1/3rd bet OTF is fine as long as you’re never folding.

Flatting the 3! is totally reasonable. Snap 4!ing AK every time doesn’t make sense either. I’m sure most pros would mix their ratios here depending on a handful of variables.

It strengthens your 3! flatting range and V’s can feel free to guess when and why you’ll flat/4! however they want, but ultimately it makes you more difficult to play against if you’re willing to mix in some premium flats OOP.

I’m not even saying that 4! is bad here. I’m saying that as far as flatting a 3! OOP goes, this is a pretty great spot to do it.

Given how large the 3! was, a big 4! response just leaves us in this spot basically always.

Think of how drastically the EV of this hand changes over 10-20 runs if we botch it even once or twice as a 4! in that amount of hands.

Would rather trap a premium pair vs aggro btn clicker OOP than play AK oop floating with air. 4b pre is mandatory for me

Let's not use the word "mix" here, against these opponents... we're not playing against Phil Ivey

A good spot to flat with AK OOP:
- Opponent has a very strong 3bet range with no fold range
- Opponent is passive so we can realize our equity better OOP
- Opponent is fundamentally strong, observant, has many hours against us, and is actively trying to exploit us so we mix some AK into our 3b call range

This is the opposite of that.. LAG w/ weak 3bet range that knows when to shut down. X/c against these types of opponents is a death sentence

Give him maximum pain. Getting max value out of his AK hands (9 juicy combos) is what separates have from the have-nots

If he flops a set or AK vs. AA that's a cooler.. can move on w/ life. Everyone knows playing against LAGs is super high EV, but higher variance. We can't always get AA in position against them

The difference we’re talking about is mere dollars, not Phil Ivey.
But sure, do what he says.
He plays high stakes obviously.
Phil Ivey is his regular opposition.

P.S. isn’t Phil Ivey dated by now?

With your read that he's FOS, his 3bet size, you being OOP and these stacksizes, I would definitely consider 4bshoving and just ending the hand right away.

The 4bet size seems normal to me. Is it because of the effective stack size of $750 that this is large ? What if the effective was $1000?

Ya and that doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake. Tens fold here a lot and when they don't, you're still 25% when the money goes in. Sometimes he missed too and you win.

W/R/T shove with 1 SPR, let's go over it.

Let's say he calls off here in a bad case scenario with 99-QQ (and obv top set), and AJs. We have approx 21% equity against this range.

So the times he folds, we win $500 straight away
The times he calls, we have 21% in a $1500 pot investing $500 (EV: -$185)

So if 500*P(F) - 185 * (1 - P(F)) > 0, we make money shoving.

685 * P(F) > 185
P(F) > 0.27

So 27% of his range being folds = We make $

QQ-99, AJs is 23-24 combos. For the sake of this exercise let's say 24

So if he has 24/(1-.27) ~ 33 hand combos, or 9 folds, we make money by shoving. AK and AQs are 12 combos.

And since I don't think this guy will auto-call off 99, shoving starts getting better.

Thank you!

For sure, nice analysis jdr.
It’s a shame that the math of flatting here is ridiculously convoluted.
Appreciated the solid discussion.

No problem.

Also keep in mind that your range is well protected here. Like you can have top set and you can have all the overpairs. Our shove ideally gets his 99-TT to make a mistake against our strategy. Like if he has queens, we shove, he calls, nothing to think about. If he missed, we shove, he folds, nothing to think about.

If we shove all of our AK, these hands have 36% and perform good enough to cry call it off. He may think we give up sometimes, or be unwilling to gamble for it all, and fold these as well.

4b size is too big imo, we want him to continue and spaz but we price a lot of weaker hands out with this sizing. This is a slam dunk 4b for value though.

If we had made it 180 for example then there would be like 375 in the pot and 570 behind and we could have better options with our range of bluffs and overpairs.

As played just jam the flop.