Multiway spot with AA

Poker Strategy Hand Review
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Here’s a recent hand from 20k/40k 9-handed full ring where I wasn’t sure what to do.

Villain 1 is under the gun (3.5M). My general read is that he plays loose-passive and straightforward.
Villain 2 in the big blind (6M) is @dayman.
I am one off the button with 3.9M.

Preflop
UTG limps
1 other limper
I have AsAh. I raise to 300k.
dayman calls.
Villain 1 calls.
Other limper folds.

Flop (1M)
Flop comes 7s6s5d
dayman checks
Villain 1 donk leads 1M
I call
dayman calls

Turn (4M)
Turn is (7s6s5d) 5h
dayman checks
Villain 1 jams for his remaining 2.2M
I have about 2.6M back. dayman has me covered.

What now?

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Thanks for posting!

Pre-flop : wait… what? 7.5x raise ? Ok, calling stations are everywhere at 20/40k, but it’s too much for me. I would go for somewhere around 180-200k.
Flop : pretty juicy, straight/flush draws everywhere. Vilain 1 donk-leads, with what …(note he’s passive)? 55, 66, 77, 56, 57, 67, 89, 48.
Examples of hands you beat : 78s, 74s, 58s, 54s, 64s, 68s, 44, …
Basic question is whether he’s limping/leading with 88-JJ/QQ? But he certainly seems like the guy limping all SC pre, and even call such a raise, right ?

All in all, i just feel like he has you crushed. For me, these passive players donk-leading you’re 7.5x open UTG, just sends me all alarm signs. But anyway, major mistake here is the call on the flop, you just can’t with 2.6 M behind. If dayman stays in the pot, it will give room for a shove and you’ll have an awkward decision. But also, you’re just not valuing enough here flop, leaving room for draws and some hands that you have beat to hit later on.

Why did you call flop ? Was it a bad feeling because you thought he was ahead, and for this reason you thought like : “Let’s just call, and see what he does turn. If he shoves, I fold?”. I like this hero-fold thought, honestly if I had just-called flop, I would have folded turn, because he just has so so many strong hand combo’s due to his very loose pattern, where he even limps crappy SC.
So for me : shove flop, with such an SPR. But to be honest, I like your call/fold thought, because I don’t think you called turn, especially with dayman behind you too.

EDIT :

Oh well… Dayman, please don’t give the results of the hand as you was in it this time, so we can avoid any spoiling.

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BTW, nice reply Dayman, pretty much agree on this, but I don’t think he’s that weak here. What hands which he’s donk-leading twice are you actually beating ? Not enough hands I just feel, IDK, wasn’t on that table.
How does it balance with his donk-leading range that is beating you ?

All in all, we just gotta admit that analyzing these kind of hands are just so difficult, because we don’t have that “normal poker player pattern”… Different everytime, with people limping 64s UTG, I mean is analyzing really worth it ? Shedding a tear…

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It all kinda depends on V1’s playing range - table presence/storyline.

You said he play’d straightforward/loose passive, so on a draw heavy board its plausable for him to call 300k with a pocket pair, suited/connectors, or a high flush draw.

Now it becomes your read on V1, as per hands played prior. I’m assuming you already know what your read on dayman is, or how you’d play it against him.

I also dont think the problem is V1, its dayman. If u call the 2.2m and dayman reraises behind… are you willing to also call that ?? ( especially since dayman has your stack covered, not to mention your read on dayman or what he might be playing )

All things considered, without more info… like the last 2 orbits of play… I’d say its a 65/35 to fold. Too many ppl have lost far too much, when you can’t just get rid of your hand. Yes, sux to fold AA there, but AA really has very little room to improve other than a boat. The board is showing 3-to-a-str8, 2-to-a-flush, and a pair on board, even any random 5 is ahead… even a SF draw.

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The 300k call was pre-flop though, maybe I don’t understand.

I partly agree. The one with the strong hand here is V1, but the fact that Dayman is stil in this pot,
causes you to have less playability : you’ll even have to fold a big amount of your top range here, which wouldn’t be the case if it was a HU situation. The more people are in the game and especially the ones that have to act after you, make it tougher for you to make your own decision, which is pretty understandable.

All true, but it’s always easy to look it from the pessimistic side, where you’re thinking about all the hands that are beating you. But that’s only one side of it, poker is not only game where you’re beat, because you can beat your opponent too. What combo’s does V1 have here, which you beat. Don’t forget AA is a strong hand here, and that the turn, that 5, is a very good turn, so that sucks too.
And what about the 65/35 ? How did you decide that?

