[J.A.Sucker]

OK, here's a post that I hope gets some good discussion going. It's basically a summation of thoughts that I've had about the topic of those "pain in the ass" guys who are on your left.

Here's the scenario. You raise in MP or so. This raise can either be first in, or more importantly, as a semi-isolation. Let's also assume that you aren't raising light, though. You may be reraising a loosish raiser in front of you, too. In fact, this makes the situation even more interesting and clear-cut, so one can go with this scenario if you want. Remember, you aren't raising light, but you don't have AA or KK, either. Let's say you have something like JJ, AQs, or AK - something like that.

Now, this pain in the ass guy on your left is the type to cold call a lot and who plays very well after the flop. He is surely a fly in the ointment.

The question is this:

When this guy calls, I really don't like it. When guys start doing this, it limits your profitable opportunities for isolation, because you really can't go as light, since they will be in there a lot. Also, it sqeezes you in between to aggressive players after the flop in a large pot with a hand that likely has to hit to win. Not great.

However, we also know that doing this calling is a money loser, especially calling the three bets. My question is where is my perception wrong? If you have a bad player in front of you worth isolating, he's losing cash in the hand. Likewise, you have this guy behind you playing hands he shouldn't, so he's losing money, too. However, it feels like you don't make as much money in these situations as you should. Where's the money going? Are we still getting it and are blinded by the greatly increased variance of the moment? I'm honestly not sure.