New 1/3 table, V (UTG) is a20ish yr old white guy sitting on $700, Hero is sitting 3 to his right on $500

Hand: V raises to $10, H 3b to $30 with KK, folds to V who 4bets to $70, H calls

Flop ($140): 842r
V bets $80, H calls

Turn ($300): 9x
V checks, H bets $105, V calls

River ($510): Tx
V checks, H shoves $245, V calls

V shows AA? WTF?

Is there any way I can get away from this? Maybe by 5b/folding to $110 pre this deep?

This all comes down to preflop and the range we assign him for 4 betting. Everything that happens postflop is hard to judge in accurate manner if we dont try to grasp pre correctly.

Like is he ever showing up with JJ her? 1010 for rivered set? QQ?

We are mainly targeting JJ/QQ for value with our turn bet and river jam especially, so if villain doesent 4 bet those hands we have gotten ourself a real problem. And i am not so sure if the average 1/2 or 1/3 villain 4 bets those hands.

After pre i think villains range have alot of AA combos because of extremely tight 4 bet ranges in LLSNL games as in general. And sometimes they get tricky postflop like this because they want to milk the cow as much as possible with AA, so we cant really go into the trap of ruling out AA just because he checks the turn and gives up the bettinglead.

Correct, I just thought his range was skewed towards QQ because of the turn c/c. But these nits probably don't even 4b QQ pre.

I've been running KK into AA almost every session now I think. And wonder if I should start 5b/folding pre when deep like this.

I hear you man, ive been doing the same thing alot lately- running KK into AA like a world class pro.

But yeah, to play the devils advocate a little bit i would say the river could be a check back sometimes when your up against unknowns whos range is kind of cloudy and not that well defined for you. Even the turn could be a check in position on a dry board like this, when we have serious reasoning to believe villain have alot of AA combos due to preflop action. Its kind of a way ahead/way behind spot when i think about it.

Because it is as you say, todays preflop nits(and its many of them) doesent 4 bet QQ or AK. Heck, many doesent even 3 bet a standard open with QQ or AK- so 4 betting with those hands is totally out of the question.

To eleborate further on this, i like your line alot if villain just was opening pre and you 3 bet with kings then he flatted you pre- then the hand went down like this. Cause then we know for sure his range is packed with 1010/ JJ/QQ combos. But with the 4 bet pre from him that seriously changes his range and how this hand should play out.

Last but not least, i would go with bigger 3 bet sizing here being around 170 BB deep. Both to give him worse implied odds against us, but also to getting more value pre. I would go $40-45 here.

Agree OTR that I probably check back thinking AA is a big part of his range, of course V dependent.

I'm assuming this is an unlimited BI or something with the stacks being so big at a new table? Depending on other stacks, might want to consider a seat change being fairly close to the right (and OOP) of a young deepstack.

So we're on the Button? With these big stacks and no one else likely to come into the pot apart from perhaps the BB, I think I might lean towards just flatting preflop. It's unlikely we're going to be able to raise an amount that'll setup a trivial stack-off SPR (we'd have to go about $90+ to do that), if we're not 3betting a lot (are we?) it might turn our hand face-up on the table (not good if he just flats with these stack sizes), and by just flatting we've already basically isolated him in position with a very under-repped hand where we can play a lot of poker postflop. We also kinda prevent a gross situation from happening which is getting 4bet, which this deep is kinda gross (although it's a weird spot with a small raise and Button 3bet dynamic, so I'm not exactly sure what is going on).

Next time don't post results so soon as it'll influence responses, and I must admit it may have tainted my postflop responses so I'm going to not even post them.

Bottom line for me: being 170bbs deep, I don't consider it a cooler losing our stack in a KK vs AA situation, unless there are some hella big raises preflop and lots of callers and huge dead money. This was not a cooler, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

what do you mean "WTF"? he min 4bet you practically, you should expect aces here a lot, does that mean you fold kings every time you get 4bet pre?

