I am coming off like a 4 month hiatus from poker and about to get back into the grind again. I thought I'd post a hand I thought was interesting to get into the poker mood again. I played this hand around 3 years ago so the detail might be slightly off. I know I butchered this hand on multiple streets...feel free to flame, but I still think the final decision is interesting.

Background: Live 9 handed 10-25 game uncapped.
I am sitting with around 14 k to start hand. Pretty much all the players in the game know my game pretty well. I am viewed as tight aggressive, but often can get overly aggressive in certain spots.
Villian 1 is Jon the lawyer if anyone plays bigger cash games on East coast. He is a very good thinking LAG who is capable of crazy moves and always sits super deep. He covers this hand.
Villian 2 is loose recreational player who plays loose both before and after flop. Will often call very light. He has around 4k
Villian 3 is a bad very loose LAG who will constantly bluff when checked to often on multiple streets and in bad spots. He has around 5k.

One player limps, villain 2 limps, I limp with 5s7s(oops?),villian 3 raises to 125 we all call.

Flop is 5h7d7h we all check to initial raiser who also checks.
Turn Js checked to me I bet 500 Villian 1 calls Villian 2 calls.
River Qs Villian 1 leads 1 thousand. I raise to 2600. Villian 1 asks me how much I have left and goes all in.

I will post my thought proccess later. This hand haunts me to this day, and I am still pretty sure I butchered it even before my final river decision.

ugh

pre is okay. I would probably raise though depending on where i was relative to the button.

On river make it 3300 or so probably.

Are his value hands comprised solely of JJ / QQ? I mean he knows you basically never have these hands give pf action. Would he jam the combo of A7s? What about 78 and 79? 55?

Even if he does have 7xs or 55, there's actually more combos of JJ and QQ... idk its a sick spot.

snap.

that's a strangely played JJ or QQ if he had it.

Have you seen him limp QQ / JJ in EP before? I play with a super tight reg in my game who limp / calls TT and JJ 100% of the time and limp calls awful hands too. I mean he's an idiot and is terrible but I know he'll play hands this way. Will the lawyer do this?

My stomach is gettign queasy just reading it. But one clarification...I assume he limped up front, yes? You said "One player limps but didn't identify if that was V1 or not." IF htis was a FW, I know who this is BTW and he is vv good.

I am OK with pre, although a raise would have been good too.

Flop seems fine, even this deep. I suppose you could start building here but I would fade it.

Turn seems fine too.

River, you could make a larger raise here but I guess you should size based on what you want V1 to do. Your raise size looks like it was to induce a spew and it happened. If you had raised larger and shown you were committed, he might have folded or at least you would know that he knows you were committed and yet he still shoved.

Honestly, I don't see any way we can fold. If he limped up front with QQ or JJ and hit the miracle, we have to pay him off. God this game can be so gross at times...

I may have actually raised river a little bigger I don't remember exactly it was long ago. I also think I might have been slightly deeper.

I think I was 2 from button so I pretty much never have jj or qq and he should know this.

I am not that sure about his river value range..b/c I generally did not play that deep with him(but I was winning in a very good game..so stayed). I would be pretty surprised if he value shoves random 7s here with regularity.

sorry jon was BB....random limper was irrelevant to hand I think.

Im glad im not the only one this hand made sick lol. For all those who say call...at what stack size would you fold to a shove. B.c as I said I may have been a bit deeper my memory is a little fuzzy.

I really disagree. Given the preflop action, the case 7 very well could be in play, and the preflop raiser could have any number of overpairs that could freeze up on a bad turn card.

In general, I've almost completely eliminated any sort of slowplay from my playbook, and I'm almost certainly better off for it. If you flop quad aces or quad kings, then fine, do whatever you want. Otherwise, you have to take advantage of people's willingnessness to call light or float on the flop.

For me, the river depends on what you think Villain believes your raising range is on the river. Based on your description of yourself, he probably thinks that you fold every hand worse than 57 to a river shove, and he probably thinks that 5-7 is right on the fence.

It's a fair point and you are probably right that slowplaying multi-way, even when you flop the join is most often not worth it. I guess I have had too many times where I have flopped a boat, tried to begin building and then had 5 people fold. Sure it is better than getting two outed but I am probably jaded because of my own (albeit small sample size) experience.

whoa, V1 was BB? That changes everything. He's way more likely to flat a raise with JJ/QQ from the BB than he is to limp / call it from EP. I'm pissed I even thought about this hand at all the way you described it, this is entirely different.

What position was the person who made it 125 to go?

