One more hand that bothers me.

I've been playing at the same casino and mostly the same people for about 6 years and i've played with this guy a LOT and we have had very very few confrontations. He is easily the best player in the room by my account. I mostly stay out of his way and he's a classic TAG who never shows his cards if he doesn't have to which is extremely rare. I've watched him chip up without ever showing his cards for an entire session. Therefore even tho we have played countless hours together, i literally can't remember any other big pots I've played against him or ever seen his cards in showdown with him.

The only other time i can remember showing down with him was when i decided to just flat call from the blinds with KK, he double barrelled a J high flop, river was an ace, i cc again and he has AJ for a 3 street score. ugh!

But i know he's really good because i try and pick his brain and every once in awhile something comes out where i know he knows what he's doing and thinks in terms of ranges rather than cards.

Villain sits down with the max buy in of 2500, i cover

Very first hand. Villain opens the CO to 30, Hero 3b BTN 90

AQ

villain 4bets to 220

hero calls

flop (445)

T23

v betts 330

hero?

Flat pre. I can’t think of a good reason to isolate the best player in the room with a hand that plays well multi-way.

If not, fold to the 4b.

If not, fold on the flop.

Pre is 100% standard. Definitely not folding vs. someone who plays preflop well. If you're folding to a 4-bet you should just call but this hand is too strong to call unless you've got big spots in the blinds.

Flop would be a clear call vs. a smaller sizing. Vs. this sizing it really sucks and it's probably breakevenish to continue. We do pick up equity on a lot of turns and can often win with a bluff facing a check so I think peeling a card is ok but I'd mostly fold. Trying to think about how I'd play various turns. Probably shipping over a c-bet on a spade 9-6, calling other spades, calling an A or Q, mostly folding otherwise. Betting vs. a check on most cards. Maybe we can bluff-raise a non-spade 9-6 at a low frequency.

Might seem a bit wild, but I'd develop a 5b range if I'm going to have a healthy 3b range in this spot. You should both have a lot of hands available that open, 3b and 4b here, and as such I'd like to have AQs as a possible 5b bc you're likely going to be making the most pre against this player, not post, so battle your heart out pre.

Look at this spot otf, I mean sizing is pure af bc h knows he can do it on Txx and you're immediately fkd beyond holding AA/TT, maybe KK.

I'm not saying to just auto 5b, but I will say that you have chosen to be vacuum oriented and 3b AQs bc it's part of a healthy strategy --- So, if you're battling, maybe have a 5b range that isn't just the nuts.

Now, I don't think you should approach this spot this way^^ at all. In fact CO open and I'm BTN, this is a great spot to have more calls, and allow whomever the blinds are to play the hand. That concession doesn't just have to be made for massive spots ITB, it can apply here pretty easily. The result often is you get to basically play AQs (and similarly strong 3b candidates as call) IP against 2-4 players and your TAG nemesis is going to have a bit of a tougher time proceeding. CO will pick up that you have some strong calls here pre, but that isn't something that he can easily combat. It'll just mean you aren't capped on AK2 and he'll proceed accordingly sometimes, but that isn't much of a big deal since you're going to have plenty of 3b in other situations.

Don't know why you're building a pot with AQ against the best player in the room.

And since when did AQs become a "great hand"?

In a deep 5T game it is a 'great' hand.... or rather, in games that have wide 3b ranges and play deep, this is going to fit toward the stronger end of your 3b range.

Jfc. Do you only 3! With KK+?!? We have a top 5% hand, we’re IP and V opened from the CO. This is a mandatory 3!

Just because he’s “the best player in the room” doesn’t give him some magical ability that negates that he’s OOP and opening a wider range from CO

The reraise preflop is questionable, the call of the four-bet is even more questionable, and the flop is a clear fold.

AQ suited is a nice hand, but there's no reason to ride it to your doom, like a barrel over Niagara Falls. Particularly against an opponent who is as skilled as you say he is.

5T?

Against the toughest player who has four bet, AQs is no longer a great hand...no?

"Five Ten". Can't be using "10" in 2021. No offense OP.

It's a bad idea to think in terms of individual hand rankings, it's just too easy to mis-categorize a hand's place in a range and then you just blow up the value of your ranges.

If you're just going to routinely fold AQs to a 4b in a deep game, IP, because it's 'not great', that's going to neutralize your ability to make NFs, NSs, and top trips and you'll be capped to EV set mining and slow played KK+

Well we’re pretty fkked here, are we not?

I’m trying to build pots against people that I’m going to play better than. Plain and simple. There’s value in flatting super strong hands vs good players too because it disguises you’re range. They probably don’t know you’re playing differently vs them until you have to show one down.

The people who think the 3! Pre is not standard or flatting the 4! Is exactly why 5T hands shouldn’t be in this forum. Too many weak tight players commenting on them

News flash - the best player in the room should be opening like 40ish% of hands from the CO

Our 3! Is completely standard.

