Villain in this hand is a thinking LAG who has seen some big bluffs/self-owns called early on but calmed down after the first half hour or so. A hand from about an hour ago: MP opened to $12, V 3-bet to $25, I 4-bet KK in the SB to $56, MP folded, V 5-bet shoved for $300. He had a few "weak means strong" tells such as a "tough decision" face. I ended up folding and V placed a $1 chip tip on his cards facedown.

In this hand, V open limps, hero raises to $15 with KK, an average player calls the button, and V calls. Effective stacks are $300.

Flop ($43): J86
Checked to Hero bets $35, BTN folds, V c/r to $70. Action and plan?

Call in the history hand. Call now.

I'm interested to see some others' thoughts on this. My thoughts are to call, and evaluate on the turn. He has a ton of combos that I think you are ahead of. My big worries would be 66 and 88, MAYBE 68. He can have a number of Jx here, and I guess maybe he limp/calls JJ since I don't know a lot about the Villain. Any paint on the Turn he probably bets, and then I would have to make a decision whether to go with it or not (obviously we LOVE a K ott). Just my noobish 2 cents

First hand I can get behind folding KK when we're > 100BBs deep but not in this spot vs an opponent with LAG tendencies. Go with your gut but I don't see how you can narrow his range to exactly AA here. I wasn't there though.

Second hand I'm ripping it in there on the flop. If he's raising with a draw he's going to have a hard time letting it go. Some times he'll call it off with AJ. Some times we run into a set or 2 pair.

I could find a fold here against a nit or OMC or something for sure, but not someone who can be described as LAG.

I don't like flatting because there are basically no turn cards I want to see.

You're right I can't narrow it to AA exactly, but I have to be right more than half the time, no? Anyone (even LAGs) ripping it in for 150bb pre in such a spot is a rare thing, and the few times I've seen this behavior it's been AA and nothing else. So I went with my gut there and made the sadface fold I would never make < 100BB. Does my behavior in that hand inform villain in the current hand?

Sure, like I said, it's possible his range is KK+ or exactly AA. That would be my range 150 BBs deep. But unless I have information telling me otherwise about anyone other than a clear nit/omc I'm giving him QQ+,AK as a default here. probably splitting hairs.

You did show V in that hand that you are willing to commit some $ and fold to aggression, that's for sure. But we should already be assigning him a pretty wide range anyway. Wouldn't expand it too much unless you showed the KK (hope you didn't)

Let's see: 4 combos of 9Ts, maybe 4 combos of 79s for draws. Could also have AJ/KJ, but I think these should be significantly discounted since I think these usually check call and may raise preflop, especially if a LAG villain. Maybe give him like 6 of the 24 combos of these. So probably like 10-14 combos at least that you beat.

Compare that to 6 combos of sets with 66 and 88 and maybe 2 combos of J8s if he's laggy and I don't think you can just fold to a minraise getting over 4 to 1. I like a call here and use your position to see what he does on the turn.

My plan would be to call a barrel on safe turns (K, 6, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8) and fold on a Q, J, 7, 5, A and T. If he checks to me on a safe turn, I'm betting two thirds pot and i'm checking back on the scare cards.

I could get behind this plan
well thought out

Agreed on deeeznutz

On the history hand, it seems really bad to 4! KK against most 1-2 opponents. All you're doing is targeting those who just unthinkingly want to see a flop with QQ or AK and hope everything works out for the best and those who (rightly? wrongly?) think you have a 4! bluff range.

On one hand if he's LAG enough that you give him credit for 3! light then it seems like you should probably be willing to stack off with KK. (Plus so many live players do reverse bet sizing tells, so this doesn't exactly look like AA.) OTOH light 3! are rare in 1-2 so 5! bluffs are like unicorns. He 3! a pretty strong range (MP--read on MP matters here too) so he should be pretty strong.

So flatting the 3 and playing at an SPR under 6, keeping 99+, AQ+, AJs in his range seems much better. If you're 4! here you should know what you plan to do to a 5!, not be on the fence about it. Using tells is OK but only if you thought it was a very fine decision in the first place, which makes me wonder why you 4!.

Not a penny less than 75 H1. What TF are you doing making it $56?

H2 - So you near-potted the flop, got minned by a limp-caller, and you are considering a call? You can't do that and leave a psb behind with which to maneuver with an OP. Just fold now or shove.

So much wrong with sizing in the history hand. V should 3! to around $36, allowing you to 4! to around $126 allowing you to call it off (or fold if super deep). As played, it's unclear and hard to find a fold, but leaning towards finding a fold.

In the current hand, standard call at least once.

It sounds like you're implied that Villain played poorly by not sizing bets so as to make Hero's job easier, but that's just weird and I doubt what you meant. I agree that Villain should 3! bigger. Actually I overlooked this originally; he probably has AA (since we have two of the kings) and our 4! is spew. KK is effectively 33 here and we'd rather not turn 33 into a bluff preflop.

