Uncapped 1/3 underground game. 7 handed late night action.

Villain,MP $1500: Callingstation of a whale who have been sunrunning pure tonight. Started out with $200 and builded his stack up in 2-3 hours. Playing 9 out of 10 hands dealt regardless of raisesizes, and hitting good strong nutted hands over and over again regardless of his starting hands. He is not totally clueless though, have played for many years (alot with hero too) and he is adjusting on some levels to different villains in the game. Very sticky though,pretty big gambler, both pre and post.Not afraid to put money into the pot. Doesent 3 bet pre often though,tonight he have only 3 bet once this far-not against hero.

Hero, UTG $550:: On his first buyin,longtime TAG reg in the game with a tight rep, and should have a clean strong image tonight. Been getting a decent amount of starting hands lately, raised pre and C-bet flop to win most of them. Not very happy with my seat tonight as villain in this hand is sitting two seats to my left, but adjusting as good as possible by tightening up preflop more than usual because of villains stickyness.

On to the hand. $6 straddle, hero raises UTG to $22 with AK. Villain proceeds to 3 bet to $55. Hero have developed a sizing read on villain that this small 3 bet sizing usually is a weak non ultra premium range, so he decides to 4 bet this to put the pressure on what he believes is a capped weaker than normal 3 bet range. Hero 4 balls it to $160. Villain thinks for a few seconds and tosses in the call.

Flop Q25

Hero? Comments on both pre and flop decision is welcomed.

I like the pre-flop play, if we are OOP here maybe size up a bit to generate folds a little more often;


I almost like a x/r on the flop bc of how wide he is and will look so strong; I feel like only you can rep the nutted pairs here (AA,KK,QQ) and if he checks back then you could always put out a delayed c-bet on most turns


c-betting is ok too I think, I could just see him putting bet out/ calling flop wide so I feel c/r is more effective

I agree, I don't like the 4b sizing. Great that you have a read, but you're OOP, so you gotta make it bigger. I'd go about $190ish. That also gives you a bit under a PSB to jam the flop with.

As played, I think you still have some SDV with a sticky player but a check in a 4b pot just screams AK (or QQ) and will force you to make the uncomfortable decision after he takes the initiative. Unless you're willing to x/r jam as tmo1120 mentioned then I think a cbet is mandatory. Unfortunately you have a really awkward stack size to cbet small followed by a turn jam, so it might require a jam on the flop. If you cbet like $110 on the flop then you'd be jamming $290 into $540 on the turn and he should be calling with any pair.

So as played, I think the bigger question is whether you jam the flop or give up. You said he's sticky so a jam probably only gets called by better and folds out worse.

The more I think about this hand the more awful of a spot it feels like. A 4b pot with 183bbs just leaves absolutely no room to maneuver. It almost feels like we shoulda just jammed preflop.

Wtf are people suggesting 4betting to $200 pre with a $550 stack?! You're honestly better off just jamming pre if you're going to pick a ridiculous sizing like that.

The 4bet is large enough as it is. It really doesn't need to be any bigger. $160 is fine.

On the flop, we want to bet/fold around $100ish to get villain to fold his AK. It also serves as a blocker bet to allow us to sometimes see a turn card for cheaper. This leaves us with $290 behind.

Jam any 3, 4, T, J, K, A turn. Otherwise x/f turn.

If you're 4betting it should be bigger such that you can jam blind on the flop for 3/4 to a psb. If you make it 200 you'll have 350 behind in a 400 pot. You should be doing the same with JJ+ also. If you want to outplay a sticky whale you should keep preflop pots small with drawing hands (lol) like AK.

You are jamming pre but you're trying to keep that fact a secret from the Villain.

Given the V tendencies (station), I presume checking flop with KK+ is not optimal. Still, I’d check and hope to see a turn. If V bets, I’d fold to value sizing.

Pre – I’d go $190ish given the sizing tell.

exactly, maneuver your stack into the middle with a range advantage and some FE on flop as well

The problem with making it $200 is we let him correctly fold hands we dominate such as broadways and worse Ax. Do we think he is going to call another $150 with hands we dominate? Maybe if he is atrocious then ok but even superdonks know calling 4bs with those dominated broadway hands isn't good.

OP kind of confuses me with this read that he's super sticky, gambly and a whale but also isn't clueless and is adjusting. Which one is it? This is an important consideration for what to do pre. I'm going to assume he isn't a huge sticky whale and has just been running good. $200 and jamming any flop is awkward and I don't think this player is often making mistakes against such a line and our range. If he supposedly doesn't fold a pair then auto shoving any flop doesn't sound good.

I like making it $130 pre and being able to maneuver flop and turn but maybe I'm in the minority.

There's about $330 in the pot and $390 behind. We block some AQ, KQ hands but still quite possible for him to have those. IMO hands with a Q in them are classic call a 3b or 4b hands. I don't think V has better than JJ, TT very often here. If we jam he has to fold a little over 50% of the time to profit. I don't think he's folding overwhelmingly often so I check flop and hope to see turn. It's hard for him to bet here since he has to be scared of being check jammed on.

The Villain is no way he's folding Ax.

^ V has 3bet one time all session and is currently in a 4b pot with an admittedly tight player. The dynamics are much different than a limped or single raised pot. You could be right but then OPs description that he's not totally clueless and is adjusting would be completely wrong.

+1

also Hero viewed as TAG ??? is V aware and/or does V care??????
if so and you continually c-bet has he noticed???
if you check flop he may think you are baiting him and check back
allowing you to see turn free

I am sorry if i was expressing myself unclear in the OP.

