V ~$500 Seems average, haven't seen him make any donkey moves and nothing too creative. Clearly a thinking player, but while he seems to know the game, I don't get the impression he has studied it, rather he learned from experience.
H ~$550 Been TAG and have been raised off of a couple of hands in the last hour. V has also seen me call big bets and win the pot.

V straddles $6.
H raises to $20 with AdQd.
Folded to SB who calls.
V 3-bets to $65
H calls
SB folds.

Pot $145 (after drop) Flop: Ac 8d 2s

V checks
H bets $75
V check raises allin (about ~$400 more)
H?

Think this is usually AK. I fold here.

This is a flop check imo. You're not going to get three streets of value from KK/QQ and you're losing to AK.

You didn't provide your position, but the described villain is not 3! AJ so what exactly are you trying to get value from on the flop?

SB has such a huge range advantage, my gut tells me we're supposed to range-check this Flop and see a Turn. A82r, I really don't see what a bet accomplishes. (Haven't run it yet, but it feels like one where they'd tell us to check.)

As played, versus this huge over-bet we can fold all our one-pair hands.

Id go smaller on the flop to 1/3 sizing. As played its $360 to win $1010 after drop, which is enough of a difference calculating pot odds than 400 to win 1020 . So need to be good a little more than 1 out of 3. Kind of a tough spot. Seems like he has AK, but obviously could also have AQ. I think 22 88 and AA are rare. 22 88 unlikely to be 3b often by most players at 1/3to $65, so maybe two combos. And then check jammed. AA, usually would slowplay at these stakes and its only one combo, the check jam top set on a dry board kind of guys do tend to be players you are talking about, thinking, little studying, and just praying you have an ace that you wont fold.

So you have backdoor diamonds and 3 queens to get you ahead of AK. You tie with AQ and obviously ahead o fish doing this with AJ or worse.

But you seem to have some kind of decent read on V so Id want to know more about his ranges and what hands hes playing, how often he is playing, have you seen him 3b, have you seen him CR, have you seen him jam, how old he is, what ethnicity he is, is he paying attention, is he talking to people or quiet, what do his chips look like in the stacks he has, does he seem nervous at the table in general, what is he doing after shoving. None of that info singularly is going to give you much, but add it all up and we might have a better picture of Hs best play. If hes been there more than a couple of orbits and youve been paying attention, surely you picked up on some more useful info that is not “tells”, but more what ranges he is playing and some simple population reads you can make.

If. I call and get shown AA here, I would be upset with myself for not picking up something on him that helped me make a decision. If I get shown AK or anything else Id be fine with whatever I decided in game, because I do think it is pretty close. I think you are tying at least 1/10 times. He has a worse A 1/10 And you catch up 1/10. The whole hand was a total bluff 1/20. Seems really really close.

Let me fire up the. Ibm commodore 64 and see what it says.

Most players at this level arent 3betting much more than AK,QQ+. Maybe the occasional JJ. I expect to see a lot of AK with this line. Seems like an easy fold.

Position was in the title, should have included it in the text I suppose, but since V was the straddle and he checked the flop, I felt it was obvious I was IP.

I do check one pair Ace hands on the flop sometimes, but mostly it's to protect my checking range from other regs. This seems to be the most relevant comment on my play.

I knew you were IP I just didn’t know if it was UTG or LP, but I missed it in your title. The closer you are to EP the stronger I’d expect his range to be.

Would you have played all your PP’s (22+) as a raise/call as well? The more interesting question may be how you’d play the rest of your range here. I don’t think you’re deep enough to have any SC’s (or even weaker aces than AQs for that matter). It’s an unenvious position because you are basically playing into a range of 15 combos of AA/AK vs. 9 combos of KK/QQ so you’re in quite a bind with your entire range.

If that’s the case you may have to treat this spot as strictly a set mine. You didn’t say what SB’s stack was, but you’re only getting 12:1 implied odds if SB folds so you’ll probably need to steal some pots with your 55-33 hands on boards like this which will likely require at least two post-flop bets vs. KK/QQ, but then you have to wonder whether you are just betting into AK taking a x/c x/c line.

Given the challenges of playing this spot profitably, perhaps nit folding to the 3b is your best bet unless/until you know his 3b range is wider than QQ+/AK.

Raise 22+ from MP? Not in the current game conditions. I think I would call 22-77 and raise 88/99+. The boundary being fuzzy.

I really didn't think this V was ranging my hand per se. The feeling I got was that he was copying a move from something he saw on TV, The part that surprised me was his relative comfort. Usually, I see one of two kinds of stress: fear of getting called, or fear of losing their fish (me). This V was fairly comfortable, unusual for a non-reg in a spot like this.

As to folding IP to an unknown's 3-bet with AQs and $500 effective, not going to happen.

