Pre flop against a very agro player.
2/3 NL. The V UTG has posted a 6 dollar straddle. UTG +1 calls, I am next with AhTh and raise to 25. The 30 ish TAG next to me calls as do two other very loose passive players. It's folded to the straddle who now raises to 125. The UTG +1 folds.
I am the effective stack with 375. The straddle could have a lot of hands. I've seen him do this with 64s. If I called and was heads up the straddle would say "You all know whats coming" and push all in on any flop.
I think all in is the only play if I choose to continue. There are a couple players to my left who often call with strong hands like QQ, AK etc along with other more junky hands.
Is this just a high variance gamble spot or should I look for a better hand/situation?
7 Replies
It depends how often he is really doing this with junk like 64s. If it really is a lot, then yeah, rip it in.
2/3 NL. The V UTG has posted a 6 dollar straddle. UTG +1 calls, I am next with AhTh and raise to 25. The 30 ish TAG next to me calls as do two other very loose passive players. It's folded to the straddle who now raises to 125. The UTG +1 folds.
I am the effective stack with 375. The straddle could have a lot of hands. I've seen him do this with 64s. If I called and was heads up the straddle would say "You all know whats coming" and push all in on any flop.
I think all in is the only play if I c
Even versus an alleged maniac, it's clearly a high variance gamble, unless you truly believe his range is ATC. The fact that multiple players still left to act called your raise and like to slowplay (or are just nits) makes this a pretty easy fold.
I overlimp in. FWIW, ATs is actually my cusp playable hand in EP (as I'm folding A9s), so I'm really mostly never happy to go batshit crazy with it preflop / build a big pot OOP.
What does Villain think of us? Or does he care? But in general against someone who could have hands as wide as 64s "a lot" I'm probably just taking the high variance route and jamming (which will also put awkward pressure on dominating hands behind us).
GcluelessNLnoobG
I would think 4B-jamming over a 3B from a guy who's proven he doesn't mind playing a high variance game himself is likely to be inherently high variance, inasmuch as he may call much wider than most other opponents.
But that doesn't necessarily mean we should look for a better spot. To decide, we need to first answer some other questions, mostly about the likely ranges of UTG and the players behind us...
1. Have we seen UTG repeatedly 3B with trash in spots like this, or have we just seen him do it once, and otherwise he's not 3B'ing super-light, as far as we know?
2. Have we seen the two players to our left play super tight AND passive, such that they're only entering pots with very strong hands, but usually not 3B'ing with those hands, or do these players have loose-passive tendencies, such that they'll over-call with AK/QQ, but also a lot of weaker hands?
3. How sticky are the players behind us, when facing a 4B-jam with hands that are better than ours, but not really all that strong facing a 4B? Not necessarily AK/QQ, but what about AQ/AJ and JJ/TT?
4. How deep are our opponents? Deep enough to think they may YOLO-call if we 4B-jam for $375?
If we completely ignore the reads, ATs seems like a reasonable open over an EP limp, and mostly just a fold facing a 3B from the straddle. With the read that UTG is frequently FOS when he 3B's, ATs becomes less of a fold, and more of a 4B-jam. If we think his smallish 3B size (smallish given our raise got 3 callers) is an indication of weakness, ATs becomes even more of a 4B-jam.
If the players behind are really tight-passive, ATs is just an easy fold to the 3B. If they're loose-passive, I'd be more tempted to 4B-jam.
If they flatted with hands like AQ/AJ, or JJ/TT, we'd benefit from folding to the 3B, if we think they won't fold those hands if we call or raise. Alternatively, we'd benefit from raising, if we think they will fold those hands to a 4B.
In a vacuum, my inclination would be that the players behind us aren't likely to be all that strong when they flat call our raise, and the UTG straddler isn't necessarily that strong when he takes this sizing.
So I'd consider 4B-jamming, if I thought the most likely outcome is we get HU with the straddle, and have decent equity against whatever he has.
All that said, it's ATs - not our first pick for hands we want to take to war. It would suck to 4B, get called by V with some whack a$$ middling pair, and brick out post flop. It can't be terrible to just fold rather than jam 125bbs.
It's a gamble if you shove, but I don't mind it if he's 3betting all the time. Not thrilled with the guys behind me flatting big hands, but if you are normally seen as tight, they might fold some of them.
I think this is a nice spot to 4b shove.
There are a lot of landmines, like the callers sandbagging AK, JJ+ but there's a good amount of money out there to go for, maybe the main villain folds a hand that should call, or calls and you have a decent gamble with the $50 overlay, maybe the callers fold AQ, AJ or better, or maybe the wheels fall off and you have a good image builder bravely showing your hand with some non trivial amount of equity and a chance to get lucky anyway.
This is why 120bbs is shortstacking in a live game lol.
99+ and AQo rank ahead of ATs when you're 63 straddles deep with a 4x ISO and 5x squeeze, so you're in the bottom half of your range and so don't *have* to continue with this hand.
It's a matter of whether you want to explo jam. That depends on:
A) whether the squeezer is ACTUALLY going HAM defending his straddle and they're not just someone who showed a bluff once just to set the trap, and
B) how much IP players will wake up with a hand.
The first factor PROBABLY outweighs the second factor and you PROBABLY get positive expectation out of a jam, you'd have to use your judgment based on what you've actually seen at the table.
