This is not something I have done much of in the past and admitedly is out of my comfort zone.

I was listening to an older podcast at Duces Cracked (Duce Plays episode w/ LIMON). He was talking about spots where he was willing to "go to the felt" with AK and see 5 streets. The debate in the podcast was whether live players would fold hands like QQ preflop to a 4 bet shove and LIMON said "all I can say is you'll have to try it... you'll be surprised".

Now they were talking 5/10 limits and although they were very critical of the play in those games, I have to presume the players are generally better than the typical 1/2 player in my games who can get married to a hand like QQ and hterefore eliminate almost all fold equity. However, I think against the better or more aware (if not at least nittier) low limit players this would also apply.

So I picked 2 spots from my last week of play where I thought this was a consideration and thought I would ask for opinions...

HAND 1

Villain 1: Old guy who is getting hit with the deck. Trippled his stack in last hour and seems to have tightened up to protect it.
Villain 2: No read range is ATC.

$1/2 NL (10 handed)
MP+2 Hero ($190)
Button ($200)
BB ($600)

Hero is dealt AK

limps and folds to Hero in MP+2 who raises to $12, Button Calls $12, Villain Raises to $50.

Villain1 took a fair amount of time to make his reraise. Playing with chips, restacking etc. My read was that he was pretty strong but not AA, KK strong although those hands could be in his range. I figured big pairs 10s or better but his demeanor and the small consideration that I held at least one of the K and A led me to weight his range 10-10 through Q-Q most likely.

Shove AI $178 ?

HAND 2

Villain1: Sort of bitchy dude who has played in a lot of different Casinos and likes letting everyone know how much time he spends playing poker. His play seems reasonably solid but he whines about every pot he loses. "I was ahead PF"... "How could you call that".... yadda yadda.

Villain2: Rock. Has played few hands, and opened no pots. Doesn't talk at all. Seems to have called behind with medium to strong aces and limped any paint card in the few showdowns I have seen him in.


$1/2 NL (10 handed)
MP Hero ($350)
Button Villain 2($200)
SB Villain 1 ($225)

Hero is dealt AK

Fold to Hero UTG+1 who raises to $10, 5 Callers including Villain2 (Pot $73).
Villain 1 in SB raises to $50.

When I don't insta fold Villain 1 starts to chatter and tells me I am going to make a bad call. Trying to get a read from both him and Villian 2 I say "Oh I don't think I am calling"... I sense Villain 1 does not have AA and put him on a range of 10-10 through KK plus AK but I am really weighting him more in the 10-10 to Q-Q range by his reaction to my comment and his chatter.

Villain 2 is a bit of a question mark but I think he re-raises my initial raise with AA or KK and probably even JJ or QQ, so I am putting him on any pair through 10-10 and maybe AJ through AK.

Shove AI ?

i shove both easily. Both are spots where villain range can be sort of wide meaning squeeze combos or just TT+ AK.

If any of you are weak/tight and averse to flipping, keep in mind that there is dead money already in the pot that if we flip vs say TT, WE have a right to half that dead money. If we dont shove and flip, we give up our right that money and give it to the raiser outright.

We can and will win the entire pot sometimes.

Flatting and playing fit/fold postflop is a horrible costly line as well.

I would MUCH rather fold than flat, and im not folding here.

Hand 1: I call, hope button calls also. See a flop in position. "Old guy...tightening up to protect winnings" who 3 bets = monster to me, I'm too worried about AA/KK here

Hand 2: Shove, worry about V1 only. I agree w/you on his range here.

Don't start bringing plays that may work at 5/10+ into the lowest tier of poker - 1/2NL.

Also, if anything live 1/2 players with full stacks (100BB+) will be much more likely to fold/call a raise with QQ pre flop instead of getting all the money in. Lots of players will also fold QQ to a 4bet shove so you're pretty much only called by better.

I think that table dynamics and what player is raising are another huge factor, but tbh there are tons of people against who I am never getting 100BB in pre-flop with AK since its -EV since their calling range is KK+ or maybe QQ+/AK.

I think you play in looser games than me... Plus I think you said before you play higher than 1/2. I would guess that the games you play people have a wider 3bet range.

From my experience I am not stacking off 100BB pre with AK against 60% of the 1/2 players at my casino.

At a level where everyone puts you on AK... why would you want to shove AK? I have taken this line in the past, experimented just like you are doing now. The results were pretty bad I must say. Maybe I picked the wrong spots or whatever, but I just cannot get that much money in the pot against players I do not know that well with AK anymore. Now if I know the guy and his range then I can go from there.

this is like the old post about having AK on the BB when a UTG loose player made it 17 and we debated about wether to call pr shove or what.

then i said call cuz UTG is strong and hes not calling with worse, other said raise.

what i got from it was if you can handle the variance or u have a read then raise it in. if not then call or fold.

