2/5 Bellagio

UTG opens for 15. (650~)

Hes an Aussie who played snug for the first few hrs at the table but has opened up significantly in the past few hrs. He has swung up and down 500 several times. I've seen him 3! and double barrel w 55. I saw him raise a flop of KhQh6s, in a limped pot otb, from 25 to 50. Get three callers. Fire 190 on a 4c turn. Get two callers. Then jam a 2d river for 600 w Ah6h. He has tried to bluff me specifically twice by once double barrelling a low dry board and i called w aq high and once by calling my flop c bet and then donking turn and river v my tptk w a missed oesd. And he made comments after that he didn't want to get into pots with me anymore etc...

MP2 calls

Hero OTB AcAs. (Covers) Makes it 45.

UTG makes it 140

MP2 fold.

Hero calls.

Flop (300) Kh Qd 5h

UTG leads 150
Hero Calls

Turn (600) Ts

UTG leads AI 360............?????


Call with a tear in my eye?
Fold flop?
Raise Flop?
Fold Turn?
5! pre?

I only beat AK,or a bluff, here and I have 2 Aces.

Shove pre, shove flop, call turn. Prob shouldn't ever fold AA in a 4b pot for 130bb

Sick sick spot. Do you think he is making that move pre-flop with AJ? because if not then the turn changes nothing, so hypothetically if you call the flop you call this. As crazy as he has played do you think he 4-bets random hearts here? Does he 4b KQ?

He could very well have AK as well. The only thing you're afraid of here unless hes crazy pre is a set. Crying call

Against a competent thinking player I might find a fold, since you'll have all sets in your range but against this guy
Probably...

First, ask the question, "Is it possible that this type of player would take these actions with AK?" We know that from his vantage point, AK is losing to AA, KK, QQ, TT, KQ...but does he think about it this way or does he simply say, "**** it, I have TPTK in a 4bet pot, I'm pushing the action and I'm not folding."

If the answer to that question is, "Yes," then our next step should be to break down the problem combinatorically.

With you holding two aces, AK combos decrease from 16 to 8.
With a K out there, there are 3 combos of KK available for villain.
With a Q out there, there are 3 combos of QQ available for villain.

So with an assumption that V will 4b QQ+, AK, we are beating 8 combos and losing to 6 combos. We have a 5% chance to suck out against KK/QQ, and AK has a 7% chance to suck out against us. We are never ever folding (regardless of bet size) when we beat more than half of his plausible range.

If we modify the assumption and suppose that he 4b KQ suited, this actually only changes our result to 8 combos we beat, 8 combos we are behind. We would also still be calling it off here.

If we modify the assumption to suppose that he 4b KQs and TT+, then we are beating 8 combos and are behind 11 combos. Getting something like 2.7 to 1 on our money on the turn, we will also be calling it off in this instance.

So yeah, I see the turn as a mathematically justified call.

As for the flop...I think I like a shove better than a call. I don't think this player will b/f his AK at this point given the description you offer. Possible he even shrug calls it off with AQ, deciding that this is the one time we've squeezed with JT and have now decided to semi-bluff. I'm value raising to prevent him from x/f his AK on future streets when something like the 9 falls on the turn and he decides that we now must have him beat.

If I think he might b/f AK on the flop, I like a call down better, but against him I think shoving the flop is optimal. Again, if you run into KKK, well, you just hit the top of his range and need to river AAA. Make the best plays against villain's range.

If our read on Villain is that he's going to barrel off after 4betting >20% of his stack pretty much always, then I like Hero's line assuming we call the turn shove. In particular, I don't really see the point of 5betting and allowing him to fold some of his range if stacks are usually getting in postflop when we flat. And it seems like V is weird aggro enough to have some weaker hands in his 4b range.

If his 4b range is QQ+/AK, we can call him down profitably as Axel explained (it's 6 combos of AK though, since a K is out there). If we start adding in hands like AJ/TT, great, but then we also have to add in combos of hands like AQ/JJ that he may barrel off with. With SPR<2, we're basically never folding postflop against this Villain.

I can see the argument for shoving otf; really just depends on how often he's b/f flop vs. c/f turn.

6 combos of AK with K on board.

Ok thanks.

