2/5 NL, 600$ Effective

Preflop
3 Limps
BTTN (Young weekend warrior, not great) makes it 35
Hero in the SB looks down at A K I make it 125
BB is an out of town loose player, 6 glasses of wine deep, he is not insane or reckless but he is by no means tight cold calls for 125
Everyone folds besides the BTTN who calls.

Flop Pot: 390$

96 2

SB (Hero): Check, (I'm not c-betting here)
BB and Bttn also check

Turn Pot: 390

9

I check and the two players behind also check back again

River Pot: 390
7

Board is 96 2 9 7

I check for the third time
BB: Bets 200
SB Folds
Back to me

Analysis: I simply can't come up with much value he has here
I find it very hard to believe that this out of towner who was loose would check a flush draw, QQ, JJ, 1010 TWICE and then bet the river

Bluffs: A QX, A JX

The AJ off is less likely but AQ certainly seems reasonable as a bluff candidate

There are not many SUPER likely bluffs quite honestly but atleast I have some that make reasonable sense compared to his value where I only have 99 for quads or a really weird hand.

Anyways, 200 to win 590, I make the call with AK

He shows 99 for quads gg

With SPR so shallow, we u fortunetly need to just c/f this down 3 ways, HU I might b/f like 1/3 pot because a lot of bad villains don't really react to sizing and will just give up to a $x bet because it's can represent real money to particular players who are just playing fit/fold

Thank you for the reply,

my issue with c-bet in this 3way spot is that with no heart in my hand I think i'm getting called too often

The villan who Cold called a 3 bet has 88+ AJsuited+... I think that all those pockets are calling a 1/3 bet and a lot of his Ace x combos will have hearts since i don't have one

I see very few hands the villain in the BB is folding

Next time don't include results...

Pre should be more, at least 4x the raise so $150ish. Probably making it $160 with the 3 limps in there. This size charges him more with dominated hands and gives us a chance to get it in on two or three streets, depending on flop texture.

As played I am not calling the river but it is tempting. You said he's not reckless so I don't think he has many unsuited broadways in this spot. He can absolutely have an 88-JJ type hand here imo.

Yea totally agree about pre-flop sizing, butchered it.

My issue with 88-JJ is that I don't know if he's good enough to bet it for value (what is he getting called by that is worse)

88 makes more sense than JJ because i think he bets JJ on flop or worst case turn when checked to him twice

^ Yeah I would think so too but he is 6 wines deep and the random wtf factor. Who knows with these guys but IMO I don't think players bluff enough in general, probably less than normal in a 3b multiway pot. Like I said it is tempting because everyone looks so weak.

[I thought you were in the SB. Or did you misstate river action and you meant to say that the BTN folded after your check and the V' river bet?]

Anyway, it's worth pondering the information content of his lead into the BTN otr after your check. I can find a fold here because he's leading into the BTN and H on the river. So he must know his FE is much less leading into two of you than if he were HU leading the river. I think this levels him to mid-pairs and makes it easier for H to find a fold than if H was HU..

I would always make this call and have villain say he was bluffing and then show an underpair or something, so I really don't like this

i like a fold on the riv. BB could show up with TT or 88 or some jazz and just be betting cause for whatever reason he came up with.

yeah, gotta remember people can be bluffing with better and we don't beat all his "bluffs"/merges/spazzes

people can just be clicking buttons at times

When you see someone make some large hero call with AK and win, they look like a genius but you can bet for every time they've done it, theyve called incorrectly 5-10 times and mucked and you didnt know they only had A high. I seriously doubt anyone can hero call with A high profitably in the long run.

It isn't like we are always calling with A high, we do it when we are going to be good enough of the time to justify it. Sometimes A high rates to the best hand a big % of the time, it just depends on the situation. This spot vs a 3bet cold caller obviously wasn't one of those but lots of players will call a wide range pre and bet river 100% of the time when you check the turn for example. I can replay so many hands where I went bet flop check turn and got lead into on river.

seems perfectly fine to me

You don't block anything and you don't beat anything. I can't find a reason to throw another $200 into the abyss other than morbid curiosity, which is an expensive way to get information at the table.

Keep track of every hero call you make with A high and get back to me after about 50 of them and let me know what your results were.

Absolutely useless without knowing pot odds for each call, reads, etc. If I am right 30% of the time it could still be +EV.

Not useless at all. Do it 50 times and let us know how much you won or lost with the hero call. The percentage of times you win doesnt matter, but the total amount won or lost matters.

If theres $200 and then the guy bets the river for $100 and you decide to hero call him with A high, you either won $300 or lost $100 with the hero call.

Keep track of results over 50 of these and let us know what happened. My guess is you will never make it even 10 before you stop doing it.

I like a turn bet when it's checked around on the flop.

EDIT: I changed my mind I don't like a turn bet ignore this comment.

Apparently AK will call. But internet needling aside, I would approach this a different way. If you 3 bet from the blinds and fire on the flop, would Villian fold JJ or lower to you if they missed their set? If yes, I would bet the flop. Now you are spending the $200 to fold out all hands except KK or QQ or 99 instead of the inverse of hero calling on the river to beat a single possibility of AQhh.

If villains are ‘dumb’ and don’t understand value then just c,c,f and move on. You got to see all the cards for one price and that’s usually good enough for me in these spots.

And Mike is right on with the hero calls. My only comment is they should be so rare and so specific that your sample size is almost non-existent. I’m 1 for 1 in A high hero calls in 500 hours. Just for comparison I’ve had quads 4 times in that same span.