5/10

Villain is losing reg that is overly aggro, close to 100% Cbet as PFR, low double barrel frequency.

Hero with A9 in BB
Villain in UTG+1 opens to 35
Loose CO call, Hero calls

Flop (110): TT4
Hero checks
Villain bets 75
CO folds, Hero calls

Turn (260): 2
Both check

River (260): 6
Hero?

Villain range capped at A high when he checks back turn. Do I bet 130ish OTR to fold out AK-AJ, or check to induce another stab with worse broadways? Feels weird to turn my hand with decent showdown value on this board into a bluff, and there’s a decent chance this villain bluffs again at the end.

Do you think he bluffs with his better Aces or just goes to showdown? Is he likely to c/r bluff the river?

I lean to bet but if he has shown a tendency to c/r bluff the river then check would be the play.

Don't think we need to overthink it with A-high, we have showdown value. We can check-call a comfortable bet and fold otherwise.

Sometimes we lose to AJ and that's what we get sometimes for calling pre. But we should be ahead of his overall range.

Also don't think he is fully capped at A high, he may still have low PPs in his range (which is pretty wide)

Why is V's range capped at A high? All his mid PPs are there. Sometimes even JJ+ tries this since there's T in your range. I'm just checking this back this river. The board never went anywhere, & we can't rep anything meaningful. I'm usually done with this hand once we don't turn a FD or pair.

what are the starting stacks?

3bet pre to 165

As played bet 125 otr based on your read. You're probably losing to his ace high.

Pre and flop are leaky.

+1 to 3bet pre given read.

As played I’d lead $150-175.

How is pre leaky? Don't listen to them OP. Calling the BB is perfectly standard here and yes 3betting is also likely +EV, but BB vs UTG+1 doesn't really want to be using A9s as a 3bet standard and even though he's got loose ranges pre that's not enough to justify 3betting so wide (in the context of your own strategy I suppose; if you're calling other suited aces but 3betting A9s then ya sure but whatever). Also if he's overly aggro he may have a high 4bet % which would further deter us from 3betting.

Flop is bad. 3way flop and for this sizing you can fold A9s here very comfortably. As played river I guess I'm bluffing to get better ace highs to fold and we shouldn't have many floats on the flop given that flop was 3way and the large sizing so if we do end up on the river with this combo it seems like a must bet.

What? Pre is standard textbook call/defend. I would never fold but id rarely if ever 3b this exact scenario. It doesnt make sense to use a9s as a 3b BB vs utg + 1 and if you are you’re 3b too much

Otf seems like easy fold 3-way, a lot of his range is A10+ and your A arent clean outs, and vs 2/3 pot bet 3-way A9cc is pretty low in our range so seems like a fold.

Otr id bet fairly large, around 60-68% pot. We dont want to give him a good price to call

If you're going to play flops like this then it stands to reason pre is a leak.

It's not HU. We have a loose opener and a loose caller behind. I'm pretty sure 3! a marginal Axs is going to be way more +EV then passively calling OOP and under-realizing your equity while villain gets to over-realize his.

Then we have a good 5! candidate.

We really shouldn't even be this deep into the analysis given we don't know what the effective stacks are.

Agreed, forgot about the middling PPs. He's likely limping 22-66. I think we're ahead of enough of V's range OTR with A-high that given his river bluffing tendency we can profitably call a 1/2 PSB given pot odds, as we only have to be ahead 25% of the time. Losing to 66 total combos of 77-99, AK-AJ - there's definitely at least 16 combos of K-high or worse he has here that I beat (KQs, KJs, KTs, QJs, QTs).

Are we turning A9s into a bluff here? Not a fan of using such a merged range against a relatively strong UTG+1 open. He's probably continuing with a large % of his range IP and we're going postflop OOP with an SPR <4 ($1200 eff) with a hand that isn't exactly crushing V's range. I prefer flatting with suited hands like this because we can defend against a C-bet on a flop with any A,9,clubs,2 over+BDFD, or 1over+BDFD on a dry flop such as in this case.

What are you defending and what are you 3b'ing pre BB vs UTG+1 typically?

From a pure GTO standpoint, we need to defend the top 60% of our range given 3/4 pot C-bet. Obviously calling with JJ, KQs/KJs/QJs w/ BDFD, AT/KTs/QTs/JTs/T9s, 55-99. Folding 22-44, 98s/87s/76s, A8s, A7s. Ok that now I'm typing this out maybe A9s isn't in the top 60%, and the fact that this V bet into 2 PF callers makes him more value-heavy, but exploitatively this V Cbet's way too much so I thought I could turn my A-high into a bluffcatcher. Maybe it'd be better to do this with AJ and some AQs that I don't 3b pre.

^ from pure GTO standpoint the MDF (60%) only apply HU. The burden of defending is also placed onto the other player and therefore we should be able to let go more of our hands. MDF/GTO imo isnt especially as valuable multiway and its not anywhere near solved

E.g. extreme example 9-way pot PFR bets we really dont need to defend anything but the nuts/second nuts.

But let’s just take theory aside, this in a vacuum i dont think is a +EV call, he has a bunch of. PP we lose too, some boats, TT, Tx, JJ-AA, better Ax, etc. oop you are going to underrealize equity and stealing pots away oop is so difficult and when you pair your ace vs A10+ (i assume he opens A10+ at very high freq the offsuit combos if not 100%) you’re probably losing more money. Plus he can dbl barrel a bunch of turns and put you in bad spots and make you fold the best hand (A high). Your backdoor club outs arent as clean since the board is paired. I really dont see many good reasons to float this flop oop even vs a maniac cbettor and see a lot of reasons to not float

I mean a x/r otf is interesting since he cbets too much but really we literally rep nothing and he’d probably station with a bunch of random hands. Yeah sure he has a propensity to cbet way too dam much but in this exact spot i dont think we can do anything to exploit him or punish him. Id just fold otf and move on, live to fight another hand

If you called the flop with the intention to CR turn or fire river if turn checks thru then I like it. If you called flop because A high might be good and/or to catch a good turn card then I don't like it.

As played I'm betting 175 on the river.

If you are confident in your read that he doesn't have a pair just bomb the river every time for .75 to 1.5x pot and he will never call

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Well is he overly aggro or does he have a strong +1 range? It can’t be both.

You don’t need to consider GTO to beat a losing reg. You exploit losing regs. This forums fascination with GTO is bizarre.

This. AJ i think we can check as we are ahead of more of his Ax opens, but don't think A9 is strong enough to show down here.

Yes, of course I'm turning my hand into a bluff. Based on your read, the original raiser should be much wider than a typical UTG+1 open. However, if I knew he flats 3bets like 90% of the time from all positions, I wouldn't do this that light, but none of that information about him was posted. If he always flats but then plays fit or fold, I would still do it.

I didn't see the stack sizes in the OP, but I generally won't do it if stacks weren't deep enough but I would rather 3bet OOP than call pre, since if we do flop top pair, we won't know where we're at - are we calling him down for 3 streets hoping our ace is higher than his? We could flop a FD, but is he going to pay us off if he only bets one street than gives up? FD's are much harder to play OOP anyway.

If I knew he is capable of 4betting wide as a bluff, I would more likely flat pre and try to add some creativity post flop rather than just trying hit a flop.

Betting polarized is probably the best play, so some of your A high's and some of your T's and full houses. I don't think c/c is part of a good overall strategy here with A high since this is about the worst hand you'll have and you can fold out a better A high if you bet. Better to c/c with a pair like A4, 54, 77-99 some percentage of the time. I haven't worked out the details of this spot but c/c should probably be with much better hands than A9.