.25/.50 NL Hand Advice (1 Viewer)

[pivey101]

Setting: 3-handed table at the end of a 9 person home game (6ish hour long session). As mentioned previously, blinds are .25/.50 but is being played like a short stacked .50/1 game with most opening bets being in the $3-4 range. Villain would be considered as a solid player who normally crushes the home game, has semi-LAG tendencies and has had a few beers over the span of the session. During the last hour or so, the villain has played extremely LAG.

Hand: Hero ($75 stack) opens for $3.50 with from BTN, SB folds, BB (Villain, $100ish stack) raises to $12.75.

How do you proceed?

 

[JustinInMN]

So if hero shoves, the question is how "pair heavy" is villian when he 3 bets the open raise. If he's 3 betting k hi and q hi hands I favor the shove, if he's being a somewhat selective 3-bettor, I favor a fold.

Calling might be okay but it maked playing the hand tougher. The pot odds pre are 9 to win 16, not a great direct price on set mining and hero will have 62 behind in a pot of 25 for an spr of about 2.5:1, which isn't a great implied price either and make for other awkward decisions.

So to call, hero has to play beyond set mining, there has to be flops where hero can win this pot without improving. Hero is going to have to bet boards that miss villian's unpaired hands.

This is tough, 44 is probably not the bottom of our opening range as hero so it feels too strong to fold, but it doesn't feel strong enough to shove, and it seems too awkward to call.

So I am just saying hero has to be really good post flop to call. Or really sure villian can fold to the four bet shove a decent hunk of the time to take that line.

So I guess my answer is it depends. Personally I am probably opening enough preflop where I need to at least defend with 44. If I shove, it is because I think villian will fold a lot of coin flips and maybe 55,66,77 (if those are even 3 betting hands for villian.). I anticipate being called by at least 88+, AK, AQ, maybe AJ, AT, A9, and KQ. So I would be hoping villian has KJ, KT, QJ, QT in his 3 betting range and would fold those.

I think, despite the awkwardness of the stack, I have talked myself into a call here and try to shut villian out on flops that miss his unpaired hands.

 

[JustinInMN]

I think I will add, the 7x open is part of what is making the math so awkward here. If hero opens for 2-2.50 and then gets blasted for 13 it's an easy fold. If the villian 3 bet is a better size like 8-9, hero has 6 to call and another 60 behind, making calling better not only for the implied odds to make a set, but there is more room to move on flops that miss villian without having to shove.

So that's the real takeaway, be more thoughtful about open sizing. If the game is playing like .50-1, be aware 75 is a shorter stack and maybe just dumping 44 makes more sense than a 7x open that will only lead to awkwardness.

 

[Rhodeman77]

I don’t like the opening size with not much left behind. I agree with @JustinInMN that an open to $2 or $2.50 is much better.

Personally I’m probably folding to the 3 bet and sizing down my opening bets going forward or adding on another $100.

 

[Frogzilla]

I think that’s a fold. Even in position I don’t want to play 4s in a 3-bet pot. What are you planning to do when there are 3 overs and villain does the standard c-bet...which is going to happen a lot.

 

[WedgeRock]

Shoving 44 is 0% on my list of options.

 

[Gobbs]

I would fold and wish I hadn’t raised so much (or even limped) with a small pair. With a hand like that, you don’t want a big pot pre-flop. You need to see a cheap flop and make you move accordingly.

 

[Han Trinh]

Fold.

I would rule out raising and calling given the math here (game is playing like a .50/1 and effective stacks is $75). Also you mentioned he’s a pretty solid player.

If deeper stacked I’d call to set mine most of the time and occasionally 4 bet but very very rarely.

 

[JustinInMN]

I would fold and wish I hadn’t raised so much (or even limped) with a small pair. With a hand like that, you don’t want a big pot pre-flop. You need to see a cheap flop and make you move accordingly.

