Interesting discussion so far. Talked about this with a friend and he says size is way too small OOP, just like what Mikestarr said. I agree and need to cut out this bs mindset of "lol I would use this size with AA so balance" cause I know it never matters at 1/3 but I do it anyways cause it's just a bad habit from hundreds of hours of play.

Anyways let's say I made it 125 instead and math this out. I'm risking 124 to win 75 which means he needs to fold 62% of the time for me to break even not counting the equity I realize if he calls and doesn't shove (I fold to a shove cause AKo is crushed). As played he needs to fold less, 58% to be more precise since I only made it 105, but for argument's sake let's just say it's 62%.

What will he continue with? Well obviously KK+. AKs, AKo and QQ are different hands but to keep it simple let's say he folds those half the time. Let's be honest my line looks strong af. I'm assuming he will squeeze JJ and fold 4 out of the 6 combos. AQs and AQo if he 3 bets those are probably hitting the muck. He will probably give up with all his air unless he's a sicko (or idiot depending on how you look at it) and 5 bet shoves something like A5s vs an unknown cold 4 bettor. Let's just assume he gives up. So that's 12 + 8 + 3 + 2 = 25 combos.

He will flat a lot of hands. Sometimes he will flat AA and the board will run out in a way that I get stacked. More often, he will flat and I will either stack him when I hit a pair or take a big portion of his stack. 8o8 I'm mostly relying on fold equity pre and hopefully stacking or at least getting a decent chunk of his stack if he calls and I pair up. Even though I need 62% folds to be outright profitable, the real number is probably 50%.

So he needs to fold at least 25 combos and be 3 betting a total range of at least 50 combos. QQ+/AK is 34. Add in JJ we're at 40. Add AQs that's 44. Add a third of the AQo combos we're at 48. Add two combos of air and we have the required fold frequency. I obviously didn't figure this out at the table but just based on similar off table work I've done I knew that 4 betting would be a marginally +EV play (or very +EV depending if he just doesn't fold QQ/JJ and lets me stack him). High variance of course but if I can't take 1/3 variance I should probably quit poker.

Anyways my friend also advocated just shoving flop (assuming I made it bigger pre). I wasn't fully on board at the time since someone who called QQ/JJ didn't call to fold a low flop. Not like they're just gonna chicken out and fold. I block AK too and he also folds those sometimes. But I guess he has a point. I maximize my fold equity against AK and even if I do get looked up by say QQ I still suck out 1/4 of the time. Better to do that than to just give up my equity vs a possible chop probably. With an SPR less than 1 I need less than 33% equity to get it in anyways.

The turn is a weird spot since he snap checked back the flop. Could be scared QQ/JJ trying to pot control and not play for stacks. Could be AK waiting for me to check twice and give him an opportunity to bluff me off it.

Grunch

Absent reads in a 1/3 game, I'm okay folding AK off from the SB when facing an EP open and a 3!. In general 3! ranges are pretty tight in these games, and IMO you're not often going to be any better than a flip against that range.

We most definitely don't want to flat and invite the EP opener to come along and play a 3 way bloated pot OOP without initiative with AK off. I also think 4!/folding is out of the question with these stack sizes, so if you do decide to 4! then I'd go big and try to leverage as much FE as possible and know that I'm committing myself to see 5 cards and jam all flops. To 4! here I'm going to $150-$160 and setting up around a 2/3psb jam OTF if called. I really don't like getting in a spot like this where we're possibly committing against a range that we're probably behind, but in this spot I want to go big if I do 4! and try to take the pot right here.

I think you have to sigh shove flop and hope he folds overpairs here (99-QQ).

If you sized the 4! better ($140-$150), it would look more credible - as if you have the nut overpair, and since we have blockers to both AA and KK, it's actually quite likely the V thinks that we do have KK or AA. You also might have gotten him to fold preflop which is another great result with AKo here.

