Bit of background on the players

Seat 1: decent player. Fairly wide range of playable hands and third street raising range. Quite aggressive
Seat 3: Regular, kind of aggressive. Chases any kind of straight draws. Including baby gutters.
Seat 8: He has me a little confused. Previously felt he was solid, but somewhat over-aggressive player. In this session though, he was on massive tilt. Making all kinds of ridiculous plays.

Third Street - one dead diamond. Two dead clubs. One dead spade. 7 Handed.

Seat 1: xx K
Seat 3: xx Q
Seat 4 (me): 78T
Seat 8: xx 8

Seat 8 calls BI. Seat 1 raises. We all call.

Fourth street:

Seat 1: xx K6
Seat 3: xx QK
Seat 4: 78T4
Seat 8: xx 86

Seat three bets, we all call.

Fifth Street:

Seat 1: xx K6J
Seat 3: xx QKA
Seat 4: 78T46
Seat 8: xx 864

Seat 3 bets. My play?

I'd just call. No need to drive out any customers.

Does anyone jam 3rd here?

No. No high card value.

Are you thinking this is hi-lo? It isn't.

No, even though the cards are live and straightish, I prefer not to jam on 3rd here because we don't have the ability to make a pair higher than what our opponents were representing. If one of your buried cards wads the ace of diamonds, this play has more merit.

5th looks like a coin flip to me. I'd prob just call and not argue w/ anyone who wants to raise.

Is 4th a raise?

A call basically screams flush draw, so not really giving too much info away with a raise.


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I'm on the fence w/ 4th also.

Your implied position on 4th is better if you do not raise. You gain nothing by thinning the field since you cannot make an overpair and the big hands you do make will welcome large fields. Calling is better by miles.

Fifth is also not a raise for the same reasons. With all the ranks dead, you could even flat Fifth had you made the flush since it's real unlikely anybody fills up. If it's checked to you (unlikely) you certainly have enough equity to bet, but if you get c/r you can only call.

No, but I play hi-lo much more than hi which is why I ask. Not jamming in hi-lo w a ten.

It seems odd if our entire range is rolled up and AA,KK here. It seems predictable.

5th is not a raise imo as others have said.

I'd be looking to jam up 4th potentially, but if I just called on 4th, I would jam up 5th street for sure...raising 5th would make hero's hand very difficult to read and would put you in the drivers seat for the rest of the hand (assuming you don't get 3 bet)... then If you miss sixth and your remaining opponents hit scare cards, you might get to take a free one to the river.

Maybe you pair 6th after having raised and are able to get higher pairs out with a continuation...in this scenario where I end up high man going to the river and against what I may deem two pair and/or one high pair w/ draw hands, i would generally smoke the river. You'd only get raised by a big full house, get called by numerous hands that you are drawing high percentage of winners against, and getting many two pair hands to fold against. This works especially well when the middle hand (second to act) has to be concerned their two pair is beat by 3rd player even if he is suspicious of bettor.


This is the game I play almost exclusively (Stud Hi at FW), and there is a decent chance I'm even the person described in seat 1 or 8 (as this is where I always sit; and I would definitely be described as aggressive)

Or he raises and the two other players fold and he ends up heads up with ten high and no equity for the two players who were drawing slim

I think pretty much all of this is bad advice.

You will knock out the drawing hands you dominate and get more money in HU vs a better made hand. Villain in most 20-40 lineups is much more likely to take a c/c line to showdown than c/f at any point if he can beat any of your one-pair hands. The free card would be of value if you had any showdown hand, allowing you to realize your equity vs the bottom of villain's range, but since showing down Ten-high earns you nothing when beaten in sight, you're much better off drawing to a huge hand as cheaply as possible with a multiple-caller overlay. Yes it looks like you're drawing, but when you take the lead you are representing a range of bluffs/semibluffs and a very few oddball hands, so you should get looked up often.

Larger one-pair hands should not fold. Board cards are dead to a large degree.

I see this a lot. I generally call if I can beat the bottom of a villain's smoking range. I don't know how these other people play but if you do this often they ought to figure it out.

