1/3 NL game capped at "buyin up to biggest stack".

Hero-54 year old white guy. Definitely tighter than most at typical low limit tables. Only very rarely play limped pots.--$475

V-35ish loose passive, plays 60-70% of all hands, usually for limp but will open raise maybe 10% of hands, but more often than not will call raise after limp. $600

V-MP

Hero-Cutoff AdKh

two limps to V, who raises to $15

HJ calls

Hero calls

Blind and both limpers fold.

Flop $49-- Jc4c3d

V bets $30

Hijack folds

Hero-?

As played, fold.
Some of the time, 3! PF. Since you just called, and then whiffed flop, easy fold.

What dutchstreetfish said.

Passive villain only opens top 10% hands and he just bet 2/3-3/4 pot into 2-players. This isn't a cbet with air or a FD. V has a hand >= JX.

You likely have no fold equity.

You only have 6 outs and no idea if they are clean outs or not.

Easy fold.

Cool, a match the stack game. Those can play pretty deep if you find the right table.

In a vacuum this should have been a 3-bet preflop, but as played fold. Of course you told us nothing about his post-flop play, which we would need to know if we were deciding whether to try a float or bluff here.

I'd 3! pre. You have position. A raise into two limpers from the HJ isn't always a big hand. Villain's top 10% raising range is 77+/ATs+/AJo/KQo. You're well ahead of his range.

I'd consider calling and evaluating the turn. The board is relatively dry and misses most of villain's range. Does this villain double barrel? Will he get sticky with a hand like 99 if the turn blanks? If yes to one or both, I might just fold. If he'll give up with lower pairs and missed overcards, I'd call and evaluate the turn.

I find preflop difficult. To prevent setmining odds, we'd have to raise to about $75, but we might just blow out everyone (including hands we want to call), and we feel sick if we get re-raised (where we'll probably have to fold). We could just raise to a "normalish" 3x, but even HU that'll create a SPR pot of only 4.5, where it will be trivial for opponent to get in stacks having given him about 17:1 implied odds. With only one call in between, there's not exactly a lot of dead money in the pot. But if we flat, there's a very good chance (at least at my table) that we go 5way to an SPR 6 pot (again, setting up tricky situations if we flop TP, although at least there is a better chance of keeping in dominated hands). It's also really dependent on what type of range this guy has opening after limpers; does this lean towards a stronger hand, or can he still be doing this fairly widely? It's not clearcut either way, imo. I think I'm cool with just flatting here, but I dunno.

If we're taking the passive route and not building a big pot, like we did here, then I think I would just give up on this flop. He's still continuing into 2 people and there's not much to rep on this board.

GcluelessNLnoobG

As it goes, I folded to the flop bet. The 3bet suggestions are valid. I'll typically 3bet around half the time with AK in a similar spot.

My immediate question to myself after folding was---Why didn't I raise flop? I thought this might be a rare time to raise bluff here to $60, not to blow the V off his hand but rather to represent the flush draw and to bet him off if it came in. The two overs give me showdown equity as well.

Thoughts?

I don't think that's a good idea at all since V is just as likely to re-raise as he is fold. Either 3 bet pre or play it the way you did. Not much more to it.

With these stack sizes isn't this always a 3! pre?

3! with AKo in position preflop. (Amount is your call, but I'd probably go to 70ish)

If the V calls pre, and still leads the flop, fold. If he checks the flop, c-bet 1/2 - 2/3 pot.

My standard strategy has me 3betting AKo and flatting AKs here. I'm quite happy 3betting to $75 and folding to a 4bet because 4bet is invariably KK+ despite our blockers. If I see a player 4! QQ/AK or lower or suspect they do so due to high 4! frequency then I consider 3!/5!-shove with AKo or stop 3betting AK.

I sort of understand this. AKs retains more of its value in a multiway pot, so it's not as necessary to 3! here.

But AKs is strictly better than AKo, so I'm having trouble seeing how this fits into an overall strategy for what hands to raise and what hands to call. Heads up, at least, I thought it should look something like:

[fold]----[raise]----[call]----[raise]
<---worse------------------best--->

but this is incompatible with flatting AKs but raising AKo. Am I badly misapplying heads-up theory to multiway pots?

^ it isn't a big one either way really. Personally I just like having some really strong hands in my calling range so I can make the nuts in MW pots and stack someone(s). My bluff 3bet range is A7s-A2s so I can still have nfd and nut flush after I 3bet. However, A-rag suited isn't so great for flatting but feels too good to always fold. So I sort of have to have some big AXs in my flat range or I wouldn't have nfd/nut flush when I flat.

