Tournament Series is in town and has brought in a ton of new players. V is a late 20's Euro pro and is playing solid, but a little on the douchey side. Also running pretty hot and is an excellent hand reader. Flopped a set or two and pushed people out of some bigger pots with a polarizing 'jam on any weakness' strategy. He's up about $2k.

Table dynamic has been interesting. New table and started out very nitty, but with active 3 betting from all the 'good' players. The 3-4 fishy/rec players haven't been getting out of line too much either.

Hero is a 2/5 grinder and a winning player. I still have much to learn, and playing with pros really helps shine light on some of my leaks. One of them being how to play a big pot with a 1 pair hand.

OTTH: 2/5 deep stacked.
Hero (~$1200 effective) raises to $20 with KK (Standard raise). Folds to V on button who 3bets to $80. Hero thinks and puts in the 4 bet to $220. (Sizing ok?)

V eyeballs my stack and calls. I don't expect him to have a 5bet range here, but hopefully my sizing narrowed things down a little. I've seen him call a 3bet earlier on the button with Q10s.

Flop ($440) Q96
Hero bets $300. On a side note, I hate the concept of down betting. I'm not saying its bad or that I'm right to never use it, but for me I think betting $200 here is silly. I'd love for a better player to convince me why I should use it.

V thinks and eventually puts in the call. I'm ranging him on standard 4 bet calling stuff like QQ+ (or maybe even any pair to set mine?) and all suited 'Ace cracking' hands like J10 or 89 or whatever good players like to show up with when they know their opponents are in a very tight range here.

Turn (1400) A
I check. I know this crushes my range more than his and I don't think a check is terrible, but I definitely checked out of fear which is bad. The strange thing is he snap checks behind me and had a visible reaction to the card. So I couldn't tell if he flopped a set of QQ and thought he just got coolered, or turned a set of Aces and auto checked to hope I caught up. Felt very polarizing to me. In his other bigger hands he pulls his hoodie over his face and thinks on every street so this was different for some reason.

River ($1400) 3h.
I check and he thinks and jams. I go into the tank. I have the K which removes AK and KQ combo. He certainly could float me in position with another combo of AK but that seems unlikely. If he has A5 shouldn't he bet on the turn? If I had AK I jam that turn every which way and would never try to check raise.

As I'm thinking through things he says "I put you on kings here." I eventually fold and don't show or confirm anything. For the next 20 minutes I can tell he wants me to talk about it and ask him what he had and whatnot, but I never do. I eventually move tables.

So what do you think and what mistakes did I make?

The range I gave him for flatting your 4-bet and then continuing on your 3/4 pot sized bet on the flop is 99+, 87s (4), JTs (4), As5s, As4s, AsTs, AsJs, AQs (3), AKs (2), AsKc, AsKd, AQo (6).

So looking at that range 28 combos beat us and 24 remain effectively as bluffs, and of the bluffs 12 of them, JJ and TT, are pretty gutsy shoves, particularly when I could see the villain putting you on a 4-bet range as QQ+, AQs+ and AKo, basically which only 6 combos may fold here but given the SPR being so low that he probably leans towards you calling most of the time with only $700 left in your stack.

How I understand it this is a reason we would want to down bet this flop to give us more maneuverability on later streets.

My sense is you made a good lay down here and ran into 99, JhTh, 8h7h, AQ or an AK that peeled and found an Ace. While the combos above may looked balance, I doubt he ever shoves with TT / JJ which makes his holdings 28/12 value to bluffs.

nh

as per downbetting as a cbet in a 4bet pot it should work well particularly in the following conditions:
board is dry
board gives pfr an equity advantage (it usually will since we have all the AA)
our opponent was likely set mining pre and will give up to any bet*

now if the board is wet, and gives our opponent many set combos, and we are likely to get floated by many pairs and draws and sets (like in this hand) then i dont like a downbet otf

This is a bluff. I tried posting a long 3 paragraph reply, and it ate it.

If you get bored you should write it out again I’d be interested in your thoughts.

The question is, when Villain we shoving and pushed people off pots earlier, are we 100% certain that he didn't just have the goods?

The problem is even in villains buffing range, we're losing to quite a bit. If we 100% know villain was bluff shoving earlier, than it's definitely not unreasonable for him to turn JJ or 1010 into a bluff here. Especially after your check on the turn, which, as you've recognized was your big mistake in this hand.