Nothing you can do. I'm not 5bet/folding kings unless I'm deep vs a nit.

As much as everyone would love to, you can't win every hand (or always lose the min.).

Maybe "deep" means different things to different people.

Gwe'resittingwith170bbs,whichIconsiderdeepG

PbutthevillainaintanitB

Agreed. Especially when V is UTG.

The 3b should probably be larger. If V flats the $30, we have a SPR of ~8. He's never going to fold JJ/QQ to $45, which leads to a SPR of ~5 and gets us more value both immediately and on low flops.

I don't really like a 5b/f with KK in this spot. That move makes more sense when AA is a small portion of V's range and he's likely to flat a bunch of weaker hands. An unknown 1/3 V's UTG 4b range is likely mostly AA with a few AK/QQ. We lose some value when he folds the AK/QQ, and we really don't want him ever 6betting them. If we flat the 4b, on the other hand, we occasionally spike a set against AA and sometimes get another bet or two out of AK/QQ, and we never end up folding the vastly better hand pre. (Of course, this assumes we're not going to always stack off.)

As played, definitely check turn. His AK/QQ/JJ have 2-3 outs, and may fire again on the river unimproved. After betting turn and getting called, jamming river is really thin. I wouldn't give V enough JJ/QQ combos for it simply based on pre.

This is the easiest check back river. 4-bets are weighted more to AA/AK than QQ-JJ. If he has AK the point is moot he's not calling. Against an unknown (at least at 1/2 and I'm guessing 1/3 plays the same) 4-bets are AA more than half the time. Maybe 75%.

I'd be in pot control mode post flop here.

I play I the same up to the turn but check back the turn. Would call a bet on the river with this line and would probably bet if checked to again on the river.

As played, probably checking back river.

You and I play in different games if you're willing to get in 170bb stacks preflop with KK against everyone but nits. I'd have to consider Villain a maniac before I'm willing to get in that much with KK preflop.

Gplaysindifferentgames,IsupposeG

The problem I have with $45 is that it'll give Villain about 14:1 IO, which ain't bad to setmine if he puts us on what we have considering we'll mostly never be able to fold in SPR 5 pots (which he can make us play for with 3 small 1/2 PSBs, or 2 overbets if we're thinking of pot control checking back flop). In order to comfortably prevent ~setmining odds, we'd have to go to about $90+, which typically will blow most of his hands out of the water.

Gflattingpreflop,whichofcoursenooneelseis,sighG

^Agreed we're still letting him setmine correctly. I'm not that concerned for a few reasons. First, he's not going to purely setmine hands like 99-QQ; we can often get value postflop from those hands unimproved, which murders his IO. Second, low pairs are unlikely to be a very large part of his range; we'd have to assume he's opening 22-77 UTG deep frequently. Third, more generally, we can't really avoid 3b for value deep without giving Vs setmining odds. By this rationale, we shouldn't ever 3b premiums deep; I would much rather expand our 3b range in position and cbet frequently if opponents like to raise/call and play fit-or-fold.

Can you get away? No.

But villain went into x/c mode, so you could have lost less by checking back turn. That turn bet can't be called by much worse.

you could try keeping it smaller and not betting the turn

I always find this a rock-and-a-hard-place spot. By default, I think we should be playing very tight, especially in shorter stacked games / big raise / multiway pot games (the type of game I play in), so my 3bet range is (correctly, imo) quite tight. As stacks become deeper (or if we should still be 3betting fairly tight due to smaller stacks in the mix), this becomes a bit of a problem if deeper opponents can accurately range me in the cases I do have the obvious (which I happen to here).

I also think we can get just as much value (perhaps moreso) postflop in position by just flatting as we still have 3 whole streets worth of betting / poker to play and can decide then how big a pot we want (especially since the pot is likely to end up HU anyways and it's not the end of the world if a blind comes along), although admittedly it's possible I'm overestimating that.

GcluelessNLnoobG