I ended up calling turn solely based on the '6 combo i beat and 6 i loose to with some % of bluffs added in = call' formula.

And im pretty sure any thinking player is folding AK to my flop shove and only calling with better. He had shown the ability to think.

He had AK. So much for the power of blockers..........

Also there was something about the hopefulness of the 4! pre sizing that leans toward ak. I feel kk would make it larger with more confidence and qq would flat a decent, 30%ish, amount.

Why the $150 sizing for the flop bet, what hands do you think will call $150 and not $200 or $250, and which hands would fold to $150 but would have called a $125 or $100 bet on flop?

As played, I think once you bet flop, you can't fold the turn 60% pot AI bet. Even if the flop was KQJ, the times you find a good fold in a 4! pot situation, will most likely be negated by the times you make a bad fold and he GII with a worse hand

I'm going to stop right here because imo nothing else in the hand matters.

In the name of everything holy in the year of our Lord 2015, how do you flat pre?

You know he's going to do some crazy stuff post, you've seen him do crazy stuff pre. Force him to put his stack in pre.

All-in pre, the rest of the hand is mostly irrelevant after this mistake.

Yep all this, although I hate I have to call the turn at all.

ohmy: he bet the flop not I.

trucdouf: do you really think he is stacking off here w ak to a 5!?? Also if he is going crazy with air I want to let him continue and not let him off the hook. I think it is pretty std flat. No real need to 5! here since we have position in a 2:1 spr pot. 90% of boards this is a simple call call or call bet line to get it in on turn. I brought this hand up because of both the k and q otf and the t ott with continued aggro. More times than not I see ak just x/c it off ott. But this guy chose the more aggro line to bet bet in a spot where he couldn't win.

Flatting pre is fine, but given how draw heavy the flop is, not shoving flop is a mistake.

Shoving pre is the way to go IMO, it's rare to have someone 3-bet/fold pre 125 BB deep.

I like the flat preflop as well instead of 5-betting. Call his ass down on all streets. He has AK and suited garbage enough for it to be good. Don't raise on any street because I believe he will continue to fire his draws if he misses. For that reason there is no need to raise.

It is exploitative play, but probably good versus him nonetheless. Next time you get AA versus him you should 5-bet all-in, because he may not be so quick to get his stack in the next time.

Why on earth would we 5bet pre and let him get away from JJ/QQ/AK and maybe even KK? How many times have you seen someone 5! in 1/2 or 1/3 NL and it NOT be AA? Hint--you can probably count them on one hand, if there's any at all.

Did you read the V description? There is essentially no flop except AAx where we are happy to put in more money.

It is also unlikely that we can go 3 streets unimproved and hold. Basic concept.

I guess what it really boils down to is AA are great for winning small pots, and losing big pots. Say he folds pre, I'm ok with netting 150 without action for a variety of reasons.

If he calls, we should be regularly dominating him and the outcome is le poker and lady variance.

I'm sorry, what now?

I humbly suggest you work on your game much more before you try to give advice in spots like this.

Lol ok bruh bruh.

Fwiw:
1. Being willing to put any amount of money in vs a maniac on any street irrespective of the board because we haz AA is a pretty suspect piece of advice.

2. We are 80/20 PRE (which is where i want to get my money in). This dominance doesn't hold post flop especially on this board, when you are advocating shoveling chips in.

3. Typical 1/2 fish-speak? I guess Harrington, Brunson, Hellmuth and many other pros are stuck in 1/2 fish-speak as well. At least I'm in good company.

Edit: If AA isn't in your 5bet range, what is?

In red

It would be easier to respond to you if you didn't edit quotes with your response.

It would also be a much better discussion if you lowered your sarcasm/troll level and focused on the concepts at hand.


1. This doesn't even make sense...any 2p beats a single pair. Just because we have aces doesn't make it any easier or harder to make 2p without an A...

What's more, the board is KQ5T. V 4! pre which we haven't seen. Even if he's a maniac it's irresponsible to not consider a set in his range.

2. Lol basic understanding of statistics would help you here.

Basic example: V has QQ, Hero has AA and flop is KQ5. You are telling me we are still 80/20 because preflop said so?

Another example: Same deal, flop is AA2. You are telling me we aren't 100% because preflop said so?

