harby33 said:

Yesterday I was playing in a live $150 buy-in 10k guar. and we had just reached the unofficial final table. There were 111 runners, with 8k starting stacks, so 888,000 in play. I started this hand as the chip leader with 178k and was in the small blind. Blinds were at 3,000/6,000 with a 1k ante. The bb, who was playing a decent tight aggressive game, but I had only played with shorthanded, had 65k.

It is folded to the hijack and a lady (likely in her early 40s), who I had played with for about an hour, limped. She had been limp folding a lot of hands, playing very passive, and playing very poorly overall. She had gotten very frustrated with me shorthanded as she was in the small during my big and I kept punishing her limps. She finally started folding. She had roughly 95-105k.

The button, a very aggressive but seemingly smart player, limps as well. I had played at him on a few tables and he was always playing position, but also played a lot of pots. He had just made a comment about “hating that the money was on his left” so I know he was conscious of position. He had just lost a huge pot shorthanded and was only sitting around 60k. I was very surprised by his limp, but I think he was hoping to take advantage of the two weaker opponents in the pot.

I look down at AKcc. It’s obvious a raise, imo. I choose to raise to 21k, maybe a bit large, but I also wanted to put pressure on the short stacks to push and feel like they have some fold equity, but also wanted the woman to string along with a weaker hand (she had been calling very marginal with hands like jq off in these positions). Thoughts on this raise sizing?

The bb calls, the lady folds, and the button calls. So both villains have around 40-45k. The flop comes out A48 two diamonds. What do you do now?

Maybe I said too much about the hand and sizing, but I’m most interested on my preflop raise sizing and how you all would approach the flop. Have fun!

I haven’t read any of the replies so sorry if someone else said this already….

I like your preflop sizing. It is bizarre that the big blind, who you said is TAG, cold calls for a third of his stack. LOL live poker.

I’m checking the flop because they have significantly less than a pot sized bet left. You can induce bluffs (as well as get it in against hands that weren’t folding anyway).

If they flop a flush draw, they’re probably shoving flop, so if it checks through and a third diamond hits, your hand is still quite likely to be good. At that point a minbet (yes, a minimum bet of 6k into ~70k) is kind of sexy IMO. You can induce them to spazz with a single diamond and get it in very bad.

Edit: just saw that the lady called too. Not totally sure what I'd do in that case.

jjpregler said:

Mathematical reason why me must shove:  If we raise to 25k and the deeper player pushes all in for 105k we have to call 80k to win 160k and getting 2:1 we are pot committed to call with even our bluffs.  Leaving us in a spot that unbalances our range.  This means we either need to shove the bluffs or not have a bluffing range at all here.  shoving the bluffs and raising with our premium hands is super exploitable.

I mean shoving is so standard, I can't even fathom any other play being more profitable for our range of possible hands from this spot.  This is a good spot to shove all in as a bluff.  It is super standard.  so why would you want to deviate with your premium hands?  That is a recipe to leave yourself open to exploitation.  

I think exploitability/balance is a complete non-issue in a live donkament like this one. You're playing against people who are completely clueless.