2-5 game. $500 effective stacks. Villain is a mid 30s male.

Preflop
UTG+2 raises to $15
Villain in hijack 3 bet To $45
Hero in cutoff 4 bet to $115 with A♠️K♣️
UTG+2 folds
Villain calls

Flop T♥️T♦️2♥️
Villain checks
Hero bets $60
Villain calls

Turn 3♦️
Villain checks
Hero jams for $325 into $365
Villain calls with pocket jacks and holds

Reasonable line or total punt

Seems fine

Your cold 4 is a little large at this depth $90 or $100 is fine. I also think just cold 4bet jamming pre is fine as well.

Your play is fine as long as you play value hands the same way and don't do this always with AKo to the point where someone can pick up on this. You can get the same hand to fold, maybe get a hand like AQs or AJs with a flush draw to call. You actually have the two best suits to do this with AKo since you block ATs and unblock hands like AK with 1 heart, AdXd, AhXh.

Well played.

Hey OP, welcome to the forum. Don’t post results for 24 hours. Giving results right away biases the responses.

Do you have any reads on V? In my casino 50 percent of players don’t 3 bet with anything but KK+, AKs. Another 30 percent will 3bet JJ+, AK. Only one in five 3bet lighter. I will 4bet mono colored AK against these players but just calling the rest, predominately passive players . If anyone calls my 4bet with my AKo, I’m pretty cautious post and prefer a passive line because I’m behind or chopping.

I like the aggressive line against players 3betting light. But maybe only 20% 3bet light in my game. I don’t think I’ve ever seen players call 4 bets with AJs. So after e call pre, I’m looking to get to showdown cheap.

I think this is gonna be very villain specific. I agree with Adonson in that most of the players I play with every day don't 3 bet AQ AJ. Its almost always JJ - AA. So personally I would flat with the AK and play post flop. But I don't hate the 4 bet here either. After the flop you can pretty accurately put him on JJ, QQ. So if you believe he's a good enough player that you can rep AA and bet him off then go for it. But the players I play with usually have a hard time letting go of an over pair. So for that reason I would play this a bit more cautiously, but mainly because the players I play with aren't very good and can be difficult to bluff. They are thinking on the level of what their hand is and not what mine is.

When I play with weak players ,everyone's 3 bet ranges are very very strong, everyone puts you on AK and no one ever folds. So seems to be a punt to me.

Line won’t lose any EV in long run as long as it’s balanced properly.

If not balanced or you know that particular V isn’t folding, then can be bad.

I've played an AK vs Jacks like this and watched the guy tank for like 5 minutes in agony before putting in the call.
It's not unlike how a studied player with balanced ranges might play aces or kings but he's probably thinking why go so big on the turn after the small flop bet?
because most players would bet linearly like 2/3 pot on both streets, it can seem like something is off

How on Earth would you, I, or villain knew whether it is balanced or not? This consideration is complete bs. I imagine op didn't know he would get called by a pair, in that case it's a bad play ofc.

About the hand, 4b is unnecessarily big, 2-2.2x is better. You have a monster range IP, so going big makes him basically only continue with stuff that can stack off pre. In that case you might as well shove, but I don't think that's the way because of your positional advantage. Otherwise it's fine, people might fold pairs and call with stuff like AQhh.

Meaning as long as he's not doing this with all his AKo every time.

Pretty simple concept. If he's barreling and jamming with all his off suit combos.....he's going to be bluffing far too much. Especially in LLSNL where 3 and 4 bet ranges are far stronger than optimal ranges. He should likely be jamming significantly less than checking in a LLSNL scenario.


Balance doesn't require knowledge of V. That's literally the point of playing balanced......until you have info to deviate. Requiring knowledge of V would be the reason to play unbalanced. We already have some general pool information being at LLSNL to start shifting our balance more towards checking.


So, if he's doing this even 50% of the time, he's likely unbalanced the wrong way.

I think the point he is making is that if we know villain's exact range and what he did with it here, the move is either +EV or -EV.

If they are playing like solvers then it is 0 EV.

While no one is going to be able to know if you are balanced or not for sure in this spot, you, there is a meta aspect of this. If you get called and it becomes apparent you had a bluff, you can generate future EV vs villain and anyone paying attention because they are more likely to give you action and call you light.

Preflop can go either way calling vs 4bet - consider what their 3bet range is and what they think you 4b. In a live 2/5 these ranges can be so narrow that 4bing is not that great. I'm not trying to bluff with AK here - keep in mind as well what his 3b range is pre that calls the 4b from a pairs perspective. In most 2/5 games they might 3b TT+ or maybe 99+ so trying to get these hands to fold is asking a lot. Probably a punt.