This is not a PKO, so no bounties involved. Strange hand that I in hindsight feel very unsure about if I did the correct play.

This is just the 7th hand. No earlier hands on villain. But so far he limped from UTG+1 and called a 3-bet with J9s and bet 1bb into a 13bb pot OTT with a gutshot on Q-high board. Next hand he limped again from UTG. 2 callers, all players checked flop and turn. OTR board paired with the second 5, he bet pot and the other two folded. The hand before this he called a button raise from SB and won the pot again after he checkraised a J75-flop with two clubs. So based on this he felt at least a bit fishy.



PokerStars - 25/50 Ante 6 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 194.04 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
Hero (BB): 95.9 BB
UTG: 198.08 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 14.58, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 48)
UTG+1: 106.48 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
MP: 98.7 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
MP+1: 98.8 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
CO: 78.52 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
BTN: 139.36 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)

8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.46 BB) Hero has K A

fold, fold, MP calls 1 BB, MP+1 raises to 4 BB, fold, BTN calls 4 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 8 BB

Flop: (30.46 BB, 2 players) K 7 J
Hero bets 9.14 BB, BTN raises to 127.24 BB and is all-in, HERO ???

To start with: I should have 3-bet bigger pre, right? 16 or even 20? (I'm not quite sure how to handle the initial limper, though I think he'll mostly fold)

Any merit in checking the flop here? It's hard to know what type of hands he would take this line with. But because of what I've already have seen perhaps checking and letting him go aggro again is a better idea, since he might fold some part of the range a player of this type might take this line with? (like 88-TT) if I bet?

As played I was of course a bit shocked to see him shove. In the heat of the moment I considered the possibility of KJ or a set of 7. But the drawy board and the aggression he'd shown earlier made me lean towards a call, even though we were deep. Can we find a fold here or not?

First, yes, definitely pf need to raise to at least 17-18 bbs this deep.

As played, I think we have to call off. We unblock all of V's club draws, and many of his straight draws. I assume we are also willing and able to re-enter? If we fold, are we only calling precisely KK, JJ and nut club and combo draws?

My preflop raise size would be 20 bb's.

As played my flop bet size would be 20 bb's given the flop smashes our range.

If we can buy back in I would call. I'd probably call anyway. As Bubblebust points out we don't block any flush draws and this is the type of jam I would expect with a flush draw. I mean KJ/77 might be doing this to just take it down now in case a club shows up but really if a 7 comes KJ loses only to AA. But I guess Villain could also worry about AQ getting a T. Still it looks like a flush draw.

Thanks, very useful!

I called because I definately considered the possibility of a draw of some sort. Or perhaps an overplayed KQ or AJ? The unblock concept didn't came to mind though. For some reason it has been a bit more difficult to grasp for me than blockers. Gonna work on that.

The same goes for the bet sizing OTF. On this BI:s on Pokerstars I feel that small sizings dominate and it's easy to be a bit unflexible when playing 4-5 tables.

Because of the fact he called twice we should believe this flop is quite good for his range too, right? So no reason for betting small to milk at least one street of value from him?

I need to work more on my bet sizings, that's for sure.

Because of my impressions from the 3 earlier hands I had seen him play I thought he could have anything from a set of sevens or jacks via strong draws to to a gutshot AQ/AT. So what cards did he table when I made the crying call?

K 7

I just sat there in disbelief and stared at the cards. No ace or jack came to my help and I busted. Calling twice with K7off? Paying 1/10 of his stack for seeing a flop with such a hand against a player he had no reads on? Checkraise allin instead of trying to get at least one more street from hands like KQ, AJ, QQ, TT?

It's a reminder that how well we try to nail down the ranges of our villains there's always gonna be this erratic plays from fishy or maniac players that are almost impossible to guess.

Def raise more pre. As played, I think this early and this deep it looks like a fold. I'm missing if this is a re-buy or not. If it is, then calling gets a lot closer as you're going to get a ton of gamblers at these stakes w/ a pretty wide range.

20BB is probably about right for a 3-bet. Typical rule of thumb this deep for 3-bets is 3.5x IP (+1x for each caller), 4.5x OOP (+1x for each caller.) Larger raise sizes you can 3-bet a little smaller. Between the limper, caller, and 4x open, going 5x is probably fine. You could in theory go bigger, too-- I've seen 6-8x 3-bets this deep from OOP in the high-stakes tournaments. Honestly, "However big you need to go to get the SPR where you're comfortable stacking off with TPTK" is fine.

Calling the shove is fine. The line doesn't make any sense and there are a load of draws here. Even in this situation you have six outs plus backdoors. Maybe he has two pair or a set but who rips those here like that? Anyway, make a note of how this player plays and plan to relentlessly exploit his looseness if you run into him again.

I think our options are to go 18-20BB or to jam for 95BB effective. While it sounds excessive, there's already 10.5BB in the pot and when you have less than 10x pot jamming behind becomes a thing.

The challenge is that when you 3-bet non all-in here, you're often going to be OOP with a fairly small SPR, so you have to be prepared to get it in with some uncomfortable hands sometimes.

As played on flop, probably betting somewhat bigger on KJ7. That's a board our 3-bet range should have a huge advantage on.

Villain should almost never have raises in theory, and when they do they should be small trying to squeeze some value out of stuff like KQ/KJ, maybe 77. Jam is absolutely not a thing. At this SPR never folding AK here without some kind of insane read.

Yes you should 3-bet larger preflop, and no you can not fold postflop, even though KJ and 77 got there.