Hi everyone! As the title says, this is my first post on here, I hope I format it correctly.So let's get to it...…

1/1 home game, my stack is about $180.

UTG (maniac) bets $5 pre flop. Folds to hero in UTG+2. I look down at A10h and raise to $17. HJ calls. CO (villain) raises to $67 total.

UTG folds, I call, HJ folds. I've only played with CO for about 10 minutes so no reads, but I've heard others talk about him and have reason to think he is very LAG.

Pot has about $150 in it.

Flop is 10 8 4, two spades. I check, villain goes all in (has me covered, I have roughly $120 left).


I'm almost positive I'm behind here, KK seemed most likely to me. I think villain is also very capable of a bluff here, or may have missed with AK. I feel like I only need to be right here roughly 33% of the time, and I still have 5 outs with another 10 or ace.

I would be interested to know how others would have played this. I really considered pushing all in on the flop but obviously decided against it.

Welcome to the forum, Riverlord.

Whether you are behind or not is not the relevant question. The question is whether you are getting the right pot odds.

Fold pre. ATs is horrible against a cold 4-bet.

As played, if V is very lag and you have some bluffs (AK is one here) and some overpairs, you need to weight his range. Does JJ+, about half the combos of AK, and maybe a few smaller PPs turned in to bluffs sound about right for his range? If so, you have about 35% equity.

Your call will represent about 31% of the pot, so if this range is right, it is a slightly profitable call. You'll make about $10 on average if you ran it a zillion times.

If his range is stronger than that, of course, it could be a losing call.

Some other things to consider. How does the rest of the table view you? Have you been playing a lot of hands, have you been raising much? Have you 3 bet recently? If you have a tight image, that agrees with your decision to 3 bet pre. You also need to consider all the action behind you. As UTG+2 there is a lot of action behind and if there are more maniacs or unknowns or our image is loose then I don't like the 3 bet nearly as much. As Garick says, once the new player with minimal reads sees the UTG open and a early position 3 bet and can still put in a cold 4 bet our ATh pretty much turns to rags, especially OOP. This flop illustrates perfectly why. Even if we flop an A or a T we aren't comfortable continuing. We are essentially putting in over a third of our stack hoping to flop 2 pair or better.

Welcome.

The problem here is calling the $67. That should have been a fold assuming CO is not a nut case. The flop is just a math problem which others have discussed. I tend to think Garrick’s range is a little wide. So I’d be folding. Of course I would not have seen the flop.

Welcome to the forum and llsnl (live low stakes no limit).

You should have realized you were behind pre flop and folded to the 3bet (assuming he's an unknown/non maniac type of player).

I disagree that KK seems most likely. All of his Ax hands do have you crushed.

How many players in the game?

Assuming something like a full table, flat the ATs pre. As played, turbofold to the 4bet, even against a LAG. Postflop there's no choice but to call it off.

You need to tighten up significantly preflop, hands like this are burning EV.

FWIW, that's not "my" range. That was just me trying to convert what the OP said about V into a range. Without knowing V, I was just using his thoughts about overpairs and bluffs. As I said in my post, if that is an accurate description of hero's read, it's a call. If not, you'd be surprised how tight it could be and still be profitable. If his range is JJ+, AsKs, it's a fold. If we give him 6 other combos total (I checked it with more AK combos and with all 6 combos of 99), it's a call.

I assume you mean pre? Confusing as posted, as the KK read was OTF.

OP - you seem fairly new to the game so if i’m Too basic here I apologize. The only time you need to worry about being ahead or behind is after the action closes on the river. Before that it’s a smaller part of the game. Understand odds & tendencies and villain archetypes and your poker life becomes much easier.