Well check and then soul read. I'd lean towards fold since I doubt he turns AQ into a bluff. If the turn is a blank I'm guessing you are either shoving or check/shoving.

What are your thoughts on checking the flop on this kinda board vs a spewy opponent. Guys like him seem to have an extra hard to checking behind here with stuff like JT and I think you might be able to get him to bet complete trash when you check on a board like this. He'd have to be extra special to try something on this flop after your 3 bet then cbet.

Do the two of you specifically have any 3bet/4bet history? Those are pretty gross cards so far, but given your reads, I'd hate to check and watch him fire on this board. I'd like to bet/fold, but maybe just check/fold now because the board is so dangerous? If you check, you know his tendency is to bet, and that is just awful for your range when you check. Bet/fold gets him to freeze hopefully.

We should almost rule out QQ, 99, JJ, they would raise a huge % of the time on the flop.

Lose to TT, ATs, KTs, QJs, QTs, T9s, J9s JTs, maybe some other Txs, and maybe 88 floats flop.

Beat AQ, AJ, KJs, KQ, A9s, AXs, K9s, and pure air. You've got blockers to a ton of hands in this range.
KK prolly gets it in PF.

Gross spot, I say check/fold, I'm torn.

I was going to post this before I saw Devins hand, so please don't let this stop discussion on that hand.

UTG was a nit through 80 hands at 12/8, SB was brand new, and CO had reggish type numbers at 23/21, and he tanked for a long time before he shoved.

If this is an EZ decision, what about TT? or would you have rr that already? 88?

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
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SB: $11.00
BB: $27.50
UTG: $10.00
CO: $29.05
Hero (BTN): $26.20

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is BTN with 9 9
UTG raises to $1.25, CO calls $1.25, Hero calls $1.25, SB raises to $11 all in, 2 folds, CO raises to $29.05 all in, Hero...

Notice there is a bigger side pot now that CO has shoved

I'd call. It sucks when he has AA but he has a lower pp a lot here.

devin, pf i'd probly be 3betting bigger against this guy since he's not folding a high %. i'd bet bigger on the flop as well, or c/r. check the turn and hope he doesn't bet?

mike, my gut is telling me he has a medium to strong pp. if you add in AK and some smaller pps with the dead money in there it looks like a call.

Devin, that is such a beautiful board to bluff at in position, with your stack sizes, but I still don't think there are that many players who can plan to do it by calling on the flop. I regularly manage to underestimate villain's hand strength by thinking about how I would be wanting to bluff in his position, and then they keep showing me the nuts.

On that board with the call pre-flop and on the flop, I think AA is not a hand I would want to stack off with. I would check and then his turn betsize would be the most infomational thing I'd be looking at. And you'll have a decent idea of whether he's strong or weak after 200+ hands and can do the soul read shove/fold then.

Mike,

I don't like the call pre-flop because UTG is too short to pay you off properly, so I'ld prefer to iso-raise and hope CO drops out. As it went down, I think for me it's an instafold. You just have to avoid too many cards to win even if CO has a smaller pair - avoid at least 8 cards with 5 to come is horrible - so I is obv too nitty here

I don't really know what I could read into bet sizing?

- super small, and he could be asking me to shove.
- big, well the board is drawy and he could easily have nutted hands on this board texture.
- medium, easily sets up a river shove.

Mike, this is a tough spot obv.

Is this a 20-50bb table? I assume it is...I'd like to know how these play? Is there a lot of squeezing? Would the CO be thinking that someone is likely to shove over the 12/8 with 20bbs? My instinct would be that the CO really can't expect someone to squeeze light in this spot, so slow playing JJ+ should be discounted. For that reason, I think this is a call. He can show up with worse pps and AJs, AQ type hands.

As for the original decision. I think this is a little tougher, and maybe DD can help out here with his experience in capped games. I agree with Peru that we can't really set mine here cause our implied odds aren't good with the 20bb stack limiting our action. I also don't really like the idea of calling or raising 99 for value versus an 12/8's utg open. it might be super nitty, but I might just fold the 99 pre (but probably not).

