

Can either 3bet or call, I think folding is far too nitty SH. As chuckles said if he raises when he enters a pot almost everytime I am 3betting here since his range isnt as nutted. Calling isnt bad as it allows worse hands to overcall pre

The table is running quite bad. Fish is being bruttaly murdered and we are running low on natures gifts. We are 6 handed and dropping. The game is $1/2 THNL.

Players:

Hero [$500] Was stuck (rare occurence) early this session, when J2 have put my AA all in on a QJ5 flop and sucked out. Now back in black, playing TAG because of the high overall quality of the table.

Villain 1 [$500] in this hand is a young recreational breakeven/winning regular, neither quite tight or loose, but definetly aggressive and a good overall player. He is stuck $500 this session, but is not tilting or whatever. He is playing a reasonable range pre, he never open limps. He does 3bet light given the right situation. He plays well postflop.

Villain 2 [$300] is a usually LAG regular, but not a maniac. He is young, white and earns a living playing poker. His ego, though, is quite big, as is his faith in his ability to outplay anyone postflop is unshakable. He plays tighter then usual today bcs of table dynamics.

Villain 3 [$600] is a fish. He plays a weird game, sometimes floating 2 streets with Q5, sometimes 3betting pre, when c/f QQ on a 578 board :/ Haven't figured his game out yet.

Villain 4 [$150] is a fish, but he is sitting out this hand, so nm.

Villain 5 [$1k] is a fish. He has big time betsizing tells, small=weak & big=strong, he bluffs with small bets, nothing hard playing with him. He straddles everytime and 2nd straddles then he feels the cosmic vibes coming. Is quite statonary with made hands. On a heater today.


Villain 1&2 are the same as in this hand.


Seating:
V3[SB] - V5[BB] - V1 [UTG] - Hero[CO] - V2[BU]

The hand:
Villain 1 [$500] raises $10.
Hero [$500] is dealt AJ and considering not 3 betting here too nitty for 5 handed play, makes it $35.
Villain 2 [$300] folds.
Villain 3 [$600] folds.
Villain 4 [$1k] gives me 'lets gamboool' look and calls.
Villain 1 [$500] calls (he ain't calling 100% of his hands here, he can find the fold button when it is neccessary).

Flop:
QJ2
Pot:$105
Villain 4 [$1k] checks.
Villain 1 [$500] checks after some consideration.
Hero [$500] ..?

I don't mind calling with this hand, original raiser's post flop decision is easy to read if he is OOP vs stations (it makes no sense to c-bet air into a bunch of guppys does it?). Your hand isn't premium and as other people have pointed out, you are inviting dominated hands into the pot (especially Ax) quite often. Call > 3b

I would usually check behind here. You will almost never get action from a made hand that you beat, in my opinion. On the other hand, if you hit a jack or see another diamond on the turn you have a disguised hand with deep stacks.

If I did choose to bet here it would only be to charge draws such as KT/T9 and the various gutshots. I don't know how likely you think those hands are, but you have to compare it to the possibility that you're up against AQ/KQ/some other Qx.

If I did bet here, I think my sizing would be around $85 or $90. There are many cards I don't want to see on the turn--possibly even an ace--so I want to charge people before any of them come.

EDIT: I would also have just called preflop.

Id bet around $60. There is no reason to think you are not good, and you can extract value from draws and worse jacks. Argument could be made to pot control/induce heads up but three handed you don't want to be giving free cards here.

Call pre to keep all the dominated hands in. You don't mind MW here.

Check flop. This is the kind of hand you can get 1-2 streets of value from. You can get it later in the hand by widening your perceived range when you bet turn/river, or by inducing and using it as a bluff catcher.

I actually disagree and I think it is easier to get value on the flop and turn or flop and river than the turn and river.

I think the real point though is your hand had value so don't over rep it and turn it into a bluff.

I think against some villains you are right. In a vacuum flop is easier to get value from. However don't forget that if we check a) our perceived range is weaker and opponents are more likely to bluffcatch b) the turn can improve them to a second best hand if say an A hits c) some villain will bet their air thinking we are c/f while as they would fold to a bet. d) river bets are easier to call than turn bets because of the absence of leverage. So it's better to bet river for value and turn as a bluff all else equal.

I would just call pre

AJ 3bets better out of the blinds to a LP raiser who will call your 3bet IP and dominated (Merge)

This way you dont cut the table off/iso this guy and kill your action from weaker diamonds/dominated aces or jacks calling light from OOP

No need to Merge your 3betting range here as you're cannibilizing your calling range. Also you'll be in a tough spot if 4bet which is why you should be polarizing IP so your decisions are easy

As played check flop. You have showdown value and can still value bet later streets when board bricks and players check, showing no Q is out there

My 2 cents

Fwiw I like betting the flop, checking the turn, and betting the river or (in some situations) calling a river bet.

