Reasonable passivity?

You're normally good at pushing your aggression hard (sometimes too hard) so I don't know why you're not 3betting here (especially against someone who you've said will make basic mistakes) but no hard in mixing things up once in a while.

These three small postflop bets don't scream strength although they may just be a Jack or an overpair getting more and more concerned about the runout and the fact that nobody is folding and going for thinner and thinner value. Multiway and in position I don't think you have to automatically stack off here although you'll curse yourself if he flips over AJ. From your description, I'd be surprised if he's iso-raising 7x with something like KJo although who knows. Reasonable passivity? For me, yeah, although I would have been 3betting preflop 95% of the time.

I understand the impulse to play more flats when a loose-passive (presumably limp-happy?) player opens to a big size, but I am just always 3betting QQ on the button here, even if I am just making it $50. If V2 4bets (which I assume he always does with AA and prob KK) then we have an easy fold and probably end up losing less money than in this spot where we feel obligated to call down multiway on a low board.

As played I can't fold, but wouldn't be shocked to see AA/KK or even a bizarrely played JJ that is trying to induce a raise from a 3 or busted spades. It's also very possible that this player has something like TT or J9s that got counterfeit but is one of those guys who can't check, which would explain the ridiculous sizing.

This is totally reasonable to me. This guy limped AQ, so 3betting here runs a pretty big risk of isolating ourselves against a better hand. This doesn’t mean I am set mining postflop though.

Postflop seems fine too. I would be a little concerned on the river that this could be JJ begging for a raise. If missing a raise is a mistake here, it’s a small mistake because we can go for an overcall.

In a heavily-raked game, 3b pre otb is almost compulsory here.

Flop is okay sometimes but I prefer to raise turn here with a vulnerable hand 3 way.

Wow to the button call with QQ…. Terrible.

Raise river. Any sizing seems ok.

Kinda really comes down to reads. The HH hand shows him to be weak tight MUBSy. But he's also described in the same breath as someone who clearly doesn't understand the game. Overall, I'm putting much more weight on the HH. But if he's just completely clueless (which the HH does not show, imo) then whole hand is much more debatable.

Anyhoo, against a tight passive MUBSy player I don't mind the preflop flat. Also don't even terribly hate flatting this spot in general as very few of the benefits of 3betting apply here (smaller stack to commit ASAP, lottsa dead money, lottsa limpers to deny equity to, buying the Button, etc.).

And I'm cool with postflop too. Again, I'm basing this on a read of tight passive MUBSy (based on HH) and not "clearly doesn't understand the game". Alarm bells should be going off when someone of this type barrels 4 straight streets multiway, but for these prices I'm not sure I can find the fold button anywhere (especially if there's a slight chance he just really is out-to-lunch).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Result:

This HH has him more in the I-don't-know-WTF-I'm-doing category, so yeah, could definitely argue for a different line... having known that. Still, I'm not going to hate on any street in general.

Gnicehand,imoG

Folding top pair facing a triple barrel when the front door flush draw comes in isn't MUBsy - there's a high chance the monster is there and it's a reasonable fold. I do agree that just calling AQo preflop probably implies that he's weak-tight but would depend on positions.

As for the spoiler - opinion hasn't changed, preflop is pretty weak, postflop is reasonable

AQo in EMP or MP pre vs a EP raise should be a cold call vs a typical range and a fold vs a nit range (if you dont believe me watch good players on live streams). folding TPTK on the river to a bomb is standard too once the frontdoor flush comes in.

a player who mistakes that for fishy play is probably a fish himself.

Main hand seems fine. 3bet pre. depends a lot on what the $20 raise might mean, if he doesn't open much and this is a big raise I'd heavily lean call... and he does have a premium we are slightly in front of. Not sure what he's doing on the river, and to some extent the turn, but maybe he misread hearts as diamonds or something?

NittyOldMan1 was a bit too blunt, but I'd assume this hand this is a bigger leak than the hand you posted.

