Circumstances at this $1-3 table: I’ve been seated for less than an hour and I look wild. Truth is I’ve mostly gotten hands. KK twice, AK twice, then a couple suites As I could play aggressively.

I’m OTB with AK, UTG straddle for 6, 1 caller, I raise to 25, BB, a player who hasn’t played many pots but has played the ones he’s in aggressively, rr to $52.

Effective stack is 400, he has me covered.

So normally, do we 4! here? Every time? Or do we call sometimes? 4! AKs, call AKo?

I used to simply call with it every time, wouldn’t even 3! it so I’m interested to see what the forum says about this.

More pre over the limper. 4x is too small. Should be like 30-35.

I’d 4 bet to 130 and reluctantly call it off vs a jam.


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It’s funny, but I’ve been 3betting limped straddle pots a bunch in position, but I’m doing the standard 3x + callers formula to do it. I don’t get golds at $20-25 but start getting folds at $30-35. I’m not trying to raise big, I’m potting it basically. But that’s where the folds are.

Remember that’s 100% fine. Most of your range isn’t big pairs. If they fold, it’s free $. If they call, you still have a very strong starting hand, in position.


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Oh, I’m speaking generally, not just with AK. The IP limp straddle steal has become a go to move.

But I’ve seen the debate on this forum about PF raise sizes. I’ve been (quietly) in the side of smaller raises, then take advantage of post flop skills. But you reminded me that the larger sizing gets us folds more often, which we want sometimes.

Right after making this post I raised $20 (instead of 12-15) with KK and AKs the very next hand. Still got callers, which I guess we want in those cases. Won very decent pots on both.

I might be converted to the dark side.

Best way to think about it is, the larger our raise size, the more we open ourselves up to be exploited, but the more we exploit our opponent.

When someone limps, they’ve already announced that they have a hand they feel is good enough to play, but not good enough to raise (with obv exceptions of course, like limp-reraisers, guys who are in the pot due to tilt, etc). When people like their hand, they’re willing to call more money. And it takes more money to get rid of them.


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That definitely makes sense. I’ll work with that.

So if we RFI are we raising closer to standard? I was raising to 10 pre, but was getting called a little too much. Upped to 5x and that seems to strike a nicer balance between getting calls and folds when we want. Seems easier to Cbet and get folds. But this is over a small sample.

Thanks for all the tips here, btw.

No problem. How to best exploit preflop is a good discussion because it’s the easiest place to take advantage of weaker opponents.

My answer to this is a little hand-waving. I know when I sit in a live 2/5 or 5/10, 3x as RFI is always my standard. I don’t think I’d ever raise less live, so in the rare instance i run into an aggressive table, I’d just play less hands.

I’d also tighten up if people are calling my raises a lot. I know some people who actually loosen up, because hands like KJo are less dominated if your opponents are calling raises with K2s and JTo. But I prefer to just exploit them with larger raise sizes with a more fat-value oriented range. Like I see people calling 6x raises from EP from the passive middle aged lady who hasn’t raised preflop in 5 orbits, so why not put them in a position to play for more money and cut down the SPR when you have a stronger range?


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Got it. Standard raise pre, go bigger for limpers, tighten up at looser tables like what I’m at now.

I’m used to printing money with C-bets, took me too long to adjust to the stations in the weekend crowd.

I would be very suspicious when a tight/aggressive player makes a near min raise out of the BB. My inclination would be to fold the first time he does that, this is AA inviting you along most of the time.

If he does this a couple of time then I would consider that he can be playing back at me with less then AA/KK.

Was a straddle, not a min raise.

He meant that weakass 3-bet.

I aint folding though.

Some people just suck at sizing 3 bets. I think it’s a bit of a mistake to read into 3 bet sizings from an unknown until you have some evidence of the strategy they are using.

For all we know, this is his version of “seeing where he’s at” with tens


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I agree a lot of people are really bad at sizing. I still don't think playing here is a good idea. It has been my experience that bets that look like min raises are almost always AA. Enough that it's better to just fold AK and wait for evidence to the contrary. I would be more likely to play in this situation if villain has bet $75 then $50.

I would wager all of my chips. There really isn't much point to going smaller here and I'm not folding.

Yeah, i am stacking off in this spot with these positions and stacksizes with every combo of AK unless the villain 3 betting is a total nit/OMC.

We really are at the top of our range here with AK on the button, so folding is just out of the question for me. Whether you just 4 bet jam or 4 bet smaller, depends on what you believe will gain you the most fold equity against the parts of his range that can potenially fold. Such as JJ/QQ or AK that are chopping.

Keep in mind Hero's image is maniac to the villain. Just put it in.

People are too results oriented in live poker.

Like okay, if you 4 bet and a dude 5 bet jams, maybe you can find a fold sometimes, because some people will literally never do it without KK+ (and maybe not even KK).

But it’s not a stretch to believe someone is attacking a late position open. And it’s not a stretch to believe someone would go with JJ/AK in this scenario. The times AK runs into AA sticks out heavily in people’s mind, though.


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Vs the population it’s not a great spot because alot of the population 3 betting range is super weighted towards aa and kk. But you guys aren’t that deep here, it can’t be that bad 4 betting, getting it in.

Make it 250 and go with any flop. This gives him a chance to make a huge mistake imo

Yeah this seems like a 'I want to put more money in the pot (and not get a string of callers) but I don't want to blow the aggro off the hand' raise.

Doesn't jamming here put us in a bad spot and let V play perfect? V calls with big pairs and big aces, folds everything else. Gonna hate life if he calls.

What's wrong with calling and evaluating? Committing stacks against someone who's range we don't know seem spewish.

For several reasons a call isnt optimal. Us whiffing the flop 2 out 3 times is one of them, we basically capping our own range by flatting is another.

It really doesent make villain play perfect against us if we play our whole range properly: we got a range we play here in this spot,villain doesent know we have AK of course once we 4 bet. We may very well get him to fold his equity with JJ/QQ by putting alot of pressure on him, or get him to fold a chop if he also have AK. Like a week ago i got a weak tight regular to fold KK faceup preflop when i 4 bet him with AK,because he was "100 percent sure i had only AA there". This is extremely rare of course, but it just shows you that people can fold absurdly strong hands from time to time.

My point is fold equity matters alot, even if we cant gauge exactly how much we have against the different parts of villains range.

We're getting 3+:1 to call and flop top pair (because of the weird min-raise). And V's gonna check-back flop X % of the time allowing us to see turn. We can't ever be that wrong by calling.

If we always only 4b with AA/KK and flat with AK. There's still a ton of hands that flats here V can't put us on so V knowing cap isn't problematic.

That V is weak-tight. This one's a TAG. A TAG calling 4b all-in is generally bad news.

They fold, we win ~$55 of new money we didn't put in. They call, we gamble $400 as a 8-45% (I don't see TAG V calling 4b shove with much we dominate). The math isn't good.

We have no read on V but V has read on us. Time to gamble?