Also true, but what is funny on this site, is that you’re playing with lots of people, so gathering this info is hard. How to decide when you don’t have all the info you would actually like to have ?

BTW, to make my previous post preciser, we shouldn’t forget we have to be winning 35% of the time here, and I would be really interested to see whether this would be a +EV call (with flopzilla, I’m sure you already did it tacos ;), or atleast hope so haha), but I just don’t think so.

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Yeah, that’s my bad. I didn’t even catch that I did that. Ugh, I should have waited till the next day to comment on this. I wanted to edit it out but for some reason I don’t have an option to edit, not sure why. Is there a time limit on how long you can go back and edit a post?

Well, I accidentally deleted the entire post!:expressionless:

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I think a lot of these players get trappy when they limp/call and flop nutted hands. There are a good amount here that don’t though, so I think we need to rely on distribution in these cases until we can assign accurate labels to specific villains.

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It would only be 400K to call if I shove and the call would be mandatory imo.

Distribution and I’m sure AA falls in the top 35% of hands from @love2eattacos range that gets to the turn like this.

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Yes. I think it’s 2 hours, but Grapevine or Tiandra (Forum Mods) would know for sure.

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Yes, it is two hours

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Thanks @grapevine, another question if I may, in the process of trying to edit the post I actually ended up deleting it and I can’t undo that. Should I be able to reverse a deleted comment that I deleted by mistake?

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With the SPR being as low as it was, on the flop: Jam > Fold > Call vs typical player. If you know V1 is only leading for extreme value, its ok to overfold in this spot. Calling with 1 left to act behind is asking for trouble - giving way too good odds here. Fold or deny equity.

If V1 is like typical loose player, he is leading out with A7, 8/7, 7/6, 6/5, 5/4, 7/5, 88, 55, 66, 77, 99, TT, plus assorted flush draws. Maybe even leading with T/9 and the backdoor flush draw? You are ahead of the entirety of this range.

The biggest reservation I’d have to jamming is holding the As, as you are blocking the nut flush draw. Mostly though I’m getting it in here on the flop, realizing I’m boned some of the time.

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The edit and delete times are the same, so you cannot retrieve your post, but you can of course repost it.

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I tried to recover right after I deleted it as I realized my mistake right away. I will type another reply when I have time. Thanks GV!

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This is the post I deleted by mistake lol. Nice work @1Warlock. I gave V a range of JJ-22, AJs-A2s, KQs-32s, KJs-42s, KTs-85s, AJo-A2o, KQo-76o, KJo-86o and KTo. 372 combos or 34.5% of hands to limp/call pre flop action. How do you feel about this range Warlock.

On the flop, he’ll have a lot of value but tons of semi bluffs and value/combo draws that we’re ahead of. 20 combos of straights, 9 sets and 13 two pair = 42 for value. I would expect him to check a good amount of these to the pre flop raiser with a plan to x/c or x/r. 127 combos we’re ahead of that V might donk this way are fd’s, oesd’s, fd’s + pair, fd + overs, fd + oesd, fd + gutshot, oesd + pair, and pair with a gutshot. Against this donk lead range Hero has 76.5% of the equity in this hand. I agree with jam>fold>call at these stack depths going to the turn with SPR < 1.

As played… on the turn the 5h is actually good for Hero as it removes some of the sets V has and some two pair as well as counterfeiting the V’s top two pair hands.

I don’t think we should be to worried about V in the BB as when we flat the flop he gets a great price to call with a ton of his range and could expect him to be x/r all in on the flop with most of his value hands for protection and to charge the draws the max. After calling 2.2M it’s only 400K back so I think calling and shoving are pretty neutral EV but both are better than folding.

I don’t have access to Flop Falcon as I haven’t set it up to this computer and I don’t have access to the two that it’s on currently as I’m out of town for work/$'s. FF is a really nice tool for running range analysis in multi way pots. I do think you can do this in HoldEq though which comes with Flopzilla but I’ve never used the HoldEq and I’m a bit too tired to even want to get into it right now. :slight_smile: Cheers.

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As insane as it may sound to give an UTG player 35% of hands, I think you may be a bit conservative in this estimate. I’ve used a 41% capped limp/call range (lots of suited garbage added in, like all Kxs, plus some unsuited connectors like T9, plus K9o …). Joe used to have a capped 26% range for the same purpose. Doesn’t really matter once the range expands this far out.

