Value? You don’t think if you improve on the turn and get checked to, you can’t find value? There’s a ton of hands that you beat that will call turn and maybe tilt call river.
Interesting had at least. Three of us all arguing different line in best. 
I overplay my draws, so of course I’m advocating that line, but seriously, it’s the only one in which you end up winning that hand against the hands your opponents had
it’s a pretty interesting hand.
I used to overplay my draws and not doing that has helped my win rate immensely
I feel like if there’s any lesson to be had from modern poker theory, it’s best to continually re-evaluate hands on a street by street basis, especially in position. Just auto shoving in this spot just gets you called by hands you’re crushed by.
alright I got a good one me and my friend howard have been arguing about
howard is a solid rec that went deep in ME and I’d consider a good player. he knows my tendencies well and I believe perceives me as spewy (this isn’t far-fetched, I am very spewy in certain spots).
we like to needle each other’s game and there had been a fair amount of shit talking via text before this particular hand. I’m giving the backstory here to explain my line and why I think it was ok - I’m just not sure on one particular decision.
he also knows I often raise/fold more than I should. in the past I have been busted from this same game because I range cap opponents that like to limp monsters and trap me. it works REALLY well against me.
anyway, that all said, the other night he’d been mocking me for limping and flatting preflop. This is a really weak/tight game so I get away with it. He likes to exploit this by squeezing and 3/4 betting preflop super wide. I wanted to exploit this.
I have 88 UTG +1. it’s early in the tournament and everyone is 100-200 bb effective stacks. Me and howard were about 100ish.
UTG minraises. I flat. few flats behind me, as is typical. Howard is in the BB and makes it 5x the minraise. UTG flats.
I raise slightly more than minimum. had about 60 bb’s behind me. Here is where I am not sure. I tanked a bit before doing this - I wanted to jam over the top, knowing he’s got a super wide jamming range here, but felt tricky and a bit miffed that he’d been mocking my flats, so I thought if I raised small it’d induce a lot of jams from him and that if he turbo shoved that I’d call. Jamming 60 bb’s over his bet seemed way too much too. So, i raised small and that’s exactly what he did. less than 1 second of deliberation before shoving all in. I snap called.
Not gonna tell you what he had yet. Thoughts?
Unless you really think he’s just trying to steal this seems like a pretty easy flat call and play the flop. I’d guess you’re overestimating the personal dynamics
yea it is FPS, but, he thinks my call was awful, that’s the real dispute.
it’s a snap call for me partly because of a timing tell, I think if he has AA/KK/QQ here, lots of times he flats and plays a flop, and I think he pauses at least several seconds before jamming with those because I’ve seen him do that a few times before.
But you didn’t call…?
oh i snap called it which is why we’re arguing about it.
I wanted to raise because UTG range is pretty strong but I think would fold almost everything but monsters to a 4 bet from me and I wanted to be HU against howard in position with this hand against his squeeze range
I’m not convinced raising flop is the best play against this particular player pool.
Some of your value comes from using the power of position to save bets, which you can’t do if you are all in.
Oh sorry I was thinking about the original flop action, it’s pretty read dependent, if you think he’s a bit spewy I’d look him up. But usually I’d fold. And absolutely no offense meant by this, but my read on you is that you’re more likely to overread the personal dynamics in the hand and think there more meta stuff going on than there actually is.
thanks, i think he thinks that too
he had KQs but I’m really trying hard to put him on a realistic range here. That hand seems to confirm at least that he can 5b me light, and is about what I figured he’d show up with there - although I expected possibly a little worse than that hand, down to KTo.
I think he does this with a shitload of small to mid pairs. he loves squeezing those. against that range that’s mostly broadways, Ax, and pairs, I’m absolutely crushing him, but honestly, I’m not sure. He tells me that that range is delusional of me. I’ve seen him show up with T7o in this exact spot, except the T7o hand was from the SB, not the BB. Very very similar situation and stack sizes though.
Well to be fair I suck at tournament poker, so I’m not going to pretend like I’m any type of authority, but min raising there puts you in difficult spot both preflop and on most flops
yea I think so too. it was a tricky spot - if someone behind me had flatted my 4b, that would be a disaster. Didn’t seem likely though, these guys are super nitty and I was basically ignoring everyone else in the hand except UTG.
if UTG folds there’s zero reason to do this i guess
meta-wise I do anticipate playing a lot of poker for not insignificant sums of money with this guy, so even if i played it awful or weird that’s not super bad i guess
Flatting to induce a squeeze is a play know as “second hand low”.
If I understand correctly, UTG minraises to 2bb and gets several callers, the BB makes it 10bb, UTG flats, and you make it something like 20bb. Which doesn’t make sense because you say you have around 60bb left, but you also say you started the hand with around 100bb.
Your back-raise is such a large percentage of your stack that I think jamming is better. Additionally, UTG flatted, which suggests a non-premium, so can squeeze that player out and have some dead money in the pot by jamming.
I also feel like this may be fancy play if you haven’t demonstrated you can take this line with AA.
then I probably had more behind - I don’t have it in front of me. i have the memory of a goldfish. this hand’s been bothering me for a few days and i do like the jam better too
You mentioned a T7o hand and it’s possible he did 5bet with it, but he could have done the same thing, but the stack depths were significantly different or he was against a different player with different tendencies. Or he could have been tilted then and wasn’t in your hand. Or your goldfish memory was wrong.
There’s really an easy method, though, to analyze if your call of his 5bet jam is right. Figure out the stack depths so you can calculate pot odds. Determine a range that you’re break-even against. Decide if he is jamming with a looser or tighter range than that.
1 Like
That’s the first thing I did and is also why I’m not sure. I easily easily had the pot odds given the range I give him. He says that range is delusional. IDK.
I gave him the tightest one I could too. If I eliminate some % AA/KK, and weight towards small/mid pairs and less powerful hands like KQs, which I’m pretty sure I can, i think it’s easy decision but w/e im a donkey
i guess the Q is - with these stack depths, what can we give a “wide” squeeze range from BB here from a solid rec? I trust that read 100%, he does love to squeeze wide from any position.
What range did you give him? As described, I think his range should come with the assumption that you’re never folding. He’s not jamming with his entire 3bet squeeze range.