Title says it all, what is the correct play in the following hand.

Live 1/2

UTG+2 raises preflop to $12
middle position player calls
Action is on me in the hijack, I have AA. I 3-bet to $37
Cutoff 4-bets to $137
Action folds back to me, what do I do?

I started the hand with about $350, cutoff has a little less, closer to $300.

I decided to shove in this position and got called by the player holding Kings. After thinking it over, I feel his call was wrong as it's unlikely I'm shoving 150bb+ pre with anything other than Aces here. Flop came Q high and likely would have resulted in the money going in the pot at that point anyway, but in the event a King falls it does give me a chance with Aces to fold, although that may never happen anyway. I won the pot, but would it be more profitable for me to call in the hijack and try to get the money in post flop as it gives my opponent less of a chance to fold?

In his shoes against a complete unknown we should consider folding KK to a 5! AI because most unknowns have no bluffing range. But we also shouldn't put in 40% of the stack on our 4! when a 4! to $100 or so (planning to fold if our unknown/straightforward opponent 5!) would be just fine. Once we've put in that much, without reads, it's marginal whether we should call off KK (because of the occasional surprising unknown opponent) or not.

But back to your perspective with AA, there's little risk an unknown is going to put in half his stack with KK and then fold, so shoving is fine. Hopefully you wouldn't flat call and then check-fold a K-high flop because that seems crazy.

Against a known opponent who can fold to a 5! you might want an occasional 5! bluff here (say A5s in a red suit) but against an unknown that's pointless.

No, never. You're not getting away from any flop once you call $137.

I would just 5-bet ship here. Villain has close to half his stack in the middle, and nobody folds KK pre at 1/2 for 150BBs or less.

If stacks were deeper (like $600+), one could argue for a $137 flat call for some deception, although both of you are close to playing your cards face up as it is, given the preflop action.

Which is better depends on villain but the difference is small once he puts half his stack in.

Some might fold to the 5 bet preflop but will feel committed post once all the money is piled up. Others will always call preflop but might find a fold post if an ace or queen hits the flop.

Obviously in this situation my opponent had Kings and was likely never folding, but my main thought process is what else can he 4bet with here. This player hadn't been at my table long and was a relative unknown. He was wearing a WSOP shirt, sunglasses, and had a shark with a donkey in his mouth card protector so as far as I was concerned he was likely a fish!

So what else can he 4 bet with?

Only read because I thought you shoved 3k pre.

Just out of curiosity, what made you think that?

First off, it is extremely unlikely that someone who 4 bets at llsnl will fold. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard from the guy with KK "I know you have AA, but I can't fold". And good for them, if they ever did fold and show me, they are well on their way to becoming my favorite ATM.

But if you ever wondering about a particular hand, just do the math. I hope it is obvious that if you are ever 1 million deep with an opponent who 4 bets to 999,999, and you shove for your last dollar that you are hoping they fold.

However, this pot is 201 when the betting gets back to you, therefore if you play at a no flop no drop game, your EV when you shove and he folds is +201. If you shove and he calls, your EV is approximately 82%(actually 81.95) of the final pot minus drop, in this case (if he has exactly 300, let's say) your EV back from the pot of 620 is +508.09.

The net gain to your stack in the first case is 201-37, and in the second case is 208.09. The difference between the shove being called and the V folding is 22 bbs, or 2 hours work for a crusher. So it's worth it to know that you do, in fact, want to be called.

To decide between the shove and simply calling, you would have to make some assumptions about the opponent (for example, assuming he folds when and A flops and GII any other time is reasonable, I think) and then subtract the extra 320 for the percent of time that happens.

I think you'll find with any reasonable assumptions, shoving is preferable.

Typo in the subject line. "1500bb"

Too many zeros in the thread title

Didn't even notice I did that! Can't seem to edit it either

This is a spot we just super unbalance and flat AA here IMO. Don't give him a chance to make a hero fold, he's going to jam flop a ridiculous amount of the time

This is close to being OK to jam since he has so much of his stack invested but I still lean slightly towards a flat, too. Shoving is really only near-guaranteed to be called by KK, I think there's a very real chance he can find a fold with some of the other hands.

I don't think it really matters much, though.

Glad I'm not alone thinking a call is possibly a better option. I don't think I flat here all the time against a relatively unknown, but it should be in play. This is a 1/2 game so it's not guaranteed the villain has KK, it's very possible they could be getting fancy and a shove over the top will get them to fold. Whereas, if they're taking a strange fancy line they'll likely shove flop anyway to represent a hand such as Ks or As. At the end of the day it didn't matter, money went in the pot and my aces held.

