5/5 and UTG straddles for 10.

Folds around
SB (1200+) playing pretty solid pre. opens to 35
Hero BB (770) playing TAG with hi 3bet% pre AQhs 3bets to 120.
Straddle (1K) folds.
SB calls.
(250) flop 865ssc
X hero?

I'd check it back. This isn't a board to be c betting very frequently, and I'm not c betting my A high combos.

Ditto the check. He's rarely folding over pairs, and you'll be bloating the pot w/ A high. If you had a wilder image you could bet

Its either triple barrel or x and fold to a bet.

It comes down to whether you think sb is capable of flatting with AA/KK here. If not, his range is really capped and only QQ would call you down 3 streets which there are only 3 combos of. You would fold out all AK/AQ 99-JJ hands and if he had QQ he still wouldn't be happy calling a big river bet. You actually want V to have TT or JJ here because it would be 2 streets of value then a fold. The coordinated board is meaningless and these are spots that mid stakes pros talk about all the time that you learn to attack if V is super polarized and not capable of flatting with AA/KK.

Did you forget that villain can have all sets and tons of draws here or something?

"Pretty solid pre" isn't opening 22-88 from the SB. What tons of draws are there here?

I dont worry about flushdraws in HU pots and especially not vs polarized ranges.

I left both options open and discussed the more interesting triple barrel option. I am not advocating blindly barreling here but its a lot more interesting to talk about instead of check, fold to a bet.

SB checked. We have position. Very easy to check behind and see what SB does on turn. This flop hits him much harder than it should hit us.

Would be nice to know how SB plays post, though.

I very strongly disagree with this.
If you aren’t attacking $17 of blinds in the sb with any pair you are a weak-passive player imo.

I am putting V on AQ/AJ/ATs and 88-JJ. It depends what your definition of "pretty solid pre" is but combine that comment with the person raising from the SB I'd say his range is very tight here. Wouldn't 55-66 just call?

It would be nice to have a more detailed description of the SB. We have 3 words to go off of and those 3 words are open to a wide range of interpretation.

Is it a Mississippi Straddle

Check back and nit it up.
Fire hard like a bull.

No gamble no future.

I put him on TT or 99. Meh.

AAJTo, I assume you are bet/folding on flop? Once we bet flop (half pot seems normal) and are called, the pot is $500 and we have $500 behind. Are you shoving turn? Bet/folding? Checking behind? Betting turn and pray V folds?

I mean, look at our stack and we have A high.

80>160>shove which is about 60% PSB. This line looks stronger compared to shoving turn which could easily make V think we are on a draw. It also drags people in LLsNL into deeper waters where they aren't sure where theyre at and lets us claim a lot more cards vs what I am guessing is a SB with a capped range here. TT/JJ is much more likely to fold the river compared to the turn. Btw, I am not scared of flush draws in HU 3 bet pots.

Or check behind flop and give up unimproved on the turn.

$80 into $250? I hope V is one of the worst 5/5 players out there.

Also remember that H has a high 3bet %, so SB could be flatting the 3bet very wide.

I hope good players whos opinions I respect would explain their thoughts in more detail instead of talking down to me. I am putting the sb on a tight range based on a 3 word description, you are putting the sb on a much wider range. If the OP would have given us more to go off of we wouldnt be arguing over something that isnt definable.

First, I'm not talking down to you. I just don't think $80 is a good bet here vs. any capable 5/5 player.

Second, I think SB can be much wider than you do here. There is an UTG straddle, and it folded to SB. He should be raising pretty wide here. And he should be flatting BB pretty wide considering BB has a high 3bet percentage.

I'm surprised he didn't 4bet, but the fact that he didn't 4bet makes me take JJ+ out of his range unless he's trying to trap BB w/ AA/KK. And I don't think he's ever folding those.

If SB is any good, he'll see through an $80 flop bet and raise, and then we are screwed unless we want to gamble with A high. If we were deeper, it'd be more interesting, but with the straddle, we don't even have 100bb.

I mean, maybe SB sucks and we can bet $80 and take it down. I hope so, because we've invested a lot with A high.

