New to two plus two and relatively new to playing poker seriously. I just wanted to get some opinions on slow playing. There's one hand from my last night at the casino that I wanted some opinions on. I'm pretty sure I just ran bad but maybe I could have played it differently.

1/3 Live

HERO:300$
MP:200$
BB:550$

Don't really know much about MP, but he doesn't really factor in much in this situation. BB is a regular he is a very good TAG. I think my image is fairly tight at the moment. I try to mix it up throughout the night.

HERO AA UTG +1
Open raise to 12$

Both MP and BB call.

Board comes down A6J rainbow BB checks to me I check. I check so that hands like Ax (only on A left) or any big J can feel safe on the turn. Maybe puting me on like pocket pairs. I really didn't want it to go bet fold fold. MP checks behind.

Turn is a 10 diamond draw on the board now. BB bets 15 into a pot of roughly 35$. I raise up to 45$ MP folds and BB shoves for my whole stack. I almost fold but I couldn't because I'm literally only behind one hand KQ so I call and sure enough he has KQ.

What could I have done differently? Any help would be great thank you.

I suggest you get the board to pair on the river.

Really there's not much you can do here. Unless you have a read that BB is some mega nit there's a lot worse he can show up with here - like JT, TT, JJ, AdQd (if you don't have the Ad)

Generally I won't slow play. I'd continue JJ on this flop for sure. But in a spot like this with a pretty dry board and your hand totally crushing the board it's not a bad idea to check and hope someone catches up or takes a stab.

The hand is just unlucky, but i dont mind betting half pot on the flop and try start build a pot.

Good flop to slowplay is if you raise with KK get heads up and flop K27 rainbow. Here we got to check- give our villain a chance to hit something on the turn. We own the board and unless villain hits underset he cant call with anything on flop.

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It's easy to chalk this up as a cooler (and it might be) but we likely not have done our homework to range this villain before we chalk it up to a cooler.

Checking top set here is often just fine. You're right, there is often nothing that can call a bet. Most strong second best hands will bet for us. If anyone flopped a set we are going to get their entire stack anyway.

But on the turn, we have to decide what is V getting his stack in with?
If he is going to gii with all sets, maybe the 2 combos of suited AT/AJ and then all 16 combos of KQo then we need to decide if we should still call it off.

He has 9 combos of sets of which we have 96% equity.
2 combos of AJ/ATs and we have 100% equity against them.
And 16 combos of KQ which we have 20% equity against.

So 9/27*.96 + 2/27*100 + 16/27*.2 = 51.25% equity. So against a very very tight range, we are still good > 51% of the time, so we should call a bet of any size no matter what he shoves in there. (Give or take, I'm doing rough math on a piece of paper.)

If we remove the 2 combos of AT/AJ our equity drops to ~47.3%.
We are calling what looks like $243 into $357 so we need 40.3% equity to be break even. Again we are still good.

So the questions is how many of his sets will he 3b shove here.
To find out how many we need him to shove for our call to be break even we solve for x where x is the number of combos of sets that he will shove (assuming he will always shove with all 16 combos of KQ):

x/(x+16)*.96 + 16/(x+16)*.2 = 40.3%
40.3%*(x+16) = x*.96 + 16*.2
.403x + 6.448 = .96x + 3.2
3.248 = .557x
x= 5.831

So if V will shove with 6 combos of his sets (all JJ/TT) then we should still call here. If he won't, if he only shoves with JJ then we should fold.

Given this, I think it's still a call. I think most V's will stack off here with JJ/TT so I think we did fine. But we should always go through the math before we just arbitrarily tell you what you right or wrong.

Betting flop on AJ6r more often than checking sandwiched between two players and a pretty decent set of hands in each range to target for a street or two. On A94r, checking more often than betting with a small sets of hands in ranges to target for value and very few turn cards that alter pot share.

Slow play when you flop a full-house or better, imo. And only sometimes then.

Not c-betting here is just suspicious on an ace high board, and no ace is folding to your c-bet anyway. Few jacks are.

AP, this is basically a cooler. Sure, his move is very strong, but 2-pair, smaller sets, and pair plus big draw are also in his range.

Still, don't slow play sets.

Thanks for all the feedback. Very helpful!! What are your thoughts on these crazy over bets that you see from time to time? I feel like they are super value focused but I knew he had no idea how strong I was there. Is there any reason to add these crazy bets into my own game? I usually bet within the 1/2 pot to pot range depending on the spot.

Look, if he really is a TAG, you hafta call here. Against a pop read, you can fold.

EDIT: Oh, and bet flop, we cannot move any strong hands from our cbetting range on this board, or when we get to the turn with a bet, our range is too weak. See Gils poast also.

I think most would play it the same way. If anything - the overbet provided you a (very small) chance to get a way from the hand and was really a misplay by Villain. If he was ranging you - he should have had a ton more AK, AJ, AT, AQ in your range... and all of these hands could have gotten away from his overbet.

I put it down as a cooler... whether you bet the flop or not,,, whether he raised you normally OTT and got it in on the river or not.... you were getting felted with that runout.

Sigh and Call

It always feels like a dilemma when you crush a dry board and fear getting no action.

In addition to what has been said I'll just add that Top set of AAA benefits less from and is more vulnerable to a free card than other top sets.

Top set of QQQ or KKK for example at least allows an Over card to catch tp or t2p.

I remember reading years ago Doyle saying in super system that he always fast played a set of AAA. I think he mentioned there is always a straight draw on board as his reason and the likelihood you'd not be able to avoid losing a decent amount of money when villain binked the straight.

Certainly not A horrible slow play tho and yeah still a cooler.

Tough break on this hand. Having said that...

I bet the flop here. Over time, I've found I slow play less and less. That's because:

1. In this hand, you're up against two players. If either of them has an Ace (not likely), a Jack, or a Six, they are calling your continuation bet. KQ may have called with their gutshot. If they both totally bricked, you're going to find folds, but it was very unlikely you were going to win a big pot by slow playing anyways.

2. It's important to build pots in poker. You flopped a monster, which is really tough to do, so it's an opportunity to win big.

3. Sometimes opponents get there off the free card. In this case, both KQ or QT could turn the nuts if the right card fell. You're up against two opponents who called a raise so both those hands are within their range. And if they get there, you're stacking off, which is exactly what happened.

In general I find that at the 1/3 level most players simply call too often. We can exploit this by fast playing when we flop big. Let them call us down, unable to fold their second pair, or level themselves into thinking we might be bluffing. Of course sometimes they will simply fold and you win a very modest pot, but in general betting out is best and also provides a good balanced image for the times you c-bet bluff when you brick.

Yes, Doyle did say that. Unless you flop a boat with AA, I wouldn't slow play top set either. Certain players may even call 20-25 OTF, to hit a gutter and to put you on tilt when they hit and stack you. I know I've done it and it's been done to me before.