Shame shame

After running well, and much more importantly playing reasonably well, for the last month in the local live $20/$40 LHE game, I'm back to my old tricks. Namely, bad weak tight laydowns in big pots.

The game typically is highly populated with loose passive 40/4/0.5 types who are regulars (and some tight aggressively grinder props, none of whom were in this game). Their tendency to cold call pfrs is very substantially increased if there are any cold callers in front of them (so the high average VPIP doesn't necessarily mean that a pfr won't fold everyone out including the blinds, since the regulars know I am a tight player).

Atypically, the lineup today included 4 complete unknowns: 2 on my immediate left, 1 on my immediate right, and 1 two seats to my right. The other 4 regulars were of the loose passive type described above.

The hand in question is not a particularly interesting hand, but I make it a point to document my worst played hands. The hand occured 2 hands after I first posted in the CO. From those hands, I was able to gather that the opponent on my immediate right was extremely loose passive (my guess at the time would be something like 90/2/0.1; it was only 3 observed hands but I was very comfortable with this classification at the time because of the quality and speed of the decisions he made on ~every~ street in ~all 3~ hands); Opponent on my immediate left had played all three hands and had either raised preflop or bet/raised postflop (although there is no reason to think he is a maniac; the action he took was reasonable given the situations and he checked behind on the river in one hand w top pair med kicker). No player at the table had less than 12.5BB which is slightly unusual since the small buyin (5BB) is very common here. My primary point is that the average number of chips on the table is somewhat higher than average indicating a good game.

hand #1
9 handed $20/$40 live LHE
preflop: muck, muck, MP calls, Hero raises with AsJc, MP+2 brings his hand forward with enough chips for 3 bets, pauses and just calls, muck, button calls, SB mucks, BB calls, MP calls (5 players, 10.5 small bets)
flop: Ah8d6h, check, check, Hero bets, MP+2 raises saying "just testing", button quickly cold calls, BB mucks, MP calls, Hero pauses and calls, MP+2 says "you just call, I'm good" (4 players, 18.5 small bets)
turn: Ah8d6h4d, MP checks, Hero checks, MP+2 bets, button calls, MP calls, Hero pauses and mucks (3 players, 12.25 big bets)
river: Ah8d6h4d3s, checked around, MP+2 shows Ac9c and others muck

Comments: I've played with button enough to know that on the flop he has 2 suited semiconnected cards between 4-Q with an above average likelihood of a flush draw (he will always muck 2 broadways in this situaion and he will always pause if he has any A). MP can have almost any two cards. Both button and MP are going to see the river, with just one exception: button may fold a flush draw on the turn if it is 2 bets to him and the board pairs or his flush is not too high.

Questionable decisions:
- raising preflop to isolate well known very loose limper in middle position with a marginal reverse implied odds hand with a combination of unknown and/or loose players behind me; (given the number of chips on the table, multiple cold calls was likelier; particularly because I have no reason to believe MP+2 won't cold call triggering more cold calling behind)
- not 3 betting the flop to better define my hand (because the pot size is not going to have any affect on button or MP's calling decision on the turn); I can find a fold on the turn if raised by MP+2.

How I think I should have finished the hand given I just called the flop:
- check/call UI on safe turn and river cards unless bet/raise comes from either button or MP. (when I say UI, an A doesn't significantly improve my hand; I'd only consider a non heart J an improvement); the reason for this conservative line is the large number of scare cards including any card between 5-10,
- I'm also okay with donk/calling the turn and check/calling the river (if raised on the turn) given the presence of the button and MP.

A couple of other hypotheticals:
- Assuming the same action preflop, with ATo, I play the hand exactly as played.
- Assuming the same action preflop, with AQo, I three bet the flop and lead the turn.