1/2 NL $300 max buyin. Hero MAWG MP covers (I have about $900). My image is strong as I've shown down mostly strong hands when I raised.

V1 SB ($500). Young (to me 30 is young) guy who seems to know what he is doing but not scary good. Plays tighter than most and more aggressive than most but not really a TAG.

Rest of table smallish stacks and very passive. My strong image at this table has caused me to just take it down pre several times so I lower my raise in this hand.

Hero looks down at black KK and since my image is so strong only make it $10.

1 call, V1 makes it $20. My read is he would do this with AT+, 77+, KQ/KJs.

Folds to me I make it $70.

Folds back to V1 who makes it $165. 5bets against rest of this table would be AA only. His range is QQ+,AK at this point and at 1/2 no matter what player 5bets are tilted to AA, so I call with position.

Flop ($340): Effective stack about $360. T93r. V1 checks.

Hero checks back. I'm pretty sure this is a mistake. Or do we now really discount AA and want to give him a chance to bluff turn.


Will post rest of hand after some comments.

Unless you have seen him do it multiple times the range you give him for the min raise over you $10 is way too wide. For most players this range is AA/KK and weighted towards AA. If he is reacting to you lowering your open size possibly a little wider.

After that I would fold to the 5 bet. Stacks are not deep enough to be playing a big pair that is likely to not be the best big pair.

Flop check is good. The goal here is not really to let him bluff, it is to keep the pot small. You already have his range weighted towards AA and SPR is around 1. There won't be a lot of betting that isn't all in.

Table was kind of wild for a while and my standard raises were $15-$20 in unstraddled pots, so I was factoring the downsize to $10 in his range. Like I said he seemed like a competent/thinking player. I've seen a few 3-bets from him but not a lot of information.

TBH, I just don't have a 4bet range. I would have called the min raise since his range isn't much wider than QQ+, AK.

Folding to the 5 bet is the right play. Twice I've been a situation like this except that there were 2 villains, not one in the hand pf. They both had AA each time.

I'm not discounting what you are saying and it certainly could be a mistake to 4bet here. I've been there too. Against typical passives I'm calling the $20 in position and set mining.

My thinking was--I downed size my raise. He min-raised. I gauged him as competent. If he has AA that's a huge mistake IMO being out of position vs. the only other competent player at the table who also has table covered and relatively deep for 1/2. If I reverse hero'd this hand people would rightly castigate me for making it $20 in that situation.

The flip side is he could have been levelling me with the min-raise to induce. I almost did fold to the $165 and maybe that was a bigger mistake than the 4-bet.

~250bb deep is where I fold KK to a 5bet without reads.

This deep I like to flat a 3 bet here preflop and keep the pot a bit smaller. When stacks are this deep you don't really want to get AI. PF You're in position so you can extract extra bets easily on good flops and you get to keep his range wider by flatting. There's already 20bbs in this pot when you call a 3 bet and it'll be pretty easy to play a pot around 100-200bbs w/just bets and calls which about where you want to be if your overpair doesn't improve.

Lets say he calls your 4 bet here and there's 140 in the pot. Same flop, now what? You're just in a tough situation b/c the pot is so bloated and unless you flop a set you're hating your life if the money gets all in or there's a big bet or raise

At the lowest stakes without more history with specific villain, a min-raise might be KK/AA two-thirds of the time and a wider but still solid range a third of the time. Given the odds of a min raise, you could call, but I don’t mind your re raise at all. There’s a lot of spewing at these stakes and it’s possible that villain got sick of your aggression. He also could have thought his minraise induced your raise…and this becomes a bit of a levelling war.

The flop check back, if you really are concerned about AA, is great for pot control and keeps his bluffs in.

I think a lot of this could depend on he’s “tighter than most” but not TAG - I don’t know what VPIP this roughly equates to.

Overall, I don’t mind how you played it. Folding preflop seems too weak/exploitable to me.

I don’t think people are 5b QQ at this stack depth. So it’s AK or AA and you block AK so fold pre and ask him if tens are good. You probably want to pure 4b with KK

Thanks for comments. I was still unsure if I played it right after and still not sure


Rest of Hand....

Turn ($340): T93 K (dd). No more MUBSY now. But here's the weird part. Now V checks. I'm having a hard time ranging him so I check back and hope to induce. I think this is a huge mistake on my part. Should have $140 or so to setup river shove.

River ($340): T93K 7. V checks again (???). I bet out $175. V tanks for about 3 minutes and he almost folds and finally reluctantly calls with AK.

I think you played it well up to turn. I would have checked flop as well with my entire range given the low SPR. I don’t understand the decision to check turn. Either he has AK or AA and he isn’t folding either, or he has QQ and he isn’t putting another dollar in the pot on the river. Only bet size that makes sense is like 1/4 pot or jam. No betting half your stack nonsense on turn. I’d bet 1/4 pot. On river, why not just jam? He’s not folding AK.

I’m a big believer in the idea that at low stakes you can’t rely on opponent to bloat pots for you. I like the way you played the hand up until the turn. Vs certain villains KK is a straight exploit fold to 5b pre. Vs others it’s a call. I don’t think it’s ever a shove for me based on stack depth and also just 1/2 player pools in general.

Betting $175 on the turn sets you up so nicely for a river shove. 100% this is where you went wrong in this hand but at least you seem like you know that.