1/3 no limit

UTG + 1, 300 is a 20-yo regular who I've played with a lot over the past year. Pretty bad (stationy and spazzy) but he's tightened up a lot recently and is working on his game. Positionally aware, but not disciplined enough to fold AJ/KQ/KJs in EP.

SB, covers is unknown and I've been playing with him for an hour. He's tight but not nitty, probably playing about 20/5. I saw him play AA by raising preflop and taking a bet/bet/bet line against a station, with strong ~1/2 or 2/3rds bet sizing every street. The station folded the river and he showed the table AA. Not sure about his cbetting tendencies since many pots are going multiway and he's not raising super often. Has not 3-bet. He's been limping more IP than EP so I assume he's positionally aware. He's been talking basic, correct strategy at the poker table and obviously considers what other players have during hand. Overall he seems like a solid, not tricky, and unsophisticated level 2 player.

Hero, 400 has been tight and quiet/card dead. Down a little because I bet flop/turn IP against a villain who rivered a flush. The river went check/check and he fast rolled me so I didn't show. I'm in the game for 600 but rebought and worked my stack back up a little with raising/cbetting, so probably have a winning-ish, TAG image.

The Hand:

UTG + 1 raises to 12.

Folds to SB who raises to $50.

SB hasn't 3-bet before and we don't have enough of a sample to know much, but from his type I'm 100% sure he isn't squeezing. I don't know if he 3-bets QQ, JJ, or AK because I haven't seen him show those hands down yet. He seems knowledgable enough to 3-bet AK. I think his 3-bet range from this SB is roughly AA/KK/AK/sometimes QQ.

Hero has KK and cold calls.

UTG + 1 calls, capping his range somewhere around TT-/AQ-.

Flop (150): Q84 rainbow

SB cbets 60

Hero calls

UTG + 1 calls

UTG + 1 can have all sorts of queens here and I think he raises any sets he has so I'm not worried about him. I'm pretty worried about the SB of course (queens got there) but his bet seemed weak -- might be a whiffed AK. I decide to call and eval the turn.

Turn (330): Q84 J complete rainbow

SB bets $100

Hero ???

(290 behind)

If we think he's betting small to induce with QQ/JJ, we should fold. If we think he's weakly barreling AK which picked up equity, it's a call/evaluate or shove. If we think it's AA/KK only, it's a fold unless we think he can put us on JJ/QQ and fold AA to a 190 shove. I believe he can lay down 1 pair hands to heavy action, but the pot is so huge now it would have to be one helluva hero fold for him to do this.

I don't think I can add anything. Just depends on how sure you are about your reads. You seem pretty convinced. It would be a hero fold for sure.

You probably should have re-raised pre. Hands would be more well defined.

Close between call turn fold river and fold turn. Tough to say which but probably fold since his small bet is way likely to be a scared AA or a sucker bet with QQ, JJ rather than AK.

Pre is a clear 4bet. 4bet fold to $100 against SB. This way you will lose the min against AA (which is a very big % of his range) and he is unlikely to fold to a small 4bet with QQ, JJ, AK so you get value from worse. If utg+1 5bet shoves, reevaluate. Probably cry call.

Flatting pre puts you in a tough spot because AA is probably 40% to 70% of his 3bet range so you get stacked on a lot of flops. And you risk making bad hero folds against QQ post flop if you try to fold an overpair. Let him play his hand face up by 4bet tiny pre

What i really dont like about this hand is the Q high flop. QQ and JJ are parts of villains 3 betting range we are targeting for value with our KK, and with that Q a healthy portion of villains range made top set.

So we are left with AA wich have us crushed obvious, QQ that have us crushed on the flop and a scared JJ who is facing an overcard on the board. With JJ i dont see him firing again on the turn very often at all, so i cant find many good arguments to continue on with this hand. At this point (when he fires again on the turn) i strongly believe his range consist of pretty much set of Q and AA. Puke fold though as it sucks to fold KK in a 3 bet pot on this type of board.

The argument to continue is that there are more combos of hands (mostly AK) other than AA, QQ and KK in his range.

On his flop betting range, yes, that _may_ be the case. But,when he fires again on the turn after getting called on the flop you believe his range consist of more combos with AK than QQ/AA? Really?

How do you estimate that and how does this correlate to this spesific villains tendencies?

Pretty sure you need to 4-bet/f here and not get stuck in the middle. The 4-bet will likely fold out UTG and let you play the hand IP.