The 99 - the first action is a really close decision. I dont think any of the options are that a lot better than the others. Folding might be best, based on a nit shorty opening UTG, but when 23/21 CO w/ 60 BBs comes along, I dont think I can find the fold button. I think your best case scenario if you raise there is UTG has unpaired big cards, and then youre probably flipping. Because he's so tight, I dont like raising as much.

On the shoves, I dont put much thought into what SB did because I assume random short stackers at this limit suck bad, at least until I have some numbers on them. With CO's shove, I think its pretty unlikely he's ahead of you. DD is right - these guys will pull goofy stuff like this with low pp's a lot. Once in a while he's tarping w/AA, but usually its something more like 66.

Definitely call PF with the 99. You have decent showdown value and you calling will make SB shove a bunch of crap you have good equity against. I'd probably fold 22-44 just because you will probably be relying on winning a set too much to win the hand. However, in game and at lower levels I might call with those as well since you have the button and you should be getting paid off a lot when you hit a set.

V interesting responses to Mike's hand, I definitely fold too much in these situations. Tx from me, even though it's Mike's hand, very helpful.

Devin - after a few hundred hands with someone, I think I get a feel for their betsizing being strong or weak - I know it's not very positive, but if I'm in a situation where I'm not sure of the odds, but I think it's close, I go with my instinctive reaction to betsize and fold/shove as appropriate. Hence, I couldn't decide what to do in your hand unless I saw his betsize and related it to his previous behaviour. Here's a hand where I got it wrong!


Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
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SB: $153.40
BB: $161.45
UTG: $42.75
Hero (MP): $113.80
CO: $29.70
BTN: $256.80

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with Q K
UTG raises to $4, Hero calls $4, 1 fold, BTN raises to $16, 3 folds, Hero raises to $113.80 all in, BTN calls $97.80

Flop: ($234.60) 9 6 8 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($234.60) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($234.60) A (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $234.60
Hero shows Q K (high card Ace)
BTN shows A A (three of a kind, Aces)
BTN wins $231.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Prior to this villain's 3 bets hadn't been round numbers, and he was 3 betting 21% over 158 hands, so I thought he was light or strong - lols, obv when I shove light over a 3 bet squeeze from Mr 21% 3 bet, he has AA!

260 hands is a very small sample. There is no way I could ever have a read that would be close to reliable in situations where the board runs out bad in 3bet pots when I'm oop and he opened EP.

I'm not surprised ur read was not good. Round numbers wtf? Had he 3bet a min raise yet? I'd suggest you do not pay much attention to the overall 3bet stat, as it's likely to get you trouble if you don't pay attention to where he's 3betting from.

Some guys only 3bet the btn and bb when ip at high frequency and are much tighter oop. For instance, I probably 3bet every position, including UTG+1, more than I 3bet from the sb. Other guys 3bet the btn like 3%, and sb 15%.

In this specific spot, when you have a 20bb guy mr from utg you can probably be pretty safe to assume he's not getting 3bet that light. He's probably fish, and probably not folding to many 3bets, and the others at the table are going to be aware of this. Not to mention a 3bet is pot commiting vs UTG.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
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Hero (CO): $66.15
BTN: $76.35
SB: $55.95
BB: $39.35
UTG: $30.60

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with Q A
1 fold, Hero raises to $3, BTN calls $3, 1 fold, BB calls $2

Flop: ($9.50) 8 8 8 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero?

Villains are: Bn 54/34/0.6 24 hands and 75/13/1.7 39 hands. (Awesome table selection skills )

What's my line on this flop? Bet/fold or try to check raise if button bets or?

Running at 0.43BB/100 at $1/2, with a red line that looks pretty horrible. Any general advice as to what I'm probably doing wrong in adjusting? I know it's an impossible question, but general comments on what common mistakes are at this level would be appreciated.

btns pretty passive...so I think you can either c/c being pretty confident he's not going to barrel you off Ahigh, or you can b/f and just make the hand easier to play, plus they are both capable of calling with worse.

Peru, I'd probably just fold KQo from MP there vs a UTG shorty. They usually open an extremely tight range(less than 8%) from UTG and you have to worry about 4 guys behind left to act.

AQ I'd just bet $5 on the flop and fold to aggression. $5 bet entices worse aces to call and a pocket pair isn't folding to a pot sized bet anyway.

