Doesn't even have to be a redraw. If you have 1 cent invested and bink nuts otr and villain goes all in for $100 there is no reason to call if $3 is getting raked. It's literally more profitable to fold.

Ah yes ofc. Forgot about that.

Brokenstars, maybe you should call any way to prevent him from pushing all-in in the future. Every time the board runs out TJQKA your opponent is going to be auto profiting by pushing all-in. It's a game of chicken and you have to fight back by calling. Fight Brokenstars! Fight! Show them you won't be pushed around. Soon he'll realize that he loses $1.50 every time he pushes. If you don't call then he is going to be making 1 cent every time. You will be losing -0.5 cents in the long run if you extend this problem to infinity. Doesn't sound like much now, but it could be over a $10,000 mistake someday.

Lol

I flatted AA today against someone that folds way too many 3 bets... also the dude in the small bind 3 bet steals way too much so I thought maybe SB would 3B squeeze over both of us.

My fishy brain is trying to comprehend the occasional open raise call with AA.

Results oriented it turned out well because the guy who folds too many 3Bs spazzed out post flop and paid me a chunk of his stack.
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Usually I railbird the high stakes cash games a lot. I saw back to back nosebleed stakes where on two different tables someone trapped by calling a 4 bet with Aces and getting the stacks in post flop. Seems to be working for them.

Flatting a 4-bet is not applicable to the OP which specifically refers to when facing an open raise.

When someone folds to 3-bets too easily, instead of choosing not to 3-bet AA anymore, a good strategy might be to choose a bunch of hands to 3-bet bluff with.

This.
When AA is in your 3-betting range, you get respect for your raises... and that means you can start making money by bluffing with hands that can't profitably call. And then villain has to adjust, or he gets owned.
To put it another way, by 3-betting AA, you can 3-bet 76s profitably as a bluff. When villain realises you're bluffing sometimes, he'll be "forced" to give you action when you have aces. Thus, by 3-betting a balanced range, you improve the EV of your entire strategy, because your range (which contains the nuts) is stronger than villain's when the pot gets big.

Maybe I'm results oriented but it feels like every time I 3B "bluff" I get looked up.

It'll sometimes save you money flatting with KK when an aces flops. Villian might have a hand he wouldn't have folded (AK, AQ, or AK). Also if you have AA, it disguises the strength of your hand and keeps Villians bluffs in. Just make sure you play them aggressively on safe boards. Probably should 3bet 80%+ though preflop.

If you think in terms if EV it actually costs you money.

An A will flop with the same frequency no matter what and better to have a bigger pot to win on average when it doesn't flop.

@Sil3ntness
You are probably not entirely results oriented. When you 3-bet with AA, you block a lot of hands that people will call or 4-bet bluff with. Even when I open raise with AA more than half the time I expect to take down the blinds. Your opponent is twice as unlikely to be holding a hand like AK since you hold 2 of the As in your hand.

When in the late stages of a tourney where blinds are fairly short and CO opens and I'm on the BU with hyper aggressive blinds I will be more likely to flat KK than AA. The blinds will squeeze way more often against KK because AA blocks many of their Ax hands that they push with.

We could flat AA or KK to balance our calling range but in most games I'm.just going to raise for value and try to get the max I think flatting against players that have most of your strategy down is a good way to mix it up.


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people don't realize you can flat aa but still 3bet air untill nits adjust

I saw that in The Mathematics of Poker, chapter 10, the authors state: `If an optimal strategy contains a mixed strategy, then the expectation of each strategic alternative must be equal against the opponent's optimal strategy`

Thus, if one concludes that Snowie plays close to GTO, then it would be wrong to flat AA-KK. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that versus the GTO strategy, 3-betting has a higher expectation than calling; therefore, making flatting un-optimal.

I'm sure that the citation I quoted from Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman is right (the authors are pretty smart); although, I am suprised that it considers each strategic option in a vaccuum (without considering our range). For instance, in chapter 21, they state: `With gigantic stacks (say, one million times the blind), it would indeed be indicated to play 52s under the gun with some positive probability to threaten to have the nuts on boards with A34 of that suit.` Playing 52s, at some mixed frequencies, is beneficial for our entire range, but I doubt it has the same expecation as the strategic alternative to simply fold preflop. Another example from the authors is they recommend checking AcK/AKc on Kc7c4c but support semi-bluffing much weaker draws (clearly betting AcK/AKc has higher expectation than checking; especially if weaker semi-bluffs have a higher expectation by betting than checking --> They state: `By checking behind on the flop, we in a sense induce a bluff or semi-bluff on the turn. It is extremely important that we gain value with some of our hands to offset this.`)

I wouldn't say always or never, but rarely. the only exception would be if the table I'm at has a lot of regs in it I've logged a lot of hours with, in which case I make it a point to mix it up a little bit more. but the vast majority of the time, 3-bet is the only play to consider.

^^
this

I have never really understood why one would have a 3 bet (or any aggro pre-flop range) that does not include AA.

I'm gonna poise this as "Donovan Theorem"; If you are going to raise some number of hands pre-flop then you should always raise AA.

Even if a player is folding WAY too much to 3 bets then you should 3 bet AA even if that is the only value hand in your range.

The more often our opponent folds vs 3 bets, or really you could more easily just state this as "the less often villain calls vs 3 bet, the more sharply polarized your 3 bet range ought to be."

I vote no, don't flat AA.

I think there could be a caveat that there may be some spots where you simply don't have a raising or re-raising range and in that case, of course, we shouldn't 3 bet AA. Only one example comes to mind but there could be others;
eg; If you are extremely deep with a player who has position on you and especially in a tournament where there are ICM considerations. I think there can be spots where you are so deep that you can't afford to polarize a 3 bet range because your opponent will be calling you an awful lot and you can't make a linear range because it will cap your flatting range and turn your 3 bet range face up so that your opponent can beat you up by virtue of depth and position. In these cases I think it can make sense to simply not have a 3 bet range.

In any situation where you will be raising a non zero number of hands then AA ought to be part of your raising range.

You could have other value hands than AA such as KK or QQ specifically or use mixed strategies. Not having all the combos of AA doesn't make our range unbalanced necessarily. It can be appealing to flat AA, because of the very nature of the hand (blockers, not as vulnerable, etc.). In fact, I saw videos where, for instance, Ike is a proponent of 4-Betting a range containing KK but not AA (which he places in his calling range). Even if it may be a suboptimal line for AA specifically, the other hands in our range benefit from having AA.

+1 to both of you lads, flatting AA-KK is def more exploitative then *lolbalance*.

Really depends on a lot of factors like y'all mentioned in general flatting AA-KK facing an open is a spew barring any reads.

vs UTG.

yeah like never

In really agressive games it can make sense to go for a flat and either backraise or call. I have seen this a lot in HSLN 6max. Defends you from relentless squeezing.

The problem with doing this is a good player will pick up on it and 4 bet you aggressively as they know your 3 betting range will be weak. And AA plays poorly multiway, get put in so many awkwards spots in big SPR pots.

If you use mix strategies, you can still have combos of AA in your flatting range. If you have a proper ratio of value bets: bluffs your opponent can't 4-bet you too aggressively; thus, you reduce your 3-betting combos of bluffs.

Very rarely would I flat-call. Typically, I want to be aggressive with pocket aces and kings so I can narrow the field out before the flop hits. The more players in the flop, more likely that the AA-KK are beat. I think I'd flat-call only against maniacs or really bad donk LAGs.