2/5 ~ How big of a punt is this hand?

Looks fine? I might size down river.

Not really sure what else you are supposed to do pre-flop. Why would the turn bet be a mistake? You have top two pair in a 3bet pot! Do you think AQ or AT or AJ are folding??

Sorry you lost the hand.

The look/count stack tell is often calculating pot odds tell? AT/AQ might not need to calculate such thing??? Hands like SCs/PPs/Axs are the hands that come to mind?
It was after he called turn, then I realized I might have made a mistake somewhere. Because I was thinking there isn't much Ax in his range with such tell.

Well played.

sizing seems weird to me. you are targeting AQ so just size up flop + turn , leaving a trivial river shove. probably nothing else is calling 3 streets.

$200 flop, $400 turn, trivial river jam.

Obviously, you could play it as a raise preflop rather than limp/3!. If limp/3-betting, could have a range of more big pairs and suited connectors or whatever as bluffs.

You probably have to go ahead and gii. Losing to AA/KK/JJ/QT. He shouldn't have AA much, probably not much KK or QTs, so I guess he had JJ.

The King is a real action killing card. Against an EP limp-reraise range does he put any more money in the pot with AQ? Can he be bluffed off a chop?

Edit didn't take into account that we beat the worse two pairs of AJ (and rare A4s; I doubt KJs gets this far). Still I think you only have two streets of value. I probably check the turn

Yeah I actually didn’t notice the limp 3bet when I posted originally. That play is justifiable sometimes but I would prefer to open raise in most situations.

Maybe you can weight his range more heavily towards the implied odds types of hands, but I don’t think the tell makes a huge difference. Can’t he just be determining if he wants to shove a hand like JJ or if there is stack depth enough to call?

I’m not much of a limper, but I don’t mind your pre-flop play. It’s an extremely strong move and it’s worrisome that he found a call.

Sometimes the check your stack thing is used more as a warning to hero that I know what you’ve got and I’m still calling. He could be considering geo-sizing in position, or pot odds as you say, but it’s often just an effort to slow you down.

I would pot the flop. Doing my best to fast play TPTK. I assume villain calls.

Turn is where it gets real.
You improved to 2pair, so I would pot the turn. Sure, you could be value-owning yourself, but the only hand likely beating you is JJ

As played, I don’t understand the river
Couldn’t you just check it back
I don’t see why you feel you have to commit another 600 after this sort of action?

Limp raising UTG is so dumb and no one is remotely balanced at it you might as well just wear a shirt that says AK/QQ+

PRE - if you're going to limp-3B from OOP, go bigger.

FLOP - c-bet is ok, but I think we should go smaller, like 85-90.

TURN - kinda weird spot now that we make T2P. Definitely want to bet. Not sure about what size. Think small is good.

Not sure why we'd be worried when he calls. Doubtful he's getting here with QT, A4s, or 44, and there are only 3 combos of JJ. I'd think he has a lot more AX in range.

RIVER - even less likely he has A4 or 44 now. I doubt he calls a jam with AT or worse AX, but we can target AQ, and AJ. Just stick it in and be okay with whatever happens.

If I was in the opponent's spot here facing aggression by an early position limp-reraiser, I'd fold AQ in less than a heartbeat here and would give very serious consideration to folding AK. As banana says, nobody limp-reraises anything other than QQ+/AK, and does that type of player start range betting and blasting off with QQ?

What flop were you looking for when you called the 3-bet with AQ then?

I'm not necessarily saying that no Villain is going to play like this, but it is a massive deviation to assume that V's range is this filtered by the turn bet, and hugely exploitable if so.

Are people who are saying they're okay with bet bet shove aware of pre-flop? Like no way in hell am I calling down a reg here with anything but JJ here vs a limp raise from UTG and I'd HATE having JJ here......

Genuine question, who here is calling AQ/AJ/AT vs this line 220bb deep? If we are to assume villain is a 2/5 reg, we should probably approach the hand in such a way. I bet all of us are doing a lot of folding on the turn with those hands.

Absolutely hate pre, just genuinely hate it and flop sizing doesn't seem good either.

Got distracted when writing my post so posted 15 min after you but I'm saying the same. Like are people paying attention to pre? Hero UTG limp raise pre and we're somehow expecting regs to call off 200bb with AQ?AT? on this board? Really?

If we had QT on this river we would absolutely HATE facing a shove and that's a straight. I'd hate my life on the turn if I had JJ. AQ is not even a debatable fold.

Why? Our pre-flop action should've already massively filtered that range. Realistically what is a reg calling vs an UTG limp raise?

I guess at some point we can't avoid the contentious debate about open-limping preflop. If the premise is that V is only calling with a range like TT-QQ/AK, then I can agree with your feelings about postflop play but then the massively overfolded spot is preflop.

I'm not trying to look to much into the given reads and I'm inclined to treat this like a normal 3bp. I do open limp when I feel like the table dynamic is right, and in my experience most people defend their opens fairly similarly as to a regular 3b (and more importantly don't tighten their initial raising range at all). But if this isn't representative of the field (I know there is a certain image and stigma associated with LRRing), then yeah postflop is going to differ.

