Here's a stupid one. 20-40

Villain 1 is a good player. He is very Taggy; you'll rarely, if ever, see him cold call. If he has a leak, it is opening too wide preflop from early position. I've seen him open both KJo and 98s UTG 10 handed.

Villain 2 is a spew box and does weird things. He usually has it on the big streets when he is putting in excess action, but "it" can be variable.

Villain 2 limps in MP and there are 3 more limps to me in the SB where I have the mighty 86. I complete, Villain 1 checks the big blind. So call it 6 handed.

Flop comes 878 so I have an opened ended straight flush draw.

I bet, only the two villains call (3 handed, 9sb).

Turn is 9

I bet, Villain 1 flats, Villain 2 raises, I call, Villain 1 now back 3 bets, Villain 2 calls. I am getting 12.5 to 1 closing the action, but I could be drawing dead.

I think a back 3 bet on this turn most likely means he has it. He flat calls because he wants villain 2 in for the river and is waiting to make his move there, but once villain 2 raises the turn and you call he decides to make his move there and knows at least one of you will pay him off on the river. So, I think you're probably drawing drawing dead, but he may have a straight considering you said he can be loose in early position. Tough fold.

You don’t have an open ended straight flush draw.

876

That's an open-ended backdoor straight flush draw.

I admire his optimism. He's probably good at limit, especially shorthanded. Also like that he's thinking "3 of a kind? Who cares? We have a draw to a SF!!" The 6 is a key card and the 8 is a napkin. We have a SF draw, and a quad draw.

Yeah, my sense of humor on that may not have come through; I was just kidding about the straight flush draw.

And I doubt I'm better at poker than DougL - maybe back in the day but I play maybe 10-20 hours a month now and a lot of that is mix, so I don't get that many hold'em hands in.

Although I have a surprisingly high win rate at drunk SSNLHE.

With the caveat that I don't play this high, why can't villain have something like JT or 77?

He could definitely have 77, but that's three combos of boats hero is live against, vs. 9 that have him drawing dead.

I would have a very hard time folding this, but it could be right.
Really the crux is if he could have JT, 65, or even something worse. Would seem very unusual to slow play worse than a boat here though.

Yeah, I'm with chillrob - we also have two villains not just one. Villain 2 showed some strength by raising 2 people on the turn and then calling the 3 bet. He can have straights or an 8 here. If he has an 8, it is hard to have a worse kicker than mine.

If his kicker is better, you have a bunch of outs to at least tie. They both can't have a better 8. Iron out his str8, take his monies, and have a good time.

I did tie!

How many good limit players do you know who are pessimists?
You must teach me. So many NL hands wind up with surf doc looking on sadly, and then saying "you didn't play that one well".

What did they have?

One of them had something ridiculous. One of them had an 8. That's my guess.

So. Much. This.

Villain 1 flopped the joint (87) and the other one had JT. I run good.

5 outer for half the pot. Nice...