5/5, pretty actiony table so far, main reason is V2 OTB, who's playing a lot of hands. He's calling a lot of bets, but he's not afraid of betting himself either.


Villain 1 (670) UTG+1 opens to 30 (he just sat down a few hands ago, unknown, 50s; I'm thinking standard live player, likely not particularly fond of folding, but like I said unknown, so no reason to assume he's just randomly clicking buttons)

Hero (covers) UTG+2 3bets to 90 with AhKh

Folds around to Villain 2 (900) on the button, who coldcalls (he had been doing this all night, so I'm thinking anything playable: at least any pair, broadways, suited Aces, suited connectors, maybe even wider)

V1 calls as well, threeway to the flop.

Flop (280) KsQhJd

V1 doesn't take too long to bet 270, leaving 400 behind.

Hero…

sir you do not have the best hand

Yeah, I feel like we all know it. I hate folding with TPTK, a gutter, and a backdoor flush draw, but let's be realistic here. Unknown in 50s leading for pot into 2 opponents, 6x preflop. I think we can just fold this and pay attention to his action going forward to make sure he isn't actually a maniac.

Man horrible position. No idea what we do here. Is this really a fold?

Annoying spot. But it's just a fold.

Line is too strong. 6x pre, leads into two, one of which 3bet on a board that has a lot of sets and TPTK for hero.


You'll have AT, KK, QQ, JJ, KQs, KJs, QJs....all on this board. AK is actually one of the more mediocre holdings for you on this board.

Don’t threebet UTG+1 from UTG+2 with AK.

As played, we’re playing for stacks or folding.

Don’t play for stacks with 1 pair here.

Disagree with not 3betting here. Especially with AKs. But I agree with not playing for stacks with 1 pair here.

You don’t have to auto 3bet with AK every time. It’s ok, I promise.

Keeping SPR higher with one pair might allow us to see another street with our nut gutshot. Unless there was a raise, we wouldn’t be deciding for stacks on the flop.

Even Doyle had it figured out in 1979 when he wrote the damn book on NLHE that AK is a 3bet hand. This isn't some new age GTO solver nerd idea.

On this exact board, okay. But there are tons of other boards that can come out, a lot where we want SPR to be low. And we don't want a super multiway pot either.

In a very low or no rake environment there is an argument with AKo mixing call in theory from these positions, but given how wide people will cold call and how likely it is that the flop goes very multiway because of how people play live poker, I think 3betting is very clearly the better play here, even more so with AKs. As you get around the button/sb/BB when no one flatted so the chances of playing a heads up pot increase, flatting AKo sometimes becomes more reasonable.

Also, you were saying sometimes flat AKo from these positions, fine. But at the very least you should be 3betting sometimes here, or your 3bet range is waaaay too strong. Once you showdown AK is your flatting range and clearly aren't 3betting very frequently, you are going to have a harder time getting called when you do have AA, KK, QQ.

At the end of the day, aggressive play is often highly rewarded in poker, although it brings on more variance. I would rather be the guy the 3bets too much than the one that doesn't 3bet enough.

Not 3betting is bad. This is an obvious 100% 3bet unless you have a lengthy history with the opener and know he is a confirmed ultra-nit and that's not the case here.

Flop is an annoying but clear fold. Either player can have a set, 2 pair or a straight here and you're facing a pot sized bet not closing the action. If behind - and you probably are - your equity is pretty poor.

the not 3betting AKss advice here is wild especially with the reasoning being that you could draw to the nut gutshot on KQJ multiway lol. i dont think theres any circumstance where AKss isn't going to out perform calling by 3betting (the exception being someone with like 20+% 3bet behind or seeing the openers cards) and this doesnt appear to be an exception. fyi the only solved ranges i have access to for 9 max on gto wizard have literally 0 flats as utg2 vs utg1 albeint with high rake. while u can make an argument we wont get squeezed behind, i think you probably will get way under 4bet by the opener here which makes the ev of 3b even higher.

as for the actual hand its a very clear fold although i have no idea what the bottom of our continuing range would be

Not 3betting is criminal. Lol. As played, annoying fold but a fold.

Results aren’t spectacular: I folded pretty quickly and so did the button. But it did feel weird to abandon this so easily, so I came here looking for some confirmation that I hadn't gone mad. Glad everyone agrees it's a fold. In this particular case he had only 400 behind, but I'm curious at which point it would become anything else than a fold on the flop. If we'd have had 1k or 1,5k behind, I think it's still a fold. But there has to be a turning point somewhere, I guess?

I don't know if the SPR makes a big enough difference, because even if you call a pot sized bet, he could bet anything on rhe turn, even overbet jam as people sometimes like to do for protection if a heart comes out bringing the backdoor flush draw. To me it is more that he is donking for pot into 2 players in a 3bet pot. You can have so many better cards to defend here. ATs, KK, QQ, JJ , KQs, KJs, maybe QJs, and maybe every once in a while T9s.

LOL.


This is a classic situation of only kinda knowing what you're talking about and applying it incorrectly. You should always 3bet AKs from all positions. There's only 4 combos, so it's not coming around often.

You can flat with AKo at a small frequency since there are 12 combos and this is going to show up more often.


If you had said "sometimes you can consider not 3betting if it was AKo" then that's not an issue. But to saying to just "not" do it, and especially with AKs....that's one of the worst possible EV decisions you can make preflop here.

If you consider all the hands you can have here on this board.....it should make you feel better about the fold being semi-trivial.

This board is so good for us, we have monster hands a ton here.

There are times to flat an early opener with AKs, but they have nothing to do with the opener, and everything to do with other players who have been dealt in, particularly the player in the big blind. If there is a super whale with a deep stack who is more likely to play if we flat, then we flat.