Hero: MAWG, won a big pot with a flopped set right after I sat down, then have barely played a hand in the last 90 minutes or so. Should look like a pretty standard TAG to villain, maybe even nittish after being card dead almost the whole time.

Villain: 20-something LAG, but quite good. I'm just a rec but pretty sure he's a regular and think I have seen him before. Tons of inane chatter, but it's obviously for show as he's a smart guy. (Accidentally referred to CO & HJ then tried to act dumb about knowing the terminology.) Preflop is extremely varied. Almost always comes in with a raise, but amounts are all over the place, from 7 to 25, I haven't found any particular pattern to the raises. Not much 3betting.

Sees a lot of flops, maybe close to 50% but he has so far had a hand whenever there is a significant pot in a showdown. Active post-flop but smart and folds a lot of flops. Pretty sticky past flop. Also has shown down a weak starting hand once or twice, but just stuff like 97o, not total trash like you'd sometimes expect from a guy seeing so many flops, so probably running a little hot too. In summary, better than me.

Hero in the BB with AA, 700
Villain UTG, covers

V (UTG) opens to 15, a limp from MP, I raise to 50, V calls, MP folds.

KK6 (pot=110)

check, V bets 75, call (all actions by both of us are pretty quick here)

6 (pot=260)

check, V bets 175 pretty quickly, hero folds

Open to any comments on any street, especially pre-flop considering I'm expecting this guy to call, I'm OOP, and he's better than me. (Not that I fear him, especially when I have AA , but I have to be realistic too.)

As far as V's range, it's pretty wide but not crazy and he ought to read my 3bet as pretty narrow. I would guess he has me at QQ+ and AK for sure, and he may think I can have AQ or JJ/TT.

I think his range here is almost any PP, lots of SCs and possibly even stuff like JTo or slightly worse as we are about 200bb deep and I don't he is scared of playing anybody in the room deep, with position, at 1/3.

Preflop is fine. You could also raise enough to kill his odds but you need to go big something like $100. If your range is that narrow going big might be better, your range is very readable and you are deep.

Lead flop. You can represent AK and get a good idea where you stand in this hand quickly. When you check/call there are more hands without a K in your range and you also have to allow more bluffs in villain's range. This makes things hard for you on the turn.

As played folding turn is fine. Villain is betting big and looks inclined to play for stacks.

I think you need to go bigger preflop here given that you're deep and OOP so something like $65-70 would be my default.

As played, I would be cbetting this flop 1/2p given that I'm cbetting this flop with a lot of my air as well. I expect him to float a good amount expecting me to give up the turn so cbet, c/c and reevaluate the river would be my standard line here.

Yeah, I definitely agree that I should have gone bigger pre-flop. If I make it 100 I probably just win the 30 or so which feels terrible with AA but if he does call now it's 200 in the pot and 600 behind and I can't really get outplayed.

I'm still undecided on check or cbet half pot on the flop. My thinking was that he really has to worry about me having AK so my check shouldn't look that weak. And he has still has to fear a x/r on turn so my feeling is that the double barrel meant this was for stacks as @QuadJ notes. I can't rule out a bluff, but I think the triple barrel was coming in any event and ultimately do think he had it, but...

Not a lot of comments on this hand, which makes sense b/c I guess it's not all that fascinating a hand. What actually made it interesting to me is that I felt pretty uncomfortable playing against this guy deep, HU, OOP. I'm definitely nothing special at 1/3, but I don't usually feel such a need to work to protect myself from getting ouplayed for stacks lke that. Anyway, thanks for the comments.

I would say bet flop, c/c turn, then c/f river. Betting flop makes the hand easier to play. As played, c/c flop looks like a pp you're afraid to play and creates a guessing game for you.

I think acting fast is a mistake, which can make you look weak. Can attest to making this mistake as well.

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This is always an awkward situation OOP. There is a good chance you are ahead but are way ahead or way behind. Both you and villains have KX in ranges and no KX is going to give up easily. Worse, this deep and in position villain can call flop to see if you will continue on the turn. Against a good villain you will have to bet flop and bet turn sometimes and sometimes bet flop and check turn even when you have KX.

Just taking the $30 from a tough player OOP isn't a bad result. Make it $100, play a pot with a low SPR and don't worry about stacking off. Checking the flop is just begging him to start betting until you fold.

I'm probably going to make him fire three barrels.

X/c turn.

X/decide River.

100 pre might be the dumbest thing I've read. Why not just shove?

Bet flop 100% of the time, $45 or so

can you fix the preflop action - you have Villain raising to 15 yet MP limps in for 3 after him - im going to assume you mean MP cold calls the 15 and you squeeze?

Personally im check calling villain a bunch here, which you did as played. On the turn I dont have too much issue folding - you've 3bet form the BB vs his UTG open raise and your a MAWG so you are repping a pretty tight perceived range here - JJ+ AK/AKs say, maybe a little wider.

He probably thinks he can push you off JJ QQ but would have to really have a fundamental flaw in strategy to think you're folding much else.

