1/3 late night

Hero - $500 - just came from broken PLO game so had to chip down to $500. Been at table for maybe 20 minutes before this hand and lost $100 with an A vs Villains AT 2 pair and added on $100.

Villain - $600 - He limp called AT UTG when I made it $15 with an A and flop was AT938.

6 handed now after 2 people leave
Hero goes AQ in CO.

Villain goes $12 High jack
I 3bet $40
folds to him and he calls

$84
A34
check
I $40
He calls

$164
Q
He leads $90
I call

$344
River
K
He $275

Looks like a flush but hard to fold 2 pair in this spot in a 3bet pot. I can't see him having that many combos of flushes except for maybe KhQh, KhJh, and JhTh. Maybe Th9h and 8h9h. It's 5 - 6 combos of hands Thoughts?

Bigger pre, bigger on flop.
Could probably make an exploitative river fold.
Flip a coin OTR imo. He’s rarely bluffing here.
He knows you have a strong ace and his turn bet isn’t sized to make you fold.
I think this can be mucked against general llsnl players, and whatever if he’s a rare player who can pull off this bluff.

I made it 3.5x pre in position. I want him to call wide and make a mistake

I could of made it $60 on flop as he probably isn't folding for $60 if he's calling

Kinda important to know how he played AT post. River sucks because if he were bluffing, the K makes it less likely he'd follow thru. If it werent a K I'd sigh snap. AP it's meh

Right, given positions pre is actually fine. My math was a bit off there.
I def still think bigger OTF though.
Also still think OTR is best mucked.
Minatorr makes a good point about the king being relevant here too.
Very meh spot, which was why I suggested the coin.
Lacking a coin, I just fold.
Btw, he cannot have KQhh like you listed in your combos.

As Ed Miller would say, "You make your money by playing differently than the rest of the table"

And I think this is an excellent example, most people at 1-2 and 1-3 are not folding 2p here, but as Ed says when they bet big particularly on turn and river they have it, and there's not enough bluffing frequency for you to try and pick them off unless you have a good past history or some hecka read.

Fold.

When they expect you to have a set or 2p and keep firing into you anyway, they can probably beat 2p or a set

Not brutal at all. It is relative value, not absolute value that is important. 2 pair doesn't have much relative value on a flush board. FWIW, the real decision point is on the turn. I'm not thinking the villlain has a lot of moves when he l/c AT UTG pf. He's saying he can beat TP and all you can beat is TP.

Mark Twain once wrote that learning how to play 2 pair was as costly as a college education. And just as valuable.

I don't think there is anything wrong with simply flatting preflop this deep. If we're shortish (and especially with some callers) then more reason to 3bet to setup trivial commitment ASAP with TP / take down huge dead money. But deeper, I think we can just see a flop here and play postflop pokrs. We're already in the CO, so it's not as if a flat is going to go 5ways all the time; we'll mostly end up in position HU. Plus this guy did open limp AT (albeit UTG) so I'm not exactly thrilled about 3betting him preflop.

I probably check back the flop. I'm not too worried about draws HU in a 3bet pot (KQhh, ok, whatever). I'm looking to eke out another bet or maybe two against hands that are destroyed and can't really continue to a bet (or start inducing bluffs), and meanwhile not looking to own myself when he has AK. Again, he limped AT before, so unless he's going all crazy with AJ I'm not going to get 3 streets from worse very often.

As played, I think I'm ok with the turn bet. We've now moved ahead of AK and he can continue to pay off with that (especially if he has a flush draw to go with it). If there was more chance of him showing up with a flush I wouldn't hate a checkback, but in 3bet pots I think there's just less chance of that.

Has this guy ever bluffed? Nothing busted (even JhTx got there). AK got there, and even wonky KK/QQ. That's a pretty huge blocking bet for AJ. We've shown *huge* strength in this hand (3bet / bet / bet) and yet he doesn't care. So I lean to folding. But I fold super easy.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Preflop is defintely good. AQo loses much of its equity multi way so definitely correct to ISO. AQs would be a better call than AQo. On the river, my feeling for this kind of spot is that it doesn't matter much whether you have two pair or not very often. Your opponent bet big enough to polarize themselves such that they are repping a flush. Even then it is better to call with top two than like AKo with no heart to account for the possibility of craziness with worse two pair. Imo, the decision to call or fold solely depends on villain tendency, against some it is an easy call, against others it is a very trivial fold even on the turn with 4 outs. Wouldn't be surprised if villain is the type of nit who would show up with JJ as a bluff here. On the other hand, try not to generalize with one hand. People do random things all the time he could limp AT utg and raise 78o next hand, the kind of stuff that makes live poker so soft.

Best river in the deck because we can easily fold now and not hate ourselves. Yes you have 2 pair but your relative hand strength is important here. When 2 pair is the 47th nut (calm down, its hyperbole) instead of the 6th, it is very easy to fold.

V's line is fishy. With what can he open pre, check flop and lead turn?

It's so narrow: KhKx which he should check anyway ott, QQ (!), KhQx and JhTh and perhaps KhJx. We're 6-handed. We're beaten only by the flushes, sets and JhTh. That's 1 QQ, 3 KK, 1 JhTh and 1KhJh - 6 combos.

There's 2 Khqx, 4 KhJx plus a ton of weak Aces we beat. We're getting 2-1. So it's the correct price to call.

If we are giving V QQ and KhKx, why not also include AxKh (2 combos) and the last AA? And if he's calling KJhh and JThh maybe he also defends with KThh.
Also, I'm not giving V credit for turning KhJx into a double barrel bluff on the turn and river enough. He's just floating flop hoping to pick up bluff equity?
Maybe count 1 of those combos as people can be hard to predict. Once we add a few combos to his value and remove a few from his bluffs and hands we beat I agree with others that this is a fold unless we have some other history / reads to sway things the other way.

Your best hope is that he's accidentally bluffing with worse (aka betting worse for value when no worse hands can call), so, fold.

Do we have any additional information on him aside from the one hand you mentioned? It seems like we don't have enough info to really range him here.

This board hits your 3b range big time, so I'd fold to an unknown, who might actually call pre with 54hh/65hh. The AT hand indicates he's not concerned playing oop.