Lotta terrible thinking in this post.

OP just got carried away bc I recommended to flat KK one time, it just was a very different situation. FWIW shoving pre is just as bad as flatting.

For the same reasons we don't flat.

Wow tons of logic fails in this post. Lol at 10bb wins with KK. Live lololol. If that is the case you are in the worst llsnl game on the planet or you have no clue how to extract value out of big hands.

I mean I just read it again and I just don't know what to say.

4 betting to gii

Do you not think there's a good chance that his entitlement tilt will cause him to snap call a shove with QQ and then fall out of his chair in disgust when he sees KK? I guess the big question is how quickly he comes to his senses when I do that.

If we figure that he at least calls a clickback with TT+, then we'll have an SPR of about 1.3 going to the flop. At that point if we can then get most of our effective stacks in on most flops then I guess we wouldn't be gaining much with a shove anyway and that it isn't worth the risk of having him fold pre. If we had a looser villain and slightly shallower stacks, say 150bb, would a shove make sense then (i.e. called by a wider range than a clickback) ?

More partial results:

I decide to c/c flop and lead turn with top set. Hoping this can make my hand look more medium strength than it is. If he's AA or AK (ten possible combos) then I'm hoping he doesn't get too scared by KKK or JJJ possibilities and calls down turn and river thinking I can take this line with KQ. If he's one of the six QQ combos then I'm probably just not going to make much $$$ postflop. If he's got one of the three JJ sets then it will probably be easy to get stacks in no matter what I do.

I check flop, he bets $45, I call. $178 in pot.

Turn 6. I bet $75, he thinks for ten seconds and folds.

Guessing he did have QQ, maybe TT or AQ. So yeah, I've got the memo now to not get fancy with KK OOP + 200 bb deep and just 4bet pre.

I don't think a 50 year old tourist with some fishy tendencies is giving as much thought to these things as you are giving him credit for, especially if you've established something of a 'young punk' dynamic with him.

Why is shoving pre bad at all, given the dynamics described, much less just as bad as flatting?

Sorry to disappoint Mr Know-it-all, but average pot live =/= double the pot online. Its more. A lot more.

Why should anyone judge the result of a single hand based on a comparison with his average winrate with that hand? Your winrate is composed of individual wins and losses, and the wins, by definition, have to be higher than your average winrate in order for your winrate to be what it is. It makes more sense to compare to your winrate when you win a hand with KK (ignoring the huge factor that is position), but even then, the question isn't, "Did I exceed my winrate with this hand?" but "Did I maximize my value on this hand this time?"

It only really makes sense to compare your winrate with KK this month to last month and this year to last year. If you see it trending upward, you know you're getting more value from KK than you used to.

Ironical that the guy using online win rates as justification for terrible live strat advice is calling someone an idiot. Bravo sir.

Keep sprinkling terrible advice around this forum and I will continue to point out how terrible you are at the pokerz.

When you posted the flop, I decided on the exact same line you took here. I don't know if that's good or bad for you.

Ok, enough with the derail. Use logic, not insults, to back up your arguments.

fair enough, apologies for getting out of line

having him fold pre for a 21BB gain is good for you, there isn't a darn thing wrong with people folding worse hands when the pot size is this big already

i'm very very confident that the average pot size in 1/2 is much much less than this and your average take with KK isn't higher than this, so 4betting and having him fold is a good result, and why I snap 4bet here (to about 100)

Both scenarios (shoving/flatting) are not playing optimally vs. a semi wide range. We need to extract value as efficiently as possible.

If you shove you are only getting called by QQ+ maybe JJ+. You shrink ( or shear ) his continuing range greatly.

The logic OP and some posters are referring to about "shoving looking bluffier" simply doesn't apply at this level. Villains don't hero. They look at their pretty cards and decide if the price is worth continuing.

You would only shove in this spot if you could expand a calling range. What I mean by that is that there are certain villains I play with who would fold even JJ to a 4! of $125 but would snap a shove with like 77. I expand their hero'ing range by shoving.

Villain was described as a cautious tighter player who "isn't looking to give chips away" and who's stack also just increased substantially. This is not the type of player you shove value hands on. Quite the contrary, you bluff them more.

