Hand 1: 1/3, 6 handed

V ($150) is a huge fish and plays almost 95% of his hands, coming in for a $11-ish raise around 80% of the time (stuff like 44, 78s, A8o, etc.) irrespective of whether he is the opener or there were 4-5 limpers before him. I've seen him raise $16-$20ish with premiums.

He perceives Hero ($300) as a "very tight, winning player who does not bluff". Hero hasn't played a hand in the past 30 mins and is getting sick of V making it $11 and having to fold his BB everytime for $8 more.

V open-raises to $11 as usual in MP, rec guy ($120) next to him calls, folds to Hero in BB who raises to $45 with T7


Hand 2: 1/3, 10 handed

Another similar opponent at the same table, who's playing majority of his hands but is slightly more stubborn and aggressive than the previous V and has been peeling flops very light, showing bluffs etc. Again, his small raise size seems fishy. Just one hand ago, V had AK where he raised to $15 in EP pre, cbet a flop of 9Jx and bet/folded/showed AK on a K turn! So I think he's semi-decent. Very next hand...

V ($210) open-raises to $11 UTG, 3 callers, Hero (covers V) is in SB with AQo and raises to $65

Welcome to the forum, OP.

Hand one is probably a fold. I know the guy has a weak range, and you've got somone "adjusting" by probably calling too wide, but without info on how the fish responds to 3-bets, we at least want a blocker for our first attempt.

Hand two needs more info on the callers, imo. We're likely getting at least one caller, so we may be committed pre. I would sometimes flat here, and sometimes 3-bet, but the other Vs and their stack sizes matter a ton.

Always have a plan for the hand....

Hand 1: Stacks are too shallow to be using this play and you're OOOP. Just 3 bet him with premiums until you know how he'll react and when you're deeper. Since you didn't post how he responds to 3 bets then I'm assuming you don't know. ABC works best at 1/2...keep the pots small and outplay him postflop.

Hand 2: Think it's a better situation than hand 1...seems fine....shoving any and all flops though.

I'm usually not squeezing with only 1 caller between as the dead money is not there to make the risk reward work out. So hand 1 would always be meh at best.

Hand 1 we are creating a terrible SPR when called. If V calls the 120 stack is going to be getting a price and we could go to the flop 3 handed with the rec player having an SPR < 1 and us having T hi. I don't like it.

Hand 2 wasn't V in the blind "just 1 hand earlier"? How did he raise from EP then end up in utg next hand? Anyway I feel like we are 3! AQ for value here but will also fold smaller pp hands. Good spot. Stack sizes obv need to be considered but I'd 3! Here a fair anount.

Hand 1 is a fold. Fish calls too much pre. Don't bluff a calling station, especially when the SPR will be down to 1 if you see the flop.

Hand 2 we need info on the other players to opine

Sorry guys, but in Hand 1, I'm almost 100% confident that V1 folds to my 3bet preflop because as I've mentioned, he views me as very tight. I have enough FE against him and that's exactly why I chose to 3bet here.

Hand 2, I raise to 65 and OR shoves for 210 total, folds to us, are we calling with AQo?

If you think he's halfway decent, pokerstove a very strong range (AA-QQ/AK maybe?) vs your AQ and decide if you have equity based on the dead money in the pot.

You're behind in hand 2 when he shoves, especially if you have a tight rep. He may not even shove QQ or AK there.

need more info on MP villain in hand 1, plus stacks are too shallow.

hand 2 seems fine though.

Hand 1: Bad

Hand 2: Good

isn't it better in some situations not to squeeze and lower your variance? I think I might in hand one if I had ATs and an equity edge, but you are out of position and face 3 streets of betting
hand 2: do you have a read that villain is raising complete trash UTG and at a high frequency?
I think your raise sizing has fold equity but can you predict what so many players will do and what they will call with without odds, so you may find yourself in a very bad situation postflop with one or two callers on a bad board in a large pot. sometimes you will run into AA,AK,AQ vs the top of UTG's range

I kind of like flatting AQ but only if UTG's range is wide enough and hopefully the player tendencies are not too agressive for the other players and the table dynamic. Then I might try to play a pot control game post flop oop depending on the board texture

1. You didn't give enough information on Villain's tendencies for calling a 3bet, so we don't really know how good this spot is. Without that information, I would say that this is a bad spot to squeeze as a 3bet bluff because fishes who open-raise a wide range preflop often call 3bets (especially when has POSITION on you).

2. I think this is a very good spot to squeeze 3bet for value with AQo.

Do you have any information on Villain's 4bet tendencies?

If he usually defends by flatting weaker/medium strength hands, and then 4bets AK/QQ+, then we should sigh-fold. If his 4bet range is wider than AK/JJ+, then we can consider getting it in preflop with AQo.

How do you know that Villain will fold your 3bet in Hand 1? Even if he views you as very tight, is Villain a flopaholic (someone who always has to call a raise/3bet to see the flop? Against a flopaholic, your having a tight image doesn't matter because he just can't help seeing a flop against you even if he is scared that you have a premium pair.

I would be careful with using SOLELY image considerations to determine your preflop FOLD EQUITY in Hand 1. If you have actually seen data points where Villain folded to 3bets in the past, then that would be much better information to determine what your FOLD EQUITY actually is.

Hand 1- V is a huge fish, other is recreational. Both villains have 50bb or less. All too often the villains here want to see the flop and the stacks are going to be extremely awkward if anyone calls. Poor 3 bet IMO as all too often one or both find a call pre imo, and our hand will flop too low of equity all too often to continue.

In general, squeezing huge fish with marginal cards OOP is not going to show a profit imo. Their main fault is they call too much, which works against our 3 bet squeeze being successful.

If you are ABSOLUTELY sure that the villains fold here due to your hero image, then why ask the question? This huge fish prolly could care less about your image, as most fish dont think that far ahead.






Hand 2- Squeeze sizing is a bit high imo. I would squeeze for value to $45 or $50. The 65 sizing is just folding out everything except premiums and we could do that with any two cards really. That is a waste with AQ imo.

this too

"Flopaholics" this deserves love.

a squeeze spot seems to come up once a day for me with a suited ace and I am tending to fold now. it seems very hard to quantify fold equity and it seems very difficult to earn and you don't have databases when playing live. is there anyway to quantify this live?
I'm wondering though 3betting light and squeezing light, does that make people want to call your raises with QQ+ if you have this image?