Right this was my thinking and the reason I clarified that I would not consider it against a random 1/2 player, it would have to be a more solid player and there has to be a reason to believe you can exclude KK or AA from his likely range.

But even then we are happy to take the pot down preflop (that's really the goal) which is where our edge is in these spots. Minimize the chance of a multiway pot so in the worst case we take the flop as a flip and if we do have some fold equity (again only against thinking players) our overall equity makes it +EV.

How common these spots are in 1/2 NL is the real question I guess... as you correctly point out. Are the +EV spots so uncommon that it isn't worth thinking about.

That is an important point and for me a real consideration. For a long time I played recreationally (frequent but didn't build an actual bank roll). I tended to play session by session... play tight and open up in a session if I was winning etc. Now I have been building a roll and am beginning to look at overall play with less focus on individual hand or session outcomes so I am willing to consider some higher variance play if it is +EV.

This is what I am trying to sort out. And when these spots I mentioned came up, I was intrigued because as you point out I felt I did have a pretty good read. In one spot there was significant dead money in the middle and in both spots a very real benefit to isolating the 3 bettor rather than flatting and inviting additional caller(s).

I Stoved a range of Villain 2 with AJ+ and 2-2 thru Q-Q. With that range, and Villain 1 with KK, even on a flop of A J 8 we have only 60% postflop equity where we have 90% heads up. That combined with the possible fold equity of Villain 1 makes the case for Shove or Fold. But I agree that many players think you are full of crap and making a play with AK. So for the play to be correct you have to have a read that the 3 bettor doesn't have AA.

In hand 2 above we had a cascade of callers to my opening raise and I act first after the 3 bet. Flatting feels terrible with all those players to act behind and I think I have a decent read that Villain is medium strong. Folding is certainly a solid play here IMO.

As I stated in OP Shoving this spot is not something I do. The exception being as a resteal and usually when effective stacks are not too big. So I tend to feel the way you do and you correctly characterize this as "experimenting".

I guess I am viewing this as something to be done exactly as you say "in carefully picked spots". ie Reasonable effective stacks, significant dead money in the pot and a solid read on a player I believe to be capable of laying down at least JJ to a 4 bet.

I should add that I generally have a pretty tight image. I am active in cheap pots but the better players likely know that when I am putting a lot of money in the middle I usually have the goods.

I tend to agree with this.

Another aspect that hasn't come up is image and perceived range.

What is the payoff In your opinion regarding your perceived range in other hands latter in a session? Do you find that by making these moves w/ AK you are getting more action on say your 3bets with hands such as AA and KK ?

Hand one is a fold, people don't limp / raise TT-QQ, especially not middle aged competent ones. He should have AK, KK+.

Hand two is a 4-bet (people just tend to squeeze more frequently with more dead money, combined with the chatter you say he made)-- though your table chatter: "oh I'm not calling" pretty much eliminates KK+ from your range. I like it a lot more with more controlled body language/chatter.

oops I just realized I made a mistake in OP by not clarifying Villain's position. He was in the BB. He did not limp reraise, his 3 bet was his first action.

Hand 1: Just curious...how many limps were there ahead of you? $12 seems too small if there were a bunch of limpers.

I have to agree with AintNoLimit on both hands. I really hate to just flat villain here. We're putting in 25% of our stack just to play fit-or-fold. I would rather ship it with some FE, some dead money, and a guarantee to see all 5 cards.

I'd also rather ship it and get HU than call and get in a 3-way pot. (BTW, I feel a whole lot better that we're suited. Yes, I'll take that extra 2%...)

If you don't want to ship it, then I think folding is much better than calling.

Hand 2: Again, I think you can ship it here. To be clear, I'm not a big fan at all of shipping AK PF with a full stack, but these are specific situations made better with dead money.

I don't know how villain plays, but in my experience playing live, I can't see how he's that strong at all here. Hero raises to $10 in +1 and gets 5 (!) callers. Then Villain makes it $50 to go. So he makes the pot $70, and raises $40 more. What's he trying to accomplish other than sweetening the pot?

Clearly, this is not a big pair trying to thin the field. I mean, I can't even put him on a range because he must know he's going to get a bunch of callers, so all he's doing is inflating a pot OOP. The only kind of hands that make sense for this line are suited Aces because they can at least make the nuts and he'll have good equity if he flops the NFD.

