I was having a debate with my friend about how he played this hand from a while ago at 2/4 at our local casino. V2 is a LAGgy, decent Asian reg.

UTG: Hero $900
CO: V1 $400
BUT: V2 $400

(UTG)Hero: AK call $4
(CO)V1: call $4
(B) V2: Raise $20
hero: calls $20
V1: calls $20

Flop (pot $66) K73
Hero: checks
CO: Checks
B: bets $20
Hero: Raise to $80
CO: folds
B: calls $80

Turn (pot $226) 4
Hero: bets $125
B: Calls $125

River (pot $476) T
hero ?

Eff. stacks are $175. I would be shoving all day here as played, but a line check up to and including river would be great. I'm an advocate for never open limping (especially UTG) but this stake is very loose-passive especially preflop. Is there ever a situation where the open limp should be considered? Or a limp/raise?

I don't understand why you limp/called pre. The fact that people are passive means that you'll often miss value when it limps around. The fact that people are loose means that they will call with plenty worse when you raise. Always raise premiums at loose/passive tables.

I'd 3! after the BU raises. You'll have the worst relative and absolute position post-flop. 3-betting gets value and makes the hand almost trivial to play.

Post-flop your hand is way under-repped and probably looks like diamonds. It seems fine. I might size the flop bigger and try to GII on the turn. It can help sell the idea that you're on a bluff and there's one less street for a diamond to come in and kill your action.

Raise pre.
As played by calling pf, now 3bet pre.
As played on flop, re-raise more to setup a good shove on turn.

I see nothing wrong with the way you played this. I wouldnt play AK this way all the time, but if you play your hands the same way all the time, its VERY easy to put you on a hand. There are plenty of times while im playing that I know exactly what someone has. Not because I'm Phil Ivey, but because they play the same hands the same way every time.

As played this is an obvious shove on the river. Hopefully he didnt have KT.

Grunch: preflop is AIDS. Not today's treatable annoyance, but 1980s sure death AIDS.


Once you get to that river there's only one play. If your friend lucked into stacking the lag by accident it says more about the lag than your friend. Neither one played it well unless the BTN was the winner.

Pre flop is not fancy play syndrome; it's just terrible.

Preflop trickery isn't worth the effort unless you play this same group of villains all the time. The flop check/raise is double trickery and counter productive, you have gone from under representing your hand to over representing. Now you are representing a set or big flush draw.

Having taken this line your committed and should bet turn/shove river. Hope villain puts you on a missed flush draw and calls with worse.

So you would just call his tiny $20 into $66? I don't see the point of turning such a strong hand into a bluff catcher here against this sizing. How do you get stacks in? Check the turn and hope he bets bigger? Donk the turn yourself? Or would you not x/c the flop but donk instead?

I don't see how our hand is over-repped at all with this line. We l/c pre-flop and an aggressive pfr makes a tiny c-bet on a K-high board which we raised. Villain has to consider that he could have induced this play from many kinds of hands and we have way more possible draws than value hands, so our hand is still under-repped when we raise if anything.

Lol does OP even know if he is value betting or bluffing... It's weird cause at LLSNL people think they are value betting in a situation when it's very likely nothing worse will call them...

Nonetheless way to fancy and weird range spot

AP jam river LDO but overlimping AKss preflop is bad unless you have a specific reason and accompanying plan to take a non-standard line and if so, we should have heard about that in the OP.

The $20 sizing is awkward, hero would rather villain have bet more. But raising is committing hero to the pot. Hero has TPTK and stacks are not short. The goal in this sort of situation isn't to get stacks in, it's to insure Hero shows a profit with this hand over time. A villain willing to get involved in a big pot in this situation probably has a flush draw, top pair or better.

Hero limp/called under the gun and the board only allows for flush draws. How many draws can hero have? Villain thinking Hero may be raising wide because of villain's small bet is getting into meta game territory. However, when he calls the flop check/raise you have to take the air and weak garbage out of his range unless villain and hero have an extensive history of playing back at each other light, or villain is terrible.