So you want to size a 4! to the top of his wide calling range. For example he is going to call a $105 4! with pretty much his entire range after saying "huh? only $60 more?"

Then his QJs or w/e hits Qxx and never folds post bc people do not fold top pair no matter what you are repping.

This is all spoken in exaggeration of course but I'm trying to get the point across.

yeah I like flatting better than shoving for reasons mentioned above, and I don't want to give away too much about sizing because it's the major difference between an average player and a good one. As soon as a fish begins to know how to size, he becomes tougher to beat

?"

basically want to sculpt sizing to his range and he's on the button and has a thing for OP, size this down to about 100, only take or leave a chip to confuse him - I prob go 103 or something

there are pretty std sizings oop and IP that pretty much protect you from ever losing money pre flop, most of em I learned here in the forums so search around imo

I agree that extracting value is the objective; I think we have different views on his range right now. I think V's range is pretty narrow, especially if we don't give him credit for being positionally aware. What are the hands that would make someone knee-jerk limp at first glance and then immediately say, "Oh ****, I shoulda raised there!", and then 3bet? Would a non-positionally aware V do that with non-Broadway SC's like T9s? No. Would he do it w/ 77? Maybe, but I submit that's the bottom of his PP range. Would he do it w/ AA/KK/AK/AQs? No, b/c his knee-jerk reaction would be to raise in the first place. So, I think his range is capped at AQo, with a ton of AJ/AT in there, plus some medium PP's.

I disagree, in this particular circumstance, although I agree in general. I think the dynamic at play here is very powerful: Hero has just won a pot from V. V is likely not acting when he professes to have meant to raise and flatted by mistake. V may well be experiencing 'roid rage at the punk kid that just took his money raising HIM when he said HE meant to raise, and his 3! at the very least makes any fold less likely.

I agree that they aren't ranging Hero, but their decision about whether to continue with their pretty cards is not that rational. I think some irrationality is very much in play here, and it is definitely a possibility that he will irrationally assume that the punk kid is trying to add insult to injury by 4bet-shoving after his obvious show of strength (speech, then 3!).

I think it's possible that this V's hero-stacking-off range may be his entire accidental-limp-followed-by-verbal-regret-at-not-raising-followed-by-punk-kid-raising-followed-by-3! range, because the range just isn't that big. I'm 100% with you, ordinarily; I just don't think this hand is ordinary.

The description was that he seemed to take pride in not giving chips away postflop; he's 35/8 preflop, so he seems not to take so much pride in not giving them away preflop. Furthermore, he has 3bet, so he's going to be prone to stacking off on a "****, I'm priced in" justification (faulty, obv), if nothing else.

I agree with your assessment of how to size your 4! if it's not AI, but I'm not sure there's much difference in his 4! calling range and his 4!AI calling range preflop. Postflop, based on the OP's description, I think this V could indeed fold a weak TP or something like TT on a Qxx flop. He seems like just the kind to wake up postflop and say, "wait, I don't want to give my whole stack away anymore."

This just seems like one of those unique scenarios to me where your best chance to maximize is to take advantage of the situation when the V has essentially broadcast a) that he doesn't have AA and b) that he's not interested in folding, but he might find a fold if given a chance postflop.

ok I'll do the same but I still think are some logic fails in your thinking. Sorry if it seems like I am dumping on you but these are real logic problems IMO.

I don't necessarily disagree the problem is that it is likely this is far from optimal. Every hand has different ways it can be played. Some are "more" optimal than others over the long term. Our goal should be to find the most optimal way to play each hand against THAT opponent(s). It should not be to say *shrug* "there is enough in there, let's take this pot down."

Whether this is true is debatable, but you are speaking of AVERAGES. This by definition means that some hands are going to be far from that average result. Some will be significantly higher or lower than average BB. This is probably particularly true of big hands AA, KK, AK, etc.

And we are 4b for value, not because "having him fold is a good result". We should be 4b because against his range we rank to be well ahead of him and thus we are putting money into the pot as a favorite. This creates a +EV situation for Hero. Sure the flop, turn and river might change the complexion of the hand and might skew the hand to be in the villains favor. That is true of every hand. But taking down a pot because of it's current size is -EV long term (at least in a vacuum).

