2/5 NL

Hero is white, mid 20s, polo+jacket, has been playing tag game in contrast to loose table in which 5-6 multiway raised pots are standard. Hero has not gone to show down in several hours, with most hands ending after flop c-bets, double barrels, c/fs, b/fs, etc. Hero has been involved with both v1/v2 prior to this hand, usually in 2-3 handed pots that hero opened pre flop, and subsequently took down with c-bets, or bet/folded.

Two players at table (maniac not involved in this hand and V2) have been playing 75%+ hands pre flop, both limping and cold calling, adding to the general loose table vibe.

V1 is 50s male with military hat, white, reg (according to my seat neighbor) that plays in 5/10 games. LAG, and cold calls lots of pre flop raises. Saw him in his first orbit go for 3 streets of value OOP after opening pre flop with a9o on dry A flop. O/W no specific hand information.

V2, standard looking 50s white guy, loose pre flop. Likes to open high % of pots, like to cold calls lots of opens. Was involved in hand with other maniac at table that was tilting in which V2 cold called then cold called large 3bet ($100) with 98o vs maniac, OOP! Check/Called all in on 9xxss flop with ~100bb starting stack size....so he gambles a bit. Otherwise Cbets a high% after he opens, plays predictably/passively when cold calling post flop.

Hero has $625 at start of hand, V1 has $1050+, and V2 has $450.

Hero is in cutoff with AKo. V1 UTG opens to $25, 4 callers (last of which is V2). Hero 3 bets to $125. Folds to V1 who raises $325 more, folds to V2 who calls all in.

Hero?

FOLD

Call pf, not raise. You're in a wild game and the way you win is to hit your hand and get paid off. The SPR is low enough that if an ace or king shows up on the flop, anyone else with one is stacking off.

As played, fold. You're in bad shape against two villains and most likely some of your outs are busy.

We have a top 2% hand, we have position, the original raiser is a LAG who opens wide enough for us to be smashing his range, and there is plenty of dead money.

But you think Hero should call and try to hit gin in what is almost a family pot?

If villains are competent then you should fold. You have to put both villains on a pretty wide ranges for the situation before your getting odds to call. If either one of these villains had raised I would get it in, expecting the pot odds to justify shoving/calling. I don't think your beating both enough to stick around.

V1's raise is sized so he is never folding if you shove. After your obvious possible squeeze he may not need a monster to do this, but he is planning on calling if you shove unless he is on some total air bluff. There are probably a lot of pairs and not many worse AX in his range, expect a lot of QQ/JJ here. V2 has to be aware that V1 isn't on garbage here and still went all in, so his range is going to be better then average. How wide depends on how much he wants to gamble, but there should not be a lot of low pairs in his range, it is more big AX, medium/high pairs and probably a few big suited connectors.

How much happier are you after the raise and you're in the same position. The read of the table is that people are not folding pf. The purpose of a 3bet with AK is to take the pot pf or get it to HU. If it is going MW with these stack sizes no matter what, raising accomplishes little.

i play all my chips. 3 bet larger

Fold

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There was already $130 in the pot when you 3-bet so you made it seem pretty weak in my opinion if playing multiway. I would have squeezed it to at least $195 there to make the odds such that now the limpers have to call $170 to win $325 with a marginal hand. As played, I re shove to isolate one of the raisers so you at least have a chance at one of the side pots because after all, they might be trying to push you off your hand yourself

Easy get it in spot imo. We have nothing to fear from V2. No way he doesn't raise AA/KK with so much money/callers in the pot already. With his image I might even range him in any pair.

V1 obviously has the ability to put you on a squeeze and make a move for the huge amount of dead money. He can have AA/KK but we have blockers, and I'm ranging him much wider. The huge overlay that V2 provided makes this a shove.

If these were tight or ABC players this is an easy snap fold, but with this dynamic I think we get it in here.

I'm pretty new at PokerCruncher on my iPad but I'm going to give it a shot in hopes of contributing.

Using the above supplied ranges as a guide, I gave V1 88+, AJs+, AJo+. I gave V2 77+, ATs+, AJ+, and JTs, QJs, KQs.

Using those ranges and Hero's AKo, PokerCruncher returned equities of 34% for V1, 33% for V2, and 33% for Hero.

