2/5, $1k max, 9 handed.

Hero - UTG+3, ~$1200, MAWG. TAG. Never limping. Not much flat calling pre. Mostly raising or folding pre. Aggressively check-raising flops, over-betting turns, and going for max value on the river. Playing well and seems to have a solid table image. Showed one huge bluff a few hours earlier, but not getting out of line much, if at all.

V1 - UTG, ~$600, middle-aged Asian Indian fellow. Recently joined the table, maybe 2 orbits earlier. Seems stabby-splashy-spewy - lots of limping/flatting pre, not much raising/3B'ing, mostly flat-calling post-flop, with both strong and weak value, sometimes stabbing when action gets checked to him.

V2 - HJ, ~$230, MAWG. Stuck on the session, typical loose-stabby rec-fish. Has seen hero get max value with his monsters as well as make huge bluffs. Never believes hero or anyone else has a hand unless he sees it, so calls down pretty wide. Equally prone to over-playing weak value and slow-playing thick value.

V3 - BTN, covers everyone. Asian kid in his 20's. Opening lots of pots and calling raises from LP or the blinds, occasionally 3B'ing, and frequently luck-boxing his way into winning big pots. Apparently doesn't want to play hero on later streets, based on his table talk and his making some nonsensical, overly-aggro plays in weird spots, like turning semi-strong hands into massive over-bet bluffs in way ahead / way behind situations on flop or turn.

OTTH:

V1 in UTG limps, one other EP limp. $17 in pot.

Hero in UTG+3 raises to $35 with 76dd.

V2 in HJ calls. V3 on BTN calls. Blinds fold. $122 in pot.

V1 in UTG back-3B's to $135. $252 in pot.

Hero in UTG+3 calls. $352 in pot.

V2 in HJ back-4B-LOL-jams for $230. $482 in pot.

V3 on BTN back-5B-WTF-jams, covering everyone.

V1 calls the jam for his last $465. Not exactly a fist-pump snap-call. More like a "I probably messed this up, but can't fold now" insta-call.

Hero has $1065 behind. Not sure if I'm doing the math right, but I think the pot is $2642 before I call, laying me 2.5 to 1.

So...yeah, never been here before. Maybe I should have folded to V1's 3B (or 4B?), but...

76s can't possibly be the best hand here, and every instinct I have said I should fold, but it doesn't look to me like V1 has AA, and even if he did, how strong can V2 and V3 be, the way they've played this?

Why do I think everyone here is pushing with the most marginal or downright insane BS, and I may not be worse than a 2.5 to 1 dog here? Should this ever be a call?

Will post reveal tomorrow.

This came up in another thread on here recently: you have to be super careful calling this limp 3bet when there is a short stack behind you, especially when you have reads on the shortstack that he routinely overplays weak value. This guy making the "eh why not" back jam and re-opening the action for UTG is extremely likely. Calling the limp 3b with 76s OOP to multiple people is precarious enough as it is.

As played I think this is just a fold. Odds are good for the main pot, but you are playing a $1200 sidepot with V3 who is always going to be a big favorite against you.

Not maintaining constant awareness of stack depth for EVERY player in a hand is a persistent leak in my game, so...yeah, I messed that part up, perhaps pretty badly.

I'm not 100% certain exactly how much V2 had, but my recollection was that his jam was for $230-ish total (so he started the hand with ~$265-ish). It might not have been enough to re-open the betting, or it was just barely enough.

Either way, it's not my habit to get an exact count of the short stacks behind me before I decide what to do facing a raise in front of me. But, maybe it should be.

There was actually a moment of controversy about whether or not V2 had enough behind to re-open the action when V3 re-jammed. The dealer and a couple other players said it didn't matter, because V1 had already re-opened the action for V3 to make another bet, so V2's stack size doesn't matter when V3 jams.

So...not an argument, but to your point, even if V2 had enough to re-open the betting, or not, or even if he folded, I wonder if the fact that I flat-called instead of 4B'ing capped my range so much that V3 felt emboldened to jam there with a fairly wide range.

Which of course is exactly what I was thinking as I was trying to decide whether or not to fold or call.

I played a somewhat similar but slightly less stupid hand about a year ago - six ways to the flop in a 3B pot. I flopped Broadway with JcTs on a board of AcKsQc, and got stacks in against AKo, K8cc, and AJo.

Running the equities later revealed that despite looking like I had a hammer-lock on the hand, I was only going to win like 45% of the time, cementing in my mind that these multi-way all-in scenarios are just crap-shoots, and the worst hand can stand a decent chance to win.

initial iso is probably bad and calling the 3b/limp rr while you're sandwiched is almost definitely bad regardless of depth of stacks behind u. this is a spot you play much tighter facing the 3b than if you're closing the action or guaranteed last to act post.

would imagine your equity in main pot is not going to compensate for being dead in large side pot (as someone previously mentioned) but you'd need to play with numbers and ranges with pro poker tools or something. i dont think the justification to stack off 250 bb can be you once ran an equity sim on a dynamicish board and weren't an equity lock so hands always run close multiways.