I could see an argument built around calling down however - say something like on a KK66 board, you cant only get to showdown w/ Kx hands (AK, KK, KQs) I guess AA would be the bottom of the range you get to showdown with. I'm not entirely sure I agree w/ that just stating what I imagine the case would look like.

Thanks for all the additional comments! It's definitely helping me think more creatively about how I could have played this hand.

@yummyhumanbrains: Totally agree, I have to pause for at least a few seconds when first to act on the flop on a hand like this. It's a leak of mine for sure.

@smokingrobot: sorry, too late to edit but you are right. MP flatted 15 and then folded after I 3 bet for 50 and villain UTG called. Lots of pre-flop raises at this table and lots of flats but not a lot of 3betting and 3betting tended to get folds. So when I 3bet to 50 I was like 90% certain villain UTG would flat and MP would fold.

Actually, now that I think about it if I'd min 3bet here I could get the hand 3-ways which in some ways is preferable. And possibly get villain UTG to 4bet but I really doubt he would have fallen for that.

As a sidenote, that image didn't help much later against same villain. I made a seemingly plausible bluff when a flush card hit the river and he tank calls me with AK, beating my AQ (board was like J9xxx or something).

I actually left the table right after that hand as it had become painfully obvious having this guy 2 to my left made this table very bad for me.

I suck at deepstack.

Let the flaming commence, obviously, but I think some consideration should be given to flatting preflop. We haven't played a hand in an hour and a half, and now we're 3betting an UTG open from out-of-the-blinds? Villain is a pretty smart guy. We just turned our hand face-up to him OOP, deep. Is this a good thing? Yeah, if we flat we go 3ways instead of HU, so not ideal, but not the end of the world either (SPR > 15, a bunch of room to move postflop). If this was going HU, I would flat pretty much 100% of the time in this case, so 3ways ain't *too* different. But I obviously suck at deepstack.

I also check/call flop. We're WA/WB. I honestly can't hate too much on the turn fold at this point, as obviously things are leading up for a play for remaining stacks on the river.

The problem now starts becoming at this point is this guy pretty much has a very good handle on our range (we're either nutted or have a big two pair, ldo, anyone can see that from a mile away) and yet we have zero clue what he has, OOP. The flop SPR was ~6, which means this guy can *trivially* make us play for stacks postflop with 3 very reasonable bets. Are we cool just hurp durp calling it off having offered massively good 20:1+ IO preflop to do so? Or I guess he shows up with worse enough to be EV to simply grit our teeth and call down? Is it a good thing to be playing for 2.3 BI stacks OOP against the best player at the table when we could perhaps take an alternative line against him that risks hardly anything (when I'm assuming there are more than plenty of fish sitting at the table)? Why are we even sitting in this seat?

I've gotten a lotta flack recently for my play of big pairs in strat threads when deep. I did a bunch of re-reading of NLT+P over the weekend while camping. All the concerns I've had regarding these spots is all in there (it's probably in plenty of other material as well), it's not like this is unexplored territory that I'm simply making up.

Gbut,hey,AApreflop,amirite?G

Nice honest read about the situation, well done. Don't see enough of that here, imo.

So as I say above, this is what I would have done. I would have flatted preflop. $45 3ways, dude probably bets $30, but even then maybe he won't bet as much since it's 3ways. Then I probably check/call $65 into $105 if it's HU on the turn. Then we'll be left facing a $100ish or so bet into $235 on the river. For about $200 postflop, we get to see what this guy is doing and whether our hand is best (which it will be a fair amount of the time). Instead, here we put almost the same amount into the pot and didn't even get to showdown, all in the name of "AA preflop". If we lose, we're still sitting with a ~$500 stack, no unrecoverable harm done, maybe we'll hit a hand against one of the fish. Or we can 3bet to something outrageous that will setup a trivial postflop spot if called, but most likely won't get called, so oh well, we take down $31 preflop untaxed and uncontested and move on.

Of course, I don't tell anyone here that's how I played the hand. They take take away your poker playing privileges, you can't post on the forum anymore, your lifetime winnings in poker automatically drops below $0 (there's *no* way you can possibly be a winner); heck they even rate you less of a man on right-swiping apps that really screws with your dating life. Just make sure you do it *quietly*.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Your 3bet should have been somewhat bigger imo, 70 sounds about right. I actually like the c/c on the flop, but not if you're gonna c/f the turn. I don't think you can do that. I'm actually very much inclined to call it off against this type of player, but I might change my mind and fold the river, depending on his sizing, demeanour, etc.

I'm fairly new to this place, but I'd be interested in a more detailed explanation of why you think it is a good idea, when someone believes they have a skill disadvantage in an area, to shift more of the hand play to the area where they have that disadvantage, rather than where they KNOW they are ahead, such as preflop with aces?

This seems counter-intuitive to me, so an explanation of your reasoning would help me consider another perspective.

What you posted above, seems to be focused towards "losing less" rather than "winning more". If that's the case, isn't the "winning less" outcome preferable?

GG is a nut peddler.