Yes he was big blind...loose raiser was button I beleive

Yea I worded that OP badly..but he was big blind

What a great hand to post. A few thoughts:

1. While betting this flop is def. good (I prob. do it more than most), checking to this raiser is by far best given his description as bluffy and a bad lag. So flop is good.

2. I think we can rule out JJ from John since it is so unlikely given how deep you are that he would c/c the turn. I also don't think he would c/c the turn with 55, A7 or J7.

3. His river lead looks strong since not only is he leading into you but also into a calling station in the other villain.

4. However, I think that the best way to play a strong hand for him would be a c/r since he would trap your bet and V2 call. So the only reason for him to lead would be if he felt the river would get checked through a lot.

5. QQ is the most obvious value hand he is doing this with here. It would makes sense preflop, flop, and turn. Q7 is the only other value hand he could do this with based on previous action.

6. While I doubt this is a bluff often, the fact that you can't have JJ or QQ, coupled with his aggro style is something to consider. If he feels like you will muck everything except the big full here then I dunno. Maybe he turned 67,78, or 68 into a bluff?

These points you made were all some of the things I considered while tanking on river.

1. Yea I think flop could go either way, but the initial raiser bluffs so often I think is check is slightly better. By checking to him not only do I get him to put lots of money in behind, but also have opportunities to generate raises/light calls from all the other players before it gets back to me since they also know he continuation bets light.

2 I thought hard about 2 and think he has to almost always raise these hands given our stacks, but I guess there is a slight possibility that he wouldnt. (Maybe he knew I would raise good sevens on river and planned a bet three bet river to go for stacks?)

3. This is probably true, but I also think he is capable of value betting thin here as well given that player 2 likes to call and I might check behind. I would not put it past him to bet AJ or random queens here for value. Although, I don't think this is that likely since he is probably better off bluff catching these hands on river against me

4. I do not totally agree with this point. If he check raises my river bet it will be extremely unlikely he will also get a call from the second player. Also, if he checkraises my river bet he will not be able to stack me when I do have sevens since I will likely bet around 1400 and he will raise to maybe 6k. This will leave roughly 8k of my stack behind. Whereas if he bets and I raise with trips...he can go for my full stack.

5. I agree with this. I definitely think he is very capable of having QQ here pre since he will mix up his game, and there are some deep stacks. But I think an important side factor to consider is: Shouldn't he be 3betting to isolate QQ very often against a loose player on the button who also plays pretty bad post flop.

6. He knows I cannot have QQ or JJ here ever. But he also has respect for my game and should know that I know he knows this (lol). At that point if hes thinking on that level it becomes a bit of a leveling game. We have a decent amount of history and he has seen me make big calls in the past if I think the situation merits it.

I initially had that thought that he also could turn a six with bad kicker into bluff. I discussed this with another good regular in the game and he disagreed with that...and said he would always just call river with 6 since I sized it smallish.

He should (and probably usually is) 3betting with QQ to isolate the bad player preflop, but when stacks get around 600bb and up things change so much preflop. Automatic plays become less automatic and if he has confidence in himself not to lose a big pot unimproved due to fps then I could easily see him flatting QQ/KK and even AA pre here. Maybe he thought someone would lrr or that he would just play very carefully postflop and take a chance at winning a huge pot if he flopped a set.

His lead vs. c/r on the river isn't really important. What's important is that he must realize that his line looks fishy. Any big hand he had on the turn has to want to get money in this deep. He certainly can't take the chance that you shut down on the river or that you just flat a lead with T7, etc. So for him to wait until the river to make a big bluff or over play 55 doesn't make sense.

One thing about spots like these is that when two players hook up in a big pot and neither was the preflop raiser, it's usually the goods from both. That's not to say that he couldn't find a bluff here, just that it's a lot less likely. In a way this is similar to the Dwan vs. Barry vs. Eastgate hand where there aren't many hands John can shove for value here, but there aren't many he can bluff with either.

I could def. see him lead a hand like 78 for value, realize that he was beat when you raised and decide f'it you can only call with the absolute top of your range (J7) and shove on you.

There is no "oops" in pre imo. Omg bet flop with these stacks though. Turn, yeah. River, yeah ---> why isn't this an easy fold?

edit: if the guy made the play of his life, so be it.

I'm all for leading into the preflop raiser, but with descriptions given of villains this has to be a c/r on flop and it's not even close.

