Punts or Standard Spots Volume II

H1 punt
H2 standard spot

H1 is baffling. How can a very tight player limp in, check-call 5-ways and then donk on a turn card that shouldn't interact with his hand in any way? It's the brickiest of bricks. I'd be inclined to think that he's either got a very strong hand or is FOS and so I'd just call the turn. V2 can be the one with theiddling strength hand. But I can't think of any logical hand that V1 would have here. Looking forward to results in due course. I suppose you can have ATC on the flop so you may well look like you stabbed with nothing.

H2...this is 1/2/5 and you made it 5x over 3 limps? That's too small. At the very least make it a size where V2's jam doesn't reopen the betting (easy to say with hindsight). I like the 4bet, get smaller pairs to fold and if hands like KQs to get out of the way, so much the better. Obviously you don't need to be scared of someone limp-jamming 12BB deep.

In Hand 1, I think Villain’s line (check call flop, big donk on blank turn into two players) is really strong. I’m not folding here but I don’t think there are a ton of worse hands that are calling a jam. V2 can realistically be trapping as well. I would rather call turn and then call a lot of river spots.

Hand 2 looks reasonable to me as well. I think calling is fine too, as it lets BTN continue with some dominated hands and he will be handicapped post-flop.

I think I suck at figuring out what bad recs are doing in weird multi-way spots.

H1 - I think I've gone broke a few times in spots like this. Like, how is 2P not good here? The answer seems to be it's never good.

Not sure if this is the logic at play, but...V flops something good, isn't planning to check-raise, is mostly hoping action checks to you, and that you'll bet, so he can smooth-call with his trap hand, and that everyone else folds, and he just check-calls you to death for the rest of the hand. But the other guy in the middle over-calling worries him. That guy might be drawing. So when you bet, V calls, and the third guy over-calls, NOW V decides to step up his betting with a donk on the turn.

My guess is he's got at least 2P or a set, QT or 44, and doesn't want to give free cards to anyone's draws.

H2 - I'm never sure if it's better to let a deeper-stacked opponent into the pot, or if it's better to re-raise to shut him out. With the BTN straddle on, the blinds' ranges should be stronger, especially when they limp-jam. If those ranges are stronger, then maybe there's a case to be made for letting V1 come along. If you're always losing to one of the blinds, the only way to win any money is to win it from V1.

Then again, players that get short-stacked usually suck, and are probably jamming a wide range, so I guess it can't be terrible to re-raise ISO.

To Moxterite's point, I think your sizing is fine. In fact, I think we'd want to have the betting re-opened if one of the short stacks jammed, precisely because we want the option to re-raise.

Perhaps you're right - it would probably make more sense to close out the betting where someone else had iso'd and you had 3bet light.

I mean...maybe it depends on our actual hand. I want to re-raise sometimes. Other times, I don't want the other V in the hand with us to be able to re-raise, because I want to see a flop without that guy re-jamming behind us.

I think if we're calling a raise, with short-stacks left to act behind us, we don't want the betting to be re-opened if they jam, because we don't want the original raiser to be able to re-jam and squeeze us out.

But if we're the one raising, we want a short-stack jam to re-open the betting, so if someone flats the jam, we can re-raise to iso when action gets back to us.

It's pretty rare for us to flat call a raise with a hand that's strong enough to re-jam when action gets back to us. It would have to be one of those scenarios where we're sandbagging something to let the fish come along, then some deep-stacked aggro tries to put in a squeeze, a short stacks jams, and then we re-jam.

Results -

Hand #1 V doesn't snap call, but makes the easy call with TT and hero loses, V2 folded and said he had Kj - weird neither opened pf

Hand #2 - V tank calls, and folds for like 180 more when I jam on a 885 board and is audibly disgusted when I show my AJ. Board runs out 88535 and H chops with V3 who had Ak, and V2 had pocket 22s ?!?!

H1 - V's line looked like 2P or a set. No real need to wonder if it's bottom or middle set, if bottom set is good enough to beat us. Just make a mental note that he limped in pre with TT.

H2 - Circling back to your raise(s) and sizing - I thought your first raise, that allows a short-stack jam to re-open the betting was fine. But re-reading the OP, I just noticed we only started $350 deep, and we re-ISO 4B to $160.

It's that $160 4B ISO that needs to be re-thought. We can't raise to $160 and then fold if the $500 stack decides he wants to go with his hand, and puts us all in for another $190. It would be unusual for him to flat call our initial raise, and then back-raise all-in, but it can happen, especially if we look weak by not jamming.

Even if he just flat calls, we can't fold post after putting half our stack in, and our raise creates a side-pot worth fighting over. It would be a disaster if he jammed the flop, if we don't improve. We probably just want him out pre-flop, when we have AJs.

So, either jam all in over the short stacks to put max fold pressure on him, or don't ISO to a smaller size, laying him a good price, with a hand that isn't going to fare well when he calls.

This goes back to the whole question of whether or not we want the betting re-opened. I think we definitely want the option to re-raise over the short stack jam. The money we win or lose vs the $35-$60 short stacks is inconsequential compared to what we can win or lose vs the $500 stack.

So, circling back to the pre-flop action, when you open with AJs and the straddle flats, we can guess he probably doesn't have a great hand, but he could have AQo, or 99, or a lot of hands that will turbo-fold if we jam, but aren't doing poorly against our AJs, and can catch up, if we lay him a good price to call. I think we want to squeeze him out by jamming.

Before we stick our bet in, we should be looking at the short stack sizes, and figuring out a raise sizing that will re-open the betting if one of the short stacks jams.

Don't have time to read hand 2 but hand 1 is a classic example of going broke in a limped pot. I check back flop 100% and just call the turn donk at most (folding sometimes).

H1 Probably not betting flop esp if there are tricky/FPS players there (which it sounds like there are). Would strongly consider folding the turn. You have V2 beat but V1 sounds like ultra nit who may not come to life without having QT minimum.

H2 I play the same way except I raise to 30.

H2 is a nice result with a bit of river luck that you deserved.

This is a BTN straddle hand, position matters a lot and stacks somewhat. People limp TT anyway, but with the BTN straddle (esp. at certain 1-2 tables) TT will often play like 44 if you open raise, but limp/3bet can print.

This is a good point. I am remembering the last time I played at MGM Springfield where I limped the BB with TT in a BTN straddle configuration and had to make the sad fold when it was raised and re-raised in front of me.

Also based on these results, I am making yet another mental note that the "check call flop and then donk turn big multi-way" line is always the nuts.

Yep. Good point.