If you decide to flat, he has a 1/2 PSB left and you're first to act. You can't do anything but check at that point and just hope the money goes in.

Doesn't seem hard to GII over three streets with these SPRs. If V checks behind on the flop Hero can value bet turn, or wait and jam river, if V folds then they probably weren't going to call the jam pre anyway. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule based on Vs actual hand and the board but the point is it shouldn't be too hard to get the rest in most cases.

This post seems way too nitty imo even at 1/2. Vs will show up with QQ/AKs here from time to time as well.

I can't see myself ever 5 betting pre with Qs in a 1/2 game. AK, yes since I hold blockers.

Lmao, I also thought 1500 BB's was a bit much

I was thinking about this yesterday because I literally had the same exact situation, same effective stack sizes, same bet sizes, and V folded QQ to my shove.

If V calls the shove you're a 4:1 favorite. Let's say you're winning ~$500 from the $625 pot. You've contributed 300 to the pot, your profit is $200 when all the $ goes in pre. IF HE FOLDS you win $161 uncontested. Not a huge difference right? This is the main reason why shoving pre is best, if he folds, no big deal. The moment he puts in the big 4 bet is the moment you succeeded in the hand.

Edit: Nice post from Buster65 above beating me to the punch. Agree that enough ish can go down postflop to cut down your profit in the hand making a call lower EV than a shove.

My above post is why at this point you should never fold KK until you are sure that V is a nitty player. We need V range to have QQ or AK a very small percentage of the time to make it a call, and occasionally your unknown V will have some random spazz in his range.

Also, the 3-bet is on the small side...possibly inducing a 4-bet from certain aggressive-type players.

I can't recall the last time I saw anyone 5-bet QQ or AK(s or o) in a live small stakes game. I'm sure I've seen it at some point, but not often. Do you see this often?


It's more than a "very small percentage."

--- WIDER VALUE-ONLY RANGE---
KK is 22.6% against KK+ and 57.2% against QQ+,AK. If

• ten percent of opponents 5! with the latter "wide value" range of QQ+, AK
• the rest only 5! KK+

then our equity with KK is 26.1%.

In this example, the 4-bettor needs to call 163 to win 452 (not counting rake) which is 2.77 to 1, or right at 26.5% equity needed. So here they should probably just call off with KK. With the smaller 4-bet size and the same range assumptions, they should fold KK.

I consider 10% more than "very small" but that's just semantics.

---- POLARIZED RANGE ---
But a really good player against another perceived good player would have a 5-bet bluff range. I don't think that applies to $1-2 against unknowns but let's explore it.

Let's say

• ten percent of opponents 5! shove with the "wide value" range of QQ+, AK
• another five percent have a polarized 5-bet range like QQ+, AKs, A5s, 98s
• the rest only 5! KK+.

We're 59.2% against the polarized range. So, our weighted equity against the three ranges is now 27.9%. Not much better!

Note that I took out AK offsuit from the polarized 5-bet range to represent that some hands will want to flat call the 4!. I feel like this second set is a really optimistic set of assumptions. I doubt one percent of the population of unknowns in $1-2 are 5-betting a polarized range, because they rightly assume that an unknown 4-bettor is only 4-betting what he wants to get all in with. Why bluff someone who's never folding?

These ranges are for unknowns. Obviously we can debate these assumptions on the margins. My assumption is someone who's 5-betting wider than this, whether polarized or unpolarized, is probably going to stick out like a sore thumb in other ways so we will quickly peg them as very aggro. We don't need to see them 5! several times in a session to come up with a probabilistic read if they're playing very aggressively preflop in other ways. If we happen to get into a 4!/5! situation and fold KK in the first hand after we sit down, well, they're an unknown and that's too bad. But it's rare that this 5! decision will come up before we get a chance to observe them as maniacs in other ways, so it's rare we'll still have to consider them an unknown player by the time this situation comes up.

Of course, against someone who's playing wild in other ways--say, opening 70/50 or 3 betting half the opens before them--I would never fold KK 150BB deep.

Anyway, with a really optimistic set of assumptions regarding wide 5-betting in live $1-2, it's still correct to 4-bet your kings to like $95 here and fold to a 5!AI. Maybe you disagree that those assumptions are optimistic. But if you can't even consider a situation where you'd fold kings preflop, you're playing Level 0 poker rather than thinking about opponents' ranges, and Level 0 poker doesn't win.

By the way years ago in a $1-2 game at the Trop in Atlantic City, I had a guy open-shove $200 from EP with QQ into my AA. An unknown open shoving for 100x is such a bizarre line that you should call with KK and probably reshove with QQ and AKs. Needless to say, that's much different than responding to a 4! with a 5!.