$225 NLHE MTT: how to play TT OOP vs. LAG?

[Jacki Burkhart]

This is a live $225 MTT. We are a couple hours into the day and started with 10,000 chips. I have about 9,000 left and the blinds are 100/200 no antes.

The Villain in this hand is the Button. He is a LAG. He is literally playing 80% of the hands preflop he limps about 50% and raises about 50%. He does not seem to 3bet or 4bet very often. His stack is about 18,000.

UTG limps for 200.

CO Limps for 200

Button limps for 200

SB limps for 200

I am in the BB with and the pot contains 1,000 already. Normally I would make a raise to about 1,000 but I feel pretty confident the button will call a larger raise with a lot of hands that I crush, so I make it 1,400 to go. And I want a maximum of 1 caller. Plus, I wouldn't mind just taking down the 1,000 now; so to me that all points to a larger than average raise.

It folds to the Button who predictably calls, the SB folds and we are heads up to the flop and the pot contains 3,400.

flop comes

His tendencies are that he is very loose and kinda passive preflop, but very aggressive post flop. If I check to him OOP I can expect him to bet the flop nearly 80% of the time regardless of the flop or what he holds. The only time he might just check behind is if he has a weak draw that can't stand to be check raised.

so what is my best line on this flop? Cbet and then play pot control the rest of the hand OOP? Go for a check raise and risk giving a freecard to the draws? Check/fold (OK, spoiler I will never check fold here to this guy).

 

[WiZZiM]

it's a flop he probably is never folding, if he has overs he's going to continue, if he has Ax he's going to continue and there are just tons of pair+ draw or gutters he can have.

So i can see two lines here..

one is just c/c him down like in the other pot, it's kinda a similar spot, but there will be plenty of scare cards on this board that will worry us, so i'm not sold on this idea.

the other line is a two parter imo..

1. bet big and give up or c/c future streets(not a huge fan of this since i think he will call to light and make our lives hell on turns/rivers)
2. bet really small as kind of a blocker for future streets and try to keep control of the pot by betting small. (like this line best out of the two, but theres a chance he will raise and make us fold our T since he might smell weakness)


So yeah there's never going to be a perfect answer here imo plenty of pros and cons to it all.

i think i go for the c/c most here, if he checks back we can bet really small on the turn or just go into c/c mode until river. The small betting makes sense to me as well, but if he's the type to pounce on weakness then it's out of the question.

 

[RamdeeBen]

Like your sizing pre flop and given your reads on villain, I think taking a x/c line is by far the best play here on the flop. I mean betting the flop isn't bad either, but vs aggressive players I much prefer letting them just bluff, they love nothing more than to just bet,bet,bet when you show weakness.

 

[bremensha]

raising 15 % of your stack means that you are comitted to the pot if no A/K or Q appears on the flop. Otherwise you should have limped too digging for a set or jam preflop.
As played a blocking bet size of about 1400 with the intention of 3-bettig all in is a good idea.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

raising 15 % of your stack means that you are comitted to the pot if no A/K or Q appears on the flop. Otherwise you should have limped too digging for a set or jam preflop.
As played a blocking bet size of about 1400 with the intention of 3-bettig all in is a good idea.

I really disagree that raising 15% of My stack pot commits me. And I think that jamming pre is kinda silly with 45bbs. But limping wouldn't be terrible and in fact, often I would limp here except I chose a different approach where I am basically isolating a bad player who has a wide range.

But I would agree that making or calling a flop bet pot commits me unless the board runs out terrible.

 

[Ambur]

I do not like hero play in general - I think u overplay this hand preflop! I am not sure you had any plan if you get called or raised by UTG etc.

Hero bet sizing is like steal attempt+no info about initial limper UTG!

UTG is the player whome you should really consider on preflop, not that monkey on the BTN!

I would flat preflop 3+ multiway OOP or make it ~t1000 to go!

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

I do not like hero play in general - I think u overplay this hand preflop! I am not sure you had any plan if you get called or raised by UTG etc.

Hero bet sizing is like steal attempt+no info about initial limper UTG!

UTG is the player whome you should really consider on preflop, not that monkey on the BTN!

I would flat preflop 3+ multiway OOP or make it ~t1000 to go!

If UTG raises I have an easy fold as she would never have worse than AK there but would almost always have AA/KK. But I wasn't really worried about her at all. I should have given my read I guess because you're right you need to have a plan for the UTG limper but she was just straightforward and passive. She was playing about 15-20% of hands and limping more than half of them.

Yes my bet sizing is like a steal attempt, which is a fine outcome, IMO with a medium strength hand that is tough to play multiway OOP. I agree limping as also fine here. That's a standard line. Frequently you have to choose which way to play a hand like this preflop and then go with it. I think it's idealistic to pretend there is 1 best preflop line. So I took a higher risk higher variance line here early in a MTT vs a player that I'm most likely going to have to take a high risk spot with at some point anyways. It's completely optional but it's the line I decided on.

Thanks for your reply! I don't think you're wrong except about the part that I didn't have a plan.

 

[IownuzFish]

You are not committed there...i would act passive check calling the flop as you dont have any read on the Villain you may find yourself in that situation where you receive a raise and you really dont know what to do also because you told us he use to act kind of aggressive post flop. The flop is kind of dangerous actually as there are a lot of combo draws especially with the kind of hands this players like to play. My line is definitely check calling the flop and take a decision on the turn. BTW i think the raise preflop is a bit too deep. I would have make it 800.

 

[PBG789]

IMO with a table full of limpers the big raise pre flop with TT is almost always the right play. The only one you really have to worry about is UTG because, as you say, if they 3-bet they almost always have AA/KK and its an easy fold. The rest are probably just calling with Ax, Kx and suited connectors. When UTG folds hero definitely has best hand pre-flop. The flop here is a problem as it is so draw heavy and could easily hit villains range. Generally in this type of spot I am a fan of a smallish (somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 pot) blocking c-bet but don't want to be raised by an aggressive villain so would probably opt to c/c and then re-evaluate on the turn.