With him betting into 2 people on the Turn that narrows his range down quite a bit IMO. I dont even think he would bet out with JJ OTF, so a bet here OTT is pretty strong.

What are you going to do if UTG shoves? (which he should if he stays in the hand)

Are you folding to all non-K Rivers? Why put chips in now?

Very tough to lay down an overpair anytime ... hows your bankroll/bullets this session? I dont really want to put in $200 right now but that is what we have to plan for. SB has either scared AA or QQ IMO and we still need to worry about UTG. Sad fold against an unknown who may be firing AK (really doubtful). We have to give him credit ... wish we were HU. GL

No. You're right. It's probably a fold. Could he have suited AQ?

I dont necesserrly have the correct answers, but i am reflecting and putting out my thoughts/arguments.

Yes, he _could_ have AQ suited, but the majority of 1/3 villains dont 3 bet pre with AQ and if its the case i think AQ is a very small fraction of his 3 betting range anyway. QQ/KK/AA is without doubt the hands that dominate villains 3 betting range, many villains at 1/3 doesent even 3 bet with AK because its "a drawing hand" its "Ace high".

This particular villain is described at pretty much abc level 2 player by OP, so that leads me to believe his second barrell range on the turn consists of mostly hands that have us crushed=QQ and AA.

I think I'm cool with preflop. We'll have position postflop which will hopefully help us out with our decisions, plus I'm sorta cool with inviting the station behind us along. If we cold 4bet, then what? If SB 5bets, we'll have to fold having put in almost half our stack, which seems gross. And if SB coldcalls with AA, he then stacks us postflop. Otherwise, he might be able to hero fold big pairs (when was the last time you saw a cold 4bet?).

Bad flop/action, imo. One of the few hands we were ahead of just got there (QQ). Is this guy really cbetting AK into a 3bet coldcaller and an UTG raiser? Is he really cbetting JJ/TT here? We're tied with the other KK, but other than that everything to me indicates that if we weren't beat preflop then we're beat now. So I nit fold on the flop.

On the turn yet another hand got there. This board should also look scary as hell to AA (I mean, it's all over our 3bet coldcalling range). And yet this untricky, unsophisticated guy is 3barrelling. I fold again.

GnitfoldingG

Thanks for your responses so far, everyone.


Many people suggested 4-betting, but I just don't like it. I think we get calls/raises from all better and folds from all worse. And if he flats with AA, he gets our stack on most flops (not this one, but pretty much any non Q flop). Any player can flat AA for deception with only 1 more bet to go in. I see that you are trying to be careful here, but I think the better way to be careful is to call rather than raise. I'm not planning on stacking off with unimproved KK to this guy. I also know my call will often induce a loose call or a spazz from UTG + 1 (padding the pot). So overall I think that calling has to be better; 4-betting just folds out worse and gets calls/raises from better, and I think he flat calls with AA often enough to make it more dangerous.


Bullets-wise, I have ~30 buy ins and had $100 more in my pocket before I hit my stop-loss. It wasn't a particularly juicy table so I wouldn't feel terrible hitting my stop-loss and leaving. I actually wasn't considering this at all because I was playing good poker at the time.

If the UTG shoves and SB calls, I fold. If the UTG shoves and SB folds, I call. It's possible for UTG to have QQ/JJ/QJ here. The thing is, his range is way wider than you might think. With him closing the action, he can have AQ, KQ, an underpair floating to see if we both check the turn, and other random good-looking crap. His range is diluted enough, and he's spazzy/stationy enough, that I'm just determined not to worry about him. He WILL shove here with AQ by the way; he puts players on AK a lot and shoves into them.

If I call, I'm folding any non-K river that the SB bets. I'm worried that he might be double barreling AK because of the gutshot, but no way he triple barrels it when he whiffs.

I guess I'm wondering if that the chance of him having AK, while small, is balanced by the fact that his bets are so small. Since his bets are small and weak:

A) he is more likely to have AK because his betting pattern has deviated from his previous AA hand. Unless he just plays 3-bet pots differently (possible).

B) we don't have to be correct as often. He can be bluffing here a lower % of the time and we are correct to call.

The question is: just how often does he weakly double barrel AK here? Is it closer to 50% of the time, or closer to 0% of the time? This is probably the crucial question for the hand. In other words, THIS:

Side note: I wasn't getting a vibe of strength from him during the hand. He seemed worried, and that + his preflop action made me think JJ/QQ were pretty unlikely. When I post on the forum I like to try to consider all the possibilities, but I actually thought, at the table, that his range was pretty much exclusively AA/KK/AK.


