Villain is two to my left. I sit on the button with two red kings. He's a regular who I've played with in the past. He generally plays a not too tight, tight aggressive style. In past sessions, I've seen him make some silly mistakes like call a clearly nitty player's large river bet with second or third pair. About an hour or so into his session, he's worked his initial $200 up to $450 or so, mostly hooking the worst player at the table. I've seen no major leaks in his game tonight (which is probably more of a statement about my needing to improve my observation skills than his solid play). He says he is a small time professional gambler whose main game is Blackjack. Nice guy; friendly.

I've been playing tight, aggressive for about three hours. With re-buys, I'm slightly down for the night with about $325.

Pre flop,

Three limps to villain who makes it $10 in the hijack, cut off folds, and I raise to $35 with KK. Folds back to villain who min-raises to $65!?

Ugh! A four - bet min raise in a 1-2 game 160 bb deep! In a room where non all-in four bets aren't generally seen unless the table gets really deep and it's fairly late. This hand was played Monday evening at about 8pm. Am I up against only aces here? Can I / should I fold kings 160bb deep in position? Or, should I shove? Maybe min-raise back to $130 and fold to a shove? Should I call? What do I do here and what's my plan?

I call.

Why? While I am very worried about rockets, I think TT+, AK and AQ are all possible. If checked to on the flop, I think I could bet/fold $80 fairly safely. If Villain leads with a shove, I'm probably going to fold. I don't feel good, but that's my plan. I have position, so it think seeing a flop and villain's next action is better than jamming Kings in what seems like a WA/WB situation.

Flop ($130, after rake) : 9JQ

Villain bets $75


My plan was half baked and I feel like I about to burn myself. Do I run or turn and fight? Hero?

Considering you have played with V in the past, this ones on you to decide whether or not to fold pre. Have you ever seen him 4-bet non-aces? 95% of 1-2 players are only 4-betting pre with AA/KK. As played, I would fold flop. Calling the flop means your playing for stacks. At the widest, his range is 1010+, AK. You beat 2 hands, 3 hands beat you, 1 hand chops. His range more likely is JJ+ which your screwed against.

Shove flop. If he has AA he's going to be worried that you have JJ/QQ since you flatted instead of 5bet him. If he has JJ/QQ/AA then you at least have 6 outs and ~25% equity with the backdoor flush draw. I think you have some decent FE against AA with this ultra-scary flop. Just think if you held AA and saw this flop in a 4bet pot - you'd be thinking "damn, worst flop ever" figuring that most players will 5bet/get it in with KK pre.

You are ahead of TT and AK. And they both have outs, not to mention they are both as likely to call as raise making them way less likely then AA and QQ. You are crushed to death. Don't level yourself into a "creative" play. Fold.

Sent from my DROID4 using 2+2 Forums

Pre: Flat pre is non-standard, but I very rarely 4b at 1/2NL, so I'm with you. Plan would be to get value from [AK, JJ-QQ] by playing in position.

Flop: Awesomely bad flop! AA still ahead. QQ now way ahead. A T leaves us vulnerable to AK. A K on the turn gives AA more outs. LOL! No matter what your plan was, it didn't take into account a nuclear bomb flop. Basically every part of Villain's range get's better on this flop.

I'm pretty sure I just fold the flop here and probably get up and leave the table for a while to clear my head.

I suppose if Villain has MUBS issues, you could shove here and represent QQ... but I generally don't see many villains who are capable of letting AA go, so I probably don't try it.

Amazingly, Hero still has pretty good equity here... I guess I have to reconsider my previous post and say ship-it!

Board: 9d Jc Qd
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 55.933% 53.33% 02.60% 11087 541.50 { JJ+, AKs, AKo }
Hand 1: 44.067% 41.46% 02.60% 8620 541.50 { KdKh }

Gotta find that happy balance between him being good enough to fold AA here but being bad enough to c-bet with it vs you.

This spot is so reads based. Only you can tell us what his 4bet range is. Even if it's wider than just the usual AA, I'm always flatting pre to keep in hands we're ahead of. QQ and AK will probably fold to a 5bet.

On the flop, blegh. Again, depends on his preflop range.
Would he fold AA to a shove in this spot (he should be very scared of the flop)? How much AK is in his preflop range? Shove if he could fold AA and/or he has a lot of AK. Otherwise, easy fold.

^Folding flop is a mistake with our equity as lapidator and wj94 have pointed out. I'd actually exclude JJ from his range tbh, only improving our equity. But that's really on reads from the OP.

Is he min 4-betting AK in hopes of folding to a 5-bet? Possibly.

There is some merit in flatting flop and folding turn unimproved though. We do really bad on non diamond turns vs his turn shoves.

Right, folding flop is a mistake if he can have AK. But 4betting AK at 1/2 is basically unheard of. So it really requires specific reads that he can be doing that, because I've never seen it.