here's a hand i played a month ago

40/80. i raise in early position with AA. a decent self taught player (MP) calls in middle position. whatever button calls. a below average but not dumb player (bb) calls in the big blind.

flop is A44 rainbow

bb checks. i bet. mp calls. button folds. bb now checkraises.

my reads: there's no way mp is calling this dry a flop without an ace or a 4 in his hand. i think it's incredibly unlikely for him to have 23 or 53 gutshots here. not that many 4's he can have, 44, A4s and 54s most obv candidates. something like K4s, Q4s seems unlikely.

there's also no way bb checkraises this flop without a good ace (A8+) or a 4 in his hand. he doesn't have it in him to checkraise pure air or a gutshot here.

so one of them has an ace, the other has a 4. what is the best way to proceed?

IMOCall raise. Lead out again on turn, if raised again, raise right back. Not many average players going to drop trips. I bet u get more action later too.

Aren't we going to be able to lead turn if we 3bet the flop anyways? Why miss value? We can still b/3b the turn.

Agreed to just jam now. Cold caller might even give you a chance to b3b turn if he has the 4. If you just call now then almost any turn is a "scare" card in the sense that you might have turned a (say) J with JJ to beat his 4 and he probably just calls 2 cold on the turn with his slowplayed 4. But if you 3bet now then if they have the 4 you'll get one more raise in.

3 bet

3 bet all day. If MP has a four, he will flat call the 3! flop and raise your turn bet allowing you to 3 bet turn. Or he'll cap the flop and raise the turn when you lead out again, allowing you to 3 bet the turn. If Blind player has the 4, he will probably cap flop, and then lead turn, allowing you to raise. Can't lose by 3 betting flop.

Jam the flop.

Definitely jamming this board.

Seems close. I wouldn't assume MP is always calling a flop 3bet and I'm leaning toward just calling the flop c/r.

Call and reevaluate turn, it might be a 4.

I would 3b but def not 3b if turn went b c c/r. Assuming cold caller folds flop 3b 85% and calls single raise 85% i still think not worth it because sb will c/r turn even if you 3b so often because AA is such a small part of your range...

A question on my mind here is: given the action and the board, what is our continuing range, and how do we play it? Can we find fold with KK? What are we going to do with suited A9? Do we have any fours in our range?

And what, in our continuing range, are we not going to jam here?

Seems to me, 3betting the flop without a boat would be bad.

This seems like a call to me as well. Villain should 3b a 4 on the turn at which point you can wait for the river. Calling the flop allows raises to go in with a larger bet size and some small bonus from mp who is almost always drawing dead.

Hi cdc,

I think it depends largely on the passivity of villains on big bet streets if they have 4x. As other posters said, if a J comes on turn-- bb bets, u raise, will mp or bb just call or 3b turn w a 4x? If there is a chance they won't 3ball turn w 4x, i say jam flop. If they are prone to turn aggression or spewiness, i think there is strong merit to wait for turn.

It also seems to me that you are able to induce spewiness and light calldowns from a lot of the regs, so that favors waiting for turn action i think

i should have given more specific reads. bb isn't the spewy type so its difficult to get the extra action i'm hoping for. if bb has the 4 and i 3bet the flop, he will probably 4bet the flop and calldown when i raise the turn. if i just call the flop c/r and raise the turn he may or may not 3bet the turn, but leaning towards not. the other factor is that this particular player in mp is going to fold a loooooot (like 80+%) to a flop 3bet with his weak ace that he likely has and for sure will fold to a turn raise (but may call along if also call the turn). given that fact and the fact that this bb isn't all that likely to spew i opted for the super slowplay and just call the flop and likely calling the turn as well. i think its pretty close either way between fastplaying and the superslowplaying with the assumption that mp folds to a flop 3bet (which i feel is a pretty accurate read). another factor is if mp is the one who is slowplaying the 4 which gives me some fun trap backraising action potential. now in a more aggressive type game i would def fast play or raise the turn but this isn't that kind of game.

so i just call the flop. and mp calls as well.

anyways turn is an 8 that doesn't give the other ace a flush draw.

bb bets. its not fun but given what i've said about the players i just call and mp calls behind.

river is offsuit J

bb bets and now i raise. MP now wakes up and 3bets. bb shows his neighbor his hand (whatever that means) and folds. now what

Just putting the hh together to follow the action ...

I want to say raise / fold, but that must be a wrong answer.

Brad, did you ever sustain a head injury? WTF are we re-evaluating, we have the second nuts.

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OP: since we just got check raised, AND there is a guy behind us, I'd say call, then raise the turn.

By calling here, we get another small bet from MP (who is likely folding to a 3 bet) and this encourages BB to lead turn, allowing us to raise with the larger bet size.

If we 3 bet, mp likely folds, and BB check/calls turn. (Perhaps we get lucky if BB check raises turn, but if we 3 bet flop I'm thinking a check calls more likely unless BB is a total spaz.)

If we call we get:

4 small bets on flop (2 from BB and 2 from MP) and 2 to 4 big bets n turn (depending on if mp calls two cold)


If we three bet flop we get:

4 small bets on flop (assumes mp folds, and BB just calls), and 1 or 2 big bets on turn.


EDIT: I just now read your post on reads and later action. I like the flop flatting the raise, but I think it's better to raise the turn. As played, I think we 4 bet and call a 5 bet.

Based on a turn and reads as stated, BB had a strong ace or a weak 4. MP either had a A8, AJ, the U-boat, or quads.

Dude, he is trolling... chill out.

@OP: This can easily be a 4 maybe even A4 which are a bunch of combos actually. He might actually fold if you 3bet the flop but he will probably not slow down the betting if you think for a longish amount of time and watch him a little bit insinuating you are trying to read him on a bluff or 4x with a strong ace or a 54s. Since you are in position you can always bet behind on his checks and don't have to be afraid of losing value.

You know what, you're right... I used to think he was just an utter moran, but he's obviously trolling since no one could be that much of a tard and still be able to use a computer... Ignore list is best. I need to learn to use the "block/ignore" functions of the Internet more often... Lol.

Our read is that MP doesn't call the flop without a 4 or good ace. Their range on the flop is {44, 54, A4, A8+} The subrange of this that looks like its worth three bets on the river looks to me like {44, A4}, with one combo that beats us and two that we beat. Mayyyybe they would raise with AJ or A8, but that seems unlikely to me. So basically our AA beats their A4 twice as often as their 44 beats our AA, so we profit from raising, but villain's range converges pretty quickly to {44} when they put in the fifth bet. So four-bet/call seems about right, but the call is a crying call.

I don't know what the rule is where you were playing (Bay101?) but in some clubs, given that the action was three-handed when the third bet went in, the fourth bet is still a cap even though the action is head-up. If that is the case then I would put the fourth bet in without hesitation.

you guys are forgetting that bb folded an ace so there's no aces left

I try not to overthink with the second non-obvious nuts. 4bet call a 5.

Your read that he is "decent, self-taught" is gonna get called into question when he cold-calls first-in. That adds all kind of random hands with a 4 in it. His turn-calling range starts to include some 88/A8, and his river range starts including some JJ/AJ when he 3bets.

We can't assume BB has an ace. It could be that BB has 4x and MP has AJ/88/AK. Or MP could have a naked 4 and BB an ace. Everyone's hand is somewhat underrepped.

You have top underrepped full-house; 4bet.

Then... we lose.

Call river, 4betting is suicide.