88 facing 3 bets on 643 board, 1/3 Live

not sure what your saying here?

Seriously? You think V2 is flatting a $25 open next to act, but then he's going to jam for $600 if we raise to $300? I think he folds >99% of the time, and jams <1% of the time.

Most people are positionally aware? Care to back up that claim with data? Do we know that about V1? How do we know that?

Again, I wasn't suggesting a $300 jam. I was suggesting a 3b to $125. I'm also unsure if he's going to fold, but if he's "loose" pre, there's a reasonable chance he folds, and also a reasonable chance he doesn't 4B us, ever, and only has AA/KK/AK if he does.

If V2 is also loose, how likely is it he's slow-playing some big PP that will back-raise, whatever V1 does after we raise? That seems even less likely than his calling, rather than folding to our 3B.

Your reading comprehension is as bad as your math. OP said that V1's $25 open wasn't "terribly abnormal for him". We can logically infer that V1 has different raise sizes. We can't infer that this is his normal size.

We might ask OP to clarify if V1 opens larger when in EP and smaller when in LP, but without that specific info, the more likely, if not most likely inference is that V1 opens larger with big hands, and that this is a sizing tell, because sizing tells are more common at low stakes than raise sizes that vary with position, rather than hand strength.

If V1 is loose (described that way), but we want to infer he's also aggro (as you seem to want to do), and also infer that $25 is his normal open size, then that's even more reason to 3B with 88, because this large size wouldn't be a sizing tell, and he could be getting out of line with a wider range, because not just "loose", but also "aggro", and in your estimation, also "always opening too big", apparently.

No, the difference is we can set-mine when we're getting the correct implied odds, and it's not clear we are here. If we're not getting correct odds to set-mine, this becomes even more of a raise-or-fold spot pre.

I'm not guessing, hoping, or praying when I raise with 88 here. I'm taking a calculated risk. You're hoping and praying to flop a set when you flat call, and guessing that you'll be able to get paid when you play fit or fold post-flop.

If V1 is loose, he could be getting out of line, even when he's UTG. Maybe he is positionally aware, and only opening a stronger range UTG. If the former is true, we should raise more. If the latter is true, we should fold more.

If we're not sure which may be true, that doesn't mean we should call and hope to flop a set, and plan to fold if we don't. It means that we should play our range as raise or fold, and just decide if this is a hand and a spot to raise, or fold, and act accordingly.

This is a hand to flat with, not 3!. It doesn't play that well postflop in a 3! pot. You would rather have good suited cards you can make a draw with and semibluff representing AA or AK. You also have no blockers. You are getting good odds to set mine. Sometimes you can play it unimproved, but not with a large bet and 2 callers. You have position and can see what other players do. This is not the kind of action you want to continue on.

Again, it depends on what the OP meant about V1 being "very loose and frequently raises".

Yeah, until I've seen otherwise, my default is to give an unknown player a tighter range when he opens from UTG.

Ok I confused you with other posters suggesting a jam pre. Both V1 and V2 are said to be "very loose", so I would imagine they're not gonna be folding so easily to 125. So if they call, the pot would be $400 otf and we'd be 3 ways in a big bloated pot with pocket 8's and alil over a psb left in our stack so I wouldn't do this unless I knew them more and thought there was a good chance they would fold to the 3bet instead of just pressing buttons, but that's just me.

You've never seen anyone trap someone before or slow play aces rather than raise him out of the hand preflop (if he 3bet a LAG from UTG+2, his hand is basically face up). So yes it's possible V2 won't fold to a raise and if he's strong and senses Hero's raise OTB is a light squeeze opportunity, why wouldn't he jam 600?

So if this was a 2/5 game, and you had $600 otb, the initial raiser has $300, one caller has $600 and the other caller has $240, would you fold 88 for a 5x open and 2 callers? I think your reading too much into their raise sizes when we have a very basic pf hand, which is a standard setmine opportunity.

If we are 3 betting mid PPs, do we have any flatting range from the button?

Sorry I was just saying if you 3bet then had to fold to a 4bet and then you saw a flop with an 8 on it you'll be scratching your head/punching walls after the hand lol (in other words you have a value hand otb and if you flop a set you can possibly and easily win everyone's money).

I understand that lots of low stakes players don't understand what pot odds are, and think it means you can call super wide when there is a big pot ... also that they massively overcall low PP. But I'm assuming that's not you.

You ask this like GTO would have a big flatting range here for a 2.5x open.

You ask this like there isn't 25bb already in the pot when it gets to us.

What are you raising here, just JJ+/AK? Tighter?

Can you show me GTO for what to do with an 8xBB raise and 2 callers? It is obviously good to play a pp 4 or 5 way in position.