Vs 4! Is basically 2.5x our sizing and we’re 250bb deep. This is a standard call at worst. We don’t know what V is doing with his range, but if you think he only has {KK+, AK} then he isn’t “the best player in the room”

The flop sizing is huge for a board that we should almost never connect with, other than TT and an occasional TXs, but we’ve also capped our range to not include AA and probably KK, where he has not. That makes calling down difficult because if the board stays low, he can rep AA, KK and we can not. We do however have back doors, which could be useful. I might peel to see what the turn brings. Obv done if it’s a total brick, but J, 9, 8, spades could be interesting. Q might freeze the action because the top of our range that would flat is probably QQ, but that doesn’t mean we’re good. If a K came and he still barreled, might have to let it go too, though sizing dependent

Ok, maybe not “mandatory 3!” as I said earlier, but we should be 3! AQs OTB vs CO open a much higher % of the time than we’re flatting.

Agreed 100%. I just think this if there’s a time to make the non-standard play this is it.

I really think we're owning ourselves calling flop in this spot. Pre really is standard (I just suggested other possible plays pre that are ok sometimes) and I think we can happily accept defeat on a board that allows V to near range bet for a large amount and there's just nothing that we can do unless we have the top 6-8 combos or so to continue on an unfortunate board for a 3b-call range even otb. He can bet 1/5 pot or 1.5x pot and we're pretty much stone fckd. There are some boards that are like this, can't help it.

I mean, of course we want to convince ourselves that he has A5dd a lot, or that we can peel and then improve and get crafty on the late streets, but it just seems bad on certain boards and this is one of them.

Again, pre IS standard and this resulting board and bet size is not a reason to think "One more hand that bothers me." Still, I do like the idea of having some non 'standard' frequencies pre here.

Those KK might be a fold on the river when v triple off on the river, but that's just a side note.

3b pre here is almost mandatory. AQo is a mandatory 3b, AQs i can think about flatting. Flatting for deception makes sense, but I want villain to not open my button light, so for me a 3b is mandatory here.

His 4b sizing is small, so folding is out of the question pre. Flat!

Flop sizing by the villain is strange. He has the overpair advantage (AA/KK), but I think we have more QQ-TT than him. Even with AK/AQ i think villain should be betting small. His entire range should be betting small.

I think in-game I continue on the flop having backdoor spades, the chance that villain checks turn and we can bet and take the pot down, and lastly, I don't want villain to think he can run me over so we should have some MDF on the flop, this combo is decent enough to continue. Folding to further aggression if we don't improve.

I’d like to add that I’m 100% wrong about folding to the 4b. Folding is out of the question, now that I’ve thought more about it.

I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but if defending down to AQs in an already narrow range spot, aren't we well past the threshold of MDF? I mean, isn't AQs BDFD still a fold on this particular board facing pot? -- maybe it matters whether or not you have A2-5s as a high freq 3b-call pre?

Curious why you're flatting KK pre at any frequency against a 2-bet in the history hand. Really should just be a 100% 3-bet.

Not sure if you meant me, but KK can be a sometimes call if the blinds were either massive spots and/or overly agro monkey-types.

I'm just referring to the vague history hand in the OP where he said he flat called KK from the blinds against this villain.

Maybe I shouldn't have said 100%, I just meant KK should be a pure 3-bet without a specific exploitative reason, and it's rare for there to be a good enough one because the EV difference between calling/3-betting is pretty high normally, particularly from the blinds. I'm curious what OP's reasoning was.

Pre: good/standard

Flop: if you have played with this guy a LOT, surely you must have some info relevant to this spot? Any sense of cbet freq/sizing in 3b/4b pots? As others have noted his sizing is quite large here but it’s hard to really give feedback on this spot without knowing something about the history. Without history I would just fold and make a note re sizing. I don’t hate peeling one, but we are torching a lot of $ if he has a really strong cbet range here (eg bc his 4b range is actually fairly narrow, despite OPs description) and/or a really high turn cbet %

Word. I didn't even see that sentence. Yeah, I cant think of a single reason to call that spot ever --- I hope OP isn't thinking that because he's deep and OOP that he needs to keep things smaller w big pairs or some backwards concept.

And here in a nut shell is why this thread should be moved. This is not LLSNL poker.

Mods either we keep with the decription of LLSNL, and move threads like this, or we change the description. This keeps on coming up.

Pre is totally standard and the reason we don't have a 5b range this deep is the reason we can fold vs this size otf. Peeling one is fine too but we should be totally uncapped here and have more than enough defends to let this go or at the very least mix calling and folding.

Super standard to not have a 5b range when we're this deep simply because our range gets too defined with too much poker left to be played.