I haven't been at this table too long. Most of the players are pretty deep around $700-1500 (max is 600) with one shorter stack, and we're 8 handed.
Only pot I've played so far, villain to my right limps, I raise AQo to 25, get a call from the shorter stack and villain, I cbet a K63 flop and take it down. Villain is a little older, I've never played with him before but he doesn't strike me as the nitty type. I think I've seen him limp once and call a raise another hand. A few hands later the hand in question takes place.
Pre-flop ($7)
Shorter stack in MP ($300) calls $5
BTN ($1k+) calls $5
Villain SB (1500+) calls $5
Hero ($635) in BB with AA raises to $30
MP calls $30
BTN folds, Villain calls $30
Flop ($95) 986
Villain checks
Hero bets $65
MP folds
Villain looks at my stack, slides out a stack of green chips roughly about $500 essentially putting me all in.
What range of hands plays this way and what should I do against that range?
his crai on the flop to an "older" unknown would usually be a set or a straight, I think "if" he had a king high flush draw he wound't check raise all-in. He would probably raise to something like 185 but of course we don't have any reads on him but I'm not going broke with an over pair on that board and 125 big blinds.
He only completed his sb originally, so I would discound JJ QQ and KK. I don't even think he would do this with 2 pair.
Basically, Villain could do this move with essentially three types of hands:
1) Hands that crush you (mainly sets) - one third of his range (34%)
2) Hands that have you beat for now, but you still have some outs (2 pairs) - very small part of his range (7%)
3) Hands that you beat, but which have a very decent amount of equity against your hand (draws and combo draws) - main part of his range (59%)
All in all, although the draws constitute the major part of his range, you are never in very good shape. You are either crushed or you face a hand that still have a very decent equity against yours.
Note that it's very unlikely that you face a hand that you dominate like a weaker overpair since most of them would have raised preflop.
Now, from a pure mathematical POV, given that there are so much draws in his range, if you think that he would push his draws this way more than 40% of the time, then the call is technically correct.
But 40% is an absolute minimum, you would look for at least say 60% to make the call, and even then, there is not very much to gain and it's a high variance play.
Fold, you're behind all of his value range. Even hands that are technically semi-bluffing like 97, 87, etc. have a crazy amount of equity to make 2p/trips/straight.
It sucks folding when spr is so low but I think you got to. He's not doing it with top pair, and it's pretty gutsy if he has an oesd and thinks you will fold your op.
Open to $40 pre, bet $75-80 on the flop. When opening pre, I've had the best results opening 5x + x for every limper. Your goal, no matter your hand, should be to either play heads up or not at all (win the limps and blinds). On the flop try to bet at least 75% when you have a hand, you want good value when someone calls. Bet 50% when c betting air. Mix those two up against thinking players.
As played, Vs raise isn't a bluff. It might not be a set or straight, but it's definitely a hand V wants value out of. V knows you have a strong hand, but is still willing to play for stacks. My guess would be straight draw/flush draw combo. If he had a set or two pair he'd still make an attempt at getting some value out of the hand, but here he wants to guarantee himself that he sees two more cards instead of having to fold to another one of your bets on the turn when he misses his combo draw. As played...probably fold unless you want to coin flip for stacks.
So my thoughts are as follows: pre slight misclick in that I should've made it $35 out of the BB (4x + 1bb per limp +1 more if I'm OOP in the blinds), but that's probably a small mistake, and if the shorter stack folds pre, villain probably mucks right behind him and that's not exactly what I want with two aces.
So this flop is definitely going to be better for my opponents' ranges than it is for mine. Given the wetness of the board, a larger bet is in order, I maybe could've even gone up to $75 (semi-exploitable I guess as I'm probably never bluffing in this spot but they can't know that after playing literally 2 pots with me). I was fully intending to commit to the shorter stack of $250. Villain is deep enough that we have 2 bets behind after the flop, and he chooses to stick it all in right away instead of raising $200ish/shoving turn. Because of his limp/call pre, and this flop line, I'm weighting his value hands differently than I would had he made a standard raise. I got the feeling like he wants me to fold.
So his value hands...
Straights (T7 and 75) - not too likely, 75s a bit more likely. This is one of the true equity disaster scenarios for me. Even with the draws out there do people really play the nuts like this?
Sets - I think 99 is extremely unlikely with no PF raise, 88 somewhat unlikely too, but I'll sometimes overlimp/complete 88 so not impossible. 66 is definitely in his preflop range. Again are guys just check/shoving sets? I know if I have a set on this flop HU against the PFR, I'm not trying to get him to hero fold TT+, but of course we can't give villain credit for being a thinking player automatically.
Two pair - 98 seems like the most likely of his potential value hands, as there is more value in getting an overpair to fold and the pot is pretty big already ($160 once villain has action on him). I don't know if villain sees a flop with 96, 86s is also possible. These are realistically the only hands I can see someone trying to blow someone off a hand with.
The other portion of his range is going to be flush draws, combo draws with a lot of equity, some pair+straight draw hands. This is why I felt like this spot was pretty close and that having the Ac gives me enough equity to call. Looking at the math post game, with the range I'm giving him, I'll have about 49.37% equity, and with 1.42 to 1 I need 41.32%.
Results for the curious:
Spoiler:
I call, Villain has J5 turn is K, and I don't improve on the river.
The results are not really important to why I posted the hand, more as to whether I'm thinking about this spot correctly and making good decisions win or lose cause I felt it was pretty close either way, to the point where I felt I would fold without the A in my hand
Feel free to poke holes in my analysis if I'm making some kind of logical mistake or something and thank you guys for the comments. I think this type of hand comes up often enough that it's worth looking at.