Set mining with AA itt.

@gg -- I think flatting is quite reasonable (I almost said something to that effect earlier but glad you said it to take the flames, which have not come yet...). I think you're reasoning is good and don't really have anything to add.

Overall, it's clear to me that the 3bet to 50 was about the worst possible thing to do. Either less or more would have been better, with pros and cons either way.

@chop$ -- I would be interested to hear gg's answer also but I would say there are three aspects. (1) a call makes it 3-way and it's much harder to bluff 3-ways vs HU, (2) my hand is pretty disguised, (3) the higher stack to pot ratio can actually make it a little harder to bluff because the bluffer can always get re-raised or re-bluffed.

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit liking 3-way vs HU here b/c years ago my favorite game by far was NL200 6max online and probably a majority of those flops are HU so I'm generally pretty comfortable there, just not OOP vs this guy.

I know and I may not even be capable of flatting there anyway but...

As I mentioned and GG amplified, I really may look like a nit there such that the 3bet reveals too much info. I think the bigger picture answer is don't look like such a nit that a 3bet from the BB screams monster and usually I play enough hands to avoid that.

I'm probably also being a little results oriented (with respect to pre-flop) in that the KK6 flop was such a WABA situation that really gave villain room to manuver. I'm reasonably comfortable playing most other flops against this guy but either a bigger or smaller 3bet would have made it easier no matter what the flop.

It also increases the combined equity against you, doesn't not raising therefore make you more likely to lose a smaller pot?

I think this has more merit HU than 3-way. Aces are unlikely to improve, and the more hands see the flop the more the absolute hand strength of the winning hand is likely to increase. Heads up you are more likely to get someone to stack off with 1 pair than you are 3 way IMO.

While this may be the case, wasn't getting out-played post flop your original concern? Doesn't a higher SPR increase the likelihood of this?
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These points of discussion are as much about improving my understanding of the game and other perspectives on it as they are about providing input on your specific situation, so I am truly interested in having holes poked in the logic I've presented.

huh? never folding that turn.

might fold river is V shoves. but we are so underrepped, folding is not an option against this V

GG sounding just a little bit bitter...

So if you are calling with QQ-AA+AK on the flop and then folding AA and QQ on the turn, he can bluff you profitably.

The problem is, I don't think he expects you to fold AA and I don't think that he thinks our range is capped. He knows that we could easily have AK here and check since we have the board crushed.

It's pretty villain dependent if I call or fold here. Against an bad rec player I would call it off because they aren't likely to know how strong my range is here and will bluff with random air and made hands that they want to protect like TT.

Against a bad nitty player I would lay this down easily, and against a thinking reg I would probably fold but it's close.

*grunch*

I'm a LAG and if I'm villain I'm playing this exactly how he did with ATC post-flop. V probably perceives you as a smart but exploitable nit, who's going to fold to a triple barrel without the K or 6, and you usually don't have the K and you NEVER have a 6. This works because you're smart enough to know the LAG could well have a K or a 6 but conservative enough not to play for stacks with one pair.

But you can't do that against a guy this smart and this aggressive. If I were you I probably x/c to the river. The more hesitant/weak you seem the better. LAGs pounce on weakness and you look very weak here.

But you have to at least see the river. A lot of LAGs will not fire the third barrel, or they'll make it a pretty small bet. Giving up with Aces after a double barrel is just making it way too easy for this guy since any decent LAG is going to double barrel when checked to like 70% of the time, even more on this particular board since it's hard for you to have a K and you never have a 6 (but he could, and he knows you know he could).

Think about how the LAG perceives your range and what you're going to fold to a triple barrel. If he puts you on {JJ+, AK} there are 6 combos JJ, 6 combos QQ, 1 combo KK, 6 combos AA, and 8 combos AK. If he suspects you'll fold all one-pair hands, he can triple barrel and get you to fold 18 of 27 of your hands. If he puts you on {TT+, AQ+} it's even worse. Now you're folding 6 combos TT and 16 combos AQ for total of 40 of 49 of your hands.

By being nitty you're making it correct for the LAG to triple barrel his entire range here! You're going to fold by the river between 67% and 80% of the time (actually, you're evidently folding by the *turn* between 67% and 80% of the time).

You are giving up WAY too easily. There are basically two paths you should take here postflop: x/c to the river, hoping he triple barrels light or gives up on the river; or x/r the flop and/or turn--if the LAG persists after a turn x/r, you're beat. He may or may not persist with the aggression after a flop checkraise, but often if you checkraise the flop and he calls, then when you check the turn he will he check behind.

I don't want to make you feel bad as you seem like a smart dude, but you let the LAG exploit you perfectly while holding a hand that crushes his range. People who fold Aces to double barrels are my dream opponents.

If you really don't want to play for stacks with this guy you can raise more pre-flop and then you've got an SPR of 3 or 4 so you can't mess up too badly with Aces. But I'd suggest getting out of your comfort zone and trying to get to showdown. You might lose some money (more likely win some money) but it's the only way you get better at spots like this.