It would be pretty bad to take a shove or fold line on flop with AA with no club. Call the flop CR to re-evaluate turn is the best option by far.It would be pretty bad to take a shove or fold line on flop with AA with no club. Call the flop CR to re-evaluate turn is the best option by far.

Well put, RP.

I don't think villain is worried that hero turned a straight after raising pre. Rather, In my opinion the turn over bet when one of the obvious draws got there (but the less likely one for a check raise) should significantly discount sets due to the turn card being "action killing."

I think this term has been overused, but it's a leveling situation. The turn over bet feels like it doesn't want a call. Does the TAG believe that hero will call because it looks like he doesn't want hero to call?

Also, we don't know what hero's perceived range is here. Does hero have a lot of flush draws in his range, or does he have mostly overpairs? (Only hero can answer). Has hero been seen calling and losing a lot, or folding to aggression? All of these things would factor into my decision. Basically, if I have appeared stationy, then this is a good place to stop stationing. But if I have just been folding to raises a lot, here's where I might take a stand.

I'd see a plastic surgeon.

I think that $25 ISO-RAISE out of BB is usually better in this spot, but there can be reasons to raise as small as $20 or as large as $35 depending on the exact Villain tendencies. I definitely think that ISO-raising to $30 or more as a DEFAULT with AA in BB over just one limper at $600 effective stacks is probably bad.

well played OP, gross number of bad V's think x/r small on the flop with their sets is the way to go. it's a painful but correct fold on the turn without a read that he loves to go nuts with his draws.

pre size is good, cbet good, calling the x/r seems standard although it could be a fold with a good read.

I think you made a good fold on the turn.

I was about to say "yeah, good point" but then if we are shoving against a particular villain (not this one IMO) because we think he can stack off with his draws us blocking the NFD actually makes us more likely to run into his 2-pair+ and less likely to get value from draws?

What is your reasoning behind wanting the club in hand?

We expect the draws in his x/r range to be mostly combo draws rather than bare nut flush draws so we prefer to have the equity boost from having the Ac.

+1 to call the x/r eval turn (fold vs shove)

^ OK but if a villain is only raising 2-pair+ and draws and then only calling a shove with 2-pair+ and combo draws would we really ever want to shove vs such a villain anyway? Will calling and evaluating really be +EV vs such a player?

This also goes back to my original question about our equity vs various somewhat balanced flop raising ranges. How many semibluff raises can a V put in with his value raises (2-pair+) and it still be unprofitable for hero to continue (call or shove) with AA?

How much worse is it for hero holding KK? QQ? Then bare NFD are combo draws, though villain cant be sure his pair outs will be good.

All good points. Thanks for the clear explanation.

My one remaining issue is, if we are discounting TT+ because of V's limp/call preflop and then we discount sets because the turn is an action killer - what range are we giving a villain who is not trying to level us into calling? FDs and combo draws plus some random weak 1-pair that are being turned into a bluff or are making a bad value bet/trying to force us to fold our draws?

I think villain's value range here is basically 4c5c and all 46s combos (if he calls with all of this pre). Sets are possible after flop x/r, but again I'm discounting them. There's 7c8c, but I'm seriously discounting it after shove on turn. If we think villain could have other 78 combos, then we've gotta open him up to a ton more flush draws as well (basically any FD+two overs or FD+gut shot like T8. *if* villain were x/r with a naked flush draw, this would be a good turn card to shove on I think. Especially if it also gave him a gutshot.

Ragequit, I don't think that we want the Ac in our own hand. I should have just said that calling is better with AA. I didn't mean that we should shove with AA with Ac (that would be dumb).

Snap folding.
The hands that we crush are unlikely.
The hands that crush us are likely.
The draws he has have decent equity

If villain description was
maniac cant fold top pair and presses with any gutshot, the answer would be different

No, I was just talking about why we would rather have the Ac.

[/QUOTE]Will calling and evaluating really be +EV vs such a player?[/QUOTE]
Depends what you put in his range and how he plays it on later streets (not helpful, I know). We are getting a good price on the flop, he sometimes checks turn, and we have great visibility on how his equity distributes on later streets (i.e. Goes to 100 on clubs) and are in position which are all factors that make calling at least once appealing here.

[/QUOTE]This also goes back to my original question about our equity vs various somewhat balanced flop raising ranges. How many semibluff raises can a V put in with his value raises (2-pair+) and it still be unprofitable for hero to continue (call or shove) with AA?[/QUOTE]
You can't really just answer this in a vacuum since it depends on what he does in the rest of the game tree. Janda does a pretty good job talking about how many bluff combos ranges can support across streets in applications iirc. Also keep in mind that his objective when creating a x/r range is not going to be to make AA specifically break even.

[/QUOTE]How much worse is it for hero holding KK? QQ? Then bare NFD are combo draws, though villain cant be sure his pair outs will be good.[/QUOTE]
Really depends on how many bare nfd you give him, which is a judgment call you have to make as to what his x/r strat looks like. I also wouldn't consider them to be "combo draws" in the traditional sense, since those usually refer to straight + flush draws. The main difference here being that his tp outs might be dirty (vs AA/AK)

I don't. But it's kind of a minor plus to flatting on the off-chance he has A9 or something. I think you'd agree that IF he could have a tp in this spot, 3-betting him is not the correct play vs that part of his range. I also think the idea that he has a small overpair to be incredibly unlikely.


One point about what people say about small c/r on the flop = value:
100 is not a small c/r to some people, it's a "natural" raise size number for a lot of people who don't understand pot size too well, and follows our bet of 20 then 40, a raise to 100. Often when V's choose a raise size it's quite arbitrary in their minds. I don't think you can consider this a read to mean it has to be a set OTF.
What you can read is that the bet on the turn is very obviously large on a legit scare card, it isn't consistent with the theme of keeping you in if they have a set.
For some V's they will just shove sets OTT because they are more worried about people hitting a straight/flush on them than getting the maximum value.
The only reads we have on the V are a kinda rough idea of his preflop range, so any answers one way or the other are just going to boil down to needing more reads.

Probably as played smells like a set of 9s.