This hand came up last week, IÂ’m 90% sure this is just a cooler but interested in opinions.

I have $700 in hijack. SB has $300 and plays tight/predictable ABC poker. BB has $200, is on tilt, and in process of spewing multiple buy ins. UTG has $650 and seems like reasonable reg, plays a lot and at higher limits based on his table talk w dealers.

Preflop, UTG raises to $15, I call w 33, SB/BB all call. Flop comes A22 badugi, everyone checks.

Turn is a 3. It checks to me, I bet $30, three calls, $180 in pot.

River is an 8. Now SB leads out for $50. BB raise/shoves for remaining $140. UTG calls. I think for 10 seconds before shoving. SB folds and UTG calls, asking if I have quad 2s, and turns over AA.


Did I make a mistake shoving here?

I asked UTG after the hand why he didnÂ’t raise and he said he thought I or SB may have 45 or a 2. I remain highly skeptical of that strategy as long term optimal even though it was successful.

Obviously a cooler but I think we should CONSIDER only calling on the River. Like, UTG should never be calling your shove without a full house, and the only full house you beat is exactly A2s and not many people are going to raise A2s UTG. (It would be helpful to know how many combos of A2s are possible on this board, based on the suits.)

That said, the SB *can* call you with worse hands (cuz he’s shorter stacked and likely a fish), so your raise could get value from him specifically—you shove, SB calls with K2, UTG folds AK, etc). But we’re getting pretty in the weeds here….

But I don’t know, unless you know UTG is an absolute fish who will stack off with AK on this board, it’s really hard to find a hand by UTG that’s worse than yours that can call a shove on this board.

Really weird hand. I fold pre btw. 33 is trash imo.

River is closer to a fold than a raise. But I would probably call in-game. UTG having AA is quite a predictable result.

I'm going to assume this is 1/3 NL given stack sizes / open size.

Being the first caller of a raise with a small pair in the HJ is meh, imo. Sounds like we're up against a decent player so we likely don't have very good setmining odds against him. Meanwhile there's no one else in the pot, we could get squeezed preflop, we could easily end up in terrible position postflop (between the raiser and some behind us, which really hurts our IO), etc. And small pairs have RIO when setmining. So I'd mostly just nit fold here preflop (although calling is admittedly hardly horrendous, ETA: *unless* we play horrible postflop, and we made a monstrous river mistake for big bbs, imo).

Also checking back the flop.

Also betting the turn. Super weird that UTG is still in the hand after a bet and the blinds both call. Although he could perhaps be playing super cautiously multiway with Ax (making a crying call with a big underpear 4ways, really?).

Alarm bells really have to be going off with UTG's call on the river to this action. I mean, I just don't see how he can call with Ax here when he is clearly beat this multiway to this action, and obviously he's dumping big underpears now. And it's not impossible that we're beat by others. I would make a hero fold here unless I think UTG is a complete moran.

Our shove is horrendous. If we're not going to make the nitty fold then we should probably just flat in order to make sure the SB pays off. Even arguing for a raise to the SB's stack seems rather poor as a tight/predictable player simply ain't going to pay off with anything we beat (maybe A2, but preflop, really?). But shoving is just horrendous unless UTG is the worst player in the room, as there is no way he's going to be paying off with worse.

Absolutely not a cooler for this stack size and this action / dynamics.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Think calling is the correct play - raising doesn't serve a purpose as I would think worse hands will fold and you're not folding better hands.

Yes, it's a mistake to shove here, following this river action. They can't all have a 2, and it's unlikely they all just have an ace.

SB's donk lead looks like a 2 or some oddly played ace. BB could possibly have 88, but more likely also a 2 or weakish ace. UTG's call is going to be a super strong hand, almost certainly 22, 88, AA, or A2.

He's never calling without a boat. A2 is the only hand you beat, and he's not calling with that hand if you shove, because you're going to have 33 or 88 when you shove.

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I disagree UTG is never calling w/o a boat. BB shove range is so wide that Ax can easily be a winner. I think AP he tabled 66.

Folding in a 1/3 game here is ridiculous. Calling on the basis that he is never paying the shove off with worse and that SB is more inclined to call is probably right.

Not folding pre, not raising river.

I also assume this, but it would be rather helpful to know. Regardless of stack size I would always fold 33 in the HJ to a UTG raise. Could consider a call on CO although that's not ideal either. Preflop seems a far more important inflection point than the river. Decent play from UTG with hindsight to just call, they can be very wide with a call but unlikely to call a re-shove with worse (except A2s if that's opened UTG). In the cold light of day this is a call but in the heat of the moment I see why you shoved.

Agree with all of this. The people saying we should fold are absolutely insane, we are never folding, ever.

(I do think shoving is a mistake, but not a major one.)

Horrendous mistakes are mistakes that are made for big bbs. If I've mathed right, we must shoved the river for 200bbs (ETA: The biggest mistake you can make in your weirdo game with one bet is 50bbs, right?), a cold 3bet at that in a protected pot, that has ~0% chance of getting called by worse by a reg with half a clue. Not meaning to pile on OP, but mistakes really don't get much bigger than this, plus it also makes preflop horrible (as there is no way it is profitable if we're capable of making mistakes this large postflop). IMO.

