This is a 2/5 game with an $800 max buy-in at the Horseshoe in Bodymore Murdaland. Due to stack sizes being relevant to a 5/10 game, I thought to post here.

Hero: $1200
Villain 1: $400
Villain 2: $1400

Villain 1 is middle position. He's constantly talking about gambling blackjack and thousand dollar swings to the guy next to him. He's generally splashy and has gotten in a small stack a couple of times in weird spots to double up. He's also lost a bunch of little hands. Gambly, rec player. Good spot.

Villain 2 is on the button. Head phones, not saying a word. TAG. Saw him make a nice river call with Ace high and saw him show down Kings. Not much else on him. Seems like he might be foreign and in town for the WSOP Circuit tournament.

Hero is SB. Bought in for $500, doubled it in one pot and won a couple of other small pots in the past 4 hours. Should be seen as TAG as well.

Villain 1 opens to $25.
Villain 2 raises to $75.
Hero AJ and is pretty sure that villain 2 recognizes villain 1 is a good spot to isolate. Hero is also OOP with main villain being good at poker. What do you do?

With Villain #1 more than willing to get it in fairly light, and you not mentioning anything about villain #2 3 betting preflop at all, I think I fold here and feel pretty good about it.

Need positions on V1 and V2. Like did v1 open and v2 3b on his direct left...?

Read the post.

You definitely want to have a 4b/f range
ajs should fit in nicely for lots of reasons imo

Never folding

Vs btn as described i like the 4b/fold.

Theres an argument to call and keep V1 in, but because of stack size and terrible position id rather 1) 4b and win the pot now or 2) 4b and let shortstack V1 shove and squeeze out V2

Worst situation would be if we 4b and they both just call but imo still better than flat calling or folding pre.

Never folding?

Cold-calling 25bbs OOP with AJs against a TAG is atrocious, and it's not like this is a slumdunk 4b

Folding is completely fine. This is def a decent spot to 4b, if not just fold.

Eh, i guess "never folding" is strong, but i just like our hand vs V2's btn 3b range. It is debatable if folding or calling is worse imo.

15bb not 25bb fyi

i like a 4b to 225

dont think calling is an option at this depth

Yeah you're right, 15 bbs

But calling here is just pretty huge losing play long run unless we really take advantage of our range advantage on boards where we theortically have more sets -- but I imagine most are flatting for the value of their hand which is marginal at best

4-bet?

My gut tells me that 4-betting is never as good as call/donk bet the flop. It seems stronger to the enemy and is more likely to get folds. What do the rest of you think? Can anyone give me a convincing reason why 4-betting is better than call/donk, or vice versa?

Call/donk has the added advantage that we can modify the bet after seeing the flop, if necessary. I can't think of a flop that would make me give up on a planned donk, but I might change the bet size if I hit the flop hard and wanted more customers.

What value hands are you flatting and donking the flop with in this spot?

....apparently his entire cold calling range

What that consists of however, I have no idea

cold calling+donk bet seems more like someone who has some middlish pocket pair that's donking the flop to "see where he's at"

Thats exactly what the majority of donk-leading consists of (hence why its called a donk bet people)

Suggesting you should coldcall/donk lead is just really bad advice

Its okay to have a balanced donk range, but that's more for metagame purposes which is obv not present here

225 or fold. I'd definitely 4bet this hand against someone with bluffs in his range.

For one, cold calling let's villain see a flop (for no additional $) with all of his non-nut 3betting hands. It also potentially lets V1 into the hand. AJs is pretty and everything, but we aren't realizing much of the pot seeing a 3way flop here oop.

This thread died right after The peel and donk 100% of flops

Beware of people who talk abt thousand dollar gambling swings---> under cover nits almost always. Yeah. I 4b here. If blackjack guy was real I would flat.

rofl, i wouldn't call myself a nit - im certainly on the tighter side - but this is my trademark.

sit in game, say i got 5k on [whatever team is on TV and getting blown out], ask if anyone wants to do $100 flips or some other neutral EV game, all of a sudden im a MANIAC

I do the same thing. Most people think I'm a massive fish so it either works or people just like to play along with my charade.