Limp -> 3bet is a very normal way people try to get value off of premiums IMO, I would never call this 3bet with 7d6d

This might just be an open fold given position - five players behind you and three of them have position. Can't be bad as a low frequency iso raise though.

Different people have different opinions on the likely strength of a limp-3bet, I'm not in the "OMG this must be the nuts" camp but even so the typical limp -3bet range is way ahead of 76s and you still have the problem of the players behind - not worrying about what actually happened (which sounds like fun) but more that someone else is going to come along and then you'll be multiway without position. So a very clear fold for me.

As for the rest, after the wild action just get your popcorn and enjoy the show, you don't need to pay your stack to watch it. You have 7 high.

It's an OMC move, for sure. Also seen it from OG street poker players. Don't know how normal it is for everyone else.

But look at his sizing - $100 more into a pot that was $122, making the total $252, laying me over 2.5 to 1 on a call, with huge implied odds from him and the players behind, who seemed very likely to call, given the odds they'd be getting, and all our remaining stack depths.

How often have you seen someone limp-3B in a multi-way pot like this, and take sizing that wasn't HUGE? If he has AA/KK, he doesn't know how this play is supposed to work, unless he thinks he's inducing me to 4B, which is LOL when someone limp-back-raises from UTG.

Even if he has AA/KK, 76s isn't doing too badly against big PP's, and is very playable post-flop, even multi-way, and we're deep enough with V3 that we have good implied odds to continue.

Uhm...so, yeah, I was probably a bit out of line opening 76s from UTG+3. Still, it's not crazy-wide, when I'm mostly running over the table, and I'm deep-stacked with V3 on the BTN.

As for V1's limp-3B range - my default thinking when I see the UTG limp-3B is AA. But usually it's OMC's or OG street players, not middle-aged Indian rec-fish.

Here, after V1 seeing me playing aggressively, VPIP'ing / RFI'ing or 3B'ing ~25%, I leveled myself into thinking that this might be something he'd do as a bluff, against what he probably thinks is a too-wide opening range (and, hey, 76s, he's not wrong), when V2 and V3 flat call behind, sort of an ad-hoc squeeze play that he made up on the spot, with something less strong, possibly ridiculous.

And either way, 76s isn't doing terribly against big PP's and plays well multi-way, so I wasn't too worried, getting over 2.5 to 1 to call the 3B for another $100. The pucker-factor didn't kick in until it was back on me facing three jams.

But, yeah, come back for the reveal. "Fun" is one way to describe it. Not how I'd describe it, but...

Your hand totally sucks considering position, stack depths and rake

Which is fine if you’re not too serious about winning and are moreso on the recreational side. Poker is incredibly boring if you want to crush lsnl

76s may be near the bottom of the LJ opening range when 9-handed, but it's in the range.

I play a raise-or-fold strat pre-flop, so maybe it should just be a pure fold rather than a raise over 2 limps, but it's not completely un-playable, especially against the sort of weaker opponents who like to limp in from EP.

What's your cut-off threshold for hand strength here?

The open is probably meh. I might try and overlimp which is probably meh too, so it might just be a fold. But live poker is boring if we're gonna fold 76s when the pot isn't even raised yet, so I don’t hate it. When it comes back to us after the limp/3bet it seems like a very trivial fold, considering stacksizes and that you're not closing the action by far.

By the way, you're talking about implied odds, but I think those are actually reverse here, especially multiway.

Lastly, I don't understand why you would ever consider stacking off here as played.

I said every instinct I had said I should fold, so it's not exactly like I was seriously considering stacking off.

But 76s isn't in terrible shape against V1's range, if he's got big over-pairs, and as played, I was pretty sure V2 and V3 weren't nearly that strong. I was tanking because I wasn't sure I didn't have the correct odds to stack off.

Fold after the first 3bet. Fold now. I would mainly overlimp your hand, but isoing can be okay. Problem is if cold calls are likely and original limper is likely to call plus the limp behind. A lot of people limp to call a sizeable raise so they don't have to fold to a 3bet. And even then if they are limp calling KJo and you are likely facing two callers, your probably just torching money by raising pre.

The iso is good when you get folds a lot of the time and just pick up dead money. Otherwise you want to be iso raising more linearly, like KQo, AJo+, A9s/+ KTs+, 77+.

Also I think you iso is too big. In position I think 5x for one limper +1x for each limp behind is the way to go. OOP maybe 6.5x +1x for each limper.

Your last is what immediately caught my eye, but jeez, he 7x'd over two limpers, and still started a call parade behind him. Which probably wasn't an isolated occurrence. I don't think iso'ing is going to work for shrinking the villain pool at this table, so we can play our less-than-premium in position.

I'm overlimping---though raising does disguise our holding---and folding to the 3b from UTG. I understand the impulse at this point, to want to play a hand that isn't reliant on outs that the other players are all poaching from each other, but it's going to be awfully expensive, and even with card removal, I don't think you have the odds.

My freeware PS on my phone doesn't allow for MW. How is H doing against some reasonable ranges, given H's detailed reads?