Also, like you said, the only AK that makes sense to call in this spot is AK of spades, and when he "knows" you have KK, and if he is going for super thin value something like A5s why on earth would he shove? Why not just a bet you can call? KK is hard pressed to call a shove

I tend to believe this is a bluff as well. But It's definitely hard to make the call, so I don't necessarily blame a fold, or call it a fistbump call by any means, but I'm definitely leaning in the bluff category.

I tend to give V credit here. Psychologically when we play a good V, we're inclined to think they are "playing us" but in reality they still are overweight on value when it comes to these spots, even if they are capable of bluffing. It feels like V is playing back at us but they really mostly have the goods.

In this case, there are too many hands that beat us that would take this line. AK, QQ, AQ, A5s.

In the case of A5s specifically, that should be checking the turn since nothing better calls and nothing worse folds (still afraid of the AQ/AK you have). On the river, after you check his A5s should be shoving for value since we shut down. Your QQ and AA don't really ever play this way.

He could also have a hand like JThh.

I think this is a fine board to bet larger on the flop

By the way, the adjustment against a capable V who we dread playing OOP in a 3/4b pot is charging him more to do that. So next time I would 4bet with KK even larger, maybe $275. Can keep the $220 sizing with AA.

Your whole I hate the concept of down betting argument is ******ed it’s about ev and choosing the highest ev bet size

Do you ever stop being an *******? I've seen you in multiple threads saying stupid things like you're 12.

Maybe instead of of repeating what other people say, have your own thoughts and maybe you'll have another dimension to your posts.

Or get laid.

Danny. It’s a poker strategy forum. When you post stuff that is so blatantly incorrect - like, I hate down betting. You’re gonna get trolled. And it’s honestly good advice - he says he hates what the highest ev line is, and what the best bet size is for his range.
I told him the truth and actually gave him something that could improve his game

Meh I'd rather someone give good advice and be a dick then give bad advice and be nice (in the context of a poker strategy forum). However in this case he's giving bad advice wrt the flop bet sizing in this specific hand; his advice about OP's logic being very flawed is still true.

TL;DR Slightly bigger pre although probably fine, flop 3/4 pot sizing is good and better than 1/4 pot sizing, shove turn, as played fold river

Preflop 4bet sizing slightly too small given stack depth but ok, maybe even correct I don't know with the 4x open and the 4x 3bet. I'm going to assume you opened from EP or UTG and in which case KK actually gets called some % instead of 4bet but obviously in a live 2/5 you should be 4betting KK 100% here all day.

The preferred betsize on the flop for oop is actually 3/4 pot (53% freq) using mainly KK+ and AK combos along with some suited Ax fd and bdfd. The 1/4 bet size (28% freq) is used much less and includes hands like the 99, TT, JJ we 4bet, QQ, some small freq of KK+ and then some mix of suited Ax/broadways. In fact, only using the small betsize loses a decent amount of EV. That being said, it's still a very good simplification to bet 25% pot full range here and personally I would be doing that in game.

Turn is where you make your biggest mistake (granted it's not an obvious mistake to see). As the 4bettor in this spot on this turn after betting flop 3/4 pot we should be betting 100% of our range. Yes, we should be shoving KK, as a mergy bluff (he should have some combodraws that are priced in to call now). We are shoving every hand now, 0 checks. This turn is amazing for us.

River as played I don't know what you're supposed to do because you should not ever arrive to this river having checked turn. However, as played I'd fold.

I didn’t say that his bet in this spot was bad -
the 3/4 size is fine? (I guess)
I’ll run a sim on this spot to give something back to the community at large for being a dick

I already did. 3/4 pot sizing is preferred assuming somewhat "normal" ranges 250bb deep. In reality the real ranges would probably be much different in a live 2/5 so the outputs might not be so useful.

oop: AA,KK:0.768,QQ:0.244,JJ:0.274,TT:0.226,99:0.082,88 :0.016,AKs,AKo:0.234,AQs:0.194,AJs:0.044,ATs:0.196 ,A9s:0.08,A8s:0.266,A5s:0.62,A4s:0.354,KTs:0.076,T 9s:0.062,87s:0.112,65s:0.08

ip:
AA:0.28,KK:0.828,QQ:0.432,JJ:0.248,TT:0.416,99:0.2 28,88:0.248,77:0.232,66:0.17,55:0.146,44:0.134,22: 0.138,AKs:0.706,AKo:0.204,AQs:0.412,AJs:0.57,ATs:0 .384,A5s:0.174,QJs:0.318,QTs:0.126,JTs:0.248,T9s:0 .268,T8s:0.188,87s:0.32,76s:0.41,65s:0.456,54s:0.4 78

Makes sense

In this particular spot bigger sizing is an OK option for part of your range (KK included).

