Late night underground game, around 4 at night.

Hero 1500$. Winning tag image.Is viewed as rock from many other players due to their own liberal preflop hand selection. In for 500$ and been building steadily winning alot of medium sized pots, no major confrontations or huge pots. Have loads of history with villain in this hand, probably played around 200-300 hours together lifetime. Hero won a couple of decent sized pots from villain this session, picking off his multistreet bluffs in position with one pair hands.


Villain 4000$. One of the biggest losers in these games, he probably drops between 40-50 K during the span of one year. He always buys in with heaps (game is uncapped) because he likes to walk/talk a big game and always have everyone at the table well covered. He does have good poker knowledge, he understands relative hand strength, SPR, handranges and alot of other stuff- but his big problem is that he regurarly cant control his need of a good gambool and the rush playing big pots.Its extremely rare he 3 bets preflop opens without an ultra premium, even though it happens once in a while when he is bored- he usually loves to see flops with all kinds of hands and then apply pressure postflop with deep stacks behind. Villain often strike jokes at the table of what he thinks of heros nittyness, even so he often tells me under four eyes that he respect my game and know i am a proven winner longtime.


Hero (UTG+1) looks down at black AA and raises to 50$ on villains double straddle (20$).I am not going bigger than this cause i want action with this hand.My thoughts is (amongst other things) that this sizing gives me the best chance of being 3 bet pre,especially by the two 600$ stacks to my left looking to gamble it up late at night. One guy from MP with 600$ calls, button with 1600$ calls and then villain 3 bets out of the doublestraddle to 140$.

Hero?

Raise.

Merits to flatting AA here: it disguises our hand, which is preferable against an overly aggressive deepstack V.

Merits to raising: we don't want to go 4 way to the flop with AA, and since V makes such a small raise, flatting here would only invite other villains to come along.

I don't play 2-5 myself, but a raise in the range of 360 would be my suggestion.

The other 2 opponents are not likely to fold to villain's small raise. MP might if he has something marginal but BTN should be calling with anything that was worth calling $50. The only point of flatting would be hoping that MP shoves. If that happens you likely get villain to call and then can reshove.

Any reasonable raise will obviously largely commit you to the pot and won't allow MP to reopening betting with a shove so sizing is more about knowing what villain will call rather then any math. In abstract I like $400. If I had a read that MP was itching to shove then I might flat.

Good point, wich i didnt think about specifically when i was playing the hand out. However though regarding reasons to flat- isnt it an argument for flatting that we manage to widen our own continuerange, and then let him blast off OOP thinking JJ-QQ-KK combos is the nutz on low boards? Especially JJ-QQ and AK maybe, hands that he often will hesitate putting in 300 BB pre with against me viewed as a tight opener?

build the pot so you can get stacks in. Raise to 400, 500 on flop and turn jam.

There is no way you should be calling this. Make it $300. Keeps a reraise open if someone behind shoves. Also sets up easy stack off post flop. You said it yourself that he's super tight when 3 betting. Let him be the one to wonder if you're bluffing on a 9 high flop.

The problem with flatting is what do you do on the flop if MP and BTN call. Villain is going to bet and now your stuck in the middle with 2 villains after you. It is an easy situation for you to make a mistake but harder for opponents after you. Once you call flop they will know you have something and can adjust their range.

If villain is aggro enough to push hard for 3 streets OOP post flop no matter what but likely to slow down if you reraise then flatting is workable also. Higher variance but potentially more profitable.

There's no reason to slowplay. Also, we don't want to go 4 ways with AA. You can even raise a small amount to get it heads up. Given description, villain is going to be sticky with QQ/KK and he'll stack off on a low flop. Time get to money into the pot with the nuts, raise.

I raise vast majority of the time here to isolate the villain. Only time I would do otherwise is if I think MP is going to shove, so I can reshove after villain calls.

If I do raise, I raise it up to at least 350, more depending on what I believe villain will call.

If you're worried about losing him with a 4bet, you've been playing AK wrong. You're only sitting 75 double straddles here, $400 seems good. Calling is really trying to make poker hard.

Okay, so if i get you right i should be looking to 4 bet get it in with AK 300 BB deep against a guy wich i described rarely 3 bets pre without an ultra premium?

I am not really sure if that is a very good idea.

Definitely raise. You don't want to go so small that it looks like you want a call, but you don't want to go so big that it looks like you're obviously going with your hand. I'd say $360. The benefit here is you really can't go wrong postflop if you're called, as long as you bet with the intention of eventually getting stacks in.

I probably raise small here, maybe just to $250. At that level, I doubt V is ever folding, especially closing the action. I'm also largely indifferent as to whether the other people in the hand call, because even if they both call, pot is $1000 and we only have $1250 behind (and less v. the short stacks) so I'm gii on pretty much every flop. We also let V make a terrible mistake by re-re-raising us.

I will note that when we raise this small, we are giving V the odds to set mine against us. However, this kind of V won't play this hand just to set mine and won't lay down AK. For instance, if he has QQ and no K or A on the flop we can expect to get at least one more bet out of him, and he can have AK and hit his hand and be screwed. So while he could conceivably profitably set mine here, in real life he's going to make mistakes post-flop that allow us to make up for the times he hit his set.

more pre the first time. 50 is crappy size. now its easy raise to 400

Flatting the 3bet is uber high variance in this situation with 2 players behind. They are both like continuing after calling the 50. Both are likely 66-JJ with some suited Broadway mixed in for this situation, especially the Btn. It will be hard to know if you are ahead on most flops because of that.