In the main posted hand V2 is on your direct right (H is BTN and V2 is CO) ... so in this hand H is UTG and V2 is BB? But then how is he IP? Did he limp/call BTN pre and H raised SB?
Post seems pretty std. x/c, x/c, x/f when he only beats KQ and it's hard to have bluffs (Obvious ones are like AK/AT/KT and maybe T9 with spades, which isn't enough). You'd have to be bluffing like AcKx and AcTx for it to be close, or lots of random any2 stuff, I think.

H's line is very agro. though, betting both flop and turn. Do you have a checking range? What was your reasoning? What was the plan if you got raised?

Stack sizes, bet sizes and positions etc. do matter though, so it might not be as bad as it looks at a glance.

AQo isn't supposed to be 3bet for value in 9max pretty sure the solver is flatting IP and 3 betting in some setups (EP vs. EP) as a bluff, so V2 line seems totally reasonable

The obvious answer is that you need to adjust to the passiveness of your opponents and take as many opportunities as possible to exploit them

You should be more observant of how this person has been playing. How many times have they isolated pre vs. limps, etc. all the obvious, simple things. You can't really say someone doesn't understand the game when you flat QQ IP vs an isolation play - as played, call.

If we take into consideration how often V1 is limp calling/folding I can't see many situations where we don't 3 bet even vs. a nit OMC. Easy 3 bet fold spot vs. a jam

Just cuz we have an ez fold preflop if our 3bet is 4bet doesn't mean it's an awesome play (as forfeiting 20bb while not realizing any equity whatsover in position against people who may not know how to play poker too good ain't exactly awesome).

ETA: Somewhat results oriented / obviously things don't always work out this well, but our flat here likely got us almost 5x as much had we 3bet, plus never put us in a stoopid spot where we fold the best hand/equity preflop, plus guaranteed we see a flop in position against opponents who suck (literally never a bad thing). Not for a second saying it's miles better, but it certainly isn't miles worse that some are making it out to be, imo.

Gnothatin',justsayin'G

Flatting in a spot where it can easily go 3 or more ways often isn't exactly maximizing your potential for equity realization either. We're happy anyway if we take it down pre-flop, variance free

Inviting along a 3rd player who is OOP, especially if he sucks, isn't horrible (noting we made $105 off the other guy in this particular case whereas a 3bet likely makes him play perfect and lose $0). Again, I realize that things can get complicated / not always turn out as well as they do here / etc, but it isn't clear cut either.

GimoG

PRE - I understand wanting to slow-play, to let the passive blinds over-call, but there's already one limper in the pot, and a passive rec-fish opening from MP, so I think we can raise here, and not worry too much about everyone folding, so long as we don't go too large with our 3B size. If we min-click it, he's literally never folding.

FLOP - If we're going to slow-play on an earlier street, we need to be making up for lost value at some point. Most rec-fish tend to c-bet too much, and will telegraph their hand strength with their bet sizing. This sizing sort of screams "just trying to get to showdown", so I want to raise here, when either opponent could be on a draw or catch up somehow, and we almost certainly have the best hand.

TURN - alright, seriously, when the limper over-calls the flop c-bet, and MP bets again, we HAVE to raise here, to build this pot, and get value for our hand, from two V's who both like their hands well enough to keep putting money into the pot.

Neither V will know what our line means, because it makes no sense, but they're likely to think we picked up some equity on the 9, and will call if they can beat a pair of 9's, or call if they just don't believe us, and think we picked up draw outs.

RIVER - For God's sake, if we were behind J9 on the turn, now we're ahead. All the draws bricked. We should be raising here, when it totally looks like we could be bluffing a bricked draw, and no one is going to be putting us on a pair better than JX, the way we played this.

The down-bet on the river is so obviously weak, not strong, from a rec-fish. If he had JJ, we'd know it by now, because he'd be shoveling money into the pot.

Put in a raise. Something. Make it $115, and then try to look nervous. We gotta get some value for our hand.

And now to read the reveal...

Jesus. We might have been able to stack them both, if we raised the flop, and then just barreled off.