Quote:
Originally Posted by AintNoLimit
I WOULD always 3 bet AK and that way the good player can never range you as only AA KK there. This is a great use for AK. Its what helps us play against really tough players and makes us hard to play against for them.
I don't really agree with this. If we want to balance our range there are better hands to do it with than AKo which is doing very well against his opening range (and there are a number of hands in that range we can win large pots from) and is losing to his 3bet calling range (which we basically never win a big pot against). I would much rather balance using a hand like 89s (which is going to be a +EV 3bet since he folds such a huge percentage of his range to 3bets).
Another reason I would rather balance with weaker hands is the villain is a lot more likely to remember it and adjust to us. If he is just a "decent" TAG I don't think he is adjusting much to us having AK if we get to showdown. I think he probably just shrugs and moves on. If we 3bet 89s and show it down he will remember it and widen his perception of our 3betting range.
The last reason I don't like a 3bet for balance here is we almost never actually show this hand down. Think about it, if he can only have JJ+, AK when he continues, realistically we are probably only getting to showdown when we chop with AK (which probably only really happens when there's an A/K on the board which also won't happen that often).
Which is all just a long way of saying, if we are going to turn something into a bluff for "balance" reasons I would rather not do it with such a strong hand.
However, I'm not really sure we should want him to adjust to 3bet calling range much. As it stands, his opening range is pretty wide and his 3bet calling range is super narrow. I would be perfectly happy if he never adjusted and we could just continually 3bet him light.