Hi everyone,

This hand was played at the Wynn in Vegas at a 1/3 table. I had been at the table for about an hour and had not been in any notable hands. Neither had villian, as far as I can remember.

Villain is a young to middle-aged asian guy. No great reads - I think he had sat down very recently (even later than me)

Table is typical 1/3 - some excessively loose players, decent action going on. My image is tighter than the table but not super nitty.


We have $350 effective (V covers), 8-handed.

Hero is dealt AA on BU.

UTG raises to 8, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2, HJ, and V in cutoff all call.
Hero 3! to 50. Folds to V in CO who calls after thinking for a bit.

Flop ($122) 3Q3r.
V checks. Hero checks.

Here my reasoning is that I'm almost certainly way ahead. The only hands I think he could have that could be ahead of me are 33 and A3. Considering there is 1 combo of 33 and I block A3 (don't remember if I'm blocking A3s), and QQ/Q3 are likely not in his range given preflop action, I'm feeling pretty good. I wanted to give him a chance to "catch up" on such a dry board.

Turn ($122) 9x completing rainbow.

V checks. Hero bets 50. V raises to 130. H calls.

Here given another check, I'm likely still good. However I want to start extracting value, and I figure it's probably best to start now in hopes I can get some weaker hands (e.g. small pairs, maybe a 9) to call. The check-raise puts me in an awkward spot, as he's representing pretty nutted combos, but I felt that given the size and the strength of my hand, I had to call, as folding here seems extremely nitty.

River ($382). Kx.

V shoves, putting me all in for 170 more. Hero?


My initial hunch is that folding AA here means I'm over-folding to aggression. Given that I 3bet, folding AA here means the only possible hands I could have better than this are 99 and QQ, and maybe KK if I decided to take that turn line, as I'm probably flatting A3s preflop given the action.

Still, I hear people say that at 1/3 people tend to under-bluff, so his range could be over-weighted toward pretty nutted combos that slow-played. Also, what bluffs besides complete air could V have? There are no draws of any sort on this board, except for maybe JTs on the turn, as wheel gutshots likely aren't calling a 3bet OOP preflop. This makes me wary of calling, but V is showing such extreme strength with his line.

Did we just give a free card to 99?

Bet flop small like $40. You’ve got 16 combos of AK you can bet same size.

His turn sizing is begging for a call so he can shove river with a Les than half pot bet. With a better read you can nit fold turn (unpopular opinion).

He’d really have to be overplaying AQ/KQ to take that line with a hand you beat. Bluffing river once you call turn x/r would be suicidal. Folding river sucks but all signs point to you being beat.

Bet the flop FFS. Makes the rest of the hand way smoother so you don’t level yourself.

Yeah just bet the flop, you can easily have AK here. In general your first port of call if you're worried that you won't get value is to throw in more bluffs. This flop is a very normal value betting spot, if you're getting a lot of folds here you need to increase your 3b% and flop cbet%, not stop betting for value. Plan an overall strategy rather than trying to play every hand in isolation.

The turn x/r is definitely not what I want to see. I agree with johnny that I'm inclined to look for excuses to fold the turn. The thing about these small suck raises is that nobody fakes them because they work too well. He's not going to try this with like JT and he's not going to x/r worse value hands.

We pretty much can never fold this hand on this texture given spr, but agree the turn sizing feels a little gross. Even though flop cbet is standard, it's not bad to check this back once in a while.

Feels bad man. Love the check on flop though.

Sometimes well planeed hands don't work out

Interesting bc your range otr is exactly QQ/KK/AA/AQ and some A3s so you’re actually at the bottom of your range. 99 is a clear flat pre, im almost certain its much higher ev than 3b

Flop should be a 1/4 imo or 1/3, people play very badly against it and he should have a lot of PP here. Id probably check turn if he calls which i expect a lot.

Turn sick spot, either fold now or call turn to snap off river. Dont think folding’s a huge mistake, but I hate folding. His line doesnt make a ton of sense, we block A3s and he doesnt rly have QQ too often here. But at the same time he just has to be airballing for you to be winning here and I also think if he wanted to stab he’d lead turn instead of x/r so imo feels like a trap.

Really don't think checking is OK here. What are you hoping to accomplish? I don't think you're going to induce bluffs because the check on a flop like this looks suspicious. If you're assuming villain is capable of aggression I think it's just as good to bet small and try to induce that way. If instead you're checking to let villain catch up, as OP suggested, what will that look like? Are you hoping he has a K and a K turns? Do you think V turning a pair lower than a Q will get calls out of him? V is going to have a pocket pair a lot in which case the only "catching up" he can do is turn a boat - which probably happened in the actual hand and is a total disaster when it happens.

Totally fine if you call river. Everyone calm down acting like check is a death sentence. Imagine using the argument you should bet so you don't give a free card to 99. Better make him fold those 2 outs or charge him to hit them.

1/2p flop, ship turn
missing tons of value from the fish's mid/low pairs, occasional Qx

c- bet turn is standard obv but I don't think there is anything wrong with checking sometimes, so the line is def worth looking at and i think people should be focused on the turn action.

you'd have to have a good read on V to fold turn.. shove or call turn is a bit of a toss up to me, call is probably best imo

But what's the upside?

If villain does have 99 and was going to fold it (and if he wasn't, then there's also no upside to checking) then him spiking the 9 took us from +72 to -350, which means the check loses about $20 in EV vs a two outer. It's significant.

Just downsize bet flop, never don't bet flop (in my amateur opinion). An 80 bet on turn means you basically even the SPR. I look at that in these situations so I can't fold to bluffs.

The "upside" is that your opponent can theoretically go nuts and start bluffing on the turn and river and we stack him, rather than have him snap fold the flop.

The problem is most Villains aren't going to turn their pocket pair into a bluff. They will just keep checking because they know they are ahead of AK. They think that they can possibly get more $ out of you by check/calling. If they happen to bet, it will likely be a face-up wimpy $35 or something, hoping you fold. They certainly wont be playing for stacks.

Also, Im not convinced this opponent will fold their pocket pair to a flop bet. We are leaving too much $ on the table by not betting.

Yeah well that's what I'm getting at, I don't think there's a plausible story here where the villain starts piling chips into the pot. Non-thinking players just keep checking and against thinking players, it's not very convincing when you check Q33 that you have nothing, and even if you do have AK they can just check pairs down and win.

This is very closed minded.

Upside is huge. Mon day I stacked J10 suited on similar board where he flopped only backdoor straight draw and turned him dead.

99 is irrelevant. He is calling flop either way.

They are stacking you if they hit a 2 outer. No magical line can prevent it

Having them fold any pair is complete disaster. Queen kind of sucks. But way more likely to get stacks by checking flop than betting flop and turn.

If he has QQ or trips. No way we can get away once we bet anyway

You guys are going for 3 streets here somehow?

No, we bet flop because we want to be able to bet this flop with our bluffs as well. It's a flop that insanely favors a PF 3bettor's range. We should bet this flop with our entire range - I don't really see an argument for checking flop unless we have some read that V will spaz out.

I actually think checking flop looks more suspicious to V than betting does.

Betting my whole 3 bet squeeze range in this spot would be a punt. Vs a range mostly pair heavy. Against an Asian profile. That is obviously not a fan of folding

Sick since everyone is betting AA expecting to get called so why not just slam all our bluffs.

So it's a disaster if Villain folds 66 to a flop bet, even though he may not be putting in any more money unless he hits his 2-outer?

Just bet the flop so much value from lower pocket pairs that will peel once, also building a pot to stack AQ,KQ