As played, it's kind of a disaster, the T probably made him pick up some equity and if we check again, our hand becomes even more obvious than it already was. I like a small blocker bet here, so we can set our own price and hopefully he's not good enough to see through it. We're definitely folding to any raise, but mostly we're just hoping to see an A or K on the river.

Of course there are. What's the relevance? This thread is about a cash game, not a tournament.


Congratulations! 50k hands of NLHE isn't enough to pin down winrate with any accuracy at all, although it's probably enough to conclude your winrate is almost certainly positive.

After a while against repeated observant opponents it's suicidal to play JJ or AK this way and KK differently. But for now, it's fine to 3! a little more. Making it $120 to go leaves you with an SPR under 1.

I don't think the actual raise size is terrible. It can entice AQ/AJs in, if those are in his range. It leaves an SPR of around 1, which means shoving the flop is always a reasonable play.


Not that I would play any differently than you, but it's important to think about what we're doing theoretically. We generally bet to get better hands (or hands with very good equity) to fold or to get value from worse hands. Which is accomplished here?

This is semantics. If you played one hand online and folded your SB, HEM or Poker Tracker or whatever people use these days would show $-1 from the SB. The point is to be apples to apples in your comparison. If you don't count the -1 then your comparison for the other half of the equation (the EV of playing AK here) should be from the same baseline, not counting the lost dollar..

That was my first thought. If JJ or AQs is in the guy's 3-betting range, folding AK there seems silly. There are games where my default range for a stranger's 3! wouldn't include JJ or AQs.

(Of course, we block one card from AA, KK, or AQs to make them less likely. We block two cards from AK but it's still more likely than any single pair.)

But I think it matters that we have players behind us. On rare occasions the raiser could have a monster; less often the caller could. (Weird slowplays with KK and AA aren't that rare, and the caller may fear losing action with a 3-bet.) But more often one or both might call with a hand worse than ours.

I think I like flat-calling with AK here. There's a good chance we'll get one of the middle players to call with AQ, AJ, or KQ (or sometimes an underpair to the 3-bettor's pair, say TT vs. QQ vs. our AK) and add value.

People should do lots of things that they don't actually do, and I don't expect small stakes live players to come up with many light 3!. However, I do think QQ, occasionally JJ, and occasionally AQs could be in his range.

Note that we have no idea how aggressive he is, and only a vague idea how tight he is. With nine or ten hands we can say he's probably not 40% VP$IP but there's not much evidence to rule out that he's 25% instead of 5% or 10%. But even if he is playing 10%, we don't know if he's 3-betting 8 out of 10 or 1 out of 10. If he's 3-betting 8% of his hands, then we're a favorite.

Anyway, I think I like call > reraise > fold but fold is less bad than I first thought.

This seems backwards. By default I'd assume an unknown live player reraising 3x has JJ or TT, maybe AK or QQ. By default I'd assume an unknown live player would reraise AA something like 2.25x fearing a fold.

Wow how did I forget to include blockers! Feel obligated to redo the math. This definitely makes 4 betting even more +EV.

Given same assumptions about his continuing range (KK+, 1/2 QQ, AK, 1/3 JJ) he has 6 + 3 + 5 (round up 4.5 AK) + 2 = 16 combos that don't fold. Assuming again he needs to fold 50% for this play to be profitable, he has to 3 bet 32 combos. QQ+/AK is 21. Add JJ and we get 27. Add the three AQs combos we get 30. Add two AQo combos we get 32. And this is assuming he never has air.

Embarrassing oversight on my part but now 4 betting is clearly +EV. Thank you AKQJ10 for indirectly reminding me.

You just saved me making a long post in response. Anyway maybe I didn't read your previous post carefully enough but I think you are over estimating the FE you need pre.

I’m firmly in the fold pre camp.

Ugh. I think 4 bet is absolutely fine here and I think we are in good shape versus V's range especially with the dead $ already in there.

The flop however is a MUST shove. If you are going to 4! pre and leave V with a PSB left when you make the play, you can't wuss out and check. You might get him to fold 99-QQ AND AK which is an awesome result.