I think that line looks so FOS that you wind up getting looked a lot and having people bluff the river after you check behind the turn.

I guess I c-bet such a huge % of my range that checking the flop screams "showdown value" to good players so I don't do it very often.

I am probe betting here to get value from weaker hands and those who always float with their ace. I also probe monsters to induce bluffs so if the table has seen that, any raise is easy to fold to.

Edit by probe I mean same as last street, $35.

played fine thus far. i'm OK with the 3B too.

i prefer a flop check.

Call pre and let others play with worse. 3betting isolates some and wins smaller TP type pots, imo. Not that this idea is necessarily wrong, I just don't do it as my default in this spot.

As played, I'm betting this flop to gain some value and buy outs for future streets. We have 2nd pair with top kicker and bd draws. I can check lots of turns, but I also want BTN out so I can check back some. I bet now while it's "cheap" instead of giving away initiative and being forced off my hand sort of against my will later.

We have position in the hand

The table is running quite bad. Fish is being bruttaly murdered and we are running low on natures gifts. We are 6 handed and dropping. The game is $1/2 THNL.

Players:

Hero [$500] Was stuck (rare occurence) early this session, when J2 have put my AA all in on a QJ5 flop and sucked out. Now back in black, playing TAG because of the high overall quality of the table.

Villain 1 [$500] in this hand is a young recreational breakeven/winning regular, neither quite tight or loose, but definetly aggressive and a good overall player. He is stuck $500 this session, but is not tilting or whatever. He is playing a reasonable range pre, he never open limps. He does 3bet light given the right situation. He plays well postflop.

Villain 2 [$300] is a usually LAG regular, but not a maniac. He is young, white and earns a living playing poker. His ego, though, is quite big, as is his faith in his ability to outplay anyone postflop is unshakable. He plays tighter then usual today bcs of table dynamics.

Villain 3 [$600] is a fish. He plays a weird game, sometimes floating 2 streets with Q5, sometimes 3betting pre, when c/f QQ on a 578 board :/ Haven't figured his game out yet.

Villain 4 [$150] is a fish, but he is sitting out this hand, so nm.

Villain 5 [$1k] is a fish. He has big time betsizing tells, small=weak & big=strong, he bluffs with small bets, nothing hard playing with him. He straddles everytime and 2nd straddles then he feels the cosmic vibes coming. Is quite statonary with made hands. On a heater today.


Villain 1&2 are the same as in this hand.


Seating:
V3[SB] - V5[BB] - V1 [UTG] - Hero[CO] - V2[BU]

The hand:
Villain 1 [$500] raises $10.
Hero [$500] is dealt AJ and considering not 3 betting here too nitty for 5 handed play, makes it $35.
Villain 2 [$300] folds.
Villain 3 [$600] folds.
Villain 4 [$1k] gives me 'lets gamboool' look and calls.
Villain 1 [$500] calls (he ain't calling 100% of his hands here, he can find the fold button when it is neccessary).

Flop:
QJ2
Pot:$105
Villain 4 [$1k] checks.
Villain 1 [$500] checks after some consideration.
Hero [$500] checks behind.

Turn:
QJ2J
Pot:$105
Villain 4 [1$k] checks, seems to have zero interest in the pot (he is not reversing).
Villain 1 [$500] bets $50.
Hero [$500] ..?

I 3bet pre because I wanted position (exactly, I didn't want to play OOP to Villain 2), I haven't 3bet in a while, and because deepstacked fish were OK calling 3bets quite wide (suited Aces are in their cold calling 3bets range).

OTF I've checked to get Value later and safer.

So the turn is a great card, right?

PS Setsy is posting in my thread. Wow I'm so excited
PPS FWIW I do not cbet too much against Villains 1 and 2 at this table.

I don't see any reason to raise the turn and announcing how much we like that J. (That said, I'm likely going 0/3 in this pahwm.)

boring, but i think turn is a call.

yeah, i'm definitely lookin to just call the turn and extract more value on the river

Call and see the river with the plan on raise/folding the river

While I usually tend to advocate passive play in all of elcebro's PAHWM's, this time I want to raise the turn, for the exact reason I said I wanted to check the flop: we have a disguised hand and a raise looks like absolutely nothing here. I expect to get called by Qx and straight draws that were semi-bluffing. There's also perhaps a slight chance that we ran into 22 here, though, so I think if I get 3bet I could consider folding (or calling if I was getting odds to draw to an A, Q, or J). Turn 3bet bluffs are exceedingly rare.

EDIT: We started this street with $465 effective (after $35 preflop) so I'm thinking that chopping up the two bets into $185 and $280 looks about right.

EDIT: Also, OP, would V1 play QQ this way? If so then I'm much less happy raising and would prefer to just call here.

yeah, i was kinda curious about the QQ as well.. i know a ton of live players will only flat a 3bet with QQ, but i guess we would have to have specific evidence on this player

Bet the flop around ~$60.