Hand History Review: Timing Tells in 3 way 3Bet Pot

Below is an interesting timing hand I came upon during a session today. The villain who 3bets me is a weak player who is likely playing one table. The other is a very tight regular who is stacking and playing a lot of tables. There were no significant timing reads before the flop.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed)

BB ($50)
Hero (UTG) ($54.34)
UTG+1 ($47.37)
MP1 ($59.32)
MP2 ($50)
CO ($50)
Button ($24.78)
SB ($68.97)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A♠, Q♠
Hero bets $1.50, 3 folds, CO calls $1.50, 1 fold, SB raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $2, CO calls $2

When the tight regular decides to come along, I can put him almost exclusively on pocket pairs he is set mining with. I do not think he can have QQ+ or AK, since he would be likely to 4-bet the weak player. 

Flop: ($11) 9♥, J♥, 4♥ (3 players)
SB checks (21.5s),

The weak player took 21.5 seconds to check, which tells me that he was likely deciding if he wanted to go with the hand or not, and after long consideration decided he just wanted to give up.

Since I was able to conclude the weak player was done with the hand, and with my original read on the tight regular, I decided to take a stab at the pot despite having nothing. 

Hero bets $7, CO calls $7, SB folds

Turn: ($25) 6♥ (2 players)

Once the tight regular calls I can pretty much assume he has hit a set. I would lean towards the lower end of the set spectrum, as I think it’s likely he would have tried to re-isolate the weak player pre-flop with JJ.

Hero bets $13.50,

Because of this logic, I decide to bet again, leaving enough for a very large river bet if he calls to try and pair up. This also makes my turn bet look a lot scarier with the threat of that possibility and makes it cheaper as well. 

CO folds (45s)

The tight regular ends up taking 45 seconds to fold, which also raises another interesting point about stackers. Stackers with sporadic timing are usually playing a large amount of tables. If they get into very difficult spots in big pots, it can be good to apply serious pressure on them, as their decision making may not be as good as it usually is. 

Total pot: $25 | Rake: $1.12

This hand was made possible by noticing the weak players flop timing. We were able to turn this into a heads up pot, while the other regular sees it as a 3-way pot which makes our hand look even stronger. Thanks for reading and feel free to post any questions or comments. Good luck!