AP, I think you now need to check/fold as any reasonable V won't believe you anymore and will call down with 99+.

I certainly can't see a live 1-3 unknown folding QQ here. It's hard for me to see them folding 99 either.

99 folds 100% of the time in my game and QQ at least 50% so shove is +EV IMO.

Late to the party.

Unless reads tell me he's capable of getting out-of-line preflop, we just saw someone 3bet in live LLSNL pokrs facing an EP open. I fold preflop.

On the flop, it's all a matter of whether we think this guy will fold a big pair. We have no history with him (right?) so I'm not too confident he will. Plus he just called a cold 4bet in live LLSNL; there's a very good chance he has AA.

I don't think much has changed regarding this on the turn except with our flop check he's now even less likely to fold "smallish" overpairs.

GcluelessNLnoobG

V isn't checking AA or KK on a two tone, two to a straight flop. I seriously doubt V is checking any over pair except maybe 9,9 or T,T. If players are playing as weak as shorn indicates in his games certainly folding AK is the wrong play.

I would check back AA almost always here as it's very unlikely the cold 4better is on a draw and mostly just has an overpair that we don't want to blow him off of (or a whiffed AK that we're cool with him turning into a bluff).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I guess I won't convince you guys that most 1/3 players are capable of 3betting wider than QQ, and now I'm really curious to see if you're right. I want to play a couple 1/3 sessions after the WSOP and bump this thread then. Clearly if most of the player pool never 3bets light (or 3bets JJ/TT) then we want to fold AKo.

To be honest, if I don't have reads on someone I go with age and looks. This guy has folded for an orbit so probably a tight player. This guy squeezed instead of flatting, therefore is more likely to be an aggressive player instead of a passive player even if it's just like 60% likely to be aggressive as opposed to 50%. Also this guy is a white guy in his 20s instead of a MAWG having a beer. All signs so far point to TAG who can squeeze wider than QQ.

Yes the sample size is one so it's unreliable, but any info is better than none. That last part about him being a 20s white guy made me 4 bet. I would honestly have just conceded if he was a MAWG.

Of course I need to remember my own stereotype as a 20 something Asian. Most people are way more reluctant folding to 20 something Asians.

Fair enough. I haven't played much NLHE in a while so my ranges may be miscalibrated.

Seems like either he's a standard old-school nit, in which case he's not 3-betting JJ or AQs and I agree that folding AK preflop is fine, although I still think flat calling and getting another caller is better. Or he's a loose, wild player. Or he's a much more thinking player than either of those two and could have hands like TT and read you as another thinking player who doesn't have to have KK+.

On the flop, the nit never has below QQ or AK but nits tend to get stubborn with overpairs, so.... I wouldn't try to blow them off QQ here. You're targeting only an AK chop. The wild LAG has all kinds of stuff and probably isn't folding 99. (Check-calling down would actually be fine with that read postflop.) The thinking player has mostly overpairs and AK, occasionally AQs or something like A5s that decided to play postflop because of the 4! size, and perceives you as capable of playing AK this way. To be clear, I wouldn't give an unknown credit for reading you that way.


I don't really see how shoving accomplishes much against any of these, but there's no other line I like as played except picking off maniac LAGs. That's why flat calling pre has really grown on me despite the big SPR OOP. Get worse to call.



IMPORTANT EDIT: I forgot to say--if he's 3! JJ or TT, calling a 4!, and then folding an overpair, then he's playing for pure set value. That's awful but also has interesting implications for 3-bet sizing and range. We should make the biggest 3! that he'll often call incorrectly, so there's more money in the pot when he folds. And we should start adding hands like A5s, A4s, etc. to our bluff range. Although blockers matter more if we don't expect to be called, so perhaps we should add in suited connectors that can graze the flop and worry less about domination (since he's putting us on KK+ anyway).

It shades our read in the Bayesian sense but we shouldn't go too far here. A 25% VP$IP will go card dead for nine straight hands 7.5% of the time. 20% VP$IP, 13% of the time. He's probably not extremely loose but we can't say he's all that tight yet.

