really typical situation, almost didn't make the thread because I'm not sure how seriously people will take me or realistically look at the situation.

anyway,

5/10 NL with 1k effective all the way around.

5-handed, UTG opens to 35, we have 22 in the CO.

UTG is a very good aggro player, runs maybe 22/17ish and fires 1-2 barrels frequently postflop, generally doesn't get it in without the goods but is aggro enough to make the occasional move. no blatantly exploitable post-flop tendencies.

best play right now and why? how do we balance this out % wise assuming that calling 100% of the time may be standard but most certainly isn't ideal. i'm not saying it's not the best play.

some random thoughts--

by calling we have to accept the fact that we are going to get squeezed off our hand a certain % of the time preflop. Typically the very strong aggressive players will squeeze here more often than most so thats something to keep in mind. At the very least, we're getting squeezed off our hand 10% of the time. also when we call against this particular player, our hand is going to be unplayable on the large majority of flops given that he has very good post-flop balance. So we are giving him some very profitable c-betting opportunities. so between the times we lose the pot preflop or we see a flop and get pushed off quickly, we might be losing 10 pots (~35bb) for every time we hit a set. our implied odds certainly don't make up for that so calling generally seems to suck here even though it's very standard and i probably call here the large majority of the time.

plus side, we may have some profitable bluff-raising or multi-street bluffing opportunities. also we generally avoid big mistakes and hitting a set and getting paid is always very fun, even if it happens a lot less than people like to think and we may often not have a lock hand (ie we might have 65% allin on the flop vs flush draw + gutshot).

by raising, we may be laying 130 or so to win 50 preflop with a (hopefully) positive expectation going to the flop if called. most people don't 4-bet here nearly enough against light 3-betting taggs so it's reasonable to suspect that a player might open 20% of their hands might only 4-bet the top 1-2% of their hands or so. c-bets are generally profitable in 3-bet pots and raising to isolate here is a better idea than most understand. It needs to be balanced well though with legit hands and thats something that especially needs to be thought about in detail against people who love to c/r all-in and other such nonsense. against some players it's so obvious that it's coming (big opening range, absurdly tight 3-bet calling range) that we can pretty much just not c-bet if they call our reraise pre.

easy to spew like crazy when we start doing this.

folding just can't be right, we have a pair!

if anybody bothered to read, please post thoughts. Especially thoughts that have to do with merging ranges, math, various %'s, etc.


cliff notes: super long winded post by some idiot who was extremely tired and might have had a drink or 2, probably makes no sense and everything is likely wrong