Hero equity vs V1’s range is insanely high. Equity vs possible leading range is 75%+. Assuming we get to the turn with any decisions left, the 5h is wonderful for Hero, forfeiting many of V1’s 2-pair hands, leaving a narrow slice of flopped straights and turned trips/FH’s that we are concerned about. I have to check out Flop Falcon - thanks for the tip.

Do I even want to know WTF you were calling with here? Cold-called a huge iso-raise preflop and flatted on that flop multiway. Not many hands I can put into your range OOP. LOL, this is the piece of the puzzle I’m most interested in.

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I really thought the same thing. A lot of these guys limp calling are doing it with 80% from whatever position. This guy wasn’t that bad but he was pretty bad. Also I left off QQ-AA and AQ+ but I’m pretty sure he was limping those as well. If so his range vs tacos actual hand is even worse.

yeah and these were already beating us anyway.

No problem, it’s a great tool that goes a little beyond Flopzilla.

I mean you could probably give me a range :wink:

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Thank you all for the feedback and analysis!

Here’s a little bit more about my thinking during the hand, responding to some of the questions in this thread.

Preflop
That preflop raise size is just something I have been experimenting with. Typically I would just always hit the “pot” button for preflop raises, which gives you 3.5BB + 1BB per limper. I have been finding that this size isn’t big enough to isolate though - I’ll frequently get 4-5 callers. Generally at 20/40 the magic number seems to be at least 300k to get it down to 1-2 callers.

In general in this hand I was less worried about V1 and more worried about dayman behind me. When dayman flats I was thinking he had some sort of small-medium pocket pair or maybe another suited connector-type speculative hand that he decided not to 3bet.

Flop
When the flop came 765ss, I was thinking that in general this is hitting both other players more than it hits my general range. I certainly have all the big overpairs that they don’t, but we also all have all the sets and nut straights. They have a lower density of random overcards than I do - especially dayman who is likely to have 3bet a bunch of things like big Ax hands.

When V1 donk bet, I felt somewhat confused. My general read on this action with a straightforward player is that they are quite strong, and their range will include straights, sets, 2 pairs, overpairs and some A7/K7 (though I block A7). I think there are also some pair+OESD hands possible. Overall I figured I am ahead of a lot of this range but I want to let the weaker stuff stay in so calling is better than jamming right now. If I jam, all the weaker stuff folds and the stronger stuff calls, which is a bad situation. Plus I have another player behind with a potentially weird range that includes a lot of stuff that smashed this flop too.

When dayman called behind, I felt very confused. At the time I was thinking that this only really made sense with something very strong (i.e. a straight or maybe a set) that decided to slowplay. Looking at it now, I can see that a lot of draws have great odds to call and take a turn with so any kind of flush draw or OESD makes a ton of sense. Sets and even straights are more likely to just get jammed right away on the flop.

Turn
When V1 lead-jammed, I was left trying to figure out whether I could be ahead of both of the other players still in the pot. At the time my gut feeling was that I was in trouble between the two of them.

General comments

In general, I feel less confident in a large multi-way pot than heads up. Heads up vs V1’s donk here I just go call flop, call turn (if bet into) or jam myself if V1 checks. Against two or more players though I don’t have a great instinct for how players’ ranges are stacking up - particularly when there is an unconventional action like the large donk bet.

I will definitely check out Flop Falcon - sounds like it can be helpful in this kind of situation.

Results

I made the nitty fold on the turn. Dayman calls. V1 shows Kh6h for middle pair. Dayman shows 8s8x for an overpair + OESD. I start banging my head on the keyboard. River is the 7d so dayman takes it.

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Are you freaking serious, lol ? Who the hell is V1 ? I thought we made that juicy hero fold, pretty disappointed.
I mean…why are we analyzing hands if people are playing like this ? How much is he ranked BTW ?
I thought he had the second nut-flush draw when I looked at the results, but it were two spades and not two hearts on the flop…
Okayyyy…:expressionless:

P.S. Thanks for posting again tacos, I like your fold turn, we’re both nits, and dayman likes that, so it’s all cool man :rofl:

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All true, all true, but I still don’t understand your & dayman’s point of view. If we’re playing HU against V1 here, clear call. But with dayman behind us, who could have all these flush draws + one pair for example, or sd + pair, this is also a good card for dayman. I can’t get the idea of re-shoving here turn, with dayman still having to act.
Like you say, he called a huge raise OOP, and called the donk-bet flop. Seems pretty strong to me too. He doesn’t have the sets though, he would definitely re-raise flop.

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