KQo was a clusterfck - no doubt. But it was the first hand I found when looking for a betsizing tell. FWIW min raising at 50bb tables is a fairly common practice. UTG was playing 62/42/2 over 61 hands. I called for value! The only player I was worried about behind was the 3 bettor, who was 21% 3 betting. When he did what I expected he'd do with any decentish hand, and UTG folded, I had to decide what to do w KQo, which I would fold almost all the time in this position. However, and this was my original point, the 3 bettor bet exactly $16, when previously he had always bet $xx.xx. He had manually changed whatever his software was inserting in the bet box to a round number. If you have Table Ninja set to 3 bet 70% pot for example, it gives you odd decimal numbers here, and when you use the scroll wheel to increase/decrease the bet size, you get back to even numbers (if you leave the scroll at an exact number of BB/SB).

In this case, villain was not happy with his standard 3 bet size and had made a manual adjustment, for the first time. I read this as a weak squeeze, so shoved, expecting a call from TT+, and everything else to fold. Obv got it wrong, and now have a note! None of this negates the excellent criticisms made of my play, which was simply bad, but does explain a bit better how I got into the situation.

In particular, thanks Devin for pointing out the difference in 3 bet ranges from different positions against opens from different positions - I am redoing one of my HEM pop-ups to make it easier for me to see this info.

re AQ hand, I didn't like check call, because I felt that I was WA/WB, and a) needed to find out and b) didn't want two players drawing cheaply to beat me. In an agony of indecision it was checked down to the river and Btn (who flat called pre-flop) took it down with AKs!

what? This is definitely not a WA/WB situation. What are you way ahead of? What are you way behind?

As I understand it I'm WA of Ax, and way behind all PPs. What did I get wrong? I'm asking honestly, not disputing you, just don't understand.

ur only way behind KK. You have 6 outs vs any pp, and on the turn you'll often have 9 outs vs 77-. You are WA of Ax, but we aren't playing against Ax only, we are playing against a range.

x, AQ hand, I'd cbet flop of 888 for for 1/2pot-ish for value w/ AQ vs these two particular opponents. No, they aren't calling much with worse but sometimes they'll call with Arag and you'll get to check it down after the flop and they'll also check a small PP as well and they'll let you get to showdown drawing cheaply if they do have a pp.

BB is 59/15/7.0
This is a 20-40 BB buyin game.

Full Tilt Poker $100.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
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MP: $50.25
CO: $27.30
BTN: $17.00
Hero (SB): $40.50
BB: $83.75
UTG: $21.95

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with K A
4 folds, Hero raises to $3, BB calls $2

Flop: ($6.00) J 4 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $3.00, Hero calls $3

Turn: ($12.00) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

River: ($12.00) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $7.00, Hero ?

I think the number of hands you have w/ this guy is important. Particularly BvB hands. I could say check/fold flop, or cbet flop, or play as played. If it was play as played, I'd call river due to his numbers. But mostly, I'd cbet flop and it is for value; if called, I'd prolly shut it down depending on further cards and/or bet sizing.

edit: as a side note, I personally raise a touch more when opening from the SB--4x (or 3.x vs shorter stacks). Mainly because I'm not opening a super huge range from the SB and will usually have a pretty strong range here. 3x is prolly pretty standard however.

I usually like a slightly drier flop to be c/c with A high. I think your equity against random hands isn't good enough just try to get to showdown here. I'd rather bet and protect my equity share in the pot.

As played, I'd probably call the river. But these guys will bet the river with any piece and their air.

I dont have a ton of hands on him (50 or 60), but its obvious he's one of those guys that tries to win every pot by outplaying everybody after the flop.

A lot of guys with numbers like this guy will call cbets bvb then fire on the turn when I check.

Assuming I cbet the flop & he calls, what is my plan when the turn is a brick? Typically when I've been opening in sb & get called by these aggrotards, I cbet & get floated, then I end up giving up on the turn when I might be ahead. Should I bet the flop, c/c the turn, then re-evaluate based on what falls on the river?

Mike - I dont open raise more than 3X unless effective stacks are a lot deeper than 40 BBs. I guess opening 4X with AKs is fine, but I dont like to vary my open raise size based on my hand very much, because they'll catch on if I play with them long enough. 100+ BBs deep, your 4X open might be better.