Hey all, have some goofy hands I wanna ask about.

H1- early on in day- we all have near starting stacks of 40k- I wanna say I however am down to 30k after a few bad hands. Ok It’s 300bb level with 300 bb ante, mp limps, I have 45hh from small blind and complete 200 to 300 and bb bumps table. Flop 557. Ep bets 500, after goes xx from me and bb. Ep is a rec player that is bad and overvaluing hands but might have 40k starting stack. I elect to raise to 2.5k and he only calls. Turn is a K. I lead 5.5k into 6200’pot. He quickly calls. River is a Q. Pot is 17,200. I have maybe 24-25k behind. I elect to bet 22k into pot and leave 3k behind (idk why). He tank calls so once he thinks for 20 sec i know I’m good. He calls and has K7. Is it bad I don’t just rip river? Looking back I feel not ripping my whole stack in on river is kinda bad. I just wanted to go over pot to make it look bluffy like I want a fold.

H2- I have 40k? At 400 bb level. Cu opens to 800 on over 40k mawg guy that seems decent but a little sticky. I 3bet to 2500 with 97dd just thinking it’s a good spot to own guy postflop (prolly stupid logic). Small blind flats and cu calls. Flop 8-10-2 with two diamonds. Cu leads 4k after sb check. I call. Small blind goes all in for 31.7k. Cu tank folds. I decide to call based on math. I call 27.7k to win 75.7k. He has 10-10 and we bink a diamond on turn and win. Is this really bad or even close? I felt with math- call us justified but just wondering bc we have a ton of outs. Idk though tough odd spot.

H3- possibly the oddest hand of day that might just be terrible. Idk if I have facts right. Ep opens who is solid tag player. I’m button and make it 8.5k with A-10o. (Prolly spazzy obviously). Small blind makes it 16k and is a good Asian player I know of from northeast- has solid tourny results so I assume he’s a boss. Ep folds and I elect to sigh call due to price. Flop A-5-8. He cbets 7k and I call. Turn J. He checks I check. River 8. He puts in 50k bet. I just sigh fold and show it. Is this a bad fold. I didn’t take stack sizes down but his river bet put me all in. I thought it was close but just felt he super weight to Ak and Aq even though maybe he has kk or qq and thinks my hand is weaker as played very soft. Idk? I fold and he doesn’t show- I feel he has a better A or some odd set often.

Is this a fold pre? I feel A-10 suited is a call but A-10o is prolly an easy fold but I felt the sizing was so small. If he has kk or qq, we can win on A boards. Idk I think I need to fold pre especially if I’m going to fold river. I felt he’s good enough to check turn to try and get the psb on river. Sorry I don’t have stack sizes here- my image was laggy.

H4- late in day this spot is prolly easy but just wanna go over sizing. Ok ep is mawg guy that is sticky and ok opens to 3k at 1.5k bb level utg. I’m to his right in bb. I have 160k to start hand. 3 folks call behind him and I have AKo in bb. I make it 16.5k. Ep calls and rest fold. Flop J-10-4. I check and he bets 21k. I call one. I have ace of clubs and 2 clubs on board. Turn is a red 5. I check and he leads 35k. I fold. Are you ok with this hand? The call on flop I feel is ok based on how hand played with back door clubs and ability to improve.

Overall- I think I’m playing a little too spazzy and laggy stupid in spots. I’m still probably going a little crazy with 3!s which is standard for me. I feel I’m playing the late stages well when stacks are 40-60bb but going to spazzy early game with 3! Bc folks tend to call too much. I was fortunate to run good in spots today but end of day went poorly. I might start playing a little nittier in spots with 3! Going forward on this vegas trip bc I feel I’m spewing but just getting lucky as shown with hands.

You really gotta make sure you get the hand details right here. You don't even say what the levels are in hand 3. And the other stack sizes in hand 4 are really important. I know you're taking notes live but it really helps if you can format these a little better.

Hand 1 seems fine especially given reads, and the difference between shoving or leaving 2-3k back is marginal.

Hand 2, postflop plays itself. I do think "it's a good spot to own a guy" is not sound logic against a sticky player; you want to do that with someone who can make tight folds and even prides themselves on their ability to do so.

Hand 3-- again, I don't know how big your 3-bet is or how big any of these stacks are. You might just fold pre to a TAG EP open, though, and call sometimes with the button. You should in theory have some 3-bets here for sure with ATo, but it's not mandatory, and it's OK to deviate based on what you think of your opponent's range.

Postflop unless he's out of his skull the SB probably has AQ/AK/JJ the way this played, I'd guess. I suppose a good player can try to push you off a weak ace, but the cold 4-bet indicates such a strong range already-- you're basically hoping he's turning KK/QQ into a bluff and I think those hands are too strong for it to make sense for him to try that. I don't know, though, because that's just such a bizarre size for a 4-bet OOP. Tough spot.

Both of these last two hands, from a conceptual perspective, it looks like you're trying to pull moves on players that are the opposite of what their tendencies indicate can be exploited about their play. You're trying to set up sticky players to bluff them off, and you're trying to light reraise a player who is going to be quite tight opening from EP. It's better to reraise light when a player is opening too wide and folding properly to 3-bets, and it's better to try to set up a player to be pushed off a hand when they're more prone to making tough folds.

Hand 4, with that many players in the pot, when I'm 3-betting AK here from the BB I'm bombing the hell out of it. I mean in this spot I'll go as big as 30k. This is affected by the stack sizes of the other players in the hand, though, so I can't give you a good answer without knowing what they are.