Gonna try and clarify little bit. Everything i said about him in the opening post is true, but what i meant is that he still isnt a total clueless drooler in every part of the game.Wich was what i was trying to get across. For example he understands relative hand strength and he understands that tight players more often than loose openers will miss boards such as 3-4-5 or 2--5-7,so he might semibluffraise more in these spots against tight nits compared to other fishes. He understands that 88 isnt neccesarily the nutz on 3-4-5 against a tight opener, but he might play it more aggressively against the more loose opponents to apply max pressure.

He is indeed on a ridic heater this session, but he constantly calls 5x and 6x opens from every player at the table with all kinds of garbage from 6-4 off to 10-3 suited. One hand he catched a naked bottom pair with 10-3 on K-3-5 with a flushdraw, and called a close to potsized C-bet from me wich i fired into 3 opponents. He is doing that to hope he is in front against A high, or to bink two pair/trips and suckout for a big pot- thats the kind of station he is.

I woudnt say i am neccesarily trying to outplay him by 4 betting pre.I am attacking what i believe is a weaker than normal capped 3 bet range,exploiting my reads (the betsizing tell) on him if you will.

You need to be pretty confident in your betsizing tell, because the fact this is only his 2nd 3bet of the night, and it is against a tight UTG open, when villain does seem to be aware of adjusting to player types are pretty strong reads for a tighter range.

Pre, I think I prefer call, smaller raise or bigger raise vs the 3bet. Just because this sizing leaves us with really awkward stack sizings OOP.

Flop - Q should hit his range reasonably well. And we have a really awkward cbetting stack. Think I like chk/decide, see if I can pick up any info on his sizing, general comfort level and decide from there, obv we are fine if it checks through.

Against a guy like this you could also have called pre, but with your "smallish" stack in this uncapped straddled game - and with your read that he isn't nutted - I still prefer the 4bet (I like the sizing), but if you 4bet it looks like a standard shove on the flop to me. If he's got AQ, so be it, but he could still fold a good portion of his pairs, because hey, a nit just 4bet him from EP and shoved the flop, and apparently he's not clueless. And if he does call with those, you still have 6 outs and some backdoors. Furthermore, you can push him off a chop, which would be a huge win.

I’d bet small otf and call any jam

Pre sizing is fine

I think 4-betting a sticky whale with AK is completely unnecessary, especially OOP. If you flop an A or K you can still get all the money in when he pays 3 streets with dominated broadway hands.

The whale is basically only 3betting {TT+, AK}, with the occasional 99/AQ type hand.

I don't think that bet/calling the flop is profitable with Ace high there.

We have an SPR of 1.3, when we bet small he occasionally spazzes with AQ/AK or even worse so it’s a pretty mandatory call. We are priced in and need 25% or less to call

People don't fold pairs in 3b pots, let alone 4b pots. Your sizing pre basically commits you to the hand regardless of flop, so now you're kind of stuck unless you're going to c/f. I would have made it $115 pre and left some room to play post.

Super spew to 4-bet someone with a range advantage over you. In low stakes, im only 4-betting AK OOP against a LAG who I actually have FE against PostFlop because his 3-bet range isn't ******edly as narrow as QQ+ AK.

Sorry, would need to see this guy 3-bet trashy Broadway hands or Ax suited before I think he is capable of 3-bet light. I need to have seen it multiple times because you opened UTG and even the fish know UTG is TT+ AQ+ and they will usually flat all if their speculative hands instead of light 3-bet.

Flat 3-bet pre for implied odds. V can get super sticky with QQ/KK on A High boards. At least 2 streets of value.

As played, check fold. Awful flop for you in case this guy actually was wider than QQ+. AQ KQ and QJ are now ahead. JJ and TT will likely stack off given your calling station/ whale read.

Check might get a free card from pairs below QQ and once in a blue moon you can get to showdown with the best hand of AK high(8% maybe)

So, you prefer to basically click it back kind of sizing wich have zero fold equity pre, but on the other side you keep his whole range in there heading to the flop? (Wich isnt neccesarily a bad thing).

I think we want some fold equity to help pad our EV in this hand though, being OOP with A high against a sticky villain. So i disagree with you with wanting to min 4 bet.

Bodybuilder: please read my OP more carefully before you continue to spew.

1) I stated in the OP that i have lots of history with villain, been playing with him for many years. Thus i know he is capable and also will 3 bet with less than premiums. This isnt something i just came up with after sitting with him for 2 hours in a random game.

2) My sizingtell is accurate and also builded up over time to verify it. He doesent have QQ+ here, so it would be fine if you stopped pretending like villains 3 bet range is the usual QQ+/AK in this spot, cause i am telling you once more that it isnt.

3) So it isnt "superspewy" to 4 bet him with AK in this spot, and he doesent even have a range advantage over me either when i have AK- see point 2.

4) Both me and Wj94 are longtime winners at LLSNL with lots of experience, so stop talking to us like we are some noobs who recently started to play. Wj have crushed 1/2 and 1/3 in Vegas over a big sample size with insane winrates, one of the best people on this forum have heard of. Just for the record if you wasnt aware of it. So i would appreciate if you treated us with a little more respect if youre gonna continue spew in this thread.

I’d cbet very small otf like 25-33%, look to bluff jam any 3/4/J/T when you pick up equity. Should fold out his underpairs and put Qx in a tough spot. If you think he’s never folding Qx to a turn jam then probably cbet/give up


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