2/5
2nd hand at table
$500 effective

Villain is a mawg on my left.

Hero utg raises to $15 with AK
Villain calls
Only mp fish calls

3 ways to flop ($45)
K72

Hero bets $30, villain calls, fold

Turn ($105)
K72Q

Hero bets $65, villain raises to $150, hero folds?


Felt a bit nitty. I have the A which blocks some bluffs. Without this card should i have called or is this always a fold?

Unless you're willing to put him on *exactly* KQ, 77, 22, I think this is a call. It sets up a bit of an awkward river, but there are cards that slow him down, too. Why can't this be AQ, or JsTs?

We're 30% against the first group, 45%ish if the latter are added, and we're getting 3:1ish.

The biggest flag for me is his bet size, which seems very good to put us in a tight spot and setup a river where we have $330ish and the pot is $340ish.

Maybe dynamics are different in your game, but why are we only opening to 3bb? Wouldn't this normally have more than 2 callers in a bloated pot with AK oop? Even two callers is bad here. Why not open $25. I'd rather take down the blinds or be heads up in a $50 pot than 3 ways in a $45 pot or worse 5 ways in a $75 pot OOP.

Agree 100%. It was my first hand and I was a little gun shy

Fold vs unknown. Turn raises are usually pretty nutted and you have no reason to suspect he's bluffing.

Good fold. You need 30% equity which is a lot vs V's range: 77, 22, KQ for value and bluffs AJ, JT, fds (not many, maybe T9ss, J9ss and those may fold flop). Not enough bluffs to justify continuing and V can put you to a difficult decision on the river where we'll often make mistakes.

Fold. Turn bluff raises are rare in any case and in this case in particular, villain could easily be raising into the teeth of KK, QQ or KQ.

As played I fold, but I would x/call this turn and eval river.

I have his range at this point @ KQs, KQo, JTs, 77, which gives us 27% to win. With the pot odds we are +EV to call. Call. Add more cards into V range increases the EV.

Flop is dry and K hi, hitting a PFR range more than a CC range. Against unknowns, I'd put the flop caller most likely on TP+. In a tougher game, this might be more likely to be a float exactly because the flop is such a good one to cbet.

When an unknown calls this flop and raises the turn I expect him to have air roughly never. I think even merely TP is unlikely; I'd expect just another call with TP.

It's the turn, so we're facing a river bet if he does have a good hand and we're at the commitment point. I'm laying this down without reads V is capable of bluffing here.

I think JTs is very unlikely to call this flop. No pair and only two BD draws is pretty speculative. Without that, our odds against the range you have is actually only 4.5% -- i.e. almost all the equity in your range is against JTs

I don't like the spot your in. Only reason I would call here is if I felt it was very likely they picked up on my being gun shy here and therefore bluffing a lot.

Agree with most. Bet folding turn seems to be the optimal line vs an unknown here. Note the situation and keep an eye on V to see if he is getting a little post flop hood in other situations and adjust to him if so. But as stated, if we are going to assume he floats wide on this flop we are opening ourselves up to be leveling ourselves later. (Along with the fact that that is a bit of a reaching assumption with no show down info to back it up).

Even though we don't necessarily get to go for three streets often here, getting our second street in on the turn is ideal. Sure, this exact card is not the greatest for us, but we still want to bet against the flop top pair continue range that includes K9+, as well as hands like AXs that caught middle/bottom pair, and even some 67s/78s type hands.

It also sets up river spots that we can comfortably check/evaluate call bluff catch.

It feels like a stop bet to me. Villain could easily be doing this with KJ or KT so that you check the river and V checks back. I think this happens often enough that you can call here and x/f river (stop bets don't suddenly become bluffs).

Guess it could be, but it would be a pretty horrible play by villain considering he could just call turn / call river for almost the same amount of money.

If he also gets you to fold the best hand sometimes, then it can't be all that bad.

Also, if you tend to barrel into your equity, and show up with a lot of draws on turn, it's not such a bad play.

I guess I just run into this a little bit more because I have a certain propensity to go bombs away in certain spots. On this runout, if the river was a brick, this is one of the spots I'm going to really blast the river (sucks when I run into KQ or a set, but I think they have KJ-K9 more often). If the river bricks, I could easily make it like $185-195, and hope it looks like I'm polarized - (I want them to arrive at this story: "he cbet flop, bet a draw that came on turn, and now is bluffing when it misses").