No. Never.


Folding an overpair to a $60 bet, in a $210 pot, in position, on the flop, with donations coming in behind behind is indeed VERY nitty, GG. If we discount AK combos to 2 total (that is, he only cbets AK like this 25% of the time), it's a bad one.


This seems to be the consensus, with people leaning toward folding the turn. This is exactly what I was thinking during the hand. ("Do I fold now, or fold to a bet on the river instead?")

No one has taken me up on my bluff-shoving idea. Which makes sense given how shallow we are. What if we had, say $500 more behind? Any chance we should call the turn and, if UTG folds, shove the river? How often do yall see smart-ish, straightforward players fold AA to huge bets in huge pots when they show weakness?

I'll post the results later tonight.

90+% of villains will 5bet AA pre if you 4bet them. And so would I. You don't expect people to fold pre after 4betting so why risk bad flops killing your action? Now if you had a strong read based on Actual evidence he could flat AA to a 4bet, then by all means flat pre. But it sounds like you are just guessing.

There are only 8 combos of AK left. Is he really takin that line with all AK?? That's way too unrealistic. His line is very consistent with AA. AA could certainly bet small on turn to either encourage loose calls or because he fears QQ, JJ and the only hand he can really get value from is KK. he blocks AQ and KK likely 4bets pre so it makes even more sense he would fear he is beat here (but never folding anyways and feeling forced to block bet)

A bluff shove on turn is beyond spew. He's getting 3.5:1 on a call. Besides the fact he could have a set a lot, he will cry call with AA due to pot odds (or snap call regardless). If you were way deeper, maybe bluff raise but you need proof villain can fold big over pairs VERY often here.

Also his earlier AA hand against the station doesn't really show how he'd play this AA hand in a 3bet pot for a few reasons. One, he's up against a station with a very wide range so he can value bet liberally (and not fear getting bluffed). Two, this is a 3bet pot and pot is huge (people generally tighten up in big pots). Three, hands are way more defined here. You cold called pre and called the flop. He has to be putting you on like TT-QQ (rarely KK and you likely fold flop with AK). So he is crushed often by your range and can't get TT to call down. Of course he's not folding regardless when pots that big. Finally, he can't really expect to get called by many worse hands on turn after that action.

4b to $120 pre and get it in. If he has AA then it's a cooler. If he EVER gets it in with QQ/KK/AK then I'm never folding. If you get a 972 flop you're getting stacked anyway. When UTG+1 calls flop I'm probably done with the hand if SB leads again on turn. Seems one of them has to have a set.

Results:

Hero calls $100.

UTG + 1 looks at me quizzically, says "this is really weird," and folds.

River comes a 5.

SB checks.

Hero checks.

SB shows KK!!!!!!!



I think you pretty much nailed it, Slim. The "he might have AK" is amusing self-leveling, the sort of thing that donks think. Folding KK on the turn has to be correct. It's just hard to find the fold at the table I guess.

As for the flatting AA thing -- I've seen it happen pretty often. I'm not sure what the "average" is (and we would have to go with an average here since we don't have enough reads on this player), but I feel like I've seen people flat AA for deception almost as much as people shove preflop with it. I've also seen people snap GII with AK, which is why I've never folded KK preflop when we are basically flipping against KK+/AK. Are we really folding KK pre for 130bbs? If shoved on, I would definitely start second guessing myself, wondering if he is doing this with AK or QQ. Basically, I don't think raising small does much except for getting our UTG + 1 donator out of there.

But...maybe this is actually the perfect situation (player) to 4-bet/fold KK. I just failed to sniff it out. He wasn't a huge tellbox, but maybe I would've picked up on a timing thing, and I would've saved $100.

Turn is a pretty much automatic fold, honestly, it's not even that much of a hero fold.

Flop would be hero-foldesque / Pre-flop would be a hero-fold.

I also hate the 4-bet fold line. Like I understand the logic, cause if a person plays so straight up that their 5-bet would only be AA, then you can make an easy fold, but what about are you making it? $120? What if he calls your 4-bet? It just seems like, whatever you're going to 4 bet to, you're better off calling preflop and calling the flop (depending on what comes) and it'd be either equal or less (or maybe a bit more) than what your 4bet/fold number was going to be. And in that scenario, you basically hit a "free" flop to spike a set (even though we're not intentionally set-mining).