Edit: you in Vegas? I'll be there tomorrow throughout the 4th

mmix-
i think you mean a "7".....?

one underlying tenet of deep stacked poker that we all know but it might help to remember is that big pocket pairs diminish in value the deeper the stacks get. suited aces, connectors, and other hands that can make the nuts go up in value.

ie, it is certainly possible that he played JJ or QQ for a single raise pre. also, why are we not considering the mighty J7 or Q7 ?

his value range seems to have us crushed -- 55 being pretty much the only value hand he can b/3bet all in on the river that we beat. and there is 1 combo of 55 in the deck. his value range that has us beat is much wider (JJ, QQ, J7, Q7) with many more combos.

sick spot. don't get zeebo'ed here. fold your hand.
[maybe i'm being too nitty tho, since i've been playing mostly plo lately and this is a snap fold in plo.....]

I've been going back and forth. I might be there this wknd. I'll hit u up...

Pls breakdown how c/r is better here. I think it's not close the other way.

When I first read this I definitely thought it was a fold as well, but my read from villian is that if he had jj/qq he would have raised the flop. He seems capable of thinking and probably rationalized that you would not limp call pre with jj/qq, and that an all-in would blow you off 6/7 7/8. So even though you are so deep and it is a gross spot to stack off, I think you still need to call because villian is capable of doing it. If I started with like 5-6k I am snapping river all in. Take that from what it is worth from an admitted calling station:P

He has to put 55 in your range, no? Think we see QQ here.

You guys are crazy. Most of you want to call a 440 BB river 3-bet with like 5th nuts because he might be capable of bluff shoving here? How do we know that? We know he's lag and everything but that doesn't mean he'll make a play here.

What we do know is that he's good. Which means that he's aware of the range of hands he's repping and the range of hands you can have. He knows when he jams he reps a hand that beats yours, a hand that he really shouldn't have hardly ever and thus he knows that he's repping super thin and way less likely to bluff. Just because he's LAG and a good player doesn't mean he's going to try to bluff you off a hand where your range is like 67+ and contains at least two boats in it.

He shoved 11k into about 6k more. I'd be really surprised if he didn't have J7 or better (I really think he has JJ or QQ though). I mean he overbet so he's not doing this with A7 or something, it's a nutted hand. Do you guys realize that he has to be bluffing or have a worse hand here almost 40% of the time for us to call!?!? Do you really think that's the case when he does this? I sure don't, and I think it's a pretty trivial fold despite the absolute strength of our hand.

Also, this is a really good example of why playing deep is super profitable. So many people here (a majority of people actually) would basically think "I has full house, call" but you beat NONE of his value hands and you are good here probably around 5-10% of the time but need to be good here 40% of the time to call. But it's an interesting hand for sure.

I had an interesting discussion about a similar spot (where our hand is super strong and it's extremely hard to fold, but probably should) with a buddy of mine yesterday. Basically he was 30k eff stack at 10/25, button 3b and he cold 4b to 1100 with KK. Flop came K72 rainbow. He bets 1200, turn A, he bets 3000, river comes blank, he has second nuts, he bets 6000 and the guy jams 19k more. It's a spot where my friend has super nutted hands in his range, including the nuts, so the guy who shoves literally can only have AA here and he's never bluffing. When he told me the hand I said it's super sick but river is a fold. No one ever folds there but it's a fold because he can only have one hand. Yes, we have second nuts, and there are so few combos that beat us, but we are beat here literally always and it's a fold. That's how I feel about this spot.

Idk, maybe this guy totally owns me and my thought process in this hand, but I really think this is a fold and long term calling here is going to be extremely -EV. It's like DGAF said, if he's making the play of his life here, so be it. If we try to pick off these plays all the time, we're going to do pretty bad because you're going to get shown the nuts way more often than you pick off a bluff, and way more often than you're going to need to make a profitable call.

This is very good and something I need to keep in mind about playing very deep. Maybe the most important thing about it is that a really good player (and if it is the Jon I am thinking about, he is scary good) will KNOW that we have very few bluffs (if any) in our range and so almost all of our river raises are clearly for value. And yet he still shoves over us. I actually think it much more likely that he holds J7 or Q7 than JJ or QQ simply because those hands eliminate us having quads which will give him more comfort to shove.

I still don't know if I trust myself in the heat of battle to lay this down, but to those of you wh would, would you have simply called the river? What hand do you need to have to call his shove. J7 good enough?

Thanks,

Shorn

Not sure that it matters but I eventually folded. So I still have no idea what he had. Still not convinced I made right fold. Against most this would be a super easy fold, but against this player not so much.

For those who are saying its a fold, then is my river raise a bad play? If Jon knows I will never have JJ and QQ and prob will only call a shove with say Q7 suited(which I dont really ever limp with pre either) or pockets 7s he can essentially shove every time and be profitable. While flatting may be super weak, if he is capable of this play could it be better?