Although realistically if you think Hero is beat, V can have.. exactly JJ?

Can only go by what my population reads are and what I would do in villains shoes, assuming he's a reg, which is what OP is doing. Assuming all of those, yes, preflop is massively overfolded and rightfully so.

I hate everything about pre. Just hate it. The sizing, the hand selection.

Yes because what is villains preflop calling range vs this line? I think treating this like a normal 3bp is a huge mistake but I'll be the first to admit this is based on feels and nothing else. I think a typical 2/5 reg will absolutely treat this line completely differently to a normal 3bp because of how notorious the limp raise from UTG is but I'd be lying if I said I've seen a hand like this play out more than twice.

Okay, I'm on board with the conclusions about post if we assume this about pre. Check turn and whether to continue versus a bet probably depends on how much AK is getting flatted preflop.

I will concede that I would probably be playing like your described reg V if some unknown were to pull a LRR on me, but on the flip-side I would not expect an unknown to play like that if I were the LRR. But I am also pulling the fact that it seems pretty common for players who "look like regs" to turn out to not be that good after all.

Yeah this is totally fair and I wouldn't be shocked if I was totally wrong about the hand because villain is in fact your typical drooler.

The stack-count pre can often be someone figuring out implied odds. But in this scenario, you 3B to a somewhat small size. V may have been trying to figure out if he could 4B to a size that wouldn't pot-commit him to calling off the rest if you 5B-jammed.

I actually think that's a more likely explanation here, when you're $1100+ effective. It's obvious you're not deep enough for him to make a light call to set mine. So he's more likely trying to figure out if a 4B has any fold equity or if he has to auto-call if you jam over the top.

To me, it looks weak, not strong. If he had AA, he's not wondering if he has to auto-call a jam. Probably not thinking that hard with KK, QQ, or AK. To me, it looks exactly like he's got AQs/AJs/ATs/A5s, and is contemplating a 4B-bluff, because he has an ace in his hand as a blocker to us having AA.

If he had JJ, he's probably not contemplating a 4B. He might be thinking about implied odds. But if he was, I'd think you'd likely pick up another tell, something that indicates he doesn't like calling, but just can't make himself fold.

If he called with JJ and flopped middle set, that sucks, but it is what it is.

It's also why you should c-bet smaller when the board is ace-high and it's a 3B pot, and you're OOP. If he has JJ, he may raise flop if you make it $80 or less. Once the K rolls off on the turn, he's probably not raising then, even if you bet small again, because now he's losing to AA and KK, and really only beating AK and worse AX.

Even if he doesn't raise your smaller c-bet, it's fine. We'll lose less when we're behind and / or we don't improve. TPTK isn't always a 3-street hand, especially not when V is a reg. Once we make T2P on the turn, we're just going broke if he has JJ.

Next time use a bigger 3B size pre, so he doesn't shrug-call as often. You do realize AK is a bluff when we 3B pre, not a value bet, yes? We want to fold out PP's we're flipping against.

Just sort of skimmed the rest of the thread, looking for the state of debate on what V has that can call when hero goes limp-3B pre, bet-bet-jam.

Not really directing this specifically at Pablito, but as a general response to anyone saying we shouldn't jam river...

Yeah, I hate the limp-3B pre, too. I really hate the 3B sizing. And I hate the flop c-bet size. And yeah, I see that V can have JJ here. I really doubt he's showing up with QT, A4, or 44.

Please don't make me have a coronary by suggesting V could have KK.

I really hate suggesting that V might call river with worse AND might also fold better, but how awesome does JJ feel here? Probably not awesome. How much JJ does V even have, that calls a limp-3B pre?

I'm not sure how much stock I put in the "looks like a reg" read. Most regs are going to find a disciplined fold to the UTG limp-3B when they have JJ. They're not going to make a fairly speculative call without getting the correct implied odds.

If he's incapable of folding JJ pre, he may be just the sort who lets entitlement tilt lead him to making a light call with worse AX, but not before he contemplates making a tilty 4B-bluff.

Also, I'm not sure how much of a nit vibe Dango gives off, but if he does give off strong nit vibes, and if V is a paying-attention reg, it's even more of a fold pre. If V gets to the flop with JJ, and doesn't raise with middle set, is he going to call turn and river, facing this line from hero?

IMO, the combination of "MAWG, looks like a reg" and the "counting my stack" tell seem more like a guy who's got AX and is considering if he wants to turn it into a GTO-approved 4B-bluff and less like a guy who's trying to figure out what to do with JJ facing a limp-3B from a possible nit in UTG.

And yes, I think AQ, AT, and any / all worse AX that aren't aces up will often get folded on the turn. At least, they should be folded. Our river jam would mostly be targeting AJ that really regrets not raising to take it down on the flop.

