Really interesting table. I've seen 4-5 orbits so far and have played one hand. There's been a bunch of action; it's mainly been postflop, but the table in general seems pretty aggressive and loose. Each of the 4 players to my right are what I would call aggressive players to varying degrees, with a couple of tighter older players to my left.

The player on my immediate right (V4 in this hand) is the table mark, as he's running over the table with post-flop aggression. He's playing about 90% of hands so far (I'd say 90% VPIP, 25% PFR) and treats top pair bad kicker like the nuts. V4 has run a stack of $150 into ~$1k at this point and people are in the process of catching on to him.

Hero ($310) young guy who has played one hand in an hour+, got credit for a squeeze from BB after a raise and 3 callers, got all folds, showed 65o to get paid later on.

V1 ($200) older gentleman that just sat down. Haven't played with him before. He folded his first 4-5 hands.

V2 ($475) Active middle-aged guy who seems to understand the concept of protecting his stack. Raises pretty wide in late position preflop and has been pretty weak-tight post-flop. Getting run over by V4.

V3 ($400) Younger guy who I'm confused about whether he knows what he's doing. Projects an image of an aggressive but not overly attentive player. Seems to have decent preflop raise sizing, bets fairly big post-flop, seemingly for value, but hasn't shown down anything yet.

V4 ($1000) Young guy with sunglasses. Seems to bet quickly with bluffs/TP but takes his time with super-nutted hands. Very loose preflop, very aggressive post. Showed a high degree of restraint folding to a river 3bet on a 678JQ board, said he folded 666. But has bombed flops and turns with top pair, showing it after getting folds as if he knew it was good. Very very likely has kicker problems and will stack off light.

Preflop: V1 raises to $13 UTG, 2 folds, V2 calls, V3 3bets to $30, V4 calls. Hero looks down at AK OTB. Hero???

Can probably make a case for calling or 4 betting here since you have position. The SPR is going to be good for TPTK but with 3 or 4 players in the hand, tptk isn't so good. So if you flat you're hoping for 2 pair or a flush draw and hope to win a big hand. If you raise, you can probably isolate the 3 bettor. The loose fish might come in too.

Already about 90 in there. Given reads on V3 and V4 and with Hero's stack size. I like 4bet to 135 with no intention of folding, and just shove any flop.

Given the situation I think any option here is likely OK. Depending on what sort of range you put V1 for opening in EP and V3 for 3 betting, folding, calling or raising could all be best.

There is enough money in the pot that raising/get it in preflop can't be terrible. However, your often going to be in a situation that is huge variance and marginal positive to negative EV. Flatting with position is workable, particularly if V4 is likely to get it in post flop with TP and worse kicker. Even folding is OK since it wasn't V4 that 3 bet, so the combined risk that V1 or V3 has a big hand may be high enough that folding is best. You can construct ranges here that make any option best and your ranges are largely guesswork. Make your best guess and go with it.

I am folding. All the dynamics and reads dont involve 3! except for your squeeze show 65o. I guess you could 4!/gii if you think villains involved are that aware of the 65o show and will react accordingly. I am still folding though, not a lot of 3! going on normally means cold 4! AK is a mistake in situations like this.

Flat or fold. You're never getting called by worse when you 4b.

I like our seat position given the table makeup.

Wow, weird spot. I think I would muck. First, an old guy with a shortish stacked raised UTG into a world of crazies; I know we don't have too much of a read on this guy, but this could easily be a huge hand. And then somebody 3bet that guy + caller; again, we don't exactly know what this guy is about, but... 3bet at live pokrs! And then aggro flats all this. I'm just thinking there is too good a chance we're up against one of the two hands we fear, plus on top of that there is a good chance some of our A/K outs against smaller big pairs are being sucked up by other players. Overall, you've stated that while the table is aggro, most of that is postflop. So unless table is just getting stupid preflop a lot, I sigh fold and move on.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Normally I would strongly consider folding AK against this kind of preflop action. However I think I shove against these villains. You labeled V3 and V4 as loose-aggressive preflop. I'm not as concerned about the 3bet and cold call because the $30 3bet is only 10x BB. Due to the smaller 3bet size, I put V3 and V4 on a wider range. Almost every villain needs KK+ to call your shove and you block about half those combos. Unlucky if V1 has KK+, V2 will probably fold to protect his stack and should have 3bet with KK+. I think calling is too risky because you'll be up against at least 2 opponents and you have to hit an ace or king to continue without the preflop initiative.

I think you have huge fold equity and can pick up a nice $90 pot. V3 or V4 may decide to 'stack off light'. You're a coin flip against QQ- with a ton of dead money.

Bingo. OMC opens from EP = JJ+. Let's play poker - flat OTB. If OMC 3-bets, we probably need to fold. There's too much dead money in the pot so far and we have position on the table mark. Folding is pretty bad here.

Call and take a flop

This is a weird spot - it's tricky because we can't say for certain that V1 is an OMC given that he just sat down. He could have ATo or 44 for all we know. If he is a known OMC then I find a fold here pretty easily. I'm actually less concerned about V1 than V3 due to stack sizes, if V1 does have the nutz we can lessen the damage from the other players who have us covered.

A raise here is turning AK into a bluff, as it is unlikely that V1-3 are calling with less than JJ+ so we are pretty dominated. I don't really like bluffing with a UTG raise, 3! and flat from a maniac in front of me.

Question is - if we flat what kind of flop do we like? If an A, K or two hearts comes, I believe we have to get it in otherwise we had no business calling pre.

Flatting or folding is almost a coin toss here for me - depending on your comfort level playing post flop and potentially getting 155BB in with TPTK or a flush draw. I think it's a slim EV spot either way.

