AA

I don’t see any other way to play it that makes sense.

A+

I think you played the hand fine. You’re either way behind or barely ahead on the flop. The turn card is either very good or bad. I would call the river expecting to lose quite a bit. Your hand is under represented so perhaps the button is overplaying KQ. You have two blockers so that reduces the likelihood of AK or AJ.

Don't know what you guys are smoking. The button is said to be an uberlag, he doesn't have to have a premium hand here. If he's also super bluffy, maybe this could make a bit of sense in a head up hand, but here you're letting the other guy draw for cheap.

I don’t know.

So at what point in the hand do you want to check raise? If you check raise the flop and it’s reraised or capped folding is probably a bad option on a very wet board.

If you check raise the turn and it’s reraised what’s your play?

I think the best alternative way to play the hand would be to lead the flop.

What are we worried about the third guy drawing to? What is he going to fold on the flop facing two bets that (a) he would peel with for one bet and (b) we actually want him to fold?

Neither a nor b has to be true for betting / raising to be correct. I didn't say that he would fold or even that we want him to fold. There are a lot of draws here that we want to charge. Flush draw, straight draw, two pair or trips draw. If he does fold a significant amount of equity in a big pot, that's great, but if he calls more bets with a reasonable draw, that's also good.

It depends on the players. Against unknowns I would usually just c-bet the flop, but a check-raise could be good if you're sure the button would bet worse.

Check-calling three streets in a multiway pot is weak poker and almost always wrong.

I agree with chillrob, too much mubsy and fps imo

😉 what's up buddy?

What? You are exploiting the villain’s tendencies as an uber lag. I don’t see why we would care about “weak poker” if it means we made the right decision on every street. We don’t play poker with the benefit of knowing what each card will be when we make plays, we have to decide what to do based on how the entire hand has played out up to a certain point.

I just caught this 'appears tight' player called a cap for 3 cold from the BB. Is this typical at higher stakes?

I guess he had a small pp and was hoping for bingo in a big pot.

As I already stated, this is not a headsup pot, you need to consider the other players as well. And when there are other players, and a very draw-heavy board, you take advantage of the uber lag by also being aggressive and charging the other players.

The right decision was not made on every street, and DUH, I didn't say anything about knowing what each card will be.

Just crushing the 20/40 games in Washington.

I’d guess 88/99 - too much hand to fold PF but completely worthless on this flop. Those are also the only two hands I’d call 3 cold with out of the BB and then fold this flop with.

“Charging the draws” and not playing “weak poker” are poor reasons to raise when we are often behind. The best case here is that we end up with a parlay where one of them has AK and the other one has a jack and a pair, but we’re going to behind one of them a ton and it makes sense to play defensively until we see what the other two players do. LAGs get good hands too, and I don’t see a need to put in more action out of position with this texture.

There is no reason to think you are usually behind on this flop. You're even pulling the AK and Jack out of thin air. At the time of both flop decisions, so three other players could have any two cards as far as we know. After the flop action is complete their ranges are still pretty weak, and the turn card is better for us than for the ranges of the remaining two players.

Of course LAGs get good hands too, but there is no reason to think they have one just because they bet after everyone has checked to them. That just means they have two cards.

Arguing against my terminology does not contribute anything to the discussion, I'm basing my decisions on the information, not because I don't want to act according to a label.

Fair enough. I’d say my point of view as someone who supports the play of the OP is that a “LAG” even an “uber LAG” should have some awareness about exactly how bad this flop is for his perceived range vs the other three ranges. That combined with the fact that we don’t actually know if the other two players behind us are slowplaying and the board can get pretty nasty for us, I quite like playing defensive in this situation.

Leading the flop and betting the turn and river assuming nobody raises may be preferable upon further reflection.

In LA I doubt AA is going to be the best hand the majority of the time. I would expect someone to have J9s, AJ, a flopped set, or a scared AT/JT a significant amount of the time. On a really good day the LAG has AK and your hand is good.

Did the third player overcall the river?

So AA with a diamond is blocking the straight draws, flush draws and them AK, AQ. On the flop we are losing to sets, straights two pairs etc. I think letting them draw to 99 is fine

The one thing I think can be said with certainty here is that leading the flop is wrong. Which I know is a strange thing to say since everyone always bets in this spot after capping preflop but hear my out: On this specific action board against this specific field--with the uber lag involved--someone will almost always bet if we check. Whenever you're in a spot in poker where someone will always bet if you check AND your hand is not strong enough to bet/3bet you should pretty much ALWAYS check/evaluate. One can conjure up outlier scenarios to counter this but it's virtually always true. The logic is sound. Where there is room for argument is over the key assumption "someone will almost always bet if we check". I feel strong about that assumption in this spot but if you don't then fine, the argument falls apart.

So I think the hero initially checking in this spot is expert. In fact I think there are very few poker players in the world who are good enough to check in that spot. HOWEVER once the uberlag bets just calling is bad poker. We may not have a strong enough hand in general to bet/3bet but we should easily have a good enough hand to check/raise (especially the uberlag) given that in the latter line we are taking an aggressive action against a significantly wider range (we're raising a bet instead of raising a raise). Anybody that takes the time to do the math in this spot, I.E. bust out your poker calculators, create realistic ranges, etc will see that the hero probably has around 40% equity once the flop hits. That is A LOT against a field of 3 opponents. So check/raise the uberlag's bet. Whether this is for protection or value is irrelevant. Call it what you want. The bottom line is we have an edge here and we need to get more money in the pot to properly exploit that edge.

Yeah I posted this to see if I should c/r flop.

I'm curious about results now that the hand discussion seems to be finished.