So what if AQ/AT probably don't get to the river this way, and probably won't call our jam if they did? Maybe V talks himself into continuing on the turn because he blocks QT, and might bad-reg logic himself into making the river call with the same reasoning. Maybe he convinced himself pre that hero's limp-3B was FOS.

He shouldn't have AQ/AT on the flop. Those hands should be folded pre. If he's not folding them pre, or on the flop, he may not be a reg, or he may just be super-sticky.

Do we think V isn't likely to bet river with a worse value hand if we check to him? If we don't bet for value, are we...check-folding, because V would never bet worse for value, and always / only has JJ?

Would he NEVER bet AK/AJ on the river? Would he never bet AQ/AT, either thinking he's bluffing, or deluding himself into thinking he's value-betting? If we check river, think V has to bet at some frequency, but I don't know how we decide that he turns worse AX into a bluff or bets worse for value more often than he just checks back with those hands, and more often than he calls if we jam for just under 1/2 pot.

I dunno. I'm definitely not at all certain about WTF is going on in this hand, when hero takes this line. Seems like he'll either win a big pot by accident or lose because the pre-flop and flop line is terrible. I won't have a coronary if V somehow found a MUBSy fold with JJ, because hero's line looks like AA/KK.

I guess what I'm saying is that as much as I think Pablito's point is correct in theory, it's live low-stakes and this hand is so far off the rails from the start that I'm not sure how much theory actually applies here, and we're in pure "feelz" territory.

I feelz like hero $hlt the bed but may have found someone willing to roll around in it with him.

Yeah, there is a problem doing a limp-3! with AK at a 2/5 game. Once you limp, when a reg raises, the play is probably to flat call, and your hand is disguised. It is much better that he thinks you can't have AK when an A or K hits than if he thinks you usually have QQ+/AK. You don't want to be playing face up OOP versus a reg.

Not saying limp/3! can't be a good play. However, for value it is better at 1/3. Also, difficult to do it with AK fairly deep. You probably should be doing this with a lot of bluffs as well as big pairs if you are making this sort of play.

Yeah, he should be folding almost everything preflop or on this flop or turn. Don't think he would be happy with JJ on AKJ here.

@dangomango - just to be fair, and clear...

Open limping is generally a bad play. However, if the conditions are right, I could see an argument for doing it.

For example - there's a wild 2/5 game that runs on Friday nights (and possibly other nights) at Parx, filled with regs. They have a mandatory $10 live straddle UTG, a mandatory $20 blind raise UTG1, and the understanding / agreement among the players is that a limp must be $30, to re-open the action for the $20 UTG1. They'll also do bomb pots every orbit when they can get away with it.

The buy in for the game is still capped at $1k, effectively 50 straddles. So of course you see guys getting stacked early on, and reloading right away. An hour or two in, there will be $20k-$30k on the table. I've seen people sitting with $10k stacks in that game.

In that game, I'd have some limp-3B's from EP, because I know the regs in the game and how they play, and they know me and how I play. They're all friendly, but they also will play for max pain. I know an EP open will often go multi-way, but not always get 3B, so I'd have some EP limp-traps in my arsenal.

(DM me if you want to get into the game.)

In a normal game, against normal opponents, it doesn't make much sense with AK. If you're going to make that play, with any hand, you have to go bigger, to make it as painful as possible for opponents to continue in position, and deny them the correct implied odds to set-mine.

You happened to get a great flop, and even better turn, yet you were worried after you bet your T2P for value, and weren't sure about jamming 1/2 pot on the river. Part of the reason is your small 3B size, which allowed V to get to the flop with a wider range.

You didn't have much of a read on V. He may not have had any read on you. In a lot of your threads, you say you think you have a tight, or even nitty image. We can't know if V saw you that way. Even if not, your limp-3B should look strong, but the small sizing tells a contradictory story. In V's spot, deep stacked, I might suspect shenanigans, and flick in the call to see a flop.

It's only your post flop line that helps make your story more convincing. I'd be hating life on the river as V, with any hand that wasn't AA or 44.

I'm not sure how many opponents would be able to release JJ, as much as they probably should. I'm not sure how many would release AJ/AQ/AT, even though they all should. I'd be chewing on my own guts with AK if I was V.

Here's the kicker - I don't think anyone here is positive if your river jam is for value, targeting AJ or even worse AX to call, or a bluff targeting JJ to fold. That indicates at least one mistake was made on an earlier street, possibly multiple mistakes across multiple streets.

Lastly, what jumps out at me about your OP is that you only felt sick on the turn, and I'd assume also the river. You should have felt sick when he called pre, and especially when your c-bet gets called on the flop.

I won't be shocked if he calls with JJ or folds JJ. Won't be shocked if he calls with AK or folds AK. If he gets to the river with AJ, I won't be shocked if he folds or calls. I might be mildly surprised if he calls down lighter than AJ. I'd shrug if he snaps with A4, and point you back to your pre-flop and post-flop lines as problematic.

Can we get the reveal? Curious what you ran into.