Bellagio 2/5, I have about 740 villain covers (barely). I've been pretty laggy during the session. Villain is a Korean 2/5 regular. He has been playing reasonably tight, haven't really seen him get out of line.

I'm in early position with AK and I open to 25, one caller. Villain 3-bets to 75 from the blinds. I 4-bet to 315. He thinks for about 5 seconds and announces all-in.

I call, he has AA and holds.

Is this meh, standard or spew on my part?

That's one helluva big 4 bet.

One of the biggest problems with choosing such an absurdly large 4 bet size with a hand like AK, is that you very often narrows your opponents continuerange down to only hands that are flipping against you, or KK/AA that have you in jail.

Spew. You opened from EP in a live full ring game and got 3bet by a reasonably tight guy in the blinds. What do we expect 3betting ranges of reasonably tight live 2/5 players to be? I would think that his range is very strong. In fact, does he ever have a hand worse than JJ+,AK (maybe rarely?)? And you're about 150 big blinds deep. I'd call the 3bet.

Yeah I'm flatting here assuming villain is standard tag. You're suited too just play some poker postflop ip

meh. your sizing is pretty awful all the way around but 4b/c isnt all that bad

4b/c is very bad in this spot

Ok the poll is in - 100% spew.

At the time I just didn't feel like folding AK against a reg, neither did I want to call, miss the flop and fold so I wanted to bet an amount that shows I'm committed. Lesson learned.

I think its constructive and useful to think alot beyond these questions-as i see the reasoning behind your move from alot of players.

-Why didnt you feel like folding AK to a reg? Is it because youre afraid of being unbalanced, or because you have been reading somewhere that AK is a mandatory 4 bet to prevent "being exploited" by a reg?

-Against what range did you want to show that your comitted? Like others have pointed out without specific dynamics going on villain 3 betting your UTG open from the blinds likely has a very strong 3 betting range. From my experience it would not surprise me if this guys range here is solely JJ+ and AK- and heavily weighted towards QQ+ also.

-How are we gonna make money with our hand against villains very possible range of JJ+/AK?


Not meaning to be harsh on you OP, just offering some food for thought.

flat here is so much better than 4betting. But if I do choose to 4bet, I'd make it $175ish.

I see regs 3-bet (especially from the blinds) with hands like QJ, A5 suited and middle pairs (99/1010) all the time though.

And what do we do it he 5-bet to $350 or push all-in, which he is likely to do now that we know he has AA? 4-bet fold AK suited seems kinda gross.

When I 4-bet to $315 I expect him to fold (possibly) AK and all pocket pairs < JJ, which is not too bad an outcome for my AK.

At least that was my reasoning.

In reverse order, I would've elected to:

Fold to the shove <-- Not 4-Bet, but If I did, make it $225 and swallow hard if I'm called <-- Flat the $75 and accept that ~67.7% of the time I will not fop TPTK and be behind in the hand/may have to just move on to the next one and muck my "non-pair nuts".

It depends.

Against a 5b shove range of KK+ its very bad. Even getting 2.5-1 we don't have the equity to call off (we need 28% and we only have 23%).

Against a 5 bet shove range of QQ+ and AK its a call *in this spot*. All depends on what we think this guy's range is. Even against QQ+ we have to call off.

The 4 bet alone is questionable, and the sizing is too large. I like a flat of the 3b and play post. Our hand is too strong to fold pre. Folding is out of the question.

Unless we are targeting QQ/JJ to fold by 4 betting, I'm not a fan of 4 betting. We have very few reads so trying to fold out QQ/JJ is optimistic at best.

OP, what kind of 3b range did you give the villain?

Thanks for the nice analysis.

For an EP standard raise (and remember I've been somewhat active) and a LP call, honestly I see 2/5 regs 3-bet from the blinds with anything from QJ, KJ, AQ, AK, A-small-suited, and 99+.

Seems like a godsend that the 3bettor is in the blinds so if we flat we could play some poker IP. I'd do just that instead of the 4bet.

You are playing in some extremely atypical 2/5 games

As a theoretical point, if you're going to 4b this large and then call the shove, you'd be better off shoving yourself. You don't lose any more against AA or KK, but you do turn being a small dog to QQ and flipping with another AKs into small wins if they fold.

I'm not suggesting 4b this large is good, or that you should shove; only that shoving is probably better than 4b big/call the shove.

Not sure I agree - 25 -> 75 -> 740 all-in doesn't make a lot of sense, or screams AK.

Put yourself in the position of the villain. You 3-bet to 75 and get 4-bet to 315. You have to at least consider folding QQ and AK.

My (in hindsight flawed) reasoning for the big 4-bet was that I'd at least fold out some hands I'm flipping with, like 1010/JJ. And I felt it was unlikely villain had AA/KK (blockers).

LOL at blockers.

Ive had AK vs AA twice in the last 3 sessions. Just another nonsense overused 2+2 buzzword

^^ Have you ever even taken an algebra course? Lmfao

This...

and this do not compute.

Moreover, if you really do think this guy is this wide, why 4 bet? You'll fold out some pairs but you keep in hands that you crush. Plus, position bruh.

Congrats on having some big hands dealt to you, Mike! You truly are a crusher.

BTW when constructing ranges, blockers should be taken into consideration when analyzing how many combos of a particular hand one can have. It's not a buzzword.

My guess is many ITF confusing the concept of 'accurate ranging' and misapplying how blockers affect ranges.

More like I got crushed. I had the AK both times.

My point is that when the pot gets big, the odds go thru the roof that the guy has the hand that you thought you blocked before it got big.

You're right - blockers with AK don't matter when a player takes a certain action where their range is 100% AA.

Blockers are important, but accurate ranging is more important. You know as well as I do in God's Waiting Room that certain players are only 4-betting AA (and not even KK). That's where blockers get misapplied IMO.

Mike has a good point though, wich he have brought up regarding this whole "blocker" debate on other occasions too. And that point is sure, you can tell yourself when he is 3 betting that you block KK/AA so he doesent have that hand as often as for example JJ and QQ. However, when he 5 bet ships on you after a ridicilously large 4 bet its not much JJ-QQ and other things left in his range. His range is packed with KK-AA combos at this point, even though "we have blockers".

What i think Mike is getting at (and i fully support where he is going with this) is that terms like "blockers" gets misapplied by alot of players,its getting used as excuses for making bad stackoffs, and players puts too much weight into it when making important stackoff decisions. Other considerations should play alot bigger role in spots like this than "i got blockers to KK/AA" so i ship it in regardless or i call it off regardless.