In this particular spot, your range is pretty narrow (in terms of # of combos) but in theory you should also be quite diffuse: you should have all KK+, AKs (so a high concentration of tippy-top of range hands), some weaker value (some freq of 88-QQ), and a modicum of low freq bluffs from across the spectrum of obvious bluffs (AXs, AQo+, SCs, KXs).

Overall, on this flop texture, in theory your range should be ~50% Qx+ and ~50% A-high and worse with a decent amount (~10%) of FD combos.

So in this particular spot, because you have such a high concentration of Qx+ and good high-equity bluff combos it's OK to split off your strongest, best value bets (namely KK+ which not only unblock V's continue-with-worse range but also are among the sheerly strongest hands in your range) and your best bluffs (meaning the ones that benefit the most from being bluffed, namely primarily AK and weak AXs due to equity-when called and folds-from-better considerations, like V can't continue against bet$300 w/ AJ unless it's AsJs, making AXs pretty great bluff candidates for you) and with this narrow range of fat value and best bluffs you can occasionally take a "big" (like you chosen sizing is perfect) sizing and extract a bit more EV from this spot by playing some bigger pots w/ top of you range and generating a bit more FE with your bluffs (and these are high-equity bluffs so you wanna occasionally play big pot w/ these bluffs anyway).

But at the same time you have this vast range of unmade hands (A-high included) that just aren't comfortable going so big, and you have a range advantage so you should be betting pretty frequently, and you've already split off your fattest value and best bluffs into a larger sizing node, so in order to reconcile all that you're just going to need to bet "small"--way smaller than you chose, like half as small--and you're actually gonna have to use that sizing quite frequently in this spot because more often than not you're just gonna be in the part of your range where small ($150) sizing is highest EV and in theory you just have to do it lest you become exploitable.

In theory you're actually leaking tons of EV by not getting paid off enough with top of range (you can definitely generate too many folds w/ your range) and also incurring a greater-than-necessary long run expense on your bluffs.

AP, your philosophy is particularly egregiously bad OTT because it's a pretty great spot to barrel $110 with your entire range, and it's not like checking is horriblly lower EV but you just have such an overwhelming advantage of Ax+ (remember V needs to fold non-FD AX to your cbet) such that in practice you should really always be barreling with every single hand in your range and you still have these unmade hands (should still have lots of FDs but also just air like K-high, maybe a small amount of JT) in your range to contend with and if you have Ax you don't want V to fold and having Ax means you block V's own Ax (meaning you block his continue-with-worse range) so really you never wanna jam turn with Ax meaning you really have no hands to jam turn but you're so far ahead you really, really should be barreling turn with your range and the way to reconcile that, again, is to bet super tiny, keep your range merged, and head to the river.

AP, checking in theory makes such little sense that you should, in theory, also should show up with Ax here, just in a suboptimal fashion, meaning you can mostly fold this hand.

But I doubt V actually reads you this uniformly suboptimal fashion--he (correctly) likely sees you as super capped--prob your exact hand. Still, think it's a fold because you should, in theory, have Ax but in practice you might actually not have much a calling range here (which sucks) or at least a suboptimally narrow calling range (which is especially shitty against someone who's ostensible capable of expoiting you precisely when that's the case.

Now that being said, in this particular case it doesn't matter because you're never gonna see this person again so he will not develop enough of a read to exploit you too bad but as a global strat it's just silly to say "I don't believe in 'downbetting' ", and OP made it a point to state this so he clearly wants to engage on the topic and really it's just very asinine to come into a "NO LIMIT HIGH STAKES" poker forum and say something silly like "I can't bet less than I did previously", he should get trolled for it.

You say villain is a good hand reader, so when you show strength PF and on the flop, and then you cap your range and show weakness on the turn and river after the A appeared, villain knows that you don’t like the A. You also say that villain uses polarizing jams when facing weakness, so history repeats.

Another factor in considering that villain may be bluffing in this spot is that he tells you your exact hand after he jammed on you. He is implying that he knows what you have and that he is still not concerned about it. That's an attempt to get you to fold.

It’s probably better to have jammed the turn.

[EDIT] Oops. My math was wrong. Deleted half the post. I guess turn pot was 1040, not 1400.