H (1400): has been playing quite tight for about an hour or so. Showed down one hand where I 3! V from SB w/ ATdd, bet flop, check turn and river on 864Q5 board. V showed up w/ K5o. Took down a couple small/medium pots with bets. V sees H as TAG.

V (2500): MAWG, playing lots of hands (60-70%), coming in for a raise in LP a lot, many times w/ garbage even after limpers. 3! one hand with JJ, bet flop, check turn, bombed river on QJ323 board. Doesn't 3! light. I think he can be competent if he wants and understands position and image. Doesn't call too lightly but I've seen him bluff raise turn as a bluff, although it was pretty poorly thought out I think. He's been running good and semi-running over the table.

OTTH:

Hero raises AKo in EP to 25 after one weak UTG limper (black guy who just sat down, min-bought, got stacked for 300 on first hand with KQ vs. V's J6 on Q626x board, BG just rebought for 300 and this is his second hand).

Folds around to V in SB who raises to 125. Limper folds, I call.

Is this ever a 4! for anybody?

Flop (255): Ad9c4d

V insta-bets 200. I call with 1075 back. I'm committed now?

Turn (655): Tc

V checks. How much do I bet here? There is a 500 max bet.

This is probably a really basic spot but it was my big hand for the day.

You said villain doenst 3 bet lite and he still 3 bet you after you raised in EP. You also said he understands position and image. All of that equals a preflop fold for me. People will say that's weak, especially after seeing that we flopped an ace, but I dont believe the preflop call is +EV overall.

As played, I check back for deception. Odds are very very low that he has a FD so Im not worried about that hitting. If you check back he may bet KK/QQ on the river thinking hes ahead of a smaller PP or that you are the one who had a FD.

Agree with Mike.

Many players talks about how "hard it is to play AK". It certainly holds some merit, because it can absolutely be a tricky hand to play.

I think the key is to realize just how huge reverse implied odds AK holds when playing deepstacked. Like you are close to 300 BB in this hand, and as Mike also points out i think it saves you alot of trouble to just fold this hand preflop to the 3 bet.

The "never fold AK" kind of mentality have been growing alot being influenced by the tournament players really- where they play alot more shallow of course and open ranges+ get it in ranges is alot wider. Basically the whole playability of the hand changes. You get action from so so many worse hands that you wont get in a deepstacked cashgame.

Playing very deepstacked cashgame though, AK is a hand that is misplayed over and over again by so so many players.

I also agree that preflop is a fold vs a 5x 3bet from the SB, but can’t be too bad.

Gin flop for us, turn doesn’t change much. V has a lot of JJ-KK here but may also have AQ/AK. If you bet, he’s probably folding JJ-KK and continuing with AK/AQ. But if you check behind, and the FD misses, he might check/call a small bet with JJ-KK OTR.

Also, if you get c/r on the turn, life really sucks since then I’m really considering him having the case AA or a turned set of Ts.

So all in all, I prefer a check OTT.

If we are folding AK to a LAG's 3! I think we are folding to many hands.

If I thought Villain was capable of folding 99-JJ to a 4! I would go for it. If not I like the call.

As played I am checking back this turn. If he has JJ-KK you are not getting anymore value from a bet (You called a 3! and an almost pot size bet on the flop) so I would give him the chance to fire on the river.

+1. Heads up we need not fear flush draws as much as so many do (2+2 bias where people assume the worst is going to happen when someone posts a hand), and plus if V had strong draw, you'd have likely seen a double barrel.

We'll make more by V bluffing/value owning river than by trying to value bet ourselves here. Hard to see V continuing without a strong ace, and don't think V 3-bet with AQ/AJ (wouldn't make sense against an early position raise).

I think we are not folding too much. There is alot of different lags out there, and some of em is simply not 3 betting without very strong hands- especially deepstacked.

If OPs read is correct (wich we have to assume, because its the info we have to work with), that villain isnt ever 3 betting light- we cant really fold too much to his 3 bets at all.

AK off is a hand that needs/benefits from being up against a wider range in order to perform very well.The most likely hand were going to make with it is top pair or a 1 pair hand. If the ranges we are facing is getting too narrow,for example lacking hands we dominate: then reverse implied odds is going through the roof very fast.

Ooops, just remembered there was a weak caller (Asian woman, plays limit, basically shows no aggression unless she has a premium) in LP. Not sure if that changes anything.

