Hero- 500 - BB - playing tight and that so far
Villain - 650 - HJ - I've only see him stack a shorthanded fish so far with AA.. he is a 30 some year old Persian gentleman

Hero dealt AKdd

1 limp, Villain raises 15, Hero squeezes to 65 from the BB, Villain calls

134
10h6s2c
Hero x, Villain x

134
10c6s2cAs
Hero 85, Villain AI (Hero has 300 left), hero?

Rip it in. Lots of draws here that would take this line.

I think the same as comment #1. This can be a draw so I call. It could even be a scared AQ/AK type hand. I think A10 and sets are most likely hands he can do this with that we are behind.

Imo you gotta make a tight fold here without reads on v being able to spaz. Calling off 100bb+ at this stake with 1 pair is generally not going to go well for you.

Raising here with a semi draw isn't a spaz. It might not even be a mistake depending on what draws he has. Especially if H is viewed as tighter.

I don't even think AT checks back here. I imagine the hands we are behind are sets., and mostly TT/66. Maybe he took A6 and life sucks, but I can't find a fold here.

Shrug calling. Don’t love it but too high in my range to fold. 30 year old Persian V is a call. 75 year old Vietnam vet, maybe it’s a fold.

Sure but you’re making the assumption that a random 1/3 player is going to play their draws aggressively, which is going to be incorrect 9/10 times at least. Most players in this pool play way too passively, which is why I’m saying we need a read that this player is different to think otherwise.

Plus add that we played this hand exactly like we have AK and now he’s bombing when the A hits.

you can't fold, sorry you lost, just a cooler

i think you should bet the flop more often than not

Definitely

With no backdoors, from OOP?

you won this flop a lot (often enough to bet) and you are betting all your top hands here for value/protection, not betting all of the time, but with a tight image bet often, you have just enough FE, all he has to do is fold a hand like 77 a few times out of 10 to make it a profit to bet

this is usually a bet/decide for me on the flop with this stack size so it's clearly a bet/call on the turn, i don't think i'm always folding to a shove OTF with AK high

I think in theory a lot of what you said about calling it off is correct but IME it just doesn’t translate to live 1/3. Almost everyone is completely unbalanced which obv means we should exploit unbalance as well.

we make a lot of money when they fold pocket pairs, people who are too tight also won't make a 3 street call down with a low pair, so he really only has to fold his pocket pairs some % of the time to break even

we win in poker by getting better hands to fold, the flop betting is to build FE, charge worse, protect our investment in the hand...it actually doesn't matter who you are playing, bet this flop more often than not imho, it's impossible to play perfectly against it

I 100% agree with that part.

Part I disagree with is calling it off as played. I think we make an exploitative fold here Atleast a reasonable amount of the time. Sort of the general rule in low stakes to play aggressive and then exploit fold when villains get aggressive especially for stacks

In genera, Ranges just aren’t very wide at all at this level when big bets go in. A significant amount of 1/3 players have no bluffs in their range when they bet $300.

I might lean to a flat preflop but I'm extremely passive like that. We're not short (where the little dead money in the pot would be more worth going after). There's no significant dead money in the pot (much rather be 3betting here after a raise and a couple of calls). At most we're going 3way (we don't necessarily hate inviting a single possibly dominated guy along), so it's not as if we have a huge field we'd like to thin. If called we'll be playing a bloated pot OOP. But I'm obviously on the passive side preflop compared to a lot here.

As played, think I'm cbetting small. Ending the hand with A high here (even an A high that is in the lead) is a fine result.

Our hand looks exactly like it is when we bet the turn, so for those reasons I wouldn't hate a check (unless the guy ain't bluffy / stabby against weakness, in which case I'm cool with a bet to protect against the hands that have picked up draws).

Weird spot facing the raise. How cluefull/clueless is this guy? Our hand looks exactly like it is and yet he's fine shipping decent sized chips in. And yet you'd think he would have bet the flop with most of the hands that are ahead of us when checked to. And are draws really expecting us to fold what it looks like we have? Is he really just hurp durping with a worse Ax? With an SPR of ~3 I guess I can't hate on committing, but against anyone with half a clue this is a very meh spot, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

It's far mor than 1 out of 10. These guys make this move with draws all the time, especially at 1/2 and 1/3. That's not to say we are always ahead, but the ace is also a decent scare card that villains can bet on.

Im with twitch. If he was an older guy, or we bet flop snd then shoved on us turn, then i could get behind folding.

People will lean towards bluffs against weakness. We raised preflop, checked a blank flop, and then bet an Ace on the turn; our hand reads exactly what it is, so I'm not convinced too many are attempting bluffs here.

GcluelessbluffingnoobG

I reject your notion we arent weak. Checking the flop looks immensely weak, regardless of pre. Turn is the perfect bluff card for us, and V being on a draw isnt just a naked bluff. It's a semi with stack sizes.

I think three-betting pre and checking this flop is a mistake.

As played, call or fold are both fine to me depending on my read at the table. Have you been folding to pressure? I might just let it go unless he's been putting tons of pressure on and/or you've been folding a lot.

You're overthinking what most villains are going to put us on here when we play the hand this way. So regarding him semi-bluffing with a big draw, it mostly comes down to whether he thinks he can get us off AK; most don't, so most are just going to call here and see if they can bink.

GimoG

Hardly. They see us check and bink. They might think we have an ace, but not necessarily AK. Hero is also tight, so he is probably a heavy folder. He might be doing this as merely a thing, or because it feels it coming.

As i said, it's a close my eyes and call moment. But folding feels wrong to me. Maybe if we had the Ac, i might find a fold but eh.

@javanewt: what's your issue with the 3 bet, or is it just not cbetting/ or stack size

I'm not terribly pumped at folding either, but mostly because I'm having a difficult time seeing how he plays better this way. But typically when stacks this big go in this way, that's simply what they show up with.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Sooo.. I did go ahead and make the call, and our Villain showed 1010 for a flopped set that obviously held OTR. I regretted the call a bit in the moment, and think the Beluga Theorem applied. I didnt see many value combos he could have in real time, but how often is a 1/3 Villain do this with one pair?

I lose by far the most money each month squeezing from the blinds with hands like and AK and AQ and playing bloated pots from OOP. They always seem very difficult hands to navigate, and very expensive. Im considering increasing my PF sizing to 5x +1x per limper and hopefully villains will call less.. Sometimes I just wanna flat these in the blinds!

That said, I will definitely be firing small at a dry flop like this in the future hopefully getting mid pairs to fold.

In low stakes poker, most (not all) players think in terms of actual dollars...not pot odds or bbs. Very few players are capable of running big bluffs...it's much rarer than you think.