Anyways, I'm confident this is never KK+, so with $50 of dead money out there (never mind the FE you have as the original UTG+1 raiser who's raise/shoving), shoving has to be a =EV play all day long.

I see. From experience, people taking their time, playing with chips etc. have a very strong hand, and I generally don't like trying to push people off of strong hands, especially when they are running well (they often think they are invincible when on a rush). But again, he might stack off with AQ due to this "invincibility" theory, and if you somehow feel he has TT-QQ, 4-betting is fine, though I doubt he will fold JJ or QQ here.

I actually couldn't recall exactly but the pot wasn't big... I think 2 limpers. In these games I usually start opening raises of $10 +$1 for each limper and adjust for the table from there. I am pretty sure it was 1 or 2 limpers.

Exactly... that was the dilema... I mean if I don't like shoving AK here, folding seems correct with so many players acting behind but his bet is laying me 3:1 (His bet of 50 makes the pot $120 - $40 to me) and reeks to me of medium strength.

Me either. And that is part of the question I am trying to answer for myself... are more people willing to surrender than I realize?

ok fair enough "maybe". You are the best judge of your avg villains ranges. No question.

But....

If you looked over and saw villains hand and it was JJ, what would you do? Fold?

As it turned out...

in Hand 1 I shoved, button folded, Older dude tanked for a minute or more then folded Q-Q face up.

in Hand 2 I played absolutely horrible. I flatted, Villain 2 flats behind.

Flop: A 9 5

Villain 1 checks, I (don't ask why cuz I can't really tell you) check, Villain 2 checks.

Turn: Q

Check, check, check

River: 7

Check Check Check

Villain 1 shows 10-10, I show AK, Villain 2 mucks.

In truth, hand 1 involved a little bit of me deciding "I am taking a stand against this guy who is running like God"... not really tilty, but if the table dynamics were different, I might have went ahead and flatted even though I felt pretty good about my read that we were flipping and I had some fold equity.

Hand 2 was a clear example of 4bet or fold. By flatting I invited the 3rd player into the pot and even when I got my gin card, being OOP against Villain 2 got me twisted up and I botched the hand. I if either player would have bet the Q on the turn I would have been in a tough spot... easily V1 could have had Q-Q or V2 could have had a hand like AQ. I got lucky of course but I think 4 betting or folding was the correct play.

This +1000

I understand what you are saying (and to a large extent held/hold this view myself) but I am questioning it somewhat.

OK so in a spot where you are 3 bet requiring you to call say 25% of your stack and your opponent's cards are face up (ie. you know 100% that he has JJ) AND there is a 3rd player to act behind you....

a) fold AKs ?
b) flat and play 3 handed knowing you will hit the flop only 30% of the time and even then have only about 60% equity 3 handed.

As follow up discussion, in low limit such as 1/2 are there metagame advantages or disadvantages to making agressive preflop moves like this? Will people 3bet less will they tend to call our 3bet monsters more? Will we get action we don't want? Are they not paying attention?

They put opening raises on AK, perhaps even 3-bets, but rarely 4-bet shoves.

the results here show exactly why we shove AK. We are not results oriented, but the results here are indicative of what happens very often. V folding QQ is a landslide victory for us.

Things change dramatically when there is dead money in the pot and reads that villain is not strong. In these cases, it's a mistake to not jam with AK and exercise FE.

We win the pot outright often, plus even when called, the dead money makes our shove correct. And we're rarely crushed.

Even if they show us QQ before we shove, we should do it anyways.

Well, I try to keep track and my downswings certainly include lots of these AK all in moments. Conversely, my rushes are marked with big wins with AK. My general feeling is that it is a cardinal sin to flat with it unless I am deep and suited.

theres plenty of time at live where flatting AK is correct IMO. But one thing to think about. Dominating another player with say AJ happens exactly as rare as flopping a set (both flopping an ace). So we have to have plans for postflop misses.

Def depends on the game.....in the last 2 nights, at local home games with Villians that I have not played with more than once, I have seen $200 plus stacks CALL all in pf with QQ obv up against KK and AA, not AK (FWIW the "amateurs" that play in these games would needle you for putting the stack in without atleast a pair)......I KNOW that I play in some soft games, but people are not folding QQ round my way ever, but it is def an interesting play and I enjoy the thoughts from everyone on the concept

folding QQ usually doesnt happen. But please understand, if there is dead money in the pot, and villain shows us QQ, we should shove. V can call or fold, we dont care. Flatting with AK there is terrible.