Maybe OP can give us a little more info, but I'm going off the fact that it's 5/5, not 1/3, straddled pot, folded to SB who's decent pre and raises, 3bet by a TAG with a high 3bet percentage, then flatted by someone who's OOP but doesn't seem to mind.

Well, we're here because of a 3b preflop. Given that we were going to be IP unless the straddles calls, we might have been better off just flatting sb's raise. We've bloated the pot and we don't have a clear strategy if we miss the flop, which we did and which we're going to do plenty with AQo. (I sound like GG here, but his points about these scenarios are quite valid imo).

I mainly want to 3b pre with AQo a V that I think is capable of folding to post-flop aggression here. All we know is "plays pretty solid pre". Great, that plus a token and we can ride the subway. For all we know, V is as sticky as flypaper. In general, I'm sympathetic to AAJTo's argument that we should maintain the aggro factor and just cbet. But unfortunately we have no information and V usually has more sets and draws here than do we.

AP: I'm going to try to realize my equity as painlessly as possible. Check. I could be persuaded to delay c-bet a turn brick or a spade. Our overpairs are checking this flop texture pretty often and we can always bink A/Q on turn haha.

I like a check vs. a competent opponent. 8-high board, over pairs not folding, and even AK may call. If Hero had the As, more inclined to cbet.

Pre - maybe smaller sizing ip.

While you should have more board coverage than usual here as a BB 3-bettor and therefore a significantly larger number of bets overall, I just think AQxs isn't ever one of them. My take on this spot is that after a failed resteal (with near-top of your range) pre, you can just check now (near the bottom of your range) post. It's also noteworthy that your V is solid pre which doesn't bode well for you here. Outside of some stackoff nitstomping line, just start with a check instead of tying yourself to a 1-3 street bluff line and throw this hand into your giveup bucket unimproved.

Is this real life - check always. You don't bluff your best Ace highs - we would bet all non ace high combos before this.

next street please

Hero bet 80 and SB folds.

At the time I was thinking if I check back then v would likely bet the turn with a very wide range and I would be in the dark.

Also I was thinking v could fold lots of unpaired cards even for 80 oop. And I could barrel a spade.

But upon reflection I think my hand plays better as a check. The thing is that I’m gonna be 3betting pretty damn wide given the position he opened from, and I have much worse hands to bluff with. Actually AQ might be the ideal hand to check back, since It’s still SDV and i retain range domination from KQ AJ QJ AT etc when an A or Q turns.

Also yes v will of course open 22+ from the SB lol

Glad the cbet worked.

Wrt the bolded - If the opponent is calling $85 more vs. your eff stk of $770, and is oop, he may not be as solid as you think.

I guess all the sick 5/5 players are calling off 15% of their stack with 22. My bad, so many draws and sets out there we shoulda just x and f unless we hit a straight or fullhouse. Very reasonable comments itt.

I do not mind a 1/3 bet at all. The SB is put into a very difficult spot with almost his whole range here when we use 1/3 sizing. All his random overcards are also forced to fold, well technically he's not supposed to fold a lot of them but i suspect the overwhelmingly vast majority of people do OOP. Most people can't find enough defends on this board, and will also start adjusting very poorly. eg raising random hands cuz wtf 1/3 sizing. An optimal strat is to defend 70%+ (including raising) of your hands on this flop vs a 1/3 overall and raise 27% of hands; that's actually insane. No human would naturally do that, and they wouldn't adjust properly to this sizing and choose random combos/bad hands in their range to play back, ie more EV for us.

PIO uses 2/3 and 1/3 around the same freq (24% vs 26%). It uses a very aggressive cbet strat IP and uses more small sizing IP, which makes sense since OOP has a harder time due to positional disadvantage.

Ofc check is also fine and PIO mixes bet/check 50/50 but i suspect against a human, betting might yield more EV.

Obv without the spade, btw is a check.

Great stuff thanks!

Does the straddle and sb’s potentially wider range make you want to cbet more often here, perhaps more frequently than PÍO recommends?