sierradave

Another point I would note is that villain's/your $20 flop bet informs our decision-making. There was $10 in preflop, so that's a relatively big/defensive bet. From solid players, that bet usually is a strong, non-nut hand. I don't see 67 making that play, because 67 wants hands like 56, 46, a6, etc to stick around.The reraise to $120 probably eliminates pair+flushdraw hands from bb's range. So that leaves a limped 26 cooler, a2 for the chop (with you runner-runner free-rolling), sets and possibly top two pair. Against that range, yeah, it's a must-call.That said, if it had been a $10 bet

+1Also, if they're all drinking, drink a beer. Drink it very slooooowly so you stay plenty sharp, but blend in and let yourself seem like you're there to have fun.Also, I tend to disagree with Donkslayer here. Limping in late position with suited, semi-connected cards can work great in these games. You want to pick up a lock hand, then enter valuetown. In games where five people are routinely calling preflop (which the $10/10 structure probably encourages), you want to see more hands, rather than less, and you want to see flops with hands that are likely to improve beyond tptk.Nice thing i

Yep, I totally missed that. I think we have to repop here, and call a push. The other option is to call and then donk-bet a safe turn card, but that option is pretty terrible... if we're behind, we get popped on the turn, if we're ahead, villain can play better against us.In position, I think the call has some value. Out of position, and not mega-deepstacked, it's rarely a bad idea to push hard with a set...

At these stakes (granted, I've only played 6-max, so grain of salt), I think villain's range is still pretty wide. J10 makes that move, same with J9 and 109. JQ possibly does. AQ with the flush draw might. 87 and Q8 definitely do.Most important read of the villain at this point is how frequently does he min-raise? Second most important, does he make plays?Folding is out of the question at this stage. Question is do we raise to ~$4 and commit ourselves to getting it in there on the flop or the turn, or do we call and reevaluate on the turn. Depends entirely on the opponent, I think, but

Well the nice thing is that if you call the additional $50, Pot is $306, stack is $116, so when he pushes on the turn you *will* be getting 4-to-1, even if seat 6 folds at that point.That said, I think you probably push all-in at this point. The pot is huge, you're already committed, and my guess is that they both will call your all-in. If the flush comes on the turn, one of them might be able to get away. If the board pairs on the turn, you're going to be tempted to fold, and that might or might not be the right play. And every once in awhile, you'll enter bizarro-land, with Seat 4 turnin

Man I love tables like this. I would actually just call in this spot. The thing to keep in mind is this table offer a) little fold equity and B) players who will sheriff-call you once you've made the nuts. As such, there isn't a ton of value in trying to maximize small edges. Maximize big edges instead!We've got three options: fold, call, or all-in. Folding is clearly out of the question. You're being offered straight pot odds on a call and crazy-good implied odds. If you go all-in, I expect a bar ace is calling you, so you'll still need to make your flush to win. By calling, you make

$1/2 nl, Caesar's ACVillain in this hand is a woman, new to the table, who sat down with her husband, who's one spot behind her. Haven't played her before, but I recognize the husband -- they're not complete tourists.Hero has ~$350Villain has ~$170Rest of the table has varying amounts, hero definitely isn't the big stack.Preflop, villain raises to $10 UTG. 6 callers. Hero has 65o in the small blind, calls. BB calls as well.Flop (8 players, $80): Q74 rainbow.Hero checks, planning to either call or possibly get stupid-tricky and check-raise depending on how the action proceeds. Probably not

Agreed completely. My thought process at the time was more along the lines of "I have the nuts." "He didn't actually just bet out at me on this hand, did he?" "[devolves into maniacal internal laughter...]" That is, in retrospect, maybe not the ideal thought process for maximizing my win rate.

AK with the K of spades, a set, or a smaller flush. I would probably be calling with a decent ace against this opponent.I agree that my choices were between raising him on the flop and betting $100/$200 on the turn/river. My thinking at the time was that he either had a smaller flush, two pair, a bluff, or a set, in that order. I called on the flop expecting that he'd fire again with the smaller flush, the set, and possibly the bluff. At that point I could raise him, getting all the chips committed against the first two and extracting an extra bet from the third. I also gave a little cons

$1/2 nl, local philly cardroom.Villain has $550, hero barely covers. Villain plays pretty loose preflop, likes getting his money in there on a draw and gambling it up. The stakes are low for him and he makes it clear that the money on the table doesn't matter.Hero is generally perceived as a TAG by this crowd, and has been card-dead for much of the night, so that's especially true when this hand comes up.Preflop, 7-handed, UTG limps, villain limps, Hero has KsQs, raises to $12. Cutoff and button fold, blinds fold, UTG and villain call.Flop (3 players, $36): As7s3sUTG checks, villain bets $5

I'd say I raise/reraise hard with aces preflop unless there's a specific consideration that tells me not to. I'd also say that most of the money in live $1/2 nl comes from identifying those considerations.The main considerations that will affect my preflop decision with aces are:1. My table image. If I've been running card dead, and particularly if I'm up against opponents who know my playing style, I'll give greater consideration to limping or making a small pot builder-type raise to $10. I'll particularly consider doing this if I have position, since I'd be more likely to make that same r

I can, but I'd prefer not to. I felt I could make him lay down a lot of hands that beat that pair of tens here. If I call on the river with my pair of tens, I'm doing so because I'll be offered a good enough price to justify (I figure they'll be good 33% or so). The raise shuts all of his weaker hands down, plus most of his stronger hands. I think the EV is higher, given that the board texture is so bad for me.And responding to Mtdesmoines, I think you have a good point in general regarding good LAGs, and maybe we just need terminology to distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones.