I'm never folding to a 3b with position 300bb deep with AKo. Opening the action again with a 4b would be spew, I'd reserve that for a polarized range of monsters and Axs if I'm going to do it, which I am not vs this described villain.

With enough creativity and aggression postflop 300bb deep we can steal the pot enough of the time (think JT9 type flops we can play back on), in addition to our equity, we should be calling. We aren't getting aipf or anything right now so pf equity is not as big a factor as I think you're saying.

On the turn, I think checking is the standard play, mostly for deception but there's little of it to be had at this point given the action.

AP I would probably check but what do we think of some tiny bet like $200 or so?

I have to have several hours of playing with someone before I can say they are not capable of 3 betting light. OP said he had only been playing for about an hour. (He could have previous history of course)

We also have to define light. If he is only doing this with JJ-AA maybe this is a fold. But what if he is doing this with 88-AA and some AK and Axs type hands?

We have position, we are deep. Take a flop with one of the best starting hands we can have.

Mike and Petrucci are spot on with this hand. Back in the old days when you had live players also playing on-line, it was fairly easy to prove folding made sense by having them go into their database and see how much money they lost calling 3bets in EP with AK. Unless you have a read that the villain is 3betting light (which we specifically don't), his range is about 2% of hands. That works out to be AA, KK and some QQ. As mentioned in another current AK thread, AK is a RIO hand in this situation. You'll win next to nothing if you're ahead and potentially lose a lot if behind.

Sure you can win the pot. But poker is about winning money, not winning pots.

Thin Slicing:

I love that we have position and are deep too,however i would rather take hands like J10 suited, 910 suited,7-8 suited,KQ suited or a pocket pair to the streets. Its nothing wrong with tuning your range more this way playing 300 BB deep (or more), and avoiding the worst reverse implied odds hands like offsuit broadway hands in 3 bet pots against a narrow range.

This is hands that have more nut potenial+ board coverage- and where we can hit alot of boards hard/ where we can make life a living hell for villain with a narrow defined 3 betting range deep OOP.

Hands played well. Never fold once you flat flop. I tend to just bet 1/2p here, and that works well with stacks.

Anything wrong with betting the turn, getting a fold any taking down the pot now?

Folding this hand preflop to a 3b is just ludicrous.

If you saw his hand face up would you say we have bad RIO? Everyone is certain V has QQ/KK/AA. What about JJ? It isn't like we are even getting stacked 100% of the time when a case K or A comes off.

We can do that without actually holding JTs, 89s. Bluffing in 3b pots isn't against the rules.

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

328,762,368 trials (Exhaustive)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AK	31.79%	103,283,904	2,459,616
AA, KK, QQ	68.21%	223,018,848	2,459,616

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

123,285,888 trials (Exhaustive)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
JTs	16.75%	20,413,620	468,735
AA, KK, QQ	83.25%	102,403,533	468,735

Are you calling a max bet on the river when a K,Q,J,10 comes up?

Why do you call if you feel he does not 3 bet light? seems spewy.

1)Villain may very well have JJ, that doesent make the situation any better. We lose the hand basically everytime we dont hit A or a K, when lag villain C bets, and when we do hit we very likely make next to nothing because those are overcards that villain dont like (if he doesent cooler us with KK/AA).

Also the amount of reverse implied odds is still huge, even if we doesent get stacked. We are playing close to 300 BB here, and even if we lets say torch off half of that postflop on K high flop when villain has KK/AA, that is a disaster result.

2) Re bluffing: if you like to fire huge bluffs with AK off and little to none hot equity on boards like 5-6-7, 7-8-9, 6-7-10 ,9-10-J and so on i guess it doesent matter for you. I would like some kind of decent equity to fall back on (like an open ender or a flushdraw for example) if i am gonna start attacking a strong narrow 3 bet range with huge bets/raises in a bloated 3 bet pot 300 blinds deep.

Lol, y'all are crazy. I hate to get in the business of doubting OP reads, but how exactly do we know that he doesn't 3! light? You're playing 30 hands/hr poker, how exactly did you get the thousands of HHs to know this? Villain is steamrolling the table with a 60-70% range. He's not solid in any sense of the word. This is how LAG whales work: they don't "tendencies" like weaktight players do. It's gonna take several sessions to get a window into all the shenanigans he's capable of pulling off. I look forward to all the other HHs against villain: "He's been hyper-aggro, but this is the first time I've seen him overbet, so I better fold;" "First time I've seen him raise the river, so I better fold;" "Only the second time I've seen him triple barrel, and other time didn't get to showdown and it just seemed like he had it, ya know." The possibilities for making bad folds with bluff-catchers (not that this hand is even a pure bluff catcher) could go on and on.