As you said same reasoning applies to 3!. But it's reasonable to view default 1-3 players as having no bluff range here and very little in value that you beat, maybe AQs.

With the ace and king blockers I still like flatting (I don't default to thinking people fold QQ or JJ here even if they're playing only 15%) and wish someone would tell me why it's horrible.

Yeah, if the read that he'll fold JJ on the flop is accurate (seems strange; apparently he's solid but only playing for set value) then coax him in with AA. With no history if reads are accurate it's almost like we should just play backwards and check everything except AK here. Obviously that gets transparent really fast.

Don't think a flat is horrible but seems like -EV from my calculations and range estimates.

With the given pot odds, hero needs 41% equity to call. Against a reasonable weighted 3betting range ((AA)@85,(KK,QQ)@80,(AxKx)@75,(AxKy,JJ)@70,(AxQx)@ 40,(TT,99)@25,(AxJx,AxQy)@20 using ProPokerTools syntax), hero has 44% equity. Problem is there is still the initial raiser who will wake up with AA/KK about 10% of the time, so hero's equity is more like 40%. Lastly, hero's equity realization will be less than 100% because we are forced to check/fold when we don't hit(2/3 of the time) and when we do hit our hand will be face up with 2 streets of betting left OOP against 2 players. A conservative estimate for equity realization in this scenario is about 90%. So hero's adjusted equity is about 36%, which is 5% less than the given pot odds.

Not horrible by any means but seems like a losing play by my calculations.

That's why range is important. You can't take online experience and assume that the player pool is going to play the same way live.

Im okay with a fold pre. You arent printing money by cold 4b here, and by cold 4-betting you are massively increasing your variance for a spot that is, at best, very very slightly +EV. At worst, BE or even slightly -EV.

Otf i’d ship it in, we can get folds from AK and with such a low spr we arent folding anyway

If this player pool really only 3bets QQ+/AK, we are opening insanely wide, right? Feels like it would be a mistake to fold 43 suited UTG, for instance.

Not to pick on any one post, I still think it's remarkable how thoroughly people are trained to think reraise or fold here.

To recap my case for flat calling:. Even if our opponent only 3 bets QQ+ that means QQ is half his range (6 combos of 12). But we're not calling for preflop value because we're still a dog. We're calling because the implied odds of coaxing one of the other two players in and flopping the same top pair.

Occasionally we flop K high and pay off KK+ (4 combos). More often we get value from a loose KQ or KJ and the QQ just folds. Or, if it does get heads up, we can play passively to induce value from QQ.

Even better, A high flop. Now we're ahead of 9 combos, losing to 1. And it's likely AQ and maybe AJ have called us.

If we miss and get bluffed out by another AK that's bad (we can counteraggress if we think this is likely by the 3 bettor) but overall flat calling realizes the value of our hand without chasing out worse hands

Thanks. I appreciate the estimates. Some counterpoints:

First, the bolded is an argument for folding which I think you advocate but not for 4-bet reraising which many others advocate, since we can fold comfortably to a 4-bet. I guess it's plausible KK+ is 10% of the "EP's" range. A read for the other two players the OP would be helpful.

Regarding equity realization -- I don't think we're laying reverse implied odds if we can get one of the other two players to call. AQ/AJ/KQ will be a bit part of our range, and those hands are laying us implied odds.

Regarding the specific sequence (miss; we check; 3-bettor bets; we fold) it's true that's not realizing equity for our hand, but there are ways to counter that automatic profit. If it's HU, we're pretty sure all AK is in his preflop range, and we're pretty sure he bet/folds it on a miss, we can check raise bluff some of our misses. Those with backdoor flush draws (and no queen on the flop!) would be good choices. It helps if he'll fold some overpairs to aggression but that's not strictly necessary if all AK is in his range. (And 3-handed the reraiser is less likely to bet an AK miss although he probably would. But we're getting the overlay we need from the other players anyway.)