Telegraphing KK+ obviously isn't good, so I agree his play is probably not good. I'm not giving this guy credit for simulating an "obvious" monster line without a monster until I see him show a semibluff at least once.

min3! me with a semibluff is probably a good play since I'll play him for AA.

I'm no great NLHE theorist but I thought the theory of 4-bet sizing favored avoiding pot commitment until you're ready to put the last bet in. With 100 BB stacks this would usually mean the 4th bet is the one on the small side so the 5! is a reasonable 3x all-in. (I think I got that from Ed Miller.)

In this situation we have 150BB facing (hypothetically) a 3! to 18x, and you're advocating pot committing ourselves. Wouldn't it be preferable to make it around 30x = $90 with our entire 4! range to either preserve the option to fold or give them the illusion of fold equity?

To the first point, I was putting myself in villains shoes and thinking that the min 3-bet +$1 was not good sizing for him. Then I put myself in hero's shoes and again felt like the min 4-bet +$6 was not good either. In general, I prefer raising 3-5x the previous bet (ideally potting), and think that min raising accomplishes nothing - nobody is folding and nobody is really committed.

To your second point, there used to be a time when I would soul read and fold, but after lots of studying, both here and via vlogs, I've reached a point where I'm comfortable getting stacked for 150BB if I'm dealt KK vs. AA, since a) I don't think it happens often enough, b) it happens the other way too and evens itself out, c) 150 BB at 1/2 is well within my variance accepting threshold, and d) there are several villains who do this with AK/JJ/QQ in my games. I like the bigger sizings to define my hand (I think Barry Greenstein talked about this) so that if villains come over the top you can fold with confidence (if deeper). Probably the $126 I advocated is too large and pot committing ourselves, but I'm happy to ride the variance train and get stacks in with the second best hand in poker as I think long term we're not up against AA often enough for this to be -EV.

Regarding the later hand, I called the minraise.

On the turn, the pot is $183 and stacks are $215.
[J86] 8 and villain checks.

The setup hand is generating discussion and I can't say I understand flatting the 3!. We'd be 3 ways out of position for only $25 each. I'm 4-betting because villain's 3-bet is small and suspect. I want to get more money in the pot and either play heads-up or get MP (the original raiser) to pay to draw. Villain seems like the type of player who would call the extra $31 with anything and try to outplay me postflop.

Is my hand faceup as KK+? I don't know. I've been seen 4-betting $80-110 preflop with AK and JJ, although the situation was different (vs short stacks, iso'ing dead money) people observe the bet size.

Perfect outcome for you. It's either a great card for you, or the worst card which villain failed to capitalize on. Now check back and call/bet all non-Jack rivers.

Unknown live players min3betting is suspect all right. I suspect they have aces. I suspect they might have kings, except we have two kings. I suspect they're not doing this in a million years with pocket tens because everyone knows you reraise TT 6x the raise to blast everyone out of the pot and not get outdrawn. I suspect 4! for value with KK is bad.

I'm not kidding. I assume live unknowns are transparent until I have evidence otherwise.

Truthfully I might not fold KK on the flop, but I probably should against this behavior. I might call the flop and hope to get cheaply to showdown. Anyway, what you certainly shouldn't do is talk yourself into thinking this preflop reraise size means he doesn't like his hand.



(I just got a great insight from a Jonathan Little video on YouTube. Getting outdrawn is just inherently a horror in itself in poor players' minds, on that must be avoided at all costs. Better to play QQ for minimal value than to get outdrawn. I knew this--seriously, how many players sagely tell you that NLHE is awesome because you can bet so much that they have to fold their draws?--but hadn't thought consciously about how much negative value they attach to the suckout.)

It's "OK" to pay off KK vs. AA coolers for 150BB stacks. (a) and (b) are both correct; very few opponents are doing anything else so you can just push chips back and forth. If you're a solid winning player, nothing you do with KK preflop will make your winrate negative.

But we're here to optimize. It's not in the bylaws that you have to hand over stacks every time you make the 2nd nuts. Against typical villains, the more I think about this, I think AA is way overweighted in their range. If they're really as stupidly transparent as I think they are, not stacking off enhances your edge.

(Postflop your typical opponent will bet one big street to keep from getting outdrawn, one small street because they're not sure of their hand, and check one street because they just pray AA is still good. So folding KK as an overpair might be too weak tight, but calling down might save you lots of money. I wouldn't try an elaborate bluff unless the board is really scary.)


OK, well, unlike (a) through (c) this is a good reason to play the way you do. But your games are different from mine. I'll watch for this more carefully but I really can't imagine 90% of the player pool playing JJ that way. They're terrified of having to play JJ with even one overcard on the flop.


Well, yeah. If you think his min3! range is at least QQ-AA, AKs and that he only 5!s AA then this is fine. But at that point I don't think defining your hand matters. I don't think many people are bluff-shoving over a 4bet, regardless of size. Of those who are, virtually none are so theoretically aware as to vary range by reraise size.

Making +EV decisions has nothing to do with aversion to riding the variance train.

Having the second nuts is usually a really good thing but it isn't magical. Poker is a game of ranges.

+1