Backstory:

BB is a young LAG. In our first encounter, he bet out $20 on a J54r board from the BB, and I raised him to $60 on the button with QJ (I'd limped after some other limpers). He begrudgingly folded. I had a pretty tight image at the table. Our next encounter, I open-raised $15 with A5o from the CO and he called in the SB. The flop was T44. I continuation bet $25. He called. Turn 4. Check, check. River J. Check, check. He flips over A8o and we split. The next hand, I open-raise to $15 with KTo in MP3. He called on the button. The flop came terrible for my hand, and I conceded the pot with a check/fold. I figured we were "even". One orbit later, this came up...


Harrah's NO 2/5 NLHE (9-handed)

UTG $300
MP1 $400
MP3 $550
Cobalt $500
SB $250
BB $315

Cobalt is Button w/ A K . UTG and MP1 are loose donkeys and calling station-esque. MP3 is TAG. SB seems somewhat solid but slightly tricky. BB is LAG.

Pre-flop:
UTG calls, MP1 calls, 1 fold, MP3 calls, 1 fold, Cobalt raises to $30, SB calls, BB re-raises to $130, 3 folds, Cobalt ?

push?
meh, here is my take on it, if you know he is lag, and he sees you open raising marginal very frequently, isn't he likely to make this raise with many hands that AK suited beat? He is obviously pot committing himself, it seems like push or fold.

I'd lead towards calling here. There's a nice chunk in the pot plus the fact that sb may feel obligated to call if you do. If you hit this flop you could be looking at a nice pot and if not you've got position.

Suppose an arguement can be made for pushing as well. From your read on him it sounds like he could have just about anything. I'd say 88-AA + A10 and up are possibilites. He saw you open for 15 in position with a weak ace before so its likely he simply puts you on making a move. Different image I'd say fold but your image of him and his of you this is likely a pot you want to play. IMO

EDIT: At first glance I didn't even notice stack sizes listed (when I'm tired I'm retarded), in that case I'd say its a push. You're ahead over a good number of hands bb would make this move with.

I would say stop-n-go....but he's in position to do that

push or fold are youre only options

if you call and the flop is 9 high, hes gonna push andyoure gonna be priced in getting over 3-1. So if youre gonna call you might as well push

gamble. or fold.

you know his range here better than any of us so.

- Jordan

If he has AA/KK, then that's a pretty big overbet. I would think he would bet somewhere around $75-$90 or even less if he had one of the two hands that dominates you as he wants some action.

The fact that he's LAG and has seen you open raise with marginal hands opens up his range. Also, he could be sending you a message to stop attacking his blinds as you've had a few confrontations already.

I think that this is a push

I think it's pretty obviously a push or fold.

Also, does the fact that SB called the original raise factor into y'all's thinking at all? For me, it does fairly significantly.


This wasn't an open-raise on my part. This was actually probably only the fourth pot I've raised pre-flop in 9-10 orbits.

I tend to think SB is not cold calling your bet out of position with a huge hand. I cannot imagine him doing it with any hand that can call a reraise from the big blind and a push from you unless SB is extremely tricky. However, if SB is tricky enough to cold call with AA or KK, I probably lay this hand down.

It would for me as well. Without having a read on him its really hard to say for sure but I don't think he smooth calls you with AA or KK's. I think the range is likely pretty wide as well. Small pocket pair looking to flop a set, perhaps or maybe any suited Ace.

If you put your self a head of bb I think you make this push regardless of sb. There are really only two hands that have you dominated, anything Queens or lower you're getting a good price against.

I can't imagine small blind calls originally w/ anything that's beating us & is willing to call to a push.

My only concern w/ pushing is that you haven't given an instance of the villian demonstrating any LAGish preflop type plays. Seems like he's looking to fire at blanked flops. (Possibly not the case here though.) Still, if he was deeper, we could call, but if you're willing to believe that he's reraising you're LP raise because he's seen some weak holdings on your part... I think a push is good for this hand and is especially good from a metagame standpoint.

When I say that it's a significant factor, I'm not super worried about the SB necessarily smooth-calling with a big pair. It's more of...BB is more likely to have a hand with that action.


His typical open-raise pre-flop is $25. He's done that once or twice per orbit. He'll usually fire a 2/3 pot on the flop.

What I mean by laggish preflop play is that we haven't seen reraises w/ suited connectors or mid pairs. Or open raises from these hands out of the blinds when limped to. As well, we haven't established that he's raising an unreasonable % of pots preflop.

Is it possible he is running a squeeze play with any 2? He views you as tight so he may not think you will call when you are not closing the action, and the BB may think SB cannot be that strong and thus think he is picking up an easy pot. Plausible?

What? have you ever really stopped and go in a cash game. did you have 10 bets?

only when he has a small stack like villian does in the sit.

if you move PF he's gonna call so why not call and push on the flop and maybe take down the 130

Villian has 60 bb's. Discounted for live, let's just call it 45-50. I've never run a stop and go in a cash game. However, if we were going to do it, we would need 1) much shorter stacks, 2) a pair against a possible AK, not the other way around. 3) the pot to be smaller preflop.

sorry

was looking at SBs stack of 250

So, I felt like a wuss, but after thinking for a while, I ended up folding. If he had more money, I could call. If he had less, I could more easily push. If this were a tournament, it'd be an easier push. He just had that terrible mid-size stack that made the decision frustrating. I was pretty sure that he had something like QQ/JJ/TT, but I didn't think he'd fold to my push...and I don't like being on the wrong side of coins. The SB folded too and showed me that he'd had 99. MP3 said that he folded an AT, so I felt a bit better about my decision.

When I look at the equities in PokerStove, I give BB the range of TT+,AQs+,AKo. Looks like my equity is 45.7% against that....which means it would've been an easy call if his raise was all-in, but it means that if I push, I'd be putting money in as an underdog. I really figured I could find better situations, and I'd only invested $30 in the pot.

A couple of questions, if you don't mind elaborating on your thought process.

1. Why aren't you calling then getting 2:1 and having position? You didn't seem worried about the SB having a big hand, but he still may come along to add value. Are you worried that if you call and hit your hand, there's no implied value there?

2. I understand not pushing for fear of pushing as an underdog, but since he says he's holding 99, do you feel like there's no fold equity there?

1. AK likes to see all five cards. A lot of the time, I'm going to miss and be folding to BB's flop push. Some of the time, I'll hit and lose. With this much money in the pot pre-flop, the value of position will go down considerably.

2. No, no...the BB didn't show. The SB showed 99. When I added up all of the factors, I was conflicted, but I felt that BB had to have a big hand to raise in this position.

Quoted for Truth.

..Push.

JJ folds in most cash games. QQ probably, too. Otherwise, we tip our hat.