Hi guys I'd like to know your thoughts on this particular situation, I have found myself in this spot twice now over the past 15 sessions or so.

We are playing $1/3 NL, 9 handed. Most players have stacks around $300 including hero, except our main villain who starts the hand with $156. All of the players involved in this hand have not proven to me they are anything but loose-passive, limping and calling a wide range against a single raise. The main villain has only been at the table for a few hands. Hero has been pretty active at the table and observant players may think I have been 3-betting/C-betting a little more frequently than the rest of the table, but main villain wouldn't know this since he is new.

Hero is dealt A K in the CO

MP opens to $12, 2 callers, Hero raises to $55, villain (first caller) calls.

Heads up...
Flop: 9 4 2 (Pot $138)
Villain ($101 remaining) checks

Hero?

Well, I'd jam. But I suggest you construct a range for V and then determine how much of that range you think he'll fold. If that's greater than about 40%, jamming is profitable even if you never improve.

Doing this is a critical skill for improving at poker. If you are serious about getting better, there's no substitute for doing this. There are several software tools to let you do this more easily, but I'd do it by hand at least a few times. There's nothing like going through the grunge to start improving your intuition and estimation skills.

Thanks for the advice and analysis, I've been playing for almost 10 years and after a few years of playing very sporadically decided to get back into it more regularly and really solidify the fundamentals. I downloaded Flopzilla last week and put this one in. I will wait to say what I ended up doing, but what I was thinking when checked to me was "Will he ever call with a hand I'm beating?"- Probably not "Will he ever fold a hand better than mine?" - Maybe if we put some small-mid pairs in his range and I can convince him a jam means I only have JJ+. And finally "can I get him to fold overcards that have some equity" - I would assume so. I wonder if others would debate betting smaller ~ $50 in some sort of meta game to show I am extremely strong or if that is just plain wrong, I would be in the jam or nothing camp personally.

The range I put in for him is 88-QQ (though QQ weighted 50% towards 4bet), AT-AQ, KT-KQ, QJs, JTs. He was new to the table so I had to generalize based on the player pool and my experience with LLSNL. When I put this range in with this flop, he has overcards 73% of the time. He has an over pair or set 20% of the time, and the other 7% of the time he has pocket 8's.

Yeah, Flopzilla is amazingly useful. As you can see, based on your range, jamming is very profitable.

You actually want him to call with overcards (especially an A or K), since he's not getting the right price unless they have other features. In practice, I think it's very unlikely he'd call without at least a pair.

Another thing I wonder is what merit do we have checking behind, since of his 'overcards' range, we dominate 50% of them that are weaker aces? so 50% of the time he has 16% equity (roughly) and 50% of the time he has 32% equity, so we are denying him 24% equity in general in this spot by jamming.

First time running out an EV calc "on paper" - let me know if I did this wrong
Jamming EV = 73%*(138)(Fold equity) + (27%) (calls with a pair) * ((22% * ($340)) - ((78%) * $101)) - (3%) (calls with a set of 9s) (100% * $101)
= $101 + 20 - 21 - 3 = $97

I think beting $50 gets the same effect as shoving, his range here looks verry weak, he calls an open and calls a 3bet, from my experience i normally see this from passive preflop players looking to set mine thinking if they hit they can win a big pot or some suited broadways, your percived range to him consists of JJ+ if hes short stacking 1/3 a 3bet in these Games to weaker players is never AK since they wouldn't 3bet that themselves, and since he hasn't seen you 3bet light hes probably gives some extra weight to your 3bet, you have verry little showdown value so you need to get him off, given his stack size id go for the value bluff, there's only 99, TT, JJ and QQ that will call you here, and yes 44 and 22 aswell but i dont think that would call preflop. You block some KK and AA combos but that shoves preflop, 55, - 88, and his suited broadways and the occasional suited conector. If you check he can bluff you of your hand, bet $50 since its almost the same as puting him allin and if he shoves call, you only need 16% equity and if your not ahead already you still have 6 outs twice for 24% equity if your up against a pair. If he calls the 50 he was calling 100 so after that you just give up and take your showdown value. If you shove your never getting called by worse and always behind, by betting 50 he can fold some weak pocket pairs, and random broadway cards and he can shove for value but also as some bluffs, with Ax Kx type hands thinking he has some sliver of fold equity with some outs just in case. Then you can profitably call with a justified explanation. Im not the most mathematical poker player but thats what makes sense to me and im sure variance is gonna play a big part but that's what i would do in your spot. I guess some random pair got you in the end cause you couldn't find merit in betting and that's why your here?

Awkward stack sizes make this is a clear shove, you have some fold equity and when he calls it's very likely all your outs are live.