Or better yet, youre telling me because on average you hit a set 1 in 7 flops, you ALWAYS do? Never more, never less because stats say so.

3. So are you calling me a fish or using a dated strategy? What I'm referring to is within the last 5 years. Try harder bruh.

I'm not afraid of big pots, I want to get my money in where I'm clearly best. In this scenario vs this V I believe it's preflop.

Edit. It does matter. Just as much as what is Vs 4bet range.

In general I agree with trucdouf who is one of the better posters here.

Not every hand is an 80-20 dog to aces. Jh9h which makes a straight on this flop, wasn't an 80-20 dog pre-flop.

You might be right that books are wrong. But your argument just boils down to saying it's wrong because SwolyswoND doesn't do it.

Poker is game of dollars and cents, and EVs of various lines and you don't talk about anything like that.

When you resort to rudeness it feels like you don't have any reasons to support your point-of-view.

As far as the OP goes:
1. I'd suggest making a pot-sized raise pre with all of your 3-betting range. That means making it roughly 60.
2. When the SPR is under 2 you can't fold flops just because they're slightly scary. If you have black aces on a JdTd9d flop you might consider folding, but this flop isn't that bad.

I guess if 5-bets are so obviously AA then we should be 5-bet bluffing the crap out of everyone.

5-bet all-in is standard. Flatting sometimes at a lower frequency is good as well. I happen to like flatting versus this guy in particular.

Folding versus this particular opponent with AA in a 4-bet pot is out of the question though. Unless you have a killer tell on him.

Lol,this guy can be wayyy wider than AK,QQ,KK pre,he could also have JJ,KJ,weird pair plus flush draws and total air....get the money in asap and stop getting fancy with fish.

1. No, that's not true. AA has much better equity vs. most 2p hands because of how much easier it is to counterfeit the 2p.

2. You're the one completely changing the situation there, not me. Your initial comment was that AA's preflop dominance doesn't hold up postflop. I pointed out that sentence is simply false because the only way AA can dominate preflop is if it tends to hold up postflop. I never said AA was 80/20 to win versus QQ on a Qxx flop or versus anything on an AAx flop.. But you can't ever narrow V's range like you're suggesting, particularly not this V.

3. Putting aside the amusement that you call me a troll but use "words" like "bruh," my words were that you saying that "AA wins little pots but loses big ones" is both fish thinking and, to the extent you rely on HOH or Super System, outdated advice. That's the same as casino fish saying they open raise to $30 at a 1/2 table with AA and don't mind everyone folding because "my aces always get cracked."

Your statement about "wanting to get my money in when I'm clearly best" and saying here its preflop pretty much sums up why this is poor strategy and costing you value. You want to shove it all in pre, not minding if he folds, because you don't want your aces cracked. Versus villain's range, you are likely to still be ahead postflop. Particularly versus this villain who will double/triple barrel with way worse, let him stack off to you. Don't get MUBSy just because "he could have two pair."

4. No, it doesn't matter, and you miss the point. If V's 5bet calling range is [null], then you should never be 5betting AA and you should 5bet bluffs. You are literally advocating turning AA into a bluff.

Now, if V's 5bet calling range was defined and not [null] or [AA] specifically, then it starts to matter what our 5bet range is. The problem is, at LLSNL, a 5bet is AA and only AA 99.9999999% of the time, and even 1/2 fish know that, so they won't call. If we were shallow enough that we didn't think V could fold QQ or KK given the 5bet price, then maybe you'd have a point. We're not, and this V has shown he will barrel off with way worse. So why would you ever give him a chance to get away cheaply?

Let's not get into semantics about the preflop equity. J9hh has 20.98 equity PF versus AA.

I never said the books were wrong because I said so. I said several times why just getting people to fold PF when you hold AA is very bad poker. And I was quite civil in initially telling him why it was bad, because I value the community here and bad advice can go viral quickly. The "AA wins small pots and loses big ones" is very very very bad poker thinking, and I think you know that, au4.

I also most certainly did lay out the EV lines. I noted that V is folding his entire range or nearly his entire range if we 5bet pre, so that is very bad. I noted that V has shown he will barrel off with worse, so flatting pre is correct. Will your AA get cracked versus this V sometimes? Yes. Does that mean we should want him to fold PF because of that? Absolutely not.