9 handed 2/3 at Oceans Eleven on a Saturday night.

Hero is on BB with AhQh

EP1 raises to 15, loose passive player.
EP2, EP3, HJ, CO and SB call.
I have 420 starting stack, effective stack is ~250 from EP2, then myself. I raise to 120, hoping to squeeze.
Only EP3 calls, EP3 is somehow loose, but has been running great all night, he has around ~2.4K at this point.
Everyone else folds.

Flop is Ts8s4h. The pot is around ~300 at this point.
Mostly the range I’m putting Villain is QJs+, AJs, AQo+. Overpairs TT+ I think he would 3 bet pre. So some kind of medium pair is also possible 66-99. But not sure if Villain will call a jam all in.

I’m first to act and go all in, for another 300. Villain calls.

Due that I’m out position I’m inclined to isolate as much as possible or take down the flop pre uncontested. Would a jam all in pre, would be more profitable?

FYI villain shows Tc9c, we don’t hit turn or river. V wins.

Thoughts?

I'd probably play preflop similarly if my image is decent, but it sounds like villain isn't worth bluffing if he's calling with top pair. Posting results will get you biased advice though. Against this type of player I'd really prefer just waiting until you have it and betting into him...

I think you just have to take this one on the chin. Whats your option here? fold? you are getting right around the correct odds against his exact hand (I agree not to post results before).

so purely poker wise its a good shove and i like the aggression preflop with a premium.

now i think what might be going on here (and i know i've been through this myself) is it SUCKS to get stacked with nothing from a mental game/intangibles standpoint. while we should be looking at poker in the long term its natural to look in the short term and sometimes live risking and losing a whole stack that turns a winning session into a loser sucks. so we second guess ourselves. what is i flatted pre? i wouldn't have lost my stack. what if i shoved pre? (which i think does have merit). whats your bankroll like OP? are you playing for fun? those are more the question i have here.

I think you are giving a double flat range too much high hand credit - especially since there were multiple callers in front to the original raise and multiple people left to act after your 3 bet. I'd expect to see hands that want to flop big in multi way pots making up a lot more of villains range. 22-JJ, small suited connectors and suited broadway.

Because of that I think this flop is a check 100. You have only a small range advantage, lack the nut advantage and are out of position. What hands are we hoping/expecting him to fold getting 2:1 that beat us? Maybe some of the smaller pairs and AK if he played it that passive?

Jam and he can fold out worse, and call with better (with little fold equity on his hands that are better)

Check and call leaves in all his bluffs and still gets it in.

Check check and you can jam any turn you pick up equity on in great shape.

I'm either/or preflop. Think a jam is fine. But also think a huge raise to create a PSB jam on any flop (which is what we did) is also fine.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'm fine with everything and it is a good thing he's a: calling this wide pre and b: calling vs our line with a crap top pair. We are printing with the rest of our range / when he whifs.

That's a pretty bad flop for you, a lot of the double flat hands are suited broadways or suited connectors. You may be folding the best hand some % of the time when you check/fold but I think it's better than shoving unless his range his really wide.

Alternatively, you can check/call if you think he has a ton of bluff hands like offsuit broadways.

Why not downbet the flop, say to $60/70 ?

Hero has all overpairs. With an SPR of 1 we could argue that TT+ is the nuts here.

Loose players that are running great are not likely to fold hands we beat and will call with almost all hands that beat us. Agree that your range is too tight for a V you describe as loose.

Folding out pocket pairs is a great result, and I think he should have those way more suited connectors.

ETA: With an SPR of 1, I think we should always be shoving our overcards here. A lot of the time we simply have the best hand and we're protecting our equity in a big pot. We can still get called by worse (draws). We can still fold out better some of the time (underpairs). And if those underpairs hang on for dear life, we gave ourselves 2:1 to chase our 3:1, which isn't too bad considering all the other factors. Also better than betting small (imo), which will often leave us in no-mans land UI on the turn and perhaps not realizing our equity (and definitely reducing our FE on all postflop streets).

Gprettystandard,imoG

True it would be but when V is loose and running hot they aren't folding to a flop that missed our likely range. If V has a pocket pair he wasn't set mining when we are this shallow so he will call safe vs our likely over card flops. You don't beat people who are calling too much by rewarding their loose play but by taking advantage of it.

