Straight Draw Worth Playing???

Easy fold. Could be drawing to 6 outs to a chop and you’re not closing the action.

Grunch:

PRE - I would have 3B A5s.

FLOP - Pretty trivial fold facing this action.

As a general rule, donks into multi-way pots are under-bluffed. The bigger the size, the more under-bluffed they are.

MP might be raising light, but might not be. If we flat call, we're capping our range, and we're not closing the action. SB can come back over the top. MP can raise again. We're just caught in the cross-fire, with a draw that's shrinking in value with each additional bet.

Not to be too MUBsy, but we could be drawing dead. vs 85. An off-suit 8 does us no good if someone has T9ss. A5ss is free-rolling us.

Often the tightest player in the game, I loosen up in one spot - the button -
H calls, SB calls

(290) 7s6h4s (Ac)
SB check, MP check
Hero?

I hope we have the seat change button because we are sitting in the worse seat at the table with the hyper aggro unprediatable deep guy behind us.

Being the first caller with a suited Ace is fairly meh. But I'm never going to hate too much on getting into a pot for relatively cheap (stack-wise) on the Button, especially against anyone labelled a beginner. Although we do have to consider the SB might not allow this.

And I'd just fold the flop. The action is still open so the SB could reraise and we probably won't be able to continue. Our IO also suck, as even the beginner will have a hard time putting in much money if we hit a four-to-a-straight.

With an OESD and possible overcard we have ok equity against the beginner, although I'm never looking to attempt to get a beginner to fold an overpair with an aggro reraise here. And we could still be drawing ~deadish against the SB.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'd probably 3bet more often than not with A5s specifically on the button, but calling not terrible.

The same can't be said of the flop call which is atrocious. A loose passive beginner raises the flop and you call with a bare straight draw which would bring in a one liner if you hit but there isn't stack depth? And when two of your ours bring in a front door flush? That way madness (and an empty wallet) lies.

As played, the hand has gone awry long ago but I suppose you could bet small to target a flush draw. Small enough to get away if check-raised.

This isn’t just a fold pre? You have a big raise by a passive player. You have a hyper agro behind.

Flop is a pretty easy fold. Loose passive beginners are generally not check raising with draws - he likely has a good hand.

Turn, Ace is an interesting card. I probably just check behind, looking to get to cheap showdown if unimproved.

I don't like the flop call, but now I'd be sorely tempted to bet.

Hero moves all-in, SB folds, MP calls
7s6h4sAc (Tc)
Hero flips hand and wins as villain mucks without showing

Seems as if you like the way you played the hand.

What did we learn? What's the takeaway?

Your read of MP was that he's a loose-passive beginner. I wonder if that means he's likely to chase all his draws. If so, it would seem ironic that you won the hand because you chased a draw and happened to run into top pair.

When we analyze hands here, we're often looking for relevant info, and / or the logic used by the person posting the hand. If you don't provide the basis for your decision, it's hard for anyone to offer useful advice.

In the absence of more info, the consensus was that your flop play was terrible. Calling flop in that situation will usually end up being a losing play. If you have insight to the contrary, you should share it in the OP.

Adding to my post above...

You over-bet jammed $550 effective into $290.

Your read on SB was that he's very aggro and unpredictable. He over-called the raise pre, so conceivably, he could get to the flop with a pretty wide range. He donked 2/3 pot, MP raised, you called the raise, and SB over-called.

Question - did you think you were jamming for value and equity denial, or as a semi-bluff, or as some sort of combo bet, intended to get worse to call and better to fold?

If you were jamming for value, what worse hands do you think call?

From what worse hands were you trying to deny equity, by making them fold?

If you were semi-bluffing, what better hands fold?

If you were making a combo bet, what are the worse hands that call and the better hands that fold?

Bottom line, how are you ranging these two guys when you get to the turn? Does it seem possible that one or both may have a strong hand? Does it seem like they both have weak hands? Does it seem like one is strong and the other weak?

So you jammed $400 vs beginner and $550 vs unpredictable into a $290 pot with TP / no kicker / draw?

I'm kinda a broken record on some of these aggro plays, but I'm not really 100% sure what we're accomplishing? ETA: Or more accurately, as Doc asked above: what are we attempting to accomplish? What's our thought process here? Are we bluffing? Are we value betting? Against who? What are we attempting to do against the ranges we think we're up against?