Now there are certainly spots where folding out villain's equity is +EV. But this spot, with a dominated range and a lot of $$$ left behind is not one of them.

so we agree that 4bet is mandatory then and don't agree as to why, but it gets the same results

think as played c/r flop is mandatory too, dislike this line and think OP missed a tiny bit of value by not 4bet pre, sizing is the most important issue

and the flop has to be a c/r as played, and the turn has to be a check as played

no offense axel but I dislike every street

No offense taken. If I thought I had played the hand perfectly/standard I wouldn't have posted it.

One thing to clarify that I saw in a different post: I don't think he even looked at his cards before tossing in the two whites. He's not a very aggro player, and it has been a talkative "friendly" game, so his default plan might have been to open limp button. I really tended to think he snap limped without looking when the dealer interrupted one of his jokes, then peered down at TT+.

The thing about the flop c/r is that this flop should be pretty scary for him given my line and he's been somewhat nitty post flop (at least in this part of the session; his very last hand is pretty funny). For me to continue from the blinds after his unique limp re-raise, JJ has to be in my range. I thought this guy might be able to lay down AK and AA after seeing a flop c/r. I don't think that he thinks I'm super crazy, and all he can beat with those hands at that point is an oddly timed semi bluff holding a flush draw. Don't think he thinks I can be c/r for value with KQ or QQ at that point; maybe AA can think AK does it for value, but I think that's about it.

Axel I agree that c/r this flop against this villain is bad. I prefer leading somewhat small or c/c.

Check/raise the flop as played. Never check/calling this board. He is just as likely to have jj or aa as you are, and even a tight player can make mistakes and call light sometimes especially if you have an aggressive image. There are a **** tonne of draws on this board any one of which he can put you on. Also numerous turn cards will kill your action and if he can't call a check/raise he likely won't put in any money on future streets anyways unless he improves

I think you should look at spikes AK post again. You actually have a coherent plan but didn't follow through with it. It's your job to get more money out of him that you would have re-raised to. and btw, it's really important to beware of your sizing (see my PM)

If your plan is to trap him, then this is ok. I c/r flop just because I'm indifferent to whether or not he continues past that point. Your plan was to use the hand to trap and get more value at it post than pre (you thought he was too light to call any 3bet). That's a solid plan, but on the turn you need to check it again for the same reason you checked the flop. He's even further behind now and usually can't continue. Check again turn. Otherwise, have a coherent plan and stick to it.

I am completely indifferent to him calling or not pre and therefore would r-raise 100% of the time, but choosing a suboptimal line in certain spots isn't a big mistake. if he's to light to call anywhere, just check down to river

Very interesting spot.

Given prior history I could see V thinking we're a bit of a calling station. For that reason I could see a passive line working here. We need to stack AA/AK/JJ, and we need to squeeze value from QQ and 1010.

A check is in order. But before we decide to raise or call we need to scrutinize sizing. If he bets 60 or more I think we should raise and GII now while the board is scary and AA/AK/JJ are near locks to get in, if he bets less than 60 I would call and check non-diamond turns. So if he bets 50 and a diamond hits on the turn, I'd donk turn for 140.

If he checks back turn I would donk river for 80 or so. Get QQ and maybe 1010 to call.

Catching up on thread....

If he bets 70 to 80 on flop, and we mini raise he's almost never folding AK/AA. If you're really concerned that he will, then just flat. But at least we know where he stands from the sizing.

The reason why I want to raise flop is that the turn will be scary a lot of times for the nit and we NEED to stack AA/AK in this spot.

Hell, as I type this, I think we could and should just call flop regardless of what he bets. Let's say he bets 75. Pot is 238 on turn; 280 effective. We can donk turns for 110 and shove rivers for 170. Don't see how he folds on either street with AK or AA.

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As for the actual hand, his weak flop bet betrays a weak hand. He has QQ tops, probably 1010. So we have to go to the alternative plan and be content with trying to squeeze a bet on the river.

As already stated I like the reraise pre, not to beat a dead horse. Postflop I think you played right check calling the flop. I'm almost never check raising, due to his tight pfr and nitty postflop. I'd rather let this V hang himself. I would c/c flop turn and fire river. I think he turns over QQ a majority of the time and maybe 1010. For this reason I'm not afraid of any of the draws here. I don't see anything else in his range here besides those 2 hands.