We'll, then let's run the equities if he doesn't fold to our flop bet. Don't forget all the suited aces and broadways in his wide range.

My statement isn't that he will call our flop bet every time it is that if he has a pocket pair or hit the board the player description makes it very likely will call. That the hands we fold out are strongly biased to being hands where we are currently ahead. Yes folding out those hands has some equity; if V is AJ he has 3 outs twice plus a running straight draw plus of course he might/is likely to bluff if we check to him. But in that case when we call we are against his entire range whereas when we bet V folds most hands where we want the extra money in the pot and get called by those hands where we don't want the money in. Note well there are many player descriptions where I would be happy to bluff as V will fold numerous hands where we are behind so we we make our profit from those folds but given stack depths and player description think a bluff in this particular spot is -ev. YMMV

I think this line of thinking makes the most sense to me, basically opening the door to get him to bluff with the range that didn’t hit, instead of betting and letting him fold that range.

I guess we call any bet/shove here right? Pot odds are too great even for our holding. If he check we get a free card and re-evaluate.

What about the shove pre, is it good?, based on the understanding that our range is beating everyone’s else’s and we don’t want to be out of position? If yes, how do we determine which line is more profitable?


Very insightful replies overall guys, thank you!

Bankroll is above 3000 BB, I’m playing for profit and the challenge. So overall try to optimize the strategy, ideally reducing variance is preferred, but mostly thinking long term. I’m still curious on the shove pre if its actually better, particularly due we are out of position and all the dead money. My image is solid at this point as they haven’t seen any showdown bluffs from me yet.

I'm trying to think in terms of what types of mistakes are likely to occur when we bet versus check.

We just 3bet to a massive amount preflop to leave relatively little behind (only a PSB). Is this dude really going to bet a huge percent of the time just cuz we check? Cuz if not, it seems to me the big mistake is allowing him a free card when we have the best hand in a huge pot. If he's going to bet 100% of the time when we check, fine.

Meanwhile a bet allows him to make the mistake of folding the best hand (admittedly probably only a small percentage of the time, but it is definitely non-zero) as well as calling with the worst of it (there are enough draws on this board).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Problem with shoving pre is it allows villains to play better and not make post flop errors. Also are we shoving AA pre?

I think gobblyegeek explains it very well above as to our different motivations.

And big picture I don’t think anything you do can be that wrong with a plan. It’s okay to be slightly -ev in the learning process.

Our best case scenario when villain calls (a dominated ace high flush draw) has 47% equity against our hand.

He should be defending 50% of his range here if we shove. All of his non spade complete misses represent that folding range meaning we have zero fold equity to a better hand and making the likelihood he overfolds very slim (since the correct defense frequency is also all his hands that connected and even gutshots like 67 have odds to call even if we have AA). Unless he's the nittiest nit (and double flatting twice leads me to believe he's not) he's not over folding.

Therefore by betting we are ensuring we get $300 in pretty bad against his range in order to protect against about $50 of equity when villain gets a free card with a hand he would have folded like AJ no spades.

Check and keep his range wide.

Without any studying, intuitively the wiffed flops I would bet are either disconnected, paired, low, or include a gutshot + overcards (without 3 connected cards).

I don't think it's as bad as betting something like J87 or T98, but it's probably not as optimal as checking.

That goes for preflop as well. Jamming makes the hand easier but it doesn't allow your opponents to make as many mistakes.

All of you advocating for checking the flop, when villain shoves are you calling? I am for shoving flop to deny him a free card for his draws.

Not only this (ETA: I actually think this is a snap call, and if he's betting 100% of the time when checked to then I'd be fine with checking the flop), but what's our plan on future streets? To just check it down UI and then be faced with stoopider and stoopider decisions on stoopid runouts?

GcluelessstoopiddecisionsnoobG

flop is a classic "your range hits this board harder than me" spot. so it can either be played as a 100% (i.e., full range) 1/3 pot bet, or as a check with AQ/AK, bet JJ-QQ, check KK-AA.

This is misapplication of minimum defense. Hero/villian didn't know this would be the flop, some spots even in gto its ideal to vastly overfold.