My real error in the hand was not thinking through V's actions clearly enough. You were right that I wouldn't be able to get three streets of value in this spot, so I shouldn't have tried.

I would 4bet or fold pre, if we're flatting are we doing it because we know he 3bets light? IF we do, than 4bet. We block aces, queens and some AK's. There are times we can flat in these situations but I don't see any reason to in the hand, especially since he's seen you call big bets so he's probably expecting you to call the 3bet anyway.

You are going to bleed chips limping small PP's from MP in a straddled pot and you'll end up limp/call x/folding to too many pots where you have the best hand and fold to the IP aggressor.

You didn't attempt to range V at all in your OP. What did you think his range was? Until you have reason to believe otherwise, an unknown's (average non-donkey as you described) 3! range is going to be QQ+/AK which AQs is a huge dog to. AQs is great vs. many hands, but not the most likely range.



I lean this way with the edge to fold. We have virtually no way of extracting value versus villain's (likely) range and no reason to believe he's light enough to fold to a 4bet anyway.

Four-bet-or-fold is so 2005.

I think I want to be four-betting something like {KK+, AKs, A5s} and flatting our better pocket pairs, say TT-QQ and some of our best suited ace and suited broadway combos (ATs-AQs, KQs) and AKo.

Villain should have a significant nut advantage on the flop, so if we bet at all after they check (I do not want to), we should bet small, like a quarter to a third pot and no more.

Villain's flop check-jamming range on this ace-high dry board should be the empty set or close to it, and the fact that top pair, second kicker, is an easy fold to a jam after betting is a big part of the reason why. Exploit the living **** out of this clown by folding.

It's a straddled pot so a $20 open (on the small end) is playing somewhere between 1/3 (166 BB's) and 3/6 (83 BB's), so split it down the middle at 125 BB's. There's really no need to be 4b A5s or flatting AJ-ATs/KQs in this scenario vs. an unknown who may not even have a fold button to a 4b and who's presumed range is crushing the hands you want to flat with.

I just limp in an evaluate but that's me. Against someone not making donkey moves / getting too creative, I honestly just fold to the 3bet preflop. If he's not doing this hands we dominate (such as AJ-), which a lot of people simply don't, then we're just not in a great spot (dominated by AK, horrendous IO against underpairs when we bink our TP, horrendous RIO when we bink TP and are no good). I mean, yeah, we'll have position and we're suited but we'll be going to a small SPR where there isn't exactly going to be a lot of play. My guess is that everyone else will "defend"; the more expert you are, the more you likely can do that, but otherwise, meh, imo.

I don't see any reason to bet this flop when checked to. We're not getting 3 postflop streets from KK- and want to perhaps fool them into thinking we're bluffing when we start betting later streets when checked to again. And meanwhile if he has AA/AK there's really very little for him to bet either on this bone dry board.

As played, it is super weird he moved in cuz you wouldn't expect that from AA (and even AK). But what does that leave? A non-creative guy going nutso with complete air? So I fold.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Lol'ed.

GmyfirstcomputerwasaVic20,forrealzG

4 betting AQs is torching money. It's too strong to bluff and too weak to call off when they jam.


Save your 4bets for AQo and mix in 4bets and calls. Not AQs.

Straddle should cbet that flop most of the time.

You will mostly bet the flop after they check. This is *NOT* a range check spot here. Unless you know V likes to try to trap.



As for the c/jam.......if V had a normal range here, it would be a pure call. However, its LLSNL, so they likely don't have even remotely close to the correct range here. Comes down to your opinion if V ever does this with worse.

Preflop absolutely fine

Flop you can probably go either way but I think I like checking back...you may see a delayed cbet, you're not getting three streets from KK-99 and your hand doesn't need much protection. If you bet, instinctively I'd have thought it should be small

As played this feels like a (savagely frustrating) fold

At 150 bb's and heads up, I'm 4betting if I know his range is wide, and mostly folding if he's unknown or has a strong 3bettting range rather than flatting to play fit or fold. If we flop an ace, are we calling down 150bb's? If we were deeper and flopped a NFD there would be more room to semi with FE, rather than calling down bets while not getting good odds. If there was another caller at least, then I would flat in a heart beat. Fit or fold lights more money on fire than turning my hand into a bluff vs a wide 3bettor who's likely to fold, or call/fold.

I definitely think PF is close against someone who doesn't 3bet light. I do think this is a call though. Even with the straddle cutting stacks in half, we didn't make a massive raise and villain made a fairly small 3bet OOP. I'd peel here as long as you're confident in post flop.

To SolvingLivePoker: You can't just look at solvers and that kind of nonsense in a spot on the flop like this. When villain checks this flop live they are going to have their entire range very often because they just don't know what they're doing and/or they're being "trappy". We know that we can't get 3 streets from TT-KK or any other worse hand and the board is very dry so I'd just start with a check. Live villains are often going to tell you what they have on the turn.