Appreciate the discussion thus far. Adding more details, this wasn't one of the tough, thinking LAGs who play a huge range preflop and a tough, aggressive game postflop. He'd built much of his stack by sticking around with oddball draws and having them come through, and a few of the tougher players at the table (discussing a couple hours later, when the table broke up) agreed that he was pretty much their main target. One particular thing about his play - and this is what influenced me to make this move when I did - was his propensity to fire a third shell on the river. He lost a number of

Particularly important is stack sizes here. Seat 9 probably has a decent, non-premium hand and is looking to hit and then get paid by the maniac. Maniac has $120 and probably likes to gamble. If you reraise the max preflop, I pretty much guarantee that the maniac reraises his last $20 preflop. Then 9 folds, and you get to see all five cards as what will often be a 2-to-1 favorite. I say create the dead money, negate your positional disadvantage, and get the money in now.If maniac had $400, then I could see an argument for playing more cautiously, because you can't negate the positional ad

$1/2 nl, Caesar's Atlantic CityVillain has lag tendencies. Has made some costly bluffs, also made a number of oddball str8s. Difficult to put him on a hand, his raises tend to create massive, multiway pots. He's sitting two to my right.Relevant stacksHero: ~$450Villain coversPreflop, one limper, villain in cutoff+1 raises to $7. His range is huge in this spot. Hero has Ad10c on the button, raises to $25. Folds back around to villain, who calls.Flop (2 players, $50): jd10h9dVillain checks, hero bets $35. Villain calls.Turn (2 players, $120): 3dVillain bets $75. Hero pushes.Thoughts?

If I was the villain and I had 67 or 78spades, I'd be playing aggressively like this. I wouldn't be min-raising every time, but the dude clearly is just hitting the raise button rather than thinking about bet sizes.If we call the $3, I think we're committed on any non-pairing turn card. I'd just shove the flop with these stack sizes.

Unless villain has shown a strong tendency to check multiple streets with a big hand, I think this is a must-raise here. There was no betting on any street, making the full house less likely. The flush was runner-runner, and no two-card combination was folded out here. A lot of flushes and probably most str8s raise you here at these stakes.I was thinking a raise of $2.50 more, but $3.50 or $5 are good too. If the guy ends up having a full house here, you've gained a lot of information on his style of play.

Amen to that. I wouldn't say the raiser is all that tight. His range is probably 33-AA, AK, AQ, AJ, KQs. Add in that he plays pretty predictably postflop and there's a target who makes a lot of mistakes and I think the choice is primarily between calling and raising here. I chose the call because I won't be taking it down preflop and one or two callers of a decent raise basically will have me pot-committed.My thinking at the time was that I'd seen the guy make horrendously bad calls in previous hands, I had the redraw if he'd chased with two random suited cards again, and also that the pot

$1/2nl, local philly card room.I'm very familiar with most of the players at the table. Newest one is sitting to my right and he's a payoff wizard with a weak top pair. He also has shown down a number of trash hands like 10-6s and 7-3s that he called preflop raises with. His stack has turned gigantic thanks to catching a str8 flush on the river against another player 2 orbits ago, he's clearly the main mark at the table and "likes to gamble."Other players are V1, a non-solid lag who plays any ace, raises with all his good ones and a couple of bad ones, and likes to bet/raise early to "find

If we're making the weak "c-bet" on that board, it's specifically to entice the LAG to make a check-raise play. Not a great choice, but one I could certainly see myself making and then regretting later. Hero must reraise the flop. Too many action-killers on the turn.As played, this is an easy call against his range. Hero has meaningful outs against all but KK, and is ahead a good proportion of the time. hard to avoid a LAG stacking us on a board of this texture.

Heart certainly isn't the nuts, but given the mega-tight image, do we really put villain on a full house or quads here? We've got 15 outs against JJ and QQ, 12 against KK, 9 against AA. Getting 2.66-to-1, knowing the guy is pot-committed enough here to probably have to pay off a heart, but not so deep that we get buried if we hit and he has a boat, I think this is a call on the turn.

I'm comfortable with the turn check for pot control, but if we're going to do that and the river completes no draws (as is the case here), I think we pretty much have a must-call of the pot-sized bet. A lot of the point of controlling the pot on the turn is to keep it small enough to do so on the river.The button pretty much has to have air here. A str8, trips, or even TPTK on the flop are all often going to bet that turn once you've given up the lead. Your flop bet looks pretty standard to your opponents, so the turn check is usually going to be with a lot less than kings up. If I'm in th

I like this line a lot. One question, though: are we basically planning to call bets of any size here if we take this line? Is there any bet size that is going to push us off TPTK on this sort of board?

I don't think I love seeing a flop 7-handed with pocket jacks out of position. If you raise here to $150, you either take it down or else isolate against the LAG, which let's you push the flop a lot more safely.As is, that flop is relatively good for you, and I like the lead-out, because if you check and the LAG bets, other players are more likely to float and/or get tricky against him with draws. Betting out puts the pressure on all the other players. That said, yeah, so long as he's the only one left with you, you definitely have to call his reraise on the flop getting 3-to-1.Still, you k

Stack size is a problem there, though. If villain has basically one pot-sized bet left, the only play with any fold equity is the all-in push. If you check and the villain bets half the pot, you're check-raise will give villain 4-to-1 on a call.If we check and the villain pushes, we're getting 2-to-1 on a draw that has between 7 and 14 outs. Fold equity would be nice here, and it seems like the push is the only play that gives it.With that said, you cracked somebody's set with a runner-runner flush draw. Every time someone does that, God kicks a puppy.