H1: I like your play. It looks like you don't know if you are going to win or not and want to make sure you still have chips after the hand. So it may get a call just because of that. Also it means villain will have like 3,000 more chips than if you went all in. I guess in the end though an all-in is usually very polar when it is > Pot so the more you bet means the more you have to bluff in order to balance. Given villain was a bad rec he wouldn't likely know this but in the future keep it in mind. In this particular hand I would have raised to 5x preflop from the SB with 54s. And probably folded everybody out and I would have been about as happy as you but with a lot fewer chips.

H2: I don't 3-bet with gapped SC's. There are too many of them, they don't play as well as SC's, and in the end it will make me 3-bet too much. I like my 3-bets to be believable even when they are not. The irony here is that the SB will likely 3-bet large and we may have to fold pre-flop. Given you are getting close to 3:1 pot odds on a hand that is close to 50% equity its an auto call. The only hand that has us crushed down to like 6 outs is ATs where the T pairs the board and is on a flush draw (not sure if that is even possible here).

H3: SB is not likely doing this with AQo. EP can have AK and he will get crushed. His likeliest hands are KK (6 combos)/AKs (2 combos)/AK (4 combos)/QQ (6 combos) /AA (1 combo) / JJ (1 combo) / maybe AQs (2 combos) in that order so you are likely ahead on the river. I am calling the river shove because I believe SB has close to 12 combos we beat up to 10 combos we lose to (and we only need SB to be shoving with 5 of the 12 KK/QQ combos. But to be fair I am never in this spot. I don't ever 3-bet an EP open against a solid Tag player with ATo or even AQo. I am folding ATo and calling with ATs OTB. I also sometimes don't 3-bet at all on the BTN to balance. One time at the Borgota a guy raised UTG. I called with AKs on the BTN. SB 3-bet big (like 13bb's) UTG 4 bet to like 40 bb's, I folded and SB shoved (with KK) and UTG called (with AA). Thankfully no hearts on the flop.

H4: very interesting spot. If I 3-bet with AKo in BB it will be to 20k - 21k with 3 callers of the original raise. I will never ever check this flop. cbet would likely be same size as my original bet. Turn is tough but I would check if it isn't a club or Q/K/A and probably fold. If it is one of those cards I would bet about 1/3 pot and then jam river. Given that UTG is sticky I would likely just call pre-flop. The advantage of raising in the BB against a UTG open with callers is that there is a decent amount of time we will get folds and take down the pot without a flop (which we miss about 67% of the time). Add to that sticky guy won't be folding flop with any draws at all, so we will often find ourselves in a bloated pot OOP against a guy we can't get off his hand.

Being spewy on 3-bets in position is much better than under 3-betting. Take a look at your 3-bet range and see what % is bluffy and what % is strength. Decide what % you want to be bluffs and adjust accordingly. For me that % is 50% but I have heard that GTO guys are about 67% 3-bet bluffing pre-flop (maybe...). Since I have upped my 3-bet bluff range I have started to excel (cashing in 4 of my last 7 tourneys here in Prague where they pay out only ~8%). Also the really spewy part is 3-betting vs UTG or UTG+1 opens where the raiser is not wide and/or sticky. Especially when they are sticky. Use your reading skills which are obviously very good and you will continue to dominate.

hand 1: Super fine, lets not nitpick here, you essentially went all-in.

hand 2: I personally dont like 3betting 97s in this spot, shouldnt be a problem once in a while?, as played once you get that flop ure running no mater what the actions are, you're flopped it sir.

hand 3: Fold pre-flop, dont let your ego talk you into going from an fine play, to a big blunder, but as played ure pretty far up in your range, this is a very difficult fold to make and i would never show my opponent this fold, i dont want him to think im capable of making this type of folds otherwise he'll think he can run me over.
I would be very tempted to call this river jam and expect to lose quite a bit, but not enough to not make this call loose in the long-run.

hand 4: I put this hand into the solver, the inputs are all over the place because i cant pin-point your range in this spot, or his range, but i can estimate close enough, the very ambitious squeezes like 54s are super tiny amounts, there just for balance purposes.



We dont really check this texture, and it gets worse if our opponent is a bit loser than what i input his range to be.
We can hit him with 33% or 50%, 33% is more flexible on later streets with barrels though.

Hand 1: It's fine. I like the way you played. As another poster said, leaving 3K back is marginal.

Hand 2: I think once you get to this flop with your hand there is no way you can fold. It will suck when you face a bigger flush draw, but I think you have to go with it. It is a bit of a tough spot, but that is pretty much the dream flop for your hand.

Hand 3: I think River is a call in the situation that you described. A mini 3 bet I would usually think AA-QQ and would probably rule out AK or at least discount it heavily. If you think this player is mini 4 betting you with AQ OOP then your image must be a maniac. Your hand looks is pretty much face up. A weak Ace that was getting the right price to call preflop. I think if you are deep enough you can call this 3 bet preflop, but you are near the bottom of your legit 3 bet range. I can see an argument for calling and folding preflop. You are in IP but you said the other player is a pretty good player.

Hand 4: I Think it's fine but I prefer leading the flop for 1/3 pot and then decide what to do on the turn vs the player that you describe. Preflop you could go larger if the players are not folding to 3 bets.

Hand 4 yea looking back I feel like a goof for not cbetting flop. I feel I would against right opponent. I could see him call with QK or even pre having 10-10 or jj or some other suited Broadway. Who knows though. I feel betting flop and going for it on the turn would find a lot of folds honestly and may be better. I would feel bad if he somehow had me beat and I went bet on flop and ripped turn with a psb. Think this flop though sets for that potentially. Would you feel bad if he somehow had say QQ and called a flop bet and turn shove? I felt he was 100% calling flop to a 1/3 pot bet prolly.