Clear overlimp pre over 2 EP limps. We don't have enough info yet (only 2 orbits with V1) to deviate from a clear overlimp preflop strategy versus 2 EP limps.

If you had a ton of history with the 2 EP limpers where you had seen them open-raise EP with premiums often and open limp garbage EP and mostly folding that garbage to ISOs, then yeah go ahead and deviate from the default overlimp strategy with 76dd towards a loose ISO strategy where 76dd can be one of our loosest ISOs.

This reminds me of that old limon wisdom.

"Don't ask me while I took the car without permission. Don't ask me why I drank and drove. Don't ask me why I drove the car into a ditch. Just please help me avoid the getting brutalized tonight at the prison..."

I disagree about folding pre. V1 is described as a fish, so I would be playing looser in this lineup to plays pots with V1.

But I would be overlimping pre 76dd over the two EP limps as my strategy to get involved with a 120bb stack EP fish.

I disagree with poker being boring if you want to crush live low stakes NLHE.

I know crushers who normally play 10/20 NLHE+ who can have a very fun time crushing 600 cap 5/5 NLHE with a huge drop. These crushers don't play that tight at 5/5 NLHE either on the 5% off chance that they end up at a 5/5 table for little bit while waiting for a bigger game.

Why do you play a raise or fold strategy preflop?

FWIW, a LJ RFI chart that has 76dd as an open raise when folded to you has no relationship to a LJ chart facing 2 EP limps ahead of you.

Low SCs dont play well multiway, you should never be limping SCs, they are just asking to lose flush over flush and 2p over 2p and trips over trips to players who are limping Axs.

Raising is fine, sizing on the raise is good. Calling the 3 bet is setting money on fire, but calling the 5 bet is just setting your whole br on fire. The most ridiculous misapplication of poker concepts is considering pot odds without considering number of players in the hand. The fish always say “well ive gotta call now!” When 4 other players call. How is 4:1 pot odds when playing vs 4 other players better than 1:1 pot odds when heads up? Its like saying the lotto has the best pot odds of all, wow 100 million to 1! Everyone called, the only dead money in this pot to consider for the sake of pot odds is yours, $100 of which you shouldve saved by folding to the 3! If you genuinely are considering a call with 76s, this is a gross gross gross misunderstanding of how pot odds work and is a major leak in your game.


Just to give an example here, if villians have the following ridiculous bs hands:

AJo
43s (not of your suit)
T4s (not of your suit)

You would have 28% equity and basically be yolo jamming for zero ev variance

I also think hands like 88, 99, possibly even TT are likely holdings for V3, so I think you might give him too little credit for an actual hand that has you crushed. I'm thinking maybe you saw his ATo or A5s at showdown and that’s why you figured he's never that strong, but I think medium pairs are very likely.

Yeah this has been an issue for me in the past as well, including a hand earlier this year where I called a 3bet and had to fold once a short stack back jammed and the PFR re-jammed. Frustrating way to lose 17bbs! It's fresh on my mind which is why I brought it up!



I didn't go crazy trying to range these guys, and I kept them all pretty wide. Tried to leave some BS in there too, because I'm guessing based on the tone of this hand history that we are going to see some nonsense.

76s is fine as an overlimp the only thing I have a problem with is position. I'd overlimp without hesitation from CO and maybe HJ but LJ just feels like it's asking for trouble. Low frequency raise is alright as well but it feels like folding 70+% of the time is most sensible

I think the main decision for you was about calling the 3bet. You're 20:1 against getting 2 pair or better on the flop and you aren't getting that HU with the remaining stack. Pretty easy fold since you should have know that the villain was likely to make a big bet on the flop.

Calling the 5 bet is pure spew. Nice for you that it worked out this time if you called.

Respectfully, I disagree with this. We are only putting 1 big blind here preflop with our overlimp. We don't care about ourselves having low equity if we are putting such a tiny part of stack in on the preflop street. We don't have to put a whole bunch of money in postflop against the whole field with a baby flush if we don't want to do so.

If you are scared of getting overflushed, just fold your 7 high FD postflop if you face a significant postflop bet in front of you with multiple players left to act behind you.

If you happen to make a flush at some point, just make sure to do some hand reading. For example, a lot of players at these stakes are showdown monkeys. They won't go for thin value on river especially if they are last to act. You can exploit this showdown monkey behavior by ranging these types of players as POLARIZED when they bet/raise any significant amount on the river.

I would fold in every spot. Hand is not good multiway, and I would not overlimp it, particularly in that position. If you are going to play it I would raise it. At 2/5 there is some value to having weird stuff like that in your raising range.

Hand plays OK HU against a strong range with pot odds, but you cannot call not closing the action. Even without 4b!s, you don't want to play a big pot multiway. For some players, the limp/3! is always AA/KK, which sure you are 23% against. You obviously can't call after the 5! even though you have some equity.

It's not exactly a 100% pure raise or fold strat. I try never to open limp, and will occasionally over-limp from LP, when the players left to act aren't squeeze-prone.

It's something I've picked up from watching and listening to various pros and coaches. I've found it helps me avoid playing too many hands in too many positions, with a capped range.