If you are going to 3! light, do it with hands that play well postflop as the aggressor, like suited broadway or suited connectors. You could use Axs/Kxs in a tournament against one player when you rarely would get flat called. With 88, you will not have many semibluffs and will not know where you are if you miss a set.

You can turn it around and if you are going to flat with anything on the button 4-ways, this is about the best hand to flat with rather than 3!.

We were talking about V2, who just flatted V1's $25 raise. My question was, how often is he just flatting the $25, next to act, from EP, with a hand that then wants to back-jam for $600 over a $300 3B?

It's kind of a moot question, since I wasn't suggesting a raise to $300. I suggested we 3B to $125. If V2 jams for $600 over a $125 3B, we fold. If we 3B to $125, and V1 jams for $300, then V2 re-jams for $600, we fold.

Could V2 be slow-playing a big hand when he flats next to act from EP? Maybe sometimes. But I doubt it's very often. If he's loose, he's going to have a pretty wide range that flat calls. If he frequently raises, we'd expect him to have some raises for value there, and maybe even some raises as a bluff.

It doesn't seem very likely that he's going to show up with a hand that wants to 4B or 5B jam for $600, when he just flat calls the $25. His range looks very compressed, like middling pairs looking to set mine, some suited connectors, and some Broadway combos, and not much else.

I'm not sure why we're worrying about V2 back-jamming for $600 here. That seems like extreme MUBS to me.

I think that may be giving an unknown loose and possibly aggro rec-fish playing 1/3 too much credit.

Even if we decide that his UTG range is going to be tighter than the range he'll open from later positions, he's still been described as loose, and we might infer he's also aggro from "frequently raises". It doesn't seem like he's only showing up with a super-strong range here. But if he is, okay, fine, just fold. No reason to get involved with 88.

But if his range is 77+, AK-AT, some other suited aces, some unsuited trash aces, and some Broadway combos, a lot of that range is going to fold to a 3B of any size.

If they're very loose, they're going to have pretty wide ranges here, and will be doing a fair bit of folding to our 3B. Even if they don't fold pre, they're going to have problems navigating from OOP post-flop, if they just flat call, which seems pretty unlikely here.

Odds are that V1 doesn't just flat call, leaving himself only $175 behind. He's likely to fold or jam. Ditto for V3 starting with $240.

V2 is the only opponent deep enough to consider flat-calling here, and he'll be OOP post-flop, with a super-compressed double-flatting range that should be pretty easily for us to out-play.

But if V1 jams, it puts V2 in a really awkward spot, because the betting is re-opened, and V3 is still in the hand behind him. If V2 was sand-bagging something big, he'll probably re-jam for his $600, and then it really is a trivial fold for us.

You're assuming both V1 and V2 call, which doesn't seem very likely, given the stack depths. It seems most likely that they both fold.

V1 is likely to jam or fold, not call. V2 is most likely going to fold when action gets to him, not call off another $275 if V1 jams, or call off another $100 if V1 folds, knowing he'll be OOP and first to act post-flop, and V3 is still left to act behind him, possibly waiting to jam for $240, which will re-open the betting.

Even if V1 calls, V2 might still fold. If V1 folds, V2 might call. Let's not forget we still have to get through V3. So the pot won't necessarily be $400 on the flop. It could be larger or smaller. But most likely, it'll be smaller, and I'll explain why.

Our raise is intended to take the flop down pre-flop, or get heads up with someone, rather than go multi-way. V2 is the only one deep enough to flat call, and we're folding if anyone jams, so if we see the flop, the pot is most likely to be $300, and we'll have $475 behind.

Our raise is auto-profiting if it gets through more than 62.5% of the time. If anyone jams, we can fold. If V2 flat calls, okay, we'll have to play some poker post-flop. But we'll be doing that in-position, with an uncapped range, against a rec-fish who'll have to act first, with a super-collapsed range, in a 1.6 SPR pot.

I like our chances here.

It's rare for anyone to slow-play AA pre-flop by flat calling a raise next to act in EP. But, yes, it can happen.

It's usually not a loose-aggressive rec-fish doing that. More often, he's going to be worried about going to the flop multi-way and OOP, and getting out-drawn if he gives LP opponents and the blinds a good price to over-call, so it's more likely he's just going to 3B, even next to act.

However, if he is sand-bagging, we'll find that out when he back-raises over our 3B. And in that scenario, if he decides to 4B jam for $600, obviously we just insta-fold. It's not the end of the world to 3B a little light and fold to a 4B-back-jam from someone who just initially flat called an EP open while in EP, given how infrequently it happens.

It isn't 2/5. It's 1/3. Not sure why we're changing the game here.

