1/2 game. Middle position with A K off. One limper so I decided to raise it to 12 instead of my usual 10. Standard raise is sometimes less. Dependent on table dynamic.
Young Caucasian guy who hasn't been at the table too long raises it to 35.
Villain looked a little nervous and I figured him for the lees experienced type.
So, with that raise sizing I put him on either pocket Jacks or pocket Queens, ruling Aces or Kings out. I just flat called, hoping to spike an ace or a king on the flop, neglecting to take into account his stack size which was only about 150.
How should I have played this hand? Did I misplay it?

Seems like a good spot to jam preflop to put pressure on him to fold his pairs. Calling is not as great because the times you hit the flop you're not often getting paid unless you're beat.

Better to flat call with AKs since it plays better postflop.

4-bet GII, or fold. Don't flat the 3-bet.

+1, and the difference would simply be read on villain and how often/standard these types of 3 bets are along with your desired variance.

If villain is never doing this with worse than JJ+ (i.e. no AQ etc) then I personally fold. If it's a loser game and villain has some worse hands in their 3 bet range I run the likely coin flip with a little bit of fold equity

If you have only $150 effective and suspect villain to be on JJ/QQ ...,
Fold, because you got no betting power with short stacks. With $300-400 effective you can blow away the QQ and JJ, but calling a 25% of effective and try to flop an Ace or King is not the way to do it.

Loser game? I mean the fact that many games people don't have these hands in their 3-bet range is what makes them great games.

A 75 BB 4-bet shove is not "no betting power". I'd be more likely to fold on $300 stacks since the risk of running into AA/KK is worse.

Yes, exactly .., he's no got betting power to blow away the QQ/JJ. So, how he's gonna play his AK for a drawing hand after calling 25% of effective?

He moves all-in pre and he's behind because QQ/JJ will not fold. He calls $35 pre and trying to outflop and it's not gonna happen only 33% on the flop. So, which way is he gonna go? Nothing looks good if he thinks villain's got QQ/JJ.

It's unrealistic to put someone on exactly QQ/JJ. Also, I think it's pessimistic to think someone's always stacking off the last $115 with those hands every time. And even if they do, you're almost getting the odds to put it in even if their hand was face up. Folding seems way too tight.

The flop was 10 8 3 rainbow. I checked and villain went all in.
My read on villain was on the money. I folded his all in bet and being inexperienced like I suspected, he showed pocket Ladies.
My equity pre flop was 43 / 57 and postflop 25/75.
Given that villain is playing with cards face up, and that I already put in 25% of stack, is shoving all in pre a profitable play with A K against his Queens?

haha I meant 'looser' game... typing fail

At 75bb, this is a gii pre or fold. I am never flatting pre.

BTW, I think JJ and QQ will fold here, especially a new, nervous player. He's probably scared to gii pre w/o KK or AA.

Thinking about this more....

I am going to assume the $35 raise size is way way way oversized for an opening raise in this game. If is isn't (i.e. other hands people were calling big opens with since this player sat down) it is a totally different hand. But if the $35 is say a huge anomaly and most other raises were $10-15 than I do agree with new players this is so so so often specifically 10-10 to QQ with the occasional AK thrown in there.

Players that make that terrible play are so often never going to stack off when an A or K comes (unless you slow play the heck out of it which is IMO the risky but right play against this type of villain). You can make an argument in this spot to actually fold pre-flop, rare but I've done it against this villain.

The reason why most (and my first gut) is to shove AK here is that most villains have some AQ and AJ in opening ranges making it a profitable shove even if close to a coin flop mostly. However this specific spot I agree is way often 10 10 to QQ at 1/2 with this opening raise size and no other reads.

I think raise call fold pre flop all are pretty reasonable in this specific spot. Insta fold to a flop bet. If an A or K or king comes I am not betting until turn or river.

$35 was a 3bet to a $12 raise. Seems pretty standard sizing.