I agree with most of this, but limping the button is just too weak in a 3 handed game.

I can't fault hero for opening, just the sizing put him in an awkward spot and for no reason other than "it's standard."

 

[Frogzilla]

I agree with most of this, but limping the button is just too weak in a 3 handed game.

I can't fault hero for opening, just the sizing put him in an awkward spot and for no reason other than "it's standard."

I thought the optimal open size was however big you could get the blinds to defend out of a position with a weak range.

 

[DrStrange]

Three-handed poker is a lot more psychology than math. Not that there isn't a place for math here, just that there is a leveling war going on that is much larger than the calculations.

LAG means different things depending on the circumstances. Three handed poker skews relative hand values. Hero should be raising all sorts of hands from the button. LAG play three handed means Hero is raising almost every hand from the button. If that is happening, the blinds could be reacting with a wide range of hands - stuff they normally would fold becomes calls and even 3-bets.

Pocket fours is a pretty big hand in an aggressive environment common in 3-handed poker. But it can't be played like you would in a full ring game. Sure, Hero would love to flop a set but the pair alone wins a lot of pots. It isn't easy though. Fit/fold poker is not going to work well here.

Hero needs to consider a wide range of questions.

How LAG is this game, considering it is so short handed? TAG button play is something like 40% - 50% raises from the button. Is Hero button raising well over half the times?

How are the blinds defending Hero's blizzard of button aggression? Hero should be seeing a fair amount of 3-bets, is he?

How do we expect villain to proceed post flop? 100% c-bet on the flop? Is villain going bust on ace high unimproved on a sequence of c-bets? If villain leans towards fit/fold then Hero needs to call and wait to see if villain made a hand.

If this really is a "wild west" sort of game with unrelenting aggression, Hero can't be folding such powerful hands. I think Hero should flat and proceed to the flop - IF - the aggression is high enough.

If the button doesn't defend with 3-bets very often, Hero can be more willing to fold. Hero might even consider a four bet vs. the right type of villain.

Bottom line, all the options are on the table. I do not know if the original post is an accurate description of the game. Hero might be accurately describing the conditions or he might be applying six handed poker thinking to a three handed game. Just taking things as described, I call it this way: call > fold > raise

But it all depends on the way Hero and villain have interacted in the past -=- DrStrange

 

[JustinInMN]

I thought the optimal open size was however big you could get the blinds to defend out of a position with a weak range.

That is a good way to looks at it too when the strategy works. If the strategy is working, then it follows the 3 bet range is weaker than usual and continuing is less of an issue.

 

[pivey101]

Thank you to everyone who provided input! Hero ended up eating the 3.50 and folding. Villain showed AKo afterwards.

 

[Gobbs]

I agree with most of this, but limping the button is just too weak in a 3 handed game.

I can't fault hero for opening, just the sizing put him in an awkward spot and for no reason other than "it's standard."

I agree limping is not optimal, but better than an inflated raise that causes hero to fold (or set mine for way too much of stack). If hero limps, raise coming back would likely be $4-$4.50. I’d much rather play it for a limp/moderate call than fold it after wasting $3.50.

Three-handed, with a raise to $3.50, it sounds like hero is still likely getting at least a call from big blind and will be forced to fold to almost any 3-bet. So, there is very little fold equity in the raise. What little fold equity the hero has is negated by the automatic fold to almost any raise.

A small raise to $1.50 to $2 seems about right with an occasional limp to mix it up and disguise hands. I am rarely raising to $3.50 here, just because it’s the table norm. If I’m raising to $3.50 here, I’m trying to steal the blinds.

 

[JRReynolds6181]

Thank you to everyone who provided input! Hero ended up eating the 3.50 and folding. Villain showed AKo afterwards.

Good fold 4-4 is garbage against A-Ko, if you have 6-7o and he’s capable of raising garbage hands like A-K you shove and beat him handily on annoying flops that pair your 6 or 7 and he loses.