2-5 effective 500. 9 handed.
UTG internet kid raises to 15. Hero SB AKhh reraise 55. UTG calls.
Heads up
(115) Flop KJ4ssd
Hero bets 75, calls.
(265) Turn 8d.
Hero jams 370.

Im mostly interested in people’s thoughts on the bet sizing.
I’ve been 3betting OOP to ~4x the open, which seems a bit large compared to the sizing other regs in my games have been making but I know it’s pretty standard online theory to make large 3bets oop. The turn jam is a little bit of an overbet which is awkward but I don’t love sizing any of the earlier streets bigger. Any thoughts?


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Pre i’m Good with but a little more would be fine as well. Flop I like. Turn I don’t like. I’m betting less here, like $160-180 ish then stuffing basically all rivers. Turn all-in drives out too many inferior hands.

I was thinking all my 3bet bluffs there are ace rag suited that either flopped a FD or turned one, and would want to jam the turn


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I don't think you size your three bet bluffs this way post. As played it looks pretty face up.I also think that people overestimate their 3 bet bluffs vs specific villains from specific positions.For instance, I would almost never 3 bet bluff an internet kid (i.e. most capable, younger utg raisers )from the SB , as they are prone to overcalling. The overshove on the turn will turn your hand into a bluff vs a decent hand reader. You get crying folds from Qk suited and calls from KJ and sets.

Just go 3/4 pot on the turn. The K and J being spades really cuts down on the amount of flush draws he can have and 3/4 isn't giving them a great price anyway. You are folding out some of the hands you want to be getting value from here like KQ, KTs etc. I guess since sets and two pair were probably getting all of our money anyway it's not a terrible shove but I wouldn't do it.

I kinda like a check call on brick rivers OOP vs an internet kid. Maybe he finds a call with some combos of KQ but I think we more than make up for it with all the times he bluffs a missed draw.

Overplaying TPTK in 3! pots against tight EP openers seems like a consistent leak 'round these parts.

He has more KJ and JJ while having hardly any less KK and way more of the nutted draws, so I don't see how cramming chips as hard as you can does you a lot of favors. You can bet flop very small and continue on turn, check flop, bet flop big (though probably not this big) and check turn; every other option that doesn't involve a fold, raise or overbet has merit as part of some strategy or another.

I may be off, but it seems like you look for any semi-reasonable chance to get your stack in with TPTK a lot in the hands you post. I am curious as to why that is the case?

I remember reading that it’s bad to commit a large % of your chips to a pot where u will just be commuting yourself to the pot. If we bet 180 on the turn, we will have 190 behind a pot of 265+180=445. If he jams it will be 445+190=635. 635:190, about 3.3:1 which is an extremely awkward spot to be in here with our range but we prob have to just call it off with any pair or good draw. The other side is that he can call with any draw knowing he will get paid off on the riv. We are giving him odds of 635:180 or 3.5:1. So we’re sandwiches between these two thing. If we size larger, we’re making it harder to fold to a jam. If we size it smaller we’re giving him better odds to call and hit his draw, when Will pay him off.
Unless you are capable of a hero fold on some rivers getting over 3:1 on a call with TPTK in a 3bet pot... but that seems a bit dubious


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Agreed that stacks are awkward OTT. You're the one who picked the sizes on each of the previous streets that got us to this SPR.

You're also failing to mention the option of checking at some point (or betting small enough that it's functionally similar to a check). AK on a KJx board in a 3! pot against an EP opener is a medium-strength hand through-and-through.

Idk about the turn jam. Probably only getting called by better and folding worse. As played I think the flop size is okay.

3 betting and UTG with AK is okay out of the SB SOMETIMES we can flat here. I think the sizing pre is okay as well.

Do you feel comfortable getting it in pre if he 4 bets to like ~150? Be gross to 3 bet fold here.

I think KJ is a fold pre, KK and maybe JJ are 4bets so we essentially have the nuts. The top of this guys range is KQ maybe JJ so we essentially have the nuts. Also the spr is low.