I guess that folding must be the correct play then because I personally believe a fish will never fold Queens to an all in pre flop bet. That's why he's fish! Not that I'm that much better. If I was I probably wouldn't be posting this question. Although, to stay balanced or not good to 3 bets too often, you have to go with A K in this spot sometimes, right?

You didn't say he was a fish. You said he was a young nervous guy new to the table who could be inexperienced. He could easily be scared money and want to save his stack.

Also, I have zero problem basically flipping pre for 75 bb, especially if I thought I had any FE, which I think I have. I would have shoved.

Yes, exactly. I totally agree but it was not me that put villain on QQ or JJ. It was our hero in his original post:


As you can see, hero puts villain on QQ/JJ and decides to just call and try to spike an Ace or a King on the flop. Another words he's playing AK as a drawing hand with a short stack heads-up. Big mistake!

Grunch

If V has QQ/JJ, is he going to stack off with a flop that has an A/K in it?

Pot is ~50 and eff stacks are 115 remaining. Calling means pot will be 70 and our SPR will be 1.5. I just ship pre and move on.

"Grunch": Well, if he had $150 & you ship it, you're getting $157, raked & tipped [$12 + $150 + $3 blinds - $7 rake/BBJ & $1 tip] on your $138 all-in, so you're putting in ~47% of the money into the pot, when he calls, with ~43% equity vs. QQ/JJ.

You would think he folds at least 4% of the time. He could be 3! because he read somewhere that AK is a raising hand pre, not a calling hand & will snap fold.

I would need to believe he folds 10% of the time there so I have a decent $$ overlay. However, how often is your read wrong? In any event, I ship it, absent any reads. Especially if I think his nervousness is from trying the 3! pre with AK like he read somewhere.

DISCLAIMER: I am not winning 10BBs+ over my last 2500 hrs of play, so I am not a Crusher.

Read the end result: Don't forget, you didn't get to see the last 2 cards. However, he could have been so "green scared" that he shipped it OTF with KK or worse yet: A set vs. that "coordinated" board. If he read somewhere that a T OTF, with another card close to it, connects with a lot of hands.

A) this is nonsense. You don't know that QQ will or will not fold

B) I've seen QQ in this exact situation fold for less (face up to show how "smart" he was)

You're short circuiting the math here. When we're all in, we have a 4% equity deficit in a $300 pot so we need to make up ~$12 in fold equity to overcome that. We're attempting to win ~$50 if he folds so he needs to fold 24% of the time to break even.

Now this is if you peaked at his cards and saw QQ. We don't know this villain enough to say he never has AQs or TT/JJ which are way more likely to fold and he can also have KK/AA here sometimes for sure.

I'm with johnny, but I had a lot of history with the guy. A lot of history & he folded QQ pre face up vs. my 4! pre, also with QQ. However, I was playing based on what he knew about me from 8 months + ago & his demeanor when he 3!.

IMO, I think OP has a harder time getting V to fold. However, if V has $$ in his pocket or is of the mindset: "The hell with it! If I can't win with QQ here, I wasn't meant to be playing poker" he probably doesn't any fold equity.

Yeah. Factoring spr, I guess I should have shoved all in or folded. Flat calling, and yes I treated A K like a drawing hand, and hoping to get lucky, which is what I did, was I guess the worst option.

If he showed you his QQ, then shoving preflop would have been a mistake. You needed 47% equity to profitably shove and you only have 43%. But I'm pretty sure, without doing the math, that flatting the $35 preflop is correct if you know what he has. Depends how much you win from him if an A/K flop.

Thank you Sir! That's a helluva' fuse I blew there

More help needed! . Keeping the math simple, I looked at it this way:

I win $50 24% of the time when he folds = $12

I lose $150 [76% * 57%] of the time = $64.98

I win $150 [76% * 43%] of the time = $49.02

Still a money dog. It's darn close though.