My apologies! I meant do the work of setting out his range and tendencies by hand. I found the act of actually thinking through each possibility rather than clicking them off made me think more carefully about how V would play and what sorts of things I should be looking out for when sizing up unknowns. I find that I absorb the knowledge better if I've grunged it than if I only see it on the computer screen. Sorry I didn't phrase that better.

Yes, that looks right.

I would only bet less than a shove if I had a good read that V called to set mine and would either give up or shove depending on whether he got there. In that case, I'm folding to his shove. Obviously, I have to be very confident in my read to do that.

Otherwise, if I'm calling his shove, I'm losing it all if he has a strong hand, so there's only a difference if he calls and then checks it down with a hand that beats me. I'd rather have the additional FE (as well as provide cover for when I shove with an actual big overpair) by just shoving here.

Appreciate the feedback and advice to write stuff on paper, I agree it would have its benefits over clicking through the program. I have seen a guy named splitsuit offers a couple workbooks you can buy to do this with paper/pencil and I will probably get this soon as it's probably one of the best places to start after making sure I have all of my poker math down.

Anyways this is a hand that others could see as over simplistic but I figured I wouldn't assume anything with big hands I play and note/analyze most of them to see if others on here have interesting viewpoints I wouldn't have thought of so thanks for the replies.

And as you can guess I lose this hand but not in the way we expect. He reluctantly calls with Q9o and it holds.

hahahah this is a pretty common spot in low limits its so funny.

you are basically turning AK into a bluff. Im just checking this down cause i promise you if he has a hand we beat he wont bet it ever.

you shove you are neevr good.

I always shove here. Many villains are lol set mining here and will fold better. Others will say screw it and cawl with AQ.

Yeah I thought it was funny too, would be pretty embarrassing for him if I hit my outs, if he calls we aren't good but we are good on the flop so often. If he has a normal sized stack I would c bet this flop in position 100% of the time

This is a pretty obvious shove.

You're probably not folding off any pairs in this spot and villain has 22-JJ and a few 9x hands. I would guess you're probably like 50/50 vs his range. I think going for a check down is fine here in such a bloated pot. Your hand can play as a bluff catcher. If you think he bluffs too much, you can check and call off on the turn if it's not a Q. If you don't think he bluffs, you can fold turn when you miss.

Thanks for confirming, in the moment it can feel like I made a really dumb play based on the results so I wanted to circle back and make sure it wasn't a leak to be addressed.

Close your eyes and ship it.

I always get looked up here by something like TT and just brick the turn and river but am still shipping here like 90% of the time, bc of stack depth and the $138 out there already.

With this short of stack and decent dead money, I think jamming preflop is an option. But 3betting to setup a ~PSB on the flop is also fine too.

I'd jam the flop. It's not a great flop to jam since there are no overcards to rep so it will be more difficult to get pairs to fold, but we set ourselves up for commitment preflop (which I'm totally cool with) so let's continue thru with that plan. Even if a pair doesn't manage a fold, we'll still suck out 25% of the time. Plus we might actually have the best hand and no reason to give a free card to ~3outers when we're committed.

ETA: And lol @ Villain, awesome. I would not leave the table so long as this guy is here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

i think this is one of those live spots that defies our poker logic. We assume AK should good against their range from cold calling a huge 3! or bet in general but no, this could be freaking 22 and they not folding now cause they got so much invested plus you got AK duh.

Yea honestly soemtiems is hove sometimes i check it down, all depends on Vil obv, but from my limited play time, Im probably beat over 75% of time easily.

You only know you're likely behind when Villain calls the flop shove (although as it has been pointed out, we can still sometimes get called by worse, and this Villain looks like that kinda champ). Otherwise, giving free cards here when we are best and committed is really meh.

GimoG

How would you play AA? That's how you should play AK in this spot.

^^^^ i agree. just feel like i never get called by AQ here haha.

but really my default line would be to shove just not liking it. been checking abck a lot more lately depending on villain.

Listen this guy is for all intents and purposes an unknown. He could have a ton of hands here. He's not folding 99-AA sure, but he could have pretty much any other pp that will fold plus gobs of obercard hands that will likely fold, but that's ok because getting him to fold his equity isn't a bad thing. Not to mention you almost always have 25% equity when called which isn't great but also isn't nothing. It's not really that far from break even given the dead money.

**** never really thought of that deep for a long time. think ive been just resorting to passive line here cause of all the bad results ive been getting.

At what BB point would you not shove or would you shove any time its near a PSB?

Me personally if he had $200 behind instead of $100, I would be c betting like $80 into this $138 pot. Basically letting him know I like the flop with my range that is mostly premium pairs (repping them anyways). I think a lot of players will donk into me in a big pot like this on this flop if they have TT-QQ because they are too scared ill check back AK and hit. To answer your specific question I'm jamming when he has a stack up to $150ish for this pot size