Folding to the river action is debatable, but by no means horrendous (and isn't even in the same ballpark of horrendousness as shoving is).

ETA: 200bbs is *massive*. Like, I see a 200bb bet in my 1/3 NL game, like, almost never. That's how bad it is.

Gnothatin',justsayin'G

Horrendous mistakes are mistakes that are worth huge amounts of bb’s in negative EV, not necessarily ones that just *involve* large amounts of money.

That being said, I also think shoving is a huge mistake here. I said earlier that running into AA was a predictable result. I stand by that. I can’t think of any other hand that would play this way (but me not being able to think of one doesn’t quite imply it’s a fold either).

Just to review...

UTG raises pre. He gets called by you in the HJ, as well as the SB and BB. The A22 flop gets checked through. The turn is a 3, you bet, and get called by the SB, the BB, and the UTG pre-flop raiser.

Stop there. When UTG checks this flop, it's often because he has a huge hand (like AA), or he doesn't like the A.

When you bet turn, and get called by the SB, and BB, he's probably not calling last-to-act with any pocket pair under the ace, and often probably not even with a weak ace, because he's losing to any 2, 33, and A3. Any PP is losing to any Ax.

If UTG had a strong ace, like AK/AQ/AJ, he probably would have c-bet the flop for value and protection. He'd be more likely to just check flop with AA, and pray someone with a pocket pair bets, and/or makes a smaller boat on the turn or river.

When SB donk-leads on the river, that's a little strange, but it's usually a sign of strength whenever someone goes check-call flop, check-call turn, donk-lead small on the river. When BB jams $140 over top of the donk-lead, into a pot of $230, that's also pretty strong, and rarely a bluff, or someone just spazzing out with 3rd pair (if he actually had 66).

When UTG, the pre-flop raiser, who called last to act on the turn, calls the BB's all-in, with you and the SB still left to act, he's almost always going to have a very strong hand. If he doesn't have an extremely strong hand, then he can't call a jam.

He's not opening UTG pre with just a 2. If he calls your jam, he's going to have AA or 88 a lot. Occasionally he'll have A8s or A2s. If he's maniacal, he could have 22.

But you ONLY beat A2.

Should you fold your boat on the river? Hell no. Not when you only have to call $140 to win a pot of $370. We don't fold boats getting over 2.5 to 1.

But should you jam $655 over the top of the SB's donk, the BB's jam, and the UTG/PFR's call, with middle boat in this spot?

F**k no. That's insane.

Any time your set is over the board pair raising can’t be that bad. Agree in this spot though it’s not great on that action. Calling seems like the play.

Oof, prob wouldn't shove river $650 effective but the action from utg up to that point is very passive and works out well for them. Maybe there's a high hand jackpot in the room?

Easy fold pre. Look at preflop charts - this is beginner stuff. Didn't even read post

Curious, does your chart have this for 230BB deep?

I would guess that anytime a chart has you folding a small pocket pair it would imply to continue folding it when deeper.

There are probably very few stack depths where you'd want to play 33 from the HJ against an early position raise. Probably some tournament situations, but that's with 2x opens.

Why is it wrong to set-mine here, getting better than 15:1 implied odds pre-flop?

Mainly because of CO and button. There are 4 players still to act, any one of them can squeeze with a half decent hand, or they can call with their pocket pairs which increase the chance of being out-setted. Plus the chance of having position isn't great - probably at least one of CO or button is going to get involved at least 50% of the time. If we had, say, 77 and were too scared to 3bet it or if the table was unusually passive then yeah. Finally because 33 is so weak that it only has one way to win.

If we're solid postflop, it can't be horrible (although it is still meh).

But if we're not solid postflop, as evident by our river play (seriously, this is one of the worst mistakes I've seen posted here recently, again, not meaning to hate on OP at all, just sayin'), then there's just no chance we're going to be profitable with very many hands here.

GimoG

All good points. I suppose the calculus changes if we're on the BTN or in the BB.

Robots defend wider as they get deeper, but also slightly differently sometimes. Although all robot ranges assume tiny opens and some weird stuff does happen with the small cards (Eg. robots like to defend 65s/54s more than 98s/87s).

Eg. Smash Live cash ranges:
400bb: EP opens 2.25x; MP defends 88+, 50%:77-66, ~0% 55-
100bb: EP opens 2.25x; MP defends 85%:99, 75%:88, 25%:77-66, ~0% 55-

400bb: EP opens 2.25x; BTN defends 55+, 75%:44 50%:33 80%:22).
100bb: EP opens 2.25x; BTN defends 66+, 75%:55, 50%:44, 50%:33, 95%:22

Also note that robots are 3betting more when deep.


For 55- specifically, it's mostly linear everywhere as above:

55 gets a ~25% defend in HJ, ~50% in CO

33 gets a ~25% defend in CO, from a HJ open.


The above also assume no intermediate callers.