If it was 2/5, and the stacks were the same size, and the V's were all the same, but the raise was still $25, which would only be 5x, I would still prefer to raise or fold over a flat call, for the reasons I already gave, when I said I'd still prefer to raise or fold if the open here at 1/3 was just $15 (also 5x).

If we think V1 is opening a really strong range from UTG, and / or when he takes a >8x open size, then we should just fold. If we think he may be getting out of line, even with this size and / or from this position, then we should squeeze.

If he's opening 5x, there's no obvious sizing tell to make us think his hand is REALLY strong, so we can call more, but we can also raise more, and generally, I just prefer to raise here, on the BTN, rather than over-call and hope to flop a set against 3 opponents will ill-defined ranges.

The combination of raise size and configuration makes this a raise-or-fold spot, IMO.

I understand why it seems like a straightforward call - it's only $25, there's already $75 in the pot, we have 3 opponents who might pay us off if we flop a set, etc.

But we're only going to flop a set 12% of the time. If we're going to fold the other 88% of the time, we're basically just torching $22. We have to think we're going to make another $300 from someone when we hit, but there's only one player deep enough here, and he isn't the pre-flop raiser.

In order to make the call, we have to expect V1 to c-bet and get at least one call when we flop a set, or we have to expect V2 or V3 to stab if V1 doesn't c-bet, and we need for someone to at least call our raise, and our set has to be good, and it has to hold up.

That's a lot of stuff that has to happen. We're not just looking at flopping a set 12% of the time. It's some lower percentage that we flop a set AND our opponents want to put at least $300 into the pot, with worse hands, that don't improve to beat us.

Alternatively, if we raise to $125, we'll auto-profit if they all fold anything more than 62.5% of the time, which seems somewhat more likely than flopping a set and winning another $300 or more.

I appreciate the question, for forcing me to think about how I'm playing the rest of my range, and why. I went through a complicated thought process, asking what I think each opponent is doing here, why they're doing it, and what we should be doing as a result.

Rather than go through all of that, I think it can be boiled down to how likely we are to realize our equity post-flop, and how likely we are to win a big pot if we make a big hand. The more likely we are, the more I want to call. The less likely, the more I want to play raise or fold.

Here, we're only getting to the turn if we flop a set, or maybe the top end of an OESD. Otherwise, we're just folding to a big c-bet. A lot has to happen for us to win a big pot - we have to flop a set, the nut straight, or the top end of an OESD, and our sets and straights have to hold up, and get paid off. So I don't like it, from an equity realization perspective.

My flatting range is going to be made up of combos that are going to have a fighting chance of seeing the turn, the potential to cooler someone, and / or good nut-blockers.

So I'd be flatting with the worst suited aces that don't want to 3B, suited Broadway combos, AQo, and maybe balance that with some slightly more speculative hands, and some hands that are strong enough to raise, but don't really love getting stacks in pre, like AJs/ATs, and AKo - basically hands that have the potential to make strong and / or sneaky 2P+ hands or high equity draws on the flop, and / or block our opponent's strongest holdings.

No. You've confused yourself, or you're trying to re-write history. Go re-trace your steps and the discussion.

I said we could raise to $125. Illiterat said we could jam for 100bb ($300, putting V1 all in). I said if we raise to $300, putting V1 all in, V2 is probably folding. You said V2 might be jamming for $600. I said that was unlikely, after he flatted the $25, and we 3B to $300. We were talking about V2, who is 200bb / $600 deep with us, not V1.

You're all over the map here.

But, now we're back to what V2 is doing. Okay, fine. I really doubt V2 is flatting an 8x raise from UTG when he's UTG1, and then back-jamming to $600. That seems very unlikely, but you seem willing to make a whole bunch of assumptions to back up your play, without really being able to support them in any logical way.

Sometimes we 3B and have to fold to a 4B. It's part of the game, just like someone raising, getting 3B, and folding. There are more horrible things that can happen than 3B'ing and having to fold to a 4B.

This isn't a fun spot to be in, with this hand, at this stack depth, in this configuration, against these V's, facing this action. We don't have many good choices. Flatting the $25, knowing there's a high likelihood we'll have to fold the flop, and a low likelihood we'll make a big hand and win a big pot seems like the worst choice to me, which is why I said we should raise or fold.

You disagree, because "set-mining", but you're ignoring the implied odds and stack depth and positions of each villain, and the likelihood that a raise is going to take the pot down pre-flop more often than a flat call will win us a big pot post-flop.

We're not deep enough with the PFR to set-mine. We're only deep enough with V2, who isn't the PFR. If we flat call, the pot will be $100 going to the flop. V1 (the PFR) will have $275 behind, and V3 will have $215. The opponent with the deepest stack is the least likely to show up with a big hand after he flats the UTG raise from UTG1.

