Havent posted a hand in a while. This one has me scratching my head a bit.

Its a pretty loose donkworthy game.

Button ($78) straddles.
SB ($900) is a big fish hitting everything. He calls
BB ($500) calls
EP ($89) calls
Hero ($750) calls JhTs in cutoff.
Button checks his option.

Hero is in seat 9. Button is seat 1. Dealer is between us so I didnt notice his stack was so anemic or I wouldve folded preflop.

Flop ($50) JcTh9d. SB bets $35. EP calls. Action on Hero??

Its highly unlikely that SB will fold any pair +draw hands like QT/98/AQ/KJ

Stakes?

I likely raise enough to put EP AI if I think SB will play straight-forward in a protected pot.

Its 2/5

140-160

Raise 135

I’m just gonna ship it right here.

There’s about 16 scary turn cards and he’s gonna have enough equity to justify a call for whatever little raise u make anyways

I also don’t mind flat call and shove it on a clean turn if u think he will fire a second barrel a high frequency. (Although again, 16 scary turns makes this less exciting)

SB bets $35 into $50. EP calls. You want to jam $750?

YOLO Mike. Lol.

I see, I was thinking it was $500 effective tbh.

Yeah at 750 I likely just make it about 225 and ship a clean turn, check back on a bad turn.

That's kind of the crux of this whole hand. Do we raise now and pound a safe turn but lose a good amount when the turn is bad? Or do we call now and raise safe turns, getting away fairly unscathed on bad turns and maybe remain with enough money behind to call bad turns with odds to boat up on the river. Its a limped pot after all and we dont really know which of the many bad turns cards are the ones that beat us.

SB could have any number of pair +draw hands and I doubt hes folding any of them to a raise. Maybe he is if we raise to $225. I'm not sure. I think if we raise, it should be to a more normal $150ish.

First thoughts I want to flat and try to hit a cooler boat vs flopped straight which there are plenty of (87, Q8, KQ). Sounds like this guy is quite loose though so we should probably raise for value and I'd probably go for 120.

Yes but if u make it 150 and he calls how do u size your bet on a clean turn?

A shove now would be a bit awkward and any other size commits us, so it’s kinda awkward spot even when we do hit the good turn

I would rather raise the size that sets up a homerun play rather than a size where there’s no possible great outcome.

175

I’m crushed this month so IRL I call the flop. Better players than me raise flop and jam turn and fade Q10 all day.

Raise to 115 and endeavor to iso the SB. Reserve calling against players that have (semi) legit limping, betting and calling ranges. It's one of those games where it just doesn't matter that you don't have lots of KQ and sets, they don't know/care.

You were about 25:1 against hitting 2P+ pf. That means at a minimum you need to pull 250 out of this hand to justify playing it. In reality given that you're going to lose sometimes or people will fold, you need more like 400-500. If your strategy is to shove when you hit, you're not going to get the pot high enough to justify playing JTo pf. It becomes a -EV play.

Pot is 155 if you call. I'd go to 200, giving any caller 2:1 odds. That should bring the SB along with a draw or even TP. We get enough that our play is breakeven on the turn if he folds then. It allows an easy shove on the turn with a blank.

Thats one of the weirdest things Ive read here in a while. I need 25:1 to justify a limp? Im not calling a raise.

So I decided to play to safe and just call the $35. That's been my default play in hands like this where I have a strong hand on a very vulnerable drawy board. I think its the lower variance but also lower EV play which is why I posted this.

Hero calls the $35. Here's where it gets weird.

The button jams for $68 total. The first thing that came to my mind is that its not a full raise so the betting is not repoened. The SB calls, however I dont know if his hand is strong or not. He didnt ask if he could reraise. He just quickly called so I dont know if he wanted to reraise or not. He could still have anything from KQ to a draw to a pair and draw.

Now EP rejams for $44 more ($79 total). Action is on me. The betting is now reopened so I need to decide if Im calling again or raising this time. I didnt realize until after the hand was over that EP was not allowed to reraise. The dealer didnt say anything nor did anyone else.

Board is JcTh9d. Pot is now $300. EP and Button are all in. Hero and SB have about $700 behind........

Gross. I guess I just call and look for a cheap showdown unimproved at this point.

My preference would have been to raise to $150.

Limping JTo from the CO when the BTN straddle has <8 BB’s seems quite bad. This is compounded further by the presence of another villain with only 9 BB’s. As hand shows, their dumb stacks lead to dumb spots post.

Does all of this thinking go out the window now that the pot is 300 and you have the SB iso'ed for a (potential) side pot? Can you reliably lock him out of the main pot with a raise down to JT?

Well, it's a limped triple lindy backraised deluxe short stack fishbox hand, so of course it's a head scratcher.

Any merit to raising preflop if we are going to play?

I think we’re gonna end up all in with J hi against one of the short stacks too often.

Also we are dominated by the maniac too often by QT KT AT QJ KJ

It’s likely a fold pre tbh

Yeah, like I said, I wouldve just folded had I seen the buttons stack. Im surprised he didnt just jam all in preflop, especially considering he has some hand that connects with this JT9 board.
So anyway...Board is JcTh9d. Pot is now $300. EP and Button are all in. Hero and SB have about $700 behind........

I think I should probably jam it all in here. I was still kind of frozen by the fact that the SB most likely doesnt know if he could reraise or not so I didnt know if he wanted to or not. That's no excuse though. I think I still need to jam.....but I didnt. I called.

Turn ($345) 5c....The SB bets $100 into the side pot....Action on hero.