Midstakes game in LA. I open two kings in early position, and the player on my immediate left 3-bets. We will call him EP. It folds around to the big blind who opts to cap it. I obviously call and we see a flop three ways.

EP is pretty average preflop. His three betting range in this spot should be rather strong. If I had to guess, I'd say something like 99+ and AQ, maybe KQs. He could go a little lower, but I see him cold call raises quite a bit, and I'd imagine he's doing that with the next tier of hands (things like 77, QTs, etc), and as you'll see none of those hands matter on the board we get.

The big blind is an old white guy I've never seen before. I've been playing with him for about 30 minutes and I don't think I've even seen him 3-bet yet (although I have seen him cold call). The only hands I'm sure he can have are QQ, KK, and AA. AK and JJ need to be discounted, and TT and AQ seem very far-fetched. And again, once you see the flop action you'll be able to discount anything but premiums even further.

So in short...we have very, very narrow ranges already.

933r

The big blind leads and EP sends me a telegram that he's raising, so I just call. EP raises, and the big blind three bets. I again just call, now because honestly I no longer like my hand. EP caps it, and we both call.

At this point things are looking pretty grim. There is no flush draw on the flop, so I can discount either player having UI high cards almost down to zero. For EP that's a pretty devastating thing to say, since he chose to cap the flop. At this point I'd be shocked if he didn't have QQ+. It's also worth noting that there is a pretty good chance he'd slow play the 99; while he may have raised with it once, there is almost zero chance he'd cap with it. As for the big blind...he's pretty much got what he started with, which is QQ+. I mean sure, he might have JJ, but that needs to be discounted pretty heavily by now, and 99 is also far-fetched for him (both because of the preflop action and my guess that he'd slow play at least a little with it). To the turn, which is meaningless:

933-4

The big blind checks, I check, EP bets, the big blind calls, and I push call for the 5th time in a row.

EP still has a big mitt, obviously. BB is now less likely to actually have the AA, since there is some chance he'd just "donk" the turn with that strong of a hand. I'd say he's more than 50% at this point to have exactly two queens. I'm just planning to call one more river bet and occasionally get shown all four queens, or get half the pot, or have a gross misread. But then the river comes.

933-4-A

The big blind checks and I...donk!

I feel like check-and-not-overcalling is going to be the best line.

I assume your donking because there are way less combos of AA now but inwould still check. I mean if BB range is QQ+ EP would have to be really bad/clueless to cap flop and still bet turn with worse than QQ. This seems pretty obvious to me so I don't know what I'm missing as there are way more combos of AA/99 than there are of KK.

Even if he somehow has JJ/QQ which seems impossible, he may not even call your river bet here.

I think pre-river is well played.

Flop:

Board: 9s 9d 3h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 48.257% 45.51% 02.74% 286054 17234.00 { KcKd }
Hand 1: 32.785% 30.18% 02.60% 189688 16361.00 { QQ+, JcJd, JcJs, JdJh, AKs }
Hand 2: 18.958% 17.92% 01.04% 112632 6519.00 { 99+, AQs+, KQs, AQo+ }


Turn:
Board: 9s 9d 3h 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 50.239% 47.34% 02.90% 13838 848.00 { KcKd }
Hand 1: 32.731% 30.02% 02.72% 8774 794.00 { QQ+, JcJd, JcJs, JdJh, AKs }
Hand 2: 17.029% 15.98% 01.05% 4672 306.00 { 99+, AQs+, KQs, AQo+ }

River:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 30.401% 27.39% 03.01% 123 13.50 { KcKd }
Hand 1: 26.058% 23.83% 02.23% 107 10.00 { QQ+, JcJd, JcJs, JdJh, AKs }
Hand 2: 43.541% 42.32% 01.22% 190 5.50 { 99+, AQs+, KQs, AQo+ }

That stove is just absurd.

Maybe jn reading stove wrong, but I don't see how someone can have KQ given flop action, or even AQ/AK/TT/JJ unless they are really bad and don't really fit OP's description of them.

Yeah, I didn't adjust ranges for the turn / river but my main exercise was to look at the flop

I'm donking for a few reasons. On the river I trust EP to play perfectly against my hand if I check. He will certainly check back QQ-, he'll bet 99 and AA, and I'd assume he'll even check back that one niggling combo of KK. So in theory I should do what captain R says, and probably check and not over call except that the BB's hand and call would be close to meaningless and in reality I'm probably not going to fold the river getting 17:1 here. So if I bet and fold to a raise, it doesn't cost me very much, if anything.

But if I bet...what does my hand look like? Remember, I've pushed the call button five times in a row. It looks like exactly AK, so much so that I think there is a chance the other two kings will fold! It's only a single combo, but the ranges have gotten SO narrow that it might be enough. We literally have 3 combos of AA that I lose to, 1 combo of KK, and then 6 combos of QQ. If something else shows up I have a misread, and if I do it's got to be a bank error in my favor because of how many combos of JJ and TT there are.

If the only hands that you can be sure the BB has on flop are QQ/KK/AA and you call the 3 bet, I think your hand looks very little like AK.

I actually like the river bet for the sole reason of folding out that other KK. You can fold to a raise as you said, and if you're going to overcall, damn might as well take the freeroll and lead out, right? Obv we'll hear from EP (or BB) if they has a full house. I think it's fine.

Just a question, though, can we define our hand more by insta-raising this flop? We might wind up with initiative and be the capper and can go from there.

I assume you are bet folding, and though normally I would not take that line I think it's not bad at all here.

jesse i would lay 10-1 there was not one single person watching this hand who thought YOU had AK here. there was probably some astute asian guy thinking "oh hahaha siwwy white boy thinks QQ might be good. EZ fold against old white boy hahahaha" but nobody was thinking you had AK.

that's a very point, you can't really rep what you are trying to rep. not sure if these guys will even notice, but it's not far fetched.

So you're not bluffing, because if they (somehow) have AK they turbocall and AA lolraises.

You're valuebetting QQ/JJ and maybe trying to fold out the other KK?

I dunno man, it seems sexy enough, since you can probably safely fold to a raise and their ranges are super narrow right now.

As others have said, no one here would think you got to the river with AK, but it's unlikely that your opponents know that.

Given the stove I posted, why not raise the flop?

Also I see EP raising you a fair bit here, since he's still pretty likely to have AA given all of the action thus far. But it's definitely not a given.

This looks Like a case of over thinking a hand. Cap the flop. C/c the river.

EP doesn't know I know that. Even if he knows it himself.

Why would I want to narrow my range and take initiative when doing so we gain me nothing when I'm winning and get me boned when behind?

I think he'd have donked the turn and the river with AA. Its very unlikely he has AA. Its 3 combos vs 6-13 of kk/QQ/JJ, plus the discounting has to be like 10:1 against or more for him to raise me.

At least 1.5 players of the 7 at the table did. One asked "ace king?" As the dealer was shipping me the pot, and EP rage folded instantly when I donked and a king was exposed

I mean the guy behind you. Who has bet and capped at every turn. I think you at least are tied with the BB or are beating him.

I don't get the "gain me nothing when I'm winning" part. You don't get called by TT, JJ, QQ and sometimes by AK in EP and QQ, AK in BB?

You could be right about ep but remember he sent me s telegram. Bb can't have AK once he 3 bets flop. Honestly he can't have it before then probably.

Oh. Yes he can. He will raise the AA and I will fold.