Ok, so somehow we got called by the beginner. Ok. Lol, was this some sorta massively terrible call with KK or something? Ok. Lol. He's a beginner. But, wouldn't we have accomplished the same with a more reasonable sized bet, see what unpredictable does, and then get the rest in with a reasonable river bet?

But with unpredictable in the hand, our ~2x jam seems extremely meh to me, as mostly better snaps it off and worse folds.

These types of play seem to look / feel great as we drag yet another pot... until we get called. Over the long run, this seems very punty to me. The thing is, the long run is a very long time... and the short term can also go on for a while when everything just keeps going right and we keep taking down these pots... until we don't. I'm currently on a 14 session win streak, just 1 off my all-time record which I though I'd never approach again. But I'm very aware of exactly why I'm here... I'm sunrunning about as pure as I've ever done over an extremely small sample.

There's an old story (I think from HOC maybe, I can't recall exactly), about an early Main Event that is HU between two players, and one guy does like this ridiculous massive 20x bluff or something to win the pot. In the moment, I'm sure he feels like a genius. But the play itself was horrendous, and would have gone down as one of the worst punts of all time had he simply ran into better which was never folding. But he didn't, and he dragged the pot, and his method would prove to work perfect... until it didn't.

Me, I think we have a weak showdownable hand that doesn't want to bloat the pot nor be put in a stoopid spot by the unpredicatble guy (as getting blown off our draw would suck). So I would check behind and then evaluate the river, probably snapping off a bet by anyone and making one myself if checked to.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Knowing the "result", but...

The big problem is that if anyone has AsXs there are only two combos. that are worse than our hand. We did suckout vs. 65 and betting maybe helps us vs. 98.

Are we planning to call or fold vs. a x/r?

An ace hit the turn & both villain’s checked. I had an ace and figured they couldn’t call. It’s not rocket science.

IDK what the beginner had, I didn’t expect a call, but obviously he couldn’t beat an ace.

Why do you need my explanation when y’all have all the answers. I am not asking for help. I am asking for opinions.

It’s funny to me to go ‘crazy with theory’ in a 1/3 game in a blue collar world. I like the opinions here, but not always the advice.

3!/f pf w Joe Aggro in the blinds. Calling is just giving that type a green light to get silly. We also want to know if Newb MP is strong enough to 4!

AP, IME this is often an OP from Newb getting stupid, and not usually Axss getting frisky. A5hh vs TT+ is a 60/40 dog heads up on 764ss, and beginners hate folding OPs, so I let this go. Getting sandwiched between no-fold OP and Aggro Guy sucks too.

Much different situation when H spikes their ace, ofc lol. Glad you won.

What if the unpredictable guy was slow playing?

And we figured the beginner's hand was so horrible that he likely couldn't call a 1.5x bet... and so we made a 1.5x bet? That's how we figured best to extract value?

We've gone over this before, but on early streets there are mostly just three main reasons to bet. We bet for value to get worse to call. We bet as a bluff to get better to fold. And we bet what we think is the best hand to simply protect our equity (while not necessarily expecting worse to call / better to fold). Did we expect our massive overbet with a weak showdownable TP to accomplish any of those things?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I do listen to opinions, but don’t always agree with other solutions and don’t feel the need to try to convince others of my stance like you and the others.

No, I think if I improve on the turn and both villains show weakness and check, I will do something similar to take advantage of that situation again.

IDK what y’all want from me - to say wow, that’s life changing advice, thanks so much and everyone feels good about it.

If my point of view is simply squashed, it’s not much of a discussion. We didn’t care about your opinion, we all told you to do this, so what’s wrong with you?

Many, like you, are more interested in me saying I’m wrong & you’re right. Interested in proving you’re the greatest poker evaluators & there’s only one answer to the problem.

You know me now and I like discussion, but no matter how hard you push a narrative, I will form my own opinions.

I have adjusted my thinking following this forum, but I could do without the ‘why don’t you listen?’

My question to you & the others:
Have you learned anything from this forum? Or do you just listen to yourself?

I'm so confused, you overbet the turn expecting folds? I'd have bet for thin value but it would have been small as there are weak overpairs and flush draws which can be targetted (there's every chance you're up against one of each).

Illiterat point about losing to most AXss is also important, it's a very delicate spot. But shoving seems a very blunt instrument. You're not getting AXss to fold, you're not getting sets to fold, you're probably not getting the naked overpairs to call, and a small bet either gets smaller flush draws to fold or to call incorrectly.

If they had any of those hands, they would have bet the turn

Fair points / questions.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the action to this point makes me think that any AX combo could be the best hand. It's hard to imagine very many AX combos either of our opponents would have that they would play this way.