Then they're not LAG's, they're loose-passive. They're rocks. Different animal. Different strategy.

If we think they're rocks, and flatting from UTG1 with all their big PP's, we should fold, because they're even less likely to pay us off when we hit our set.

Mmmmmmmmno. OP didn't say he's an unknown. OP said he's very loose, and frequently raises. You were the one who inferred that he was LAG, and I went along with you, because that does seem like a reasonable inference based on "very loose" and "raises frequently".

Again, if you think he's opening a tight range from UTG (despite that being the opposite of OP's read), fold. If you think he's getting out of line, raise. Calling an 8x raise multi-way is just playing an expensive game of Bingo.

It's more than a little ironic you're accusing me of pressing buttons when I've given a detailed and logical argument for playing raise or fold here, when your default is to flat call, yet without providing any argument that doesn't include a laundry list of assumptions (which you deny below), extreme MUBs (V2 might back-jam for $600!), and the laughable hope of an outcome where we win unimproved with the showdown value of 88, facing three opponents, at least two of whom we've labeled as LAG.

That "call" button you're pressing? It's a button. And you're clicking it. Like, auto-flatting here is the literal definition of button-clicking. You're acting without really thinking about what you're doing, or why, and what your plan is for the next decision point. Your only thought process here is "pot big, I has pair, I set-mine now, might fold next, please dealer, pick me."

I may need to stop engaging with you here, if you can't admit basic truth. Again, go back and re-trace your footsteps here. You said if we raise to $125, the pot would be $400 on the flop. I said that assumes they both call, which seems unlikely at this stack depth, because only V2 is deep enough to flat call, whereas V1 and V3 are going to have to play fold or jam if they want to continue.

That airplane you're flying ahead of is about to suck you into its engines.

Again, it's extremely unlikely they both call if we raise to $125. V1 will only have $175 left, so he's likely to fold or jam. The only one who can call is V2, who would be double-flatting, compressing his range to the point that he really won't be able to rep much in the way of strong hands on a wide variety of boards.

In this configuration, it's unlikely any of them call. V1 and V3 aren't deep enough to flat call. V2 is the only one deep enough to consider calling, and he can't rep a real hand, except in the extremely rare instance of him sandbagging with a big PP after calling an 8x open from UTG, when he's in UTG1, probably with 6 or 7 unknown hands yet to act.

We probably won't see a flop, but if we do, it'll most likely be HU and IP against V2, who has a collapsed range. If you don't like where you'll be on the flop in that scenario, you should work on your hand-reading skills (maybe you should enroll yourself in hand-reading school, since you so snarkily suggested you were taking me there in another thread).

We don't necessarily need to flop a set if we 3B pre and V2 calls. We can just play poker. He'll likely check to us and fold to a c-bet at a very high frequency. If not, we can barrel turn, or check-back and evaluate river, but I doubt it'll come to that, when we 3B pre. He'll be the one that will be forced to play fit-or-fold, and extremely face-up, after double-flatting.

Never? Like, seriously, never? You NEVER 3B expecting to take down the pot pre? Like, 0% frequency of all your opponents folding to your 3B? Really? That's amazing.

I don't mind if everyone folds when we raise with 88. I don't mind if V2 calls, because I expect to out-play him post-flop, and pretty easily in this set-up. Sounds like you like playing turns and rivers, but...you already said you're just flatting to flop a set and folding if you don't, so...no turn or river for you.

Again, if we 3B to $125, V2 is the only opponent who can call. The pot will be $300, and we'll have $475 behind, for a 1.6 SPR. No, we're not deep enough to play a 3-street game post-flop, unless we take really small sizing on flop and turn, but I'm not sure why we'd want to here. My plan would be to win the pot on the flop or turn, so V2 never sees the river.

Okayyyy....nope. Still not sure why you think changing the game from 1/3 to 2/5 makes your argument more convincing, but at this point, I'm about ready to give up trying to understand you, since you clearly don't seem to understand me, or don't want to, and would seem to prefer re-writing the debate in every third post.

Yes, that's correct. The formula for how often a bet or raise auto-profits is to determine how often our opponents need to fold for our bet or raise to be break-even. The assumption that everyone folds is a predicate for even bothering to do the math.

So, here, if we raise to $125, we break-even when our opponents all fold 62.5% of the time. If they fold more often than that, we are auto-profiting. If they fold less than 62.5% of the time, then our raise is not break-even, and we don't auto-profit. In that scenario, we need to move on to other calculations done at later nodes on the game tree.

It's insane how critical you are of assumptions I haven't made, while immediately going on to enthusiastically and proudly admit the assumptions you are apparently making as a matter of routine.

I don't care whether we have a good chance of making it to the turn. It is a very profitable set mine 4-way with position.