For me AKs is so good it feels bad to 3! big over open and callers and fold everyone when I can do same with A2s.

That's when I'm polarised in my 3betting. I use that when I expect the opener and callers to mainly fold or 4bet vs my 3bet. If I see an opener who calls a lot of 3bets I will use a merged 3bet range instead where I am just using hands with good equity vs openers call-3! range. Obviously that is opponent specific: E.g. He is a whale who calls any AX vs a 3! I can put AQ and AJ into my 3! range. If he calls all pocket pairs and gets sticky postflop with second pair or under pairs I may add QQ-99 too.

Of course some players call a lot of 3bets OOP then fit fold the flop. Against them you can use a polarised range and follow up with small (1/3-1/2 pot) cbets on favourable boards/with reads to take it down postflop.

The advantage of a polarised 3! range is it keeps string hands back to expand your flatting range while padding your 3! range with speculative/blocker hands that are too weak to call with.

Also definitely dont flat AK, miss the flop and then try pulling moves. I used to do it a lot because i felt AK was too strong to just give up the flop. It isn't, it is just A-high with 6 outs and some significant reverse implied odds.

It is OK to flat pre, miss flop and just give up if you don't think you have a good bluff raising, floating or drawing spot.

Easy 3 bet pre, AK crushes a 10% range, and I think a 65/10 player calls with like 99% of his opening range, and that range is rich with hands (AJ, KQ, etc.) that we can get a ton of value from post. If he folds, we still make a small profit. He's also very unlikely to 4 bet unless we're crushed. I'd make it 55.

More important, if he's playing so many hands so passively, he's likely to make a lot of mistakes post flop as well. Let's make sure they're big mistakes.

As played, I fold flop. When a passive player (even a super loose one) starts pounding the pot, AK high is toast and you have no way of knowing which, if any, of your outs are clean, and you're not getting a good price to draw even if your outs weren't full of RIO.

Re: suited vs offsuit- suitedness gives AKs only a very small equity advantage over AKo, but this is factor multiplied in multiway, high SPR pots, which you get when you flat in this sort of situation. But soooootedness is the least significant in heads-up, low SPR situations, where pair strength is the deciding factor the vast majority of the time. So if you're ever going to flat AK, it makes sense to do it with AKs, where the "s" actually adds significant value to the hand.

All that being said, if you feel the need to be sacrificing raw EV in order to play balanced ranges in LLSNL, you need to find softer games. :P

^ not so much for balance as to catch dumb players out postflop sometimes.

Also raw EV is overestimated and table image/table dynamics underestimated IMO.

A small amount of balance is good over a long session in my games because it does keep the better players from getting in my way too much. If I look totally ABC predictable I find the better players will be in every pot with me trying to get at the fish I'm targeting and messing up my game.

With me they also tend to start telling the fish not to enter pots with me when I'm playing too tight and predictable. Having somewhat balanced ranges means I can play looser while avoiding spewing to good players IP and that helps me get at the fish because I don't look so nitty.

With a balanced polarised 3! range you can put more strong hands in your flatting range which means you can also put more speculative hands in your flatting range. Both ranges get wider and you look less nitty and get more action but still have easy decisions postflop.

I love it when conditions are right for polarised 3betting

Sure, if there are some good players in the game, add some balance. Against them. If a good TAG raises pre, then go ahead and flat AKs and 3! AKo, and add some suited aces and small pocket pairs or whatever. You can re-isolate against the fish with KQs, etc. too when he raises to isolate, lots of stuff you can do against a good player.

But there's no reason to balance against a guy playing 70/10, you're burning money 3 betting A3s but not AKs against a fish IMO (and there's no reason for us to think that the villains in this hand are anything but).

Disagree with most of this. AKS plays much stronger postflop than AK.

Raw equity of AKs over AK is only 4% (which is larger than you think).

However, play postflop is hugely different. AKs, allows us to float, bluff, steal pots at an extremely higher frequency than AK, and with more equity.

The "soootednes" of the hand makes it even more powerful postflop HU, AK multiway is hard, even when it is suited. Yes, we will cooler lower flushes, but not at a rate where flattening AKs in multi-way pots is superior to 3 betting

I was very specific about when I'm using a polarised 3! range and it wasn't against a 70/10 drooler. I was saying in general in my games.