The OESD gives us additional equity as a backup. So I'd think we could bet small to get some value for our hand, before the river brings an action-killing 8 or 3.

When they both check to us, I think their range is mostly going to be hands that aren't looking to play a really big pot. I'd think 2P/sets/straights would just keep piling it in.

Their ranges look weighted towards hands we beat, some of which are pair + draw combos that aren't likely to fold, and some of which are 99-KK that may not fold to a single bet, so long as we keep the size reasonable.

With $290 in the pot, I might bet $100-ish. If someone x/r's, I'm folding like a lawn chair. If either calls, and then donks huge on any card that doesn't complete our straight, I'd fold. Probably not folding to anything less than a 2/3 pot donk on the river.

I dunno. I think A5 is likely to be the best hand, and if it isn't, I don't think we're getting x/r'd by worse all that often, if ever, and we have some backup equity with our straight draw when we get called by better. So I think we can bet for some thin value.

Meanwhile, on a flop that's 7-high, with 3 to a straight and 2 to a flush, there just aren't many river cards that don't complete our hand but seem safe to bet. I'm guessing we'd just shut it down on any spade.

Really any card between 7 and A just sucks, because our turn bet was targeting all those 88-KK hands that just rivered a set and are either donking or checking to trap. I'd think we'd mostly be checking back any card that isn't an off-suit 8 or 3, which is basically the entire deck except 6 cards.

Apparently my thinking was right. A5 was the best hand. I wouldn't have jammed all-in. I wouldn't expect to get many calls from worse. My best guess here is V had some sort of pair + draw or combo-draw that bricked, or worse AX.

FreeCard managed to get max value from the portion of his opponent's range that would call a jam, but he lost value from the portion that folds turn but might donk river as a bluff. I think the portion that calls a small turn bet is much larger than the portion that calls the jam.

So confused.

If you figured they couldn't call if you jammed, you were...bluffing?

If you thought you had the best hand, why not bet smaller, so they could call?

It sort of seems like you were making a combo-bet, trying to get better to fold and worse to call, but doing that effectively requires us to assign our opponents specific ranges which respond in predictable ways.

For example, if we think SB is on a draw, and MP has a better ace, we could bet big, hoping SB will call with his draw, but MP decides not to over-call with his better ace, because he's either losing to us or he's losing to SB.

You don't seem to be ranging either opponent as having anything that can call, so it sounds like you were bluffing, hoping they'd both fold. And yet one of them did call, apparently with a worse hand.

Apparently not.

Unless the rockets are from Acme, and explode in your face when you try to use them.

My guess would be a pair + a draw or a combo-draw of some sort. Basically a hand with 15-ish outs when he's behind, but way ahead when you're bluffing.

I literally have nothing but questions here. So, so, so many questions. You seem determined to remain an enigma.

My opinion is you sacrificed a ton of EV playing this way.

My prediction is you'll ignore everyone's advice, and may go out of your way to be rude to me or others in your response.

I so, so, so wish you played in my games.

I think I'm done volunteering either. I was done once before, but figured I'd give you yet another chance to prove you actually wanted help. You just said you don't. So...not much point in giving more of it.

Good luck, sir.

The reason to do it isn't to convince all of us drunk randoms who post here ... it's to try to find out if the play was the best play, through some kind of wisdom of the masses ActualIntelligence.

Like even if you look at a solver playing "perfectly", in a lot of spots even when it's checking 90% and shoving 10% it has a very similar EV for both actions. And other times the 10% shove will be lower EV, but it still does it.

In a similar vein I'm (and I think most other responses are) not saying your turn shove is terrible/losing ... but that you could do something differently and it be higher EV.

Also, your reasoning of "they checked to me, so they never have sets/straights/NFD" is _maybe_ likely true at this specific 1-3 game ... but is far from a universal truth.

I’m just here to discuss poker. If you don’t want to do that with me, because I might disagree with you - I find that sad.

I will continue to operate in good faith with those that are not so childish. I have respect for most of you, but I will not bow down.

If you won’t discuss poker with me, I will talk to myself. Hopefully, some of you will express your ideas, without rejecting me for disagreeing. I’m a nice man that loves poker.

IDK why, but I didn’t expect this from doc, another person that thinks deeply about the game. I will miss your long evaluations. I didn’t realize you were giving me one more chance.

If you change your mind, I’ll welcome you back

I guess I’m learning about being cancelled, because I sometimes disagree.