Call. Ip and suited and keep weak players in the hand

fold... random omc opens utg and v3 is saying his hand beats said random omc's open

I think hero's hand is no good pretty much always here in a 2/3 game

I'm surprised we are even considering folding. That is just way to weak IMO, we have a top 10. The concern is V ones opening range, I really am not too concerned with V2s min 3 bet or V3s snap call. I think arguments can be made more a large 3 bet given our image. AK has blockers to KK and AA, the only hands we are doing that bad against. We are going to have a lot more fold equity in this spot and we can get worse hands to fold, JJ or less is going to have a hard time continuing.

We have 35 bb of potential dead money. I really like a large 3 bet to 120-150 with the plan to shove any flop and to stack off pre if need be. If we take the aggressive line we win more often and lots of times we pick up 35bb with out going to a show down.

The argument for the passive line has Merritt. We can suited equity, we have position, we semi disguise our hand(although Flatting s 3 bet does look pretty strong). We are 150 bb deep, not 100bb deep so stacking off pre may be more of a mistake(not a big one IMO).

Either option seems close given limited history, but my main point is I don't think this is ever a fold.

Personally I think if we flat we he SPR will be so big it may allow us to get lesser hands to stack off, mainly villan 3 so I prefer Flatting.

Bascially, what Timmy said above, plus the fact that there are two others in the hand that could could be sucking up some of our outs. There is plenty to be concerned about here.

G3betsatlivepokers,especially3betstargettedatOMCsi nEP,areplentyconcerningG

Just realized we are actually on 100bb effective which means that the scale tips dramatically to the aggressive line. 3 bet to 120 and shove any flop. There are situations where it is correct to fold AKs for only 100 bb, but this isn't one of them. 35 bb in the middle and we has some fold equity. Winning 1/3 of our stack is a fantastic result.

Call in position

The bet sizing isn't typical of monsters. We have a 4x open and essentially a min 3 bet from a bad aggressive player. In 2/3 games usually the bet sizes are far larger when we are talking premium hands. That is the big decided for me.

call all day. your otb, and if you 4bet you would have wasted the hand if we have to fold to a 5bet from anyone. Also by flatting, V1 & V2 would be more likely to flat as well and BINGO a nice multi way pot with AK

I don't see where the read is OMC. He's old yes but there are a lot of old guys who are not nits

If we are 4 betting it's to get stacks in. 4 betting with the plan to fold would be pretty terrible.

V1 is 66bb everyone else is 100bb eff it would suck if we had to call V1 off. We would have to jam now (which may not be all that bad) or play it for it's value but we will either take down the dead money or get called by better.

The only way our tight image helps the case to raise here is if we are turning AK into a bluff, repping the NUTS. Yes we have blockers to AA-KK, but there are still 9 combos out there, and a good chance that TT-QQ is there (and calling) which we are merely a coin flip over. This type of table it is far more likely we get 2-3 callers and are playing a bloated multi way pot not really sure where we are at.

Call>fold>raise

If we 4 bet the idea is to make it massive like 150-180. Sure it's possible 2 of the villans have AA or KK but I think it's unlikely given the bet sizes as stated. V3 just never has AA or KK, his range is wide open. Old guy opening UTG is surely 99+ and AQ+. Agro villan min 3 betting range is ??? Likely JJ+ and AK. Pros of 4 betting:

1) we get to see all 5 cards and realize our equity(if we fall we simply have to fold lots of flops that give us potential back door equity and gut shots etc.

2) we have a 100 bb stack and there is 35 bb of dead money in the middle that we can potentially win with out a flop.

3) we have told equity. Even 5%_10% helps.

4) AK suited is only in terrible shape vs AA which is unlikely due to blockers.

5) we may be turning AK into a "bluff" but AK suited is not that big of a dog vs 10s-QQ.

I know never convince the MR low varience passive GG but I think shoving shows a higher profit over Flatting and have to fold 2/3 the time. I would settle for you changing your answer to: call>3bet huge>Fold

we apply maximum pressure against V1 as he wil have 2 players to act behind, and V2 will have V3 behind him.

7)If we do get called by JJ or QQ we have an extra dead 35 bb to make up for our equity deficit.
These were cut out of my last post

I strongly disagree. For starters, there are 6 combos of AA/KK left. We win $24 in the long run stacking off against TT-QQ with about $90 of dead money in the pot and we don't even factor in fold equity. AKs is absolutely not a bluff. AK is a drawing hand with plenty of value preflop. None of these specific villains' actions announce KK+.

I'm confused by your last sentence. It perfectly explains the downside to calling. Let's say the flop is low cards. V3 can take the huge pot cbetting AK/AQ and we would probably have to fold. The pot is much too big and SPR far too low for any postflop maneuvering. Villains could have 21 AK/AQ combos compared to 6 AA/KK combos. This is clearly a much more likely scenario. By 4betting, we should fold out all AK/AQ combos and we're fine if one of them calls.

To be clear, I don't think calling is a terrible play. Chipping in $30 in position with AKs hoping to hit is fine. However as was mentioned earlier, we should assume villains have some of our ace and king outs based on their actions. I think the problem is we're calling hoping to hit with less than 6 outs and I think there's more value in taking the initiative against loose villains. Folding out our opponents for an uncontested 30% bump to our stack is fine by me. AKs holds up well to most of villains calling range too, especially if we think a loose villain will stack off light with a range like TT+/AQ+.

Edit: We also face a minimum of 2 opponents and potentially face 4. TPTK doesn't fair well against multiple opponents and we should have a stronger desire to eliminate the field.