Hi guys, keen on your thoughts about this hand.

Playing 1/2 live, most of the time it was 1/2 with 5 straddle and everyone is playing incredibly deep. Average stack size was around 800. V in this hand is a middle aged guy, playing pretty tight and his stack is about 550. He doesn't seem to be a hugely thinking player and is def a rec (as is hero). Hero covers vvillian with stack at around 1200.

Hero UTG + 2 A♥️K♥️ Raises to 10

Folds to V in MP who 3! to 25

Folds back to Hero and OOP I choose to 4! To 85. V calls.

Flop. 7♣️ J♠️ 4♥️

Hero bets 115. V calls.

Pot now around 400. V has around 350 left.

Turn. 8♥️

Hero?

Will reveal how I played turn and results later but would appreciate some feedback on play so far and what you would do on turn.

Many thanks

If villain is pretty tight then it's often better to just give up AK to a 3 bet OOP. It's hard to make money when you do hit and hard to get villains to fold better hands. A lot depends on what villain's 3 betting range is and how stationary they will get post.

As played, flop is super dry. Unless villain is very fit fold you should just give up half the time and c-bet half the time. C-bet can be smaller, dry flop and $170 in pot means $90 works just as well.

On the turn the pot is $400 and you added the flush draw to give you more equity. Every option is viable, it's a live read. If villain is sticky but passive check and hope for a good card. If villain will call once wide but has a lot of fold to a committing bet on the turn then $200 is good. If villain can get mubsy then shoving might be best.

if it were me i would have called his 3 bet but i never play deep stacked as you guys in big games so i can understand how it's different, trying to see that river card is key though as you left it

He's a rec, he might not consider pot odds. Bet $150 here, fold equity + priced in to hit.

You should have 4! to $150 or about 30% of effective to make him understand he's got to commit of fold because you gonna go to the river and have no intention on reevaluating OTF. He's got no folding equity against you because you'll be calling any shove. AK played this way will have 50/50 against any pair and will blow away any weaker player that considers AK drawing hand. You'll be miles away against any two unpaired cards and be in trouble only against AA or KK and even there you have only 6 combos of them all to worry out of 1326.

A great majority of live No Limit Hold'em players even winning players play AK far too weakly. Most of them think the AK is a drawing hand, therefore they only call raises to hit the flop or fold after the flop if they missed. Playing AK this way guaranty the lowest earn possible for the hand. The lack of reciprocal edge by playing AK softly alone demonstrates why we should no play AK softly. If we play AK in a defensive manner rather than offensive then our hand playing is basically really weak which breads an entirely weak overall game plan.

Your 4! heavy enables you to call a shove for 100 to 150 big blinds and it makes you extremely tough to play against. Even QQ, JJ or other AK will abandon ship against us.

If the pot has been 3! and been called in 2+ places before you and you got AKs you can call but that's the only call you make with AKs in volume pots and position.

If the pot has been 3! you got to play very aggressive in order to either win right there or see the entire board to the river. If you want to be a winning player, a good winning card player, you have to beat the villain's AK and force him to fold QQ, JJ, TT. If you can do that, you can be a great player.

If the pot has been 3! in front of you and has got been called in 2+ place and you got AKo you should fold because you probably have no more "outs" and no matter what you do now you don't get folding equity from 3 players.

So, you have here a call, 4! heavy or a fold.

Is anyone aware of situational component of the game?

Okay so we are deep. Which has to be accounted for. 275BB deep we don't want to be getting AK (even suited) AIPF regularly. It won't show a profit.

You can 4bet! quite often vs a lot of opponents. Being OOP, is gonna be tough either way.

Against a tight rec. I would prefer to see a call. Unless I have reason to believe he is 3 betting light.

Since you 4 bet. I like your line. Dry flop, with backdoor flush draw. Really like your sizing.

Turn is great card for us. Don't see any other option than jamming. Heart draw and 2 overs gives us lots equity vs his calling range on flop. (40%) assuming he calls AK. (32%) If he folds majority of his AK on flop.

We have very little fold equity. But definitely have some. He may fold 10's and 99, and AK.

Looking at calling, (which I prefer to do vs tight 3! range).

3! Size is on smaller side (for live play). We are very deep!!! With hand that flops very well. We are able to keep pot size smaller OOP.





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Sizings are terrible as usual.

Thanks to a couple of you who had some actual input. Still have no idea why people bother to use this site and comment things like 'sizings terrible as usual' that may well be the case but give an explanation or some thoughts on how to play it differently!

I didn't feel comfortable during this entire hand which is why I posted here, in hindsight seeing how the hand played out a larger 4! Size would have got the job done. He would have folded weaker hands and it would have been an easier hand to play post flop with lower spr.

I can't get on board with anyone suggesting folding AKs pre flop to 1 single small 3! At low stakes live. Im never going anywhere pre flop here but will try and size 4! Differently in future.

I also agree that if there were 2+ callers between the 3! No matter the size and me I would call here with AKs. AKo I would be inclined to see a flop with as there are so many bad players at this level calling 3! With junk and weaker aces.

Those who suggested betting 150/200 OTT, are you bet calling to a jam?

Lol this is fine OP, now jam the turn. WP

What size 4 bet are you looking for?

You got the best result possible. He flatted with 109s...

You 4! To big and you are losing a ton of value. Still stacking off with AA, and KK pre.

