Ran into a curious spot on the turn today. The raising action on the flop seemed typical. I didn't cap it because Villain seemed to love their hand and I wanted to get in a c/r on the turn. Their response gave me pause.

How would you proceed from here?

PokerStars - $0.25/$0.50 (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 42.2 BB (VPIP: 60.00, PFR: 40.00, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 6)
CO: 38.26 BB (VPIP: 40.59, PFR: 31.76, 3Bet Preflop: 10.94, Hands: 171)
BTN: 11.32 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
Hero (SB): 18 BB

Hero posts SB 0.2 BB, BB posts BB 0.5 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 0.7 BB) Hero has A Q

UTG raises to 1 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 1.5 BB, fold, UTG raises to 2 BB, Hero calls 0.5 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) 5 A Q
Hero checks, UTG bets 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 1 BB, UTG raises to 1.5 BB, Hero calls 0.5 BB

Turn: (7.5 BB, 2 players) 5
Hero checks, UTG bets 1 BB, Hero raises to 2 BB, UTG raises to 3 BB, Hero ...?

Given that you're basically readless, I would go ahead and cap the turn, and bet-call the river.

Suppose the hand range is AA/QQ/AK, which is entirely reasonable.

AA = 1 hand
QQ = 1 hand
AK = 8 hands

Even if you reduce this to AA/QQ/AKs:

AA = 1 hand
QQ = 1 hand
AKs = 2 hands

I go ahead and put the extra bets in, and if it's a cooler then it's a cooler.

What about combos of 55 and A5?

I'd reduce the AK down to 1 combo or less since only a lunatic would put in that much action with it, and we don't know that villain is a lunatic.

I'd call down from the turn 3-bet.

I'm less inclined to believe that an unknown player caps those hands preflop from UTG. And if he does cap those hands preflop, I'm more inclined to believe he might accidentally put in too much action with a hand like AK. So I consider that a wash in the absence of any other specific information.

We also don't know that villain isn't a lunatic.

This is fine. I don't think that this is a poor play.

But I think it's erring on the weak side with such a strong hand. The absolute strength of your hand is what pushes me to keep on putting bets in the pot.

I can see opponents looking at the double check-raise as being a little bit off (the 5 isn't in your range), and thinking that AK is good against some moron who thinks he just improved to aces up.

Thanks for the thoughts.

+1 Good point.

Agreed.

Looking at it now, I don't see A5 or 55 hands in typical Villain's range, given the PF cap. AA or QQ possibly, but that's highly unlikely. In retrospect, I'm thinking a turn cap is the line given how unlikely those combos are.

So let's say Hero capped turn.

River comes 7, no flushes complete.

Lines are:
Bet/fold (I'm thinking never, especially because villain is unknown).
Bet/call (a crying call?)
Check/call (seems odd to check river after calling turn, but it may induce a worse hand to bet).

Any thoughts?

I missed that villain capped preflop, that does make 55 and A5 less likely, but not impossible.

Bet-fold is terrible. If you're going to bet-fold the river, you might as well just call the 3-bet and get to showdown.

Check-call is also strange because it counter-indicates your turn cap unless you specifically put villain on a draw that's going to put up the desperation bluff on the end. But since you don't have reads, there's no reason to take that line.

I'd 4 bet the flop.

Hmm. In cases like this where I'm sure my hand is good enough to raise the turn, I tend to let Villains get the last bet so that I can c/r the turn and get in an extra small bet...

I'm wondering if I should mix up this line. I suppose one risk is a scary card falls on the turn and I don't get in that bet after all.

I don't think there are any problems with just jamming it now. If you do this, make sure you do this with flush draws sometimes, too.

I think you played it fine and would cap the turn online and just call down live. Depends how ******ed your opponent is, as the bottom of your range here is pretty much AK.

Does the post-flop play get easier or harder if we just flat-call UTG's open-raise preflop? I am never raising here, because I don't want to divide my playing range into two parts.

I've not heard of a lot of players advocating calling a preflop raise from SB when nobody else is in the pot. Is that a thing now?

I'm guessing that AB thought we were big blind.

Yes, but mostly only against 25%+ or so width ranges.

That's what my guess was. I've seen people advocate never 3-betting from BB before. But I could be wrong, so I wanted to seek clarification.

I thought hero was in BB.

In the SB I raise 100% of my playing range against a single opener.

Do you mean 25%-?

Flat calling vs a narrow range makes a lot more sense than flat calling vs a wide range.

I 3 bet or fold vs tighter ranges. Vs 25%+ ranges, more hands become profitable and the less readable my range is.

Followed by a c-bet 100% of the time?

I absolutely would not 4 bet and bet / call here. If he's spazzy enough to put the 3 bet in with AK here, he's spazzy enough to 4 bet pre w/ A5. And in an orbit of 4 handed LHE, there's only an 18% chance that someone w/ a true VPIP of 40% would VPIP 4 times out of 6 hands (this is an over-simplified estimator FWIW as positions obviously matter, and we're counting this action in conjunction w/ our previous 5 opportunities). So while we should conclude nothing off such small amounts of data, he is trending towards an erratic/spazzy player, so we really shouldn't just say "He can't have a 5".

Since I'm never folding here, I want to win this pot 2/3rds of the time, and I'm having a hard time giving him 2 combos we're beating for every 1 we lose to with his play.

I think you overstate the following relationship: Postflop spaz = preflop spaz.

It's far from obvious that this should be true.

Actually my statement would suggest the exact opposite (in that just because someone may have preflop spew, doesn't mean they aren't as nutted as average when they take this line).

How often in your history does someone take this line w/ AK? Live and online, it's been rare for me.