1/$3 — JJ in a Squeeze Pot vs LAG, Hate This Spot

Yeah, you need to be good about 22% of the time to call, and you may be good over 50% of the time. This is a good flop for your range, so the cbet should get a lot of folds. However, your line looks weak by the river, and he might bet bigger for value.

The nature of things is that when you 3! with like 100xBB, you are going to lose a big portion of your stack often, whether you call or fold this river. Just top off if you lose, and don't think anything of it. You will make it back later in the session or the next session.

Grunch:

PRE - raise bigger. At least $80. But if you're the one with $290 to start, just make it $90, to cut down on the set-mining odds.

FLOP - A good line is to check-back or over-bet ace-high flops. With JJ, I'd just check back.

Our hand doesn't really benefit from a bet. There's not enough equity to protect, and it's a little too strong to turn it into a bluff. We're actually blocking some of the hands that fold, like JT and AJ.

TURN - The turn 8c doesn't change much, but it does add a BDFD, and we don't have a club in our hand, so if we're on the fence about whether to barrel or check back, I think now it makes more sense to bet than it does to check back, if only to deny equity from his draws and light floats. With just 1 SPR, I probably just jam for max fold equity.

Part of the reason I'd barrel here is that if we check back, he's going to be betting the river at a super-high frequency, and if he's LAG, he's likely to take a size that doesn't telegraph his hand strength as much as he would if he was loose-passive. When he bets the river, his range is going to have both bluffs and value.

Think about it like this - he flat called the MP open, and then double-flatted our 3B, and didn't x/r our 1/3 pot c-bet. And he's LAG. He's very unlikely to have AA, TT, AT, or even A2 here. Meanwhile, we'll have AA, TT, and AT in our range, along with AK, AQ, AJs, etc. He's taken three actions to cap his range. We haven't done anything to cap our range to this point.

RIVER - Meh. I probably fold, but if he's really LAG, I might flick in the call sometimes, depending on what I think this size represents, and if I've ever seen him go really thin with something we actually beat that may have floated the flop, like TX.

Sometimes it's hard to range LAGs in spots like this. We can rule out the big PP's and some of the best SC's, but he could have a ton of AXs and AXo combos in this line, as well as a lot of TX or even some worse PP's that floated the flop just to see if you'd barrel turn, and if not, they get to bluff the river.

If he does have some weak AX, and we barrel, he's going to start folding out, if he thinks we're playing tight or scared money. Like, if I got here this way with AJ or worse AX, and you barrel, or jam for pot, I probably snap fold, because I just don't think you're going to jam turn as a bluff after I call pre, and call your c-bet on this ace-high board. I'm just praying you check back so I can go for value on the river.

Just to add to the above, some clarification...

C-betting the flop - why? Is this for value, or is it a bluff?

I'm not against turning our hand into a bluff, I just don't think the flop is the time to do it. But once we start a bluff on the flop, we have to follow through by jamming turn for max fold equity. V's going to have a hard time calling with AJ or worse AX.

If we check back the flop, V isn't likely to come out and blast the turn with air, and all his AX combos are going to be weak AX that couldn't 3B pre, so he's probably not going to bet big, whether he's bluffing or stabbing with thin value.

If we just check back the flop, we can call a small turn bet, and V is going to be checking to us a lot on the river, unless he has a strong hand. If he checks to us again on the turn, we can make a delayed c-bet, and evaluate what we want to do on the river if he calls turn.