Since Hero would be committed if he called he might as well shove. Therefore he has to put $325 more into what will be a $1425 main pot (small stack of $450 times 3 plus the three $25 calls of dead money, plus blinds minus rake).

(.33 equity x $1425 pot = $478) minus the $325 to call V2's all in = +$153 main pot expectation

Then there is the $350 side pot of Hero's last $175 versus V1. Using V1's range above gave Hero 53% equity. $350 side pot x .53 = +$185 - $175 bet = $10

$153 main pot + $10 side pot = $163 positive expectation

I hope this helps. (And I also hope I did it right.)

The only thing that worries me is V1 raised UTG. As far as them playing 75% plus of hands I don't see how we fold AK with a little more than 100 bb. We have to be ahead of there range and AK wants to see all 5 cards since it is a drawing hand. Who knows we may very well have them both crushed. We would have to put one of them on AA or KK to ever fold. Since V 2 just flatted a raise pre I am saying he never has it, were if V1 has it I think it's a bit of a cooler. He has shown willingness to gamble and if he plays higher normally he will be willing to get it in with AQs+ 1010+ IMO.

We also have blockers and I didn't do the exact math but If we are getting 2/1 I think it's absolutely a call. We can't go folding premium hands to these opponents. It just seems way to weak.

Appreciate the feedback so far!

Some followup comments to the various replies:

Venice, based on your preference to call with AKo here, what is the weakest hand you choose to 3 bet with here? JJ, 1010, weaker? If you 3 bet smallish as I did and get called instead, we are setting up for for SPRS of ~1.5/1.25 with 2/3 callers respectively. With a larger 3 bet ($195 as suggested) the SPRs are obviously even lower. With such low SPRS its going to be hard to fold any flop against these Vs, even if an overcard or 2 flops, so those weakish PPs may kinda suck there but probably still +EV.

Regarding those that do like 3 betting, does everybody feel I should have 3 bet larger? A typical 3 bet after a $25 open with no dead money might be something around $70-$100. Here while I understand the $125 3 bet provides decent pot odds to call with dead money, I think for many Vs the larger absolute size of the bet still has almost the same amount of fold equity that a larger 3bet might. Furthermore, people still aren't getting SPRs/IOs to call with small pps/the crap they have already cold called with. And the smaller 3 bet still sets up for good SPRs.

Lastly I'm curious about the range people are constructing after the 4 bet for V1. I recall reading some posts ascribing pretty nutted ranges to live stakes 4 bets from average regs. Do people see wider ranges than AA-JJ, AK (maybe AQ) very often (outside of some smallish bluff with air percentage). Are perceived squeezes played back against very often without previous history ?

Curious to read some more comments!

I'm 3-betting this hand to about 175ish. The reason I don't advocate calling is you need to flop gin with this hand 5 way to be completely comfortable getting it in . Even though SPR will be somewhat low thats somewhat misleading since its 5way. Also picking up dead 21.5bb is great.

@alien: thanks for your good work.

As has been said on this forum numerous times, pre-flop and post-flop equity are two different things. AK can have great post-flop equity, but it doesn't have near the preflop equity people think it does.

The thing about AK is that it only has so much showdown equity unimproved. If you can get it heads up, you are pretty much a coin flip pre, and you can profit with aggression and position. Multiway, you're a dog. Pre-flop, you have to look at AK as a really, really good hand to semi-bluff with.

Here, where you basically have no fold equity, I think you have to look at it much the same way as you would look at set-mining with a small pocket pair, although with a higher probability of hooking up otf.

If you're going to do it this way, you want to get in as cheaply as possible and bet as much as possible after you hit.

Yes, and when the read of the table is that people aint folding preflop- how can it possibly be bad to 3 bet and get some more money into the pot with a premium holding as big slick?

With all kind of respect Venice, to just flat here and go 40 ways to the flop with AK seems very strange.

AK plays truly best when we see all 5 cards (realizing its equity) and playing HU/or 3 ways. I dont mind at all 3 bet/get it in preflop here.

How can we NOT 3 bet this preflop for pure value when people dont have a fold button??

Edit: Raising accomplishes fat value preflop with a very premium hand, and that its for sure more than "little". At a table where people tends to have fold buttons and respect 3 bet (where we fold out pretty much all worse hands like for example AQ) i am much more inclined to just call to keep the weaker parts of their range in the hand. But when people simply refuse to fold, i am going for fat value all the way preflop here.