There is an entertaining thread here about all the times you would get raised by worse. Behold "SIWAS."

I get that people who play other games in other places would hate my ideas/lines here but like I said I play this specific game at this place almost exclusively (and profitably) and so my thoughts are likely outside conventional thinking. What I am saying is based on the long hours and thousands of hands vs. the same smallish pool of players in this game. They very often call raised pots with marginal hands creating huge pots with loads of equity, so my suggested 5th street raise is more of means to add as much $ to a pot where my hand is well disguised (lots of players would read a raise as a set but still call) with likely "check to the raiser" on 6th if/when no one still in improves, in this scenario the hand can be checked back for the same cost as call/call.

I understand that larger one pair hands should not fold, but the tighter players often will...even when they don't it's not a bad a scenario for the hero given 14 outs twice to straight and flush and a few runner runner trip and two pair scenarios. This style is not for everyone as it can obviously be high variance, but it's proven profitable over a very large sample because the players on the whole are loose passive and fold the river way too often.

If you knock out player(s) you will have less money in the pot when you take that "free" card than if you just flatted and kept the overlay of multiple callers, so you paid the same for less potential profit. Your implied position is compromised as well, since you could make your flush and one of the other draws you might knock out could complete a straight or make a set or some other hand that could potentially put in action on the river.

I appreciate that you can beat this game and that's how you've done it, but it's still worth it to consider optimizing play under all circumstances.

Seems like a spot where I'd rather keep in customers, and maybe someone will jam behind us (which obviously is pretty nice when all of our diamonds are pristine given the boards showing, and our 9 and 5's look pretty good to win too, but at a higher risk of being overstraighted).

Our equity versus 4 is probably similar to versus 2, so I'd rather call unless our fold equity is great.

I prefer call on 4th and 5th, doesn't sound like the right game to play overaggro with draws

What do you think they will put you on that they can fold to if you raise 5? Your board is fairly dead. They should put you on combo draws and pair+draw hands with the exception of like being rolled up. This is like the worst possible time to be getting crazy with this type of hand.

I had a different perspective on how this hand should be played, than what I have seen expressed here. I raised, which I expected to be not supported by most posters. So I thought it would make for an interesting discussion.

I had almost no concern that I was going to thin the field by having seat 8 and 1 both fold. With seat 8 being on massive tilt, I thought there was no way he was folding. He was simply irrational at that point.

But I wanted seat 1 out. I really didn't like the suited connectors with his KJ. I thought that if I just called, that he was sticking around for sure, thereby increasing my chances of getting beat even if I hit my straight or flush. Seat 1 didn't have to worry about just me if he called two cold. He could not know what seat 3 was going to do. So I thought it was worth a shot, with the raise.

This hand worked almost perfectly for me, but that does not make my play correct. I am interested in what people have to say on the line of thinking above.

So I raised. Seat 8 called. Seat 1 folded, and Seat 3, raised. I called and seat 8 called.

I caught the three of diamonds to complete my flush on sixth. Seat 3 bet into me, and I raised. Seat 8 went into a huge cursing fit, and eventually folded. Seat 3 called me.

Seat 3 checked into me on the river. I bet. He called. While at the same time saying: "you didn't really raise me with a four flush did you?" He had a broadway that he hit on fifth and lost to my flush. I can see how he had a hard time time putting me on a flush given how fifth was played.

If he has a draw to a hand that beats the top of your range, he's likely never folding. He is folding weak one-pair hands and weak no-pair draws that have very little equity 3-ways though.

If you raise and he folds, you saved him money and cost yourself money in overlay. If you raise and he calls, you have cost yourself money by putting in extra while far behind both players.

I would agree with you easily, if seat 3 was not between the two of us. He has to make his decision based upon BOTH of our hands. Does this play into your thinking at all?

agree with all of electrical's posts.

Can only raise on 4th for value as last to act. With two behind doesn't make much sense.

Not as many cat misclick 3-bets at Foxwoods these days. Everybody solid