I think raising to 350-400 is the best move. Based on your read on the villain, he will call a large majority of the time. I would be really surprised if he folds here.

SPR would be 2.4x if you flat and everyone flats behind. We could pretty much shove over whatever villain bets on the flop and just live with the result. That also allows the possibility of the short stack back raise shoving. That is not standard and somewhat FPS but also makes for a very easy to play hand since you are pot committed and could turn into a $3700+ AIPF hand.

4! is standard and less interesting. Basically hoping the guy has KK/QQ and wants to GII pre. Hard to be disappointed about taking down $240 preflop if/when he folds to the 4! but I'd feel like we let one slip through the cracks.

What about going $300 (just over a min 4bet) to try and induce a spaz shove from the short stack and reopening the action?

Imagine the shorty shoves for $600, V calls, then we get to re-shove when it comes back to us. We'd be giving V a sick price to call off ATC when we have the preflop nuts.

Would just call because having a 4-bet bluffing range here when our opponent thinks we are a rock and yet still 3-bet squeezes us is terrible. He's also super deep, and he isn't folding anything remotely playable if he likes to "gamboooool." Furthermore, the two players behind you can still have AK/AQs/99-QQ they flatted pre with and decide to yolo with them.

He also has more incentive to call with speculative hands since it boosts his implied odds with the flat callers, even though he's from the SB and has a bad position.

Even if it goes 4 ways to the flop, no one was getting the correct odds to set-mine or two-pair+ mine. SPR will be super small, and we're GII'ing on any board texture. Ez game.

He most likely finds a fold at some point with JJ, decently sometimes QQ, and sometimes KK if you just start piling in money preflop given your rock image

+1

Yeah sure we're not actually 300bb deep, but it's pretty equivalent because it's not like he's gonna stick in $1500 light

Flatting here would be a mistake.... Taking aa 4ways to the flop is just asking for trouble....we are going to be playing vs 3 villans, one who's at the top of his range and two middle-distance ranges you would suspect.... This means finding safe flops for aa is going to be super difficult.... All 6+ cards form potential sets, any two connectors will be viable two pairs, two Broadway can be two pairs... Loads of crappy flops that we are going to hate aa on if villans start betting...
Raise it to about 330 Imo.... And be happy enough to take it down, this is already a 60bb pot, obviously if you get called you can shove all flops...

I'm not saying you should 4bet here with AK against a tight range. I'm saying you should have previously found appropriate spots to gii pre with ak when playing 75 double straddles so that villain believes you could have ak here. Cause he wants to believe that and not fold his Queens here.

OP your logic is all over the place here. I will try to sort through this.

This logic is false.

A) Sizing is going to play very minimal if any role at all in whether or not a MP player 3bets. Either they have a hand they want to 3bet or they don't - rarely if ever will they have a hand that they'd call an open of $70 but 3bet an open of $50. That's just not how this works.

B) It is not ideal to get 3+ callers with this hand this deep. AA is not so immortal that we want to induce a ton of players to call. It's most profitable to get 1 or 2 callers (or a 3better of course).

This logic is correct. However, it's important to note that in this situation villain has 3bet very very small and there are 2 players left behind you. So this is not the most ideal situation to flat. If all 4 of you see a flop, villain is going to barrel far fewer boards than if you were heads up. Plus you're literally in the worst position possible - you have to call almost all cbets from villain while having absolutely on idea what the 2 players behind you have. By keeping them in preflop you're basically allowing those 2 players to play perfectly against you, especially the player on the button who is as deep as you and will just own you with his entire range (always folding worse, always calling when he has the right equity, always raising with combo draws+).

Therefore I think it is ideal to 4bet.

Either

A) He's not folding to your 4bet with the majority of hands he would 3bet, and then he's not folding these hands on the majority of runouts, therefore we should keep our 4betting range value heavy with AA/KK and expect to stack him.

or

B) He's quite capable of folding at some point after we 4bet, in which case we should develop a more balanced 4betting range which will include a lot more AK combos at the least.

Alright, then we understand eachother alot better. I regurarly 3 bet and play AK hard- but not very often as a 4 bet getting in 300 BB pre. Also i am not on board with the "75 double straddles" approach. As alot of other players my experience is that villains ranges is inelastic when it comes to stackoffranges for these kind of stacks preflop. The pure amount of money dictate it or the regular amount of BB,and using your creative approach can be a real trap if you believe other players ranges are alot wider due to the "75 double straddles" instead of 1500$ in a 2-5 game.

We're mostly in agreement here.

Constructive pointers and i can agree with most of your comments, and certainly some food for thought.

Looking back on the preflopsizing i probably leveled myself a little bit there, cause i had been carddead and playing extremely few hands the last couple of hours- so at the time i felt the need (maybe a mistake due to your take on it) to size down the open a little bit to avoid some alarmbells if i suddenly come in for bombing to 70-80$ pre.