There are exactly two hands we “hate” to be up against. KK and AA. So yeah, we hate to be 5bet by these hands. But we also hate it when they call our shove. Whether we 4bet/call or shove as 4bet makes zero difference when villain has KK+.... So the question is, what’s the best line to increase value vs eg AQ, while getting more fold equity against TT-JJ. I think as a rule, that’s going to be 4bet smaller than shove, then shove all/most flops. Plus this line will work well for our range as a whole (including KK+).

I feel like it's helpful to know that in theory there's never really any disincentive to play AKs like AA preflop. There are less combos of it than AA, and there are only 6 combos that have it outright beat (3 of which are a less than 2:1 favorite) so there'd be no way to "exploit" it anyway.

In practice, well I don't see any reason to exit theory land. We have no reads on villain, except that it's clear they're not just a seat warmer so there's not really any reliable exploitation plan to go with. I certainly wouldn't assume his 3! narrows him down to like a dozen combos.

So 4!ing is certainly a reliably solid play here, and it's just a matter of if flatting is better (I don't see how) and if not, what size should we 4!. Given there's 6.5x the raise left behind and we're OOP, I think shipping is really the only size worth even considering in theory (and again, I don't know what we'd be exploiting in practice).

Thanks all for the thoughtful replies. Some really good stuff in this thread.

Results, for those who care - though they might be somewhat anticlimactic.

I 4bet to $220 and Villain insta-folded (he literally folded as I started to move the chips out). I'm pretty sure he was folding to any 4bet size I put out there.

Villain said he said AQ - I'll take that at face value since he didn't at all posture with folding immediately. He racked up the 2.4K two hands later.

If he had AQ then flat wouldve been the better choice

If AQ folds, we win 100% of the pot. If we flat, and V has AQ, it will be difficult to realize more than 100% equity (unless we know V has AQ, and V doesn’t know what we have - then it’s certainly doable).

Anyway, it is not necessarily better to flat just because we dominate a hand.

I could get on board with Mike about folding if V had a standard casual passive player vibe, and against that player type, folding is probably the best play. However, I don't get that vibe in this hand with V on the younger side and sitting on 5 buyins. With that said, and with effective stack sizes the way they are, I would just shove.

This. Yes given the very limited information we had (young, sitting on 5 buyins)I thought Mike's QQ+ range was too tight, but if it were the right range a fold would have been right.

But AK isn't even a made hand, it's a drawing hand..........

Time to take a step back and look at the math (even if it is back of envelope).

Getting fold from JJ and QQ is a fine result for AK. If we get a fold, we realize +90 in equity. If we 4 bet less trying to keep JJ and QQ in, we are actually generating negative equity. Regardless of what we think, the villain on the flop is not folding there isn't an A or K on it and we're wildly behind. If there is, we win the hand because they'll x/f. Our equity is less than what we gain if we got the fold pf.

A decent argument for not shoving is that we are crushed against AA and KK. It comes down to whether his 3 bet range is 5% or greater. If it is, then 4 betting or calling makes sense. If it isn't, then folding is better.

I guess when even an experienced mod like you Venice, is demonstrating via your last post that you fail to grasp what Ava was trying to explain about range vs range, and that a "standard" 4 bet size here is about pushing your range equity- then no wonder alot of spoonfeeding is simply neccesary at this forum.

Youre missing the goal by a landslide, and you are taking this down to level 1 poker aka i have 1 handcombo and i play that hand as i also can soulread villain for 1 spesific handcombo.

We have been using the term "range" as one of the most basic poker strategy terms in near all discussions since i first started to participate on this forum several years ago, but i guess its getting clear that even experienced mods doesent understand what some of the terms and concepts that were using really means.

The whole point is that we are kind of indifferent to what villain decides to do with his 3 bet range against our (hopefully well though out 4 bet range). If he decides to call our 4 bet and then blindly stackoff with JJ on 346 flop when we have AK, then we also gonna print money from him when we show up with all our KK/AA combos and he stacks off the same way. He is making a big mistake against our _range_, and it doesent matter if we show up with AK suited or KK/AA in any spesific hand.

Range vs range thinking is good, but for this type of spot, it seems more of a problem than it is helpful - especially considering we’re playing against an unknown villain who we probably won’t play again.

We should be playing to exploit their range with our specific hand moreso than we should be thinking, “well I have AA and KK here so villain calling off with JJ is a huge mistake so I played my range well.”

We want 99-QQ to fold, and yes, that is definitely a benefit to 4betting AKs. But even if they don’t fold, we have good equity against those hands - that is why we choose AKs and not 27o (in addition to the fact that AK has blockers to AA and KK and therefore reduces the chance that V has a strong hand to shove with).

If we knew that villain’s range was something like AJs, AQ+, TT+, and that villain folds AJ/AQ to a 4-bet, but shoves AK and TT+ (or worse yet, plays pairs like we have AK - calling pre then gii whenever an ace or king doesn’t peel) - then obviously 4betting AK is a bad idea.

But we 4bet AKs in this spot because an unknown villain will sometimes fold pairs, and will sometimes call or get it in with dominates hands. This is what makes AKs a profitable 4bet.

I've played enough online to know that playing whiffed AK in a 4bet pot OOP even with initiative against an undefined range is pretty tough for me, and I say this as someone who feels fairly comfortable playing 3bet pots OOP with initiative. Pick up the dead money or coin flip and move on. Don't worry about only 4betting small with AA/KK because most players aren't folding to the small 4bet anyway. Only when they start hero folding pre or post is when we should work in some bluffs and 4bet hands other than AA/KK.

I was going to do a huge write up, but I’m kinda glad you beat me to it. If one person gets it then I am happy.

ty

As an aside, the patronizing by the "pro range" folks itt is quite humorous. It's as if they think they've taken some matrix-like pill and see the world completely differently than the rest of the mere mortals posting here. In reality, I think those not using "range" every other word likely understand range thinking but are just expressing valid points in another way.

With regard to the quoted/bolded, is V really"printing us money" if he calls another $80 pre-flop with TT - QQ with the plan to GII on the flop if no over cards show up or if he sets up? I think if we do some rough math this would actually be a pretty netural EV plan for V if he puts us on KK+/AK and thinks we will shove all flops. Remember after V 3! to 70, and we 4! to 150, V is calling 80 to win 220 with 310 behind. So if V thinks we are shoving all flops, V is calling 80 to win 530. I'm just going to do some quick/rough math:

~10% of the time, V sets up and wins. +530EV

~35% of the time, an overcard falls (no set for V), so V folds to aggression. -80EV

~55% of the time, no set and no overcards and V GII. ~60% of these times we have AK and V is 80% favorite while 40% of the time we have AA/KK and V has ~5% equity. ~-40EV

If we do a weighted average of these 3 possibilities, the EV for V is close to 0. While I know this is rough/quick math, it hardly seems like V is printing us money if he plays this way against our RANGE.