3-handed live 1/1/2 4-card PLO

Villain1 BTN stack 1000 - Loose aggressive, repotting preflop with every hand, postflop plays with polarized betting ranges
Villain2 SB stack 700 - Loose passive both preflop and postflop
Hero is BB stack 700

Hero has AA33

BTN straddles to 2
SB calls 2
Hero raises to 8
BTN raises to 25
SB calls 25
Hero raises to 100
BTN call
SB call

Flop is 489 (Pot 300) - Hero SPR 2
SB checks

What is our strategy here?
Check-fold?
Small bet-fold? (100 into 300) - What turns are we shoveing/folding with SPR 1?
Pot? - Worst option? We are commited to stack-off and our hand is doing pretty bad against their continuing ranges.

i think a bet/fold of ~1/4-1/3 seems correct/standard as the most logical/best option. at least, that's how i tend to play these kinds of flops, especially since it gives you balance for other hands like your good runners that i would want to play the same way here (i.e., 89TJ/9TJQ).

worst options are almost certainly pot/fold followed by pot/call, since like you said, we're likely not in great shape against a re-shove. c/f and c/c are somewhere in the middle. given that both villain's are laggy, i think i like c/c better than c/r, but i like bet/fold better than both.

bet/call may even be an option depending on how loose/aggressive these villains actually are, since against a range of high runners we're looking at ~40%. that said, i'm never in love with calling off in these kinds of spots and it's going to depend a lot on the action after you. with two callers or a call and a raise, i'm certainly folding as i definitely don't like getting it in here against two ranges.

Thank you for your analysis.

Both villains probably have 90% preflop calling range in this hand, BTN is likely to take a stab on the pot with complete air in case I check after SB, but he will probably check back weaker draws / overpair / 1 pair from board hands. I also think that BTN can sometimes push TJ, T7+pair against our small bet. Does this tilt our action more towards check-raising?

What is our turn strategy in case we go for the 1/3 PSB line and get called?
There are total of 24 straight completing cards (Q, J, T, 7, 6, 5) - giving up on all of them is not viable I believe?

Against our 1/3 PSB I believe both would continue with any OESD, with BTN probably mixing in some all-ins with TJ, T7+pair.

For BTN to have a straight on T or 7 would mean hitting a gutshot, since he would probably push with wrap on the flop. Not quite sure if SB would check-call a wrap on this flop.

1) In case both villains call, we can give up on every straight completing turn and shove on everything else?
2) In case one of the villains call, we can probably give up on Q, J, 6, 5 and shove on everything else?

Ignore my point regarding T, 7 and gutshot, I don't know what I was thinking then and am unable to edit the post.

Anyways, my question still stands, as there is more than half a deck that will complete a straight on the turn, what is our plan when we get called on the flop and are heading to the turn with SPR 1?

I don't love small bet/folding this board because it invites people to correctly jam lots of hands with a little piece/any pair/any straight draw and because the pot is so big, we aren't really able to turn this into a mistake. I think getting flatted on the board is the least of your worries because a lot of hands can ship, but if you are flatted they probably have something really weak, like one pair 9s with no straight draws, like an under OESD, and you are still playing a guessing game of dodge the correct two pair/straight filling cards.

These boards are often pretty good for even a player's wide 3-bet/call range that contains a fair amount of medium wrappy stuff, as well as someones's cold 3-bet call range, so I prefer checking.

I prefer calling pre as well, this is not a good SPR to go 3-way when our range is mostly aces.

What is your plan after checking the flop?

Aren't these aces (With another pair & flushdraw) too good to just call preflop? I wouldn't raise there with weaker aces (Rainbow and random garbage on the side), but AA33ss is just too good to only call and there is also the chance to make SB fold preflop as our hand plays much better vs 1 opponent.

Yes you should always 3bet pre and no you shouldn’t expect or try to win the hand every time just because you have Aces.

You should check this board almost always as the 3 bettor with this SPR (I imagine about 85% of the time.). This means you will be x/c and x/r at a reasonable frequency.

if you don’t “hit” you need to look at your additional equity and blockers. You don’t have any of that here. Check. Fold. It’s fiiiiine. Chill, these guys are making big mistakes every hand.

Wrt to not raising, compare it to playing AK in Holdem vs loose passive and weak tight players. We raise and 3 bet pre because people will fold equity and call with worse. Both of these are good. However we have to give up a lot postflop esp multi-way when we don’t improve. This does not decrease the overall ev of the preflop action. The guy who only ever flats or shoves AK preflop is not a more winning player.

The AK analogy doesn't ring true for me for a lot of reasons, because Hold'em is a much higher fold equity game, with fewer hands being able to viably call pre and postflop. Plus by assuming the pre-flop lead you leverage a lot with AK by having aces and kings in your range. But also the distribution of flops just works way differently in NLHE, it has granular points for when people flop pairs or not, for the most part, while if you run any flop equity distribution in PLO on PPT, it is a smooth curve, and this allows our opponent more opportunities to continue postflop, see turns in position, and bet as a mix of semi-bluff/protection/value to create fold equity. Anyway I don't really love the Hold'em comparisons, because how equities run are just vastly different postflop.

I'm not really of the philosophy that an aces is "too good" to not 4-bet if it's not double suited if it creates an SPR of around 2-3 and makes your range very AA heavy. It's an SPR that makes it easier for the in-position player on a LOT of boards, in terms of realising equity and being aggressive.

Even this board is not that low down in our good boards list *technically* but is a nightmare to play because of how easily someone can have a strong straight draw combo that has us in bad shape. Like JT95 has us at 40%, which is a particularly bad situation for us because that adds up to a lot of situations where a hand like that can be like whatever and play it fast. That's particularly bad for us because folding 40% equity in a 300 pot SUCKS - if the hand was face up as JT95 and they shipped 600 we technically have to call.

So as played opponent can leverage our entire stack with a very mixed range where our defence is to either start 4-betting wider to mix up our range or just have it with our side-cards. Or we just flat.

AA33ss sure is better than AA93ss but I'm still whatever about it. The key to double suited is not only a vast equity advantage but also creates a really good source of postflop domination (when you both flop flush draws). This is particularly important because wide aggressive players overplay double-suited junk (JT67ds, KT74ds) more than anything else and are looking to stack on any flush draw. 33 is okay because you do flop a set with it 12% of the time and it disguises you on 3xx boards but to be honest a board with at least one 3 in it is already the upper ends of your boards with AA, and not a large proportion of the boards you need help with protecting. It sure does help but that's not what I'm mostly worried about.

This is a style choice but flatting here has made my life easier and pretty sure the 600 is not going in that well postflop on average, nor am I able to protect my equity. Plus, all sorts of players do undeniably crazy things when you flat AA pre in this spot and flop an A that you get stacks in more often than you think.

There are probably better lines we can take with this hand pre-flop, ranging from different sizings to not raising.

One thing to bear in mind is that the 33 sidecards are not very useful/valuable.

Flop is a clear check.

Dislike any bet-fold sizing. Very happy to check and just get the hand to showdown. You can consider bet-getting it in against the aggro stack and bet-folding against the passive stack or multiway action but I still don't like it when checking will get you to showdown more often than you think.

Preflop is fine as long as you're 3betting wider than just AAxx, and they know it.

I think the AK comparison works well tbh.

Worth noting it is not a 3-bet, it is a 4-bet.