Also it isn't just the opener - if good players wait to act behind then your weak flatting range can and will be exploited.

Anyway, it is just a matter of adjusting to the table conditions and your opponents tendencies. My games contain 2/3rds loose aggro or loose passive fish and 1/3rd good players. 3! are rare and tend to get respect. Therefore I find myself using polarised 3! more often than merged.

I enjoy the thinking on this hand. I see it play out differently though as I love to limp when the table is limping because they think it is cheap poker. Obviously there is a lot of limping going on by reading Villains description.

First, as I read it, Villain is no drooler. He has perhaps the largest stack on the table and he's living in LimpVille. Villains post flop play is very strong, and perhaps he has great reads on his V's.

Going by my play, Villains raise pre doesn't mean much, it could be for deception or just because. Villain could be holding 9, 7 off and wants to build a pot if he hits. Or he could be squeezing AA. We have to call pre at any rate.

The flop however is a different animal. There is a straight and flush draw out there and Villains bet is lukewarm between 1/2 and 2/3 of the pot. Now why would Villain make such a casual bet? Either Villain knows his V's aren't helped by the flop, and/or it helped Villain enough he's willing to call a flop raise with his holding.

At this point A, K may as well be 9s, 2d. We don't have enough of anything to call with.

I agree with most of what you wrote, actually. Heads up against a competent V, AKs's flush (draw) capabilities are again magnified (compared to 4% hot-and-cold equity or w/e) because it gives us a lot more good semibluffing spots. I don't question that.

It's a different question of whether this means we should 3! or flat. All the bluffing lines you've outlined work better (IMO) with deep stacks against a single competent V, so IF we're going to mix up our play against villain and have some really strong hands like AK in our flatting range and if the pot looks to be heads-up or 3-way, I'd rather flat AKs and get into these spots where we can really put the screws to V with a high-ish SPR and a NFD.

That doesn't mean it's not also better to flat AKs over AKo if we expect a multiway pot, which I addressed because a 70/10 limp/call guy is absolutely the wrong guy to call with pre and later try to steal a lot. I'm just saying, if we were gonna do it to mix up play for some metagame reason, AKs will play better in that spot, whether it's against 1 good V or in a multiway pot. I don't advocate flatting any combos of AK when we expect a multiway pot under almost any game conditions because it just has a lot more value heads up.

We do also have to be careful with V's who limp call a lot but open raise very infrequently. Some of them will have very strong raising ranges and even stronger flat-3bet range. Yes some raise seemingly at random so their limping and raising ranges are essentially the same but I think most only raise the strongest starting hands while limping everything else.

If these same players are then very sticky postflop with pairs (and pocket pairs will be a large part of their raising and flat-3bet ranges) then AK has a bit of a problem. By 3betting you isolate yourself vs the station's strongest preflop range and have little fold equity postflop. Combine that with fact V's love to put everyone on AK all the time and you are in a low SPR pot vs a station who "knows your hand" and so you have very little fold equity.

Obviously it is great if you hit the Ace and they do too or you hit and they cant let a lower pair go. When you miss the flop, which you will 2/3rds of time you don't have much room for maneuver in a 3bet pot.

Not saying not to 3bet AK vs these players but just that we need to recognise the difference between a loose raiser and a tight raiser where both V's have very high VPIP.

Against these types of V's I add QQ and JJ to my 3bet range so that I am more frequently paired on the flop so I'm less unhappy about having little fold equity. I may or may not 3bet all my combos of AK depending on tendencies of particular V and overall table dynamics.

However, despite the issues with AK vs sticky players I agree with hanssprungfeld that it is better as a 3! vs most bad players because our issues with fold equity are usually outweighed by the combination of:

- headsup pot vs fish gives us exclusive shot at his stack
- bad player will make bigger calling errors when we do hit in a 3bet pot than when we hit in a single raised pot and since we have no fold equity in either situation we may as well take the 3bet route.

I think the key is knowing which of these type of players will fold to flop cbets in 3bet pots with any frequency and who will not. If you don't know how opponent plays vs your 3bet both preflop and postflop then you need to proceed with caution and gather some info before firing multiple barrels to dislodge them from their under-pair!

3b pre against loose player. You destroy his ~10% open range, and if hes loose he will likely call oop with a lot of that range, putting himself in RIO situations.

As played, flop reads would be nice now. In my experience, even loose passives know to cbet once after opening. Id float once and try to take it away if he slows down. AK has decent equity here. Dont raise, it serves no purpose