Never mind there's already verified proof he 3!s light enough for value that AKo is already doing well. (And don't give me that "He's 3!ing an EP soso much tighter than a HJ opener," nonsense, that's not how 60/20 LAG whales play.)

Reasons he might be 3!ing light include but are not limited to:

He's folded two hands straight, and no ****in' way he's folding 3 straight, but how's he supposed to play 92o out of the blinds?

He's got momentum against us, and thinks he can push us over ala K5o hand (yes, I realize playing passive versus playing aggressive, but we already know he plays aggressive, so ... )

He thinks the cocktail waitress he likes might be looking at him.

He just got dealt his favorite hand. T5s or some such ****. Always plays it like aces.

He saw you raise to $25 one or two other times where you ended up giving up easily postflop.

He's owning you / he's better at RPS than you are. He's well aware he's only been caught reraising for value, so he's gonna mix it up And yes, LAG whales do think like this.

Sure, that sounds like an easy exercise- to just throw out a huge bucket of strawman arguments, based on the reality that you dont take OPs reads seriously.

I guess we all can have the same freedom as you? To just create our own reality and throw OPs reads out the window? Every poster just makes out their own dynamics and reads instead of having a discussion based on the info we all got from the OP? Cause that seems like a very comfortable world to be living in.

That would be a good solid foundation for constructive hand discussions: if every poster can just create their own reads and their own reality, then spew off arguments that support their own reality.

The idea of folding pre didn't once occur to me. I was looking to get into pots with this guy, and that probably clouded my judgment a bit. It's tough to fold AK when the guy has been playing nearly every hand and raising something like 30-40% hands pre. I felt like he was getting pretty spewy/sticky/bluffy with some hands and I thought this was a chance to play a big pot with him.

I guess it's tough to know if he does/doesn't 3! light. I think looking back, his 3! range is something like TT+, AQs+.

I also forgot to mention the first or second hand I sat down, he got it all in for about 600 pre with AA vs. a tight pro and held up. Other hands he showed up with are 93s on BTN vs. a CO raise. Called with bottom pair OTR on 88T37 board and chopped with CO's 43. He also put in about 800 OTT in a 4-way 3-bet (~140 each pre) pot on a T2c4cAJ board. He mucked river and said he had a wheel and club draw.

This hand was a bit under 2 hours into my move to this table. This was an overnight/early morning game around 5:45 AM. The guy had just taken a phone call and said something like, "yeah, I'll leave in a little bit." Don't know if that factored into my thinking at all. Earlier, when I was at the table over, V had lost a big ~2500 pot with Q9 on TTJK board. He and another loose villain who had been running super hot got it in OTT, and his opponent hit a boat on an ace river w/ AT. This V was very emotional and upset and was hollering about "that's called getting fu**ed."

Anyway, I'll reveal results a little later.

Thank you everyone for your comments.

Lol live poker gotta love it.

Well he vpips 60-70%, and raises harbage alot He did 3bet JJ so I'm not sure why the fold camp is all of a sudden removing that hand from the range.
Couldn't be to help your fold pre argument right? If he's 3 betting JJ why couldn't TT, AK, AQ also be in his range?

My preferred line here is 4bet to 250 and folding to a 5bet. I don't really like flatting unless you're prepared to float a decent number of boards. Fold pre is ok if all you're going to do is play fit or fold post and you're very confident he only has JJ+ which I doubt.

I have to make sure its clear though: that considering folding pre is with the premise of we ranging his 3 bets of being nutted. Like if you dont really know if he can 3 bet light or not, i dont see us folding.

At least my posts regarding this topic is build on that premise. If the guy has anywhere close to a wider 3 betting range than 1010+ and AQs+ we obviously are quite happy to take a flop in position with AK. If he is very wide/maniac regarding 3 bets, i also would consider putting in a 4 ball.

I like a mixed strategy of 50% 4bets and 50% calls here preflop.
Turn I bet 2/3 pot make it look like a float. Plan to gii, or value bet riv


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