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Looks to me that you are being super results oriented.

Yes you got it in really bad. But think of his range as a whole.

He is folding high majority of the time.

The hand was played very well from start to finish.



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lol no it wasnt. just bad button clicking that got rewarded.

Post-flop seems basically fine to me, though betting less on the flop probably makes sense as noted.

Pre-flop I really prefer flatting here. This is too good to fold at 2.5 to 1 odds, but you said villain is "pretty tight" and he 3! your early open. Without some stronger read you have to take that 3! pretty seriously at 1/2. I don't think the 4! gets a fold very often so mostly you see a flop out of position needing to hit at least a K, maybe an A.

Jesus check the flop (and call a reasonable sized bet) and then bet the turn (since he checks flop a lot) and then bet the river and get jammed on and call and put the hand in BBV.

You're also allowed to call AKs pre you know, and also do not make it $85.

You might want to rethink the "pretty tight" label for your V now that you caught him 3betting T9s.

I think this deep and OOP, the preflop 4bet is mandatory, especially since the 3bet was so small. You cut down on his implied odds. To people who want to flat the 25, what's the plan for post? C/f all flops w/o A or K? Call down if you flop A/K? It might be an OK line 50-100 bb's deep, but seems like we'd get owned in the long run 400 bb's deep like that. 85 preflop is fine, because it sets up 2/3 pot bet on the flop and a near pot size turn shove. 85 should also have some fold equity pre. I mean, it's not like we clicked it back to 50.

Bet flop. To those who say check the flop -- huh? What flops are you c-betting with AKs if not J74r with a backdoor? Lots of V's hands fold right away -- A5s, AQ, KQ etc. A huge part of his range (55-TT, A4s, all his 7's) can't stand a double barrel on this board, on almost any turn card. Seems like a bet on the flop, with a plan to shove all in on any A, K, Q or heart.

8 of hearts is like the worst heart, because T9s, 56s and 88 all got there, but you still have enough fold equity to shove. He should fold A4s, 45s, A7s. He might or might not fold hands like 99, TT, J9s,JTs, QJs, KJ, 98s, T8s, but he's going to have a tough decision with them, and he will guess wrong some of the time. With your nut flush draw and overs, you only need him to fold something like 22-24 percent of the time to make a small profit.

I say well played.

The plan is not to lose a lot of money against an opponent who prior to this hand looked to have a very strong 3! hand range vs AKs. A post flop bluff or semi-bluff is possible, but we'll be leaning towards fit or fold on most flops.

4betting to 85 OOP deep is a disaster. If we were in position it's not as bad, but I like a $125/fold

As for flop I like a half pot bet.
Turn i'm 50/50 - that card is not good for your over all range - not as bad as a T but any of the 8 9 T J Q cards would not be a great card to barrel. It's not as bad though because it is a heart so I guess you can jam turn - would be $300 into $500 pot.

I think the mistake was how small the bet sizes were. You jammed way too much on the turn.

Okay so a UTG 5x open just got 3bet at 1/2 and we want to 4b to $125 here? Are you serious?

His range is basically TT+/AQ+ a lot with more inclination towards QQ+ at this stake. I don't see why we want to allow him to play that range perfectly by 4b here and that too so big. That's more like turning AK into a bluff. Also, risking $125 to win $25?

Honestly, I prefer folding preflop in this spot OP, atleast in my games.

The 3bet was dog ****. It was only $25. If he has a real hand he would of 3bet more this deep. Turns out his 3bet was dog **** and he had T9.


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Yeah but even then it's a 3b at 1/2. Player dependent about the sizing ofcourse.

But not too thrilled. I'm flatting at best.

4b may be good if shallower and aggro opponent.

players at 1/2 don't merge there range correctly. They size smaller with weak hands and bigger with large hands because they don't want them "cracked" This player 3bet small because he has a drawing hand and incorrectly figured if he 3bet he would be shown respect. When you are deep, you want to be 3betting and 4betting larger.

You can correctly call 3bets with a wide range if they don't size them correctly because you will have a ton of $$$ behind and if you flop well you can win a large pot.

In this pot, flatting AK would be fine, but I think it's way better to 4bet large and win the $39 in the middle. If we get called it's fine as well. We just don't want to get 5bet jammed on, as we would almost certainly have to fold unless villain was a total nut job.

I figured this out about 1/2 players by playing it for 2 years. I played very exploitable but it worked. I profited and moved up to 1/3 and finally 2/5. I am only finally meeting some resistance at 2/5 but even than the player pool in my area is still fishy.

I have not read responses to your question because I want to avoid getting biased. I will give my opinion first. Lets consider this from opportunity cost at 1/2 point of view. 1/2 games usually have loose callers who will call your big bets when you hold a set on the flop. Now getting back to your hand: you are on turn and you have bet $200.00 so far and you have no clue if you are ahead or behind. $200 translates to 65 full rounds at 1/2! In these 65 rounds you almost sure to get atleast 1-3 opportunity to stack your typical loose caller opponent. In other words your opportunity costs at 1/2 are huge!!!. A TPTK hand the way you played when you consider the alternative of set mining is straight forward money loser!

Your flop reraise may be good during a tournament but at 1/2 cash game is big mistake. You should have just called the flop. Check-call the flop bet and then decide what to do on turn. You are much better off waiting for flopping a big hand instead of wasting money semi bluffing or pushing people off at 1/2.