We just want to get our chips in purely for value. This is a slam dunk bet bet bet get it in.
I’m more wondering about the sizing that causes this awkwardness, because I think it’s better to size preflop+Flop larger to set up a pot sized turn jam, or size both smaller to set up a triple barrel. But I’m not sure which is better

If he 4bet it’s a snap shove for value


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I dont mind the shove here.. There are alot of river cards that internet kid UTG could use to his advantage and take over the betting lead.. Any spade, any diamond, any A, Q, 10. Even a 5, 6, 7 ( if he is capable of raising PF with 56s, 57s or 67s) ... Seems like a lot of cards that complete the loose, internet kid open raising range or at least let him put out a good size bluff on the river, putting you in a bad spot.

Any real bet you make on the turn pretty much commits you for the rest to go in on the river (some may make a hero fold on a 9 river for example). The balance is between getting value from worse TP (maybe stubborn QQ) and draws vs. providing implied odds for those draws. Villain wins $635 when they get there and loses X when they call the turn and miss. Most villains figure that X=$370 isn't profitable with a draw or worse TP, unless you have some history. I like the $150-200 range.

As long as you think AK is ahead of internet kid's UTG raising range, I'm fine with the 3b.

Once we do that, we're usually committed if we hit: SPR is only 4.

Once we're committed, we're just deciding how to get the chips in. There are some draws on this board, so aiming to gii OTT is fine. We could also plan a b/b/b line if we thought that was more likely to get calls.

I think betting flop, shoving turn is fine. I might have bet flop a bit larger to make the turn shove a bit easier.

I think this concept of turning our hand face-up is over-rated. V's don't actually have perfect knowledge of our bluffing frequency, or how good we are. It turns out it's much harder to know what's in our hand when you're not reading the HH. If he has something like KQ, he's looking at the same SPR we are and called a bet that puts us over the commitment threshold. (Or, if he's not thinking SPR, called a bet that means remaining stacks are only 1.5x the pot).

I also think river induction is highly over-rated. Unless we have a specific read that this V likes to bluff against us, we're mostly better off pushing the action ourselves.

If we bet small and V raises, it's almost never a bluff. But we're getting a great price, so we probably have to call. He's not making any mistakes there.

If he doesn't have much, he's folding to any bet, or taking his free shot at whatever equity he has if we check. Not many mistakes there.

If he has a decent draw, he might make a small mistake calling something like 170. He's not making a mistake if he has a combo draw.

Overall, I think shoving is fine. We're not getting much deception by putting in 300 of our stack and coyly holding back the last 200.

All of that said, I don't think b/b/b is bad. If the board were drier, that might well be better. But here, we might get some calls from draws that put a few bluffs in our range or that have combo features, or from hands that think we're pushing a draw aggressively.

So your turn shove is for purely value? If that is the case, please tell me the range you assign to V after his flop call that (1) will call your shove on the turn and (2) you are ahead of. Those two conditions need to be in place (IMO) for it to be a shove for value.

I guess my point is your hand is nowhere near strong enough to consider your turn play to be purely for value IMO.

I like the line, well played... When you say V is "internet kid" I'm taking that to mean he may call 3bets wider, especially IP, and be comfortable stacking off post-flop without monsters when we are this shallow.

I think a lot of the naysayers would like your line if you had a hand like AQ, AQss, ATss, so I think it is fine to get it in here. I think "internet kids" can find calls here with a lot of kings, jacks, QQ etc. It also really depends on your image. If you have a tight/rock/nittish image I probably like the line less as you may only get called by better.

Ooooookay, so I started to have some doubts about my approach this hand so I ran it by someone better than me. So basically we should be b/b/shoving this hand even though it's really not a vbet (our equity <50% against their continuing range) as of about the turn bet. It's essentially purely protection, both in terms of protecting our equity and protecting our bluffing range. He's almost assuredly folding KQ/QQ/KT at some point during the hand, but we need to assure that it's correct for him to fold them.

In particular, OTR we have way less than 50% equity with a shove, but it's still better to push aggression and make it incorrect to call with KQ- then to give him more avenues to getting a share of the pot. Kind of a giant theory headache.

It's not great, but checking range protection and villain's polarity advantage are just not important counter-factors given we're only $500 effective. (You're shallow enough that any made hand can be used to bluff-catch, and villain doesn't gain any advantage over you by raising because there isn't enough behind to get you to fold.)

So b/b/shove is correct even though you can expect to be smoked when you're called.