Hero ($2200)
Villian ($3200)

Hero is young 22 year old. My image at the table is pretty TAG but has mixed it up in some hands, although my image doesn't come in to play much here as Villian is somewhat of a newer player at the table-- less than an hour. I haven't gotten involved with many hands with villain as he is a regular at 5/10. Villian is mid 30s, and hasn't shown to get out of line any or shown anything goofy as of yet. Hero hasn't played much @5-10 but Is a 2/5 reg and knows most of the players as some are known 2/5 to 10/20 regs, and some fish.

Hero is in the BB. Villian 1 is in the CO.

Villian 1 opens from CO to 35.
Very good LAG flats on the BTN
Bad LAG flats in SB
Hero 3b AKo from BB to 140
Villian 1 almost snap 4b and makes it 425
BTN and SB folds
Hero??

Not really sure what to make of the snap raise, or the sizing really. And i'm honestly not sure how he perceives me as I haven't shown down any hands that I can recall since he's been at the table, or nor have I done anything to out of line to give him any reason to do this light. As I said I haven't played much 5/10, so i'm not really familiar with 4b ranges, nor have I seen many light 4 bets. I definitely don't see this at 2/5 so I can only assume coming from a very good well known reg that mostly plays 5/10+ is not doing this light. But as hero, what do you do in this spot? do I make it like 1k and fold to a 6 bet jam, do I just stick it in and hope to get folds from JJ-QQ/AK/AQs or do I flat and see a flop, or fold? I'd love to hear what you guys have to say.

Unless villain has seen you squeeze and make a fair few moves in the short time you have played with him, which going on your information, you haven't, I think I can find a fold here and feel ok about it at that moment . I'd hate to commit almost half of my stack and fold.

Shipping is the worst option. Flatting in my view is the second worst as you will only hit the flop 1 in 3.

The snap raise is a bit hard to decipher. A min 4 bet to around 720 could be reasonable and get 1010- QQ AK to fold. Most straight forward villains are only likely to ship AA and KK to your 4 bet.

Pre is certainly too small with the stacks. You need to make it like 185-215 there.

As played with the given information flatting and folding seem pretty close. Given you're a 2/5 reg, seems like a spot where you could save a lot of stress by not risking 400 of your former big blinds on a marginal spot.

If you're going to fold to a 4 bet, why are u 3betting?

Because other outcomes exist than being instantly 4-bet, outcomes which are quite profitable.

3bet to 180 ish and shove over a 4bet would be my standard. As played, probably call.

Definitely don't do this.

Getting in AKo vs the cutoff for >20 times the pot is kind of ridiculous without some sort of strong read.

Suppose cutoff minraises 100 bb deep and it folds to you in the BB. Are you not 3bet-5betting AK here?

Yeah, outcomes where people call and then you miss the flop, or outcomes where an A or K flops and they put you on AK and only stack off with better.

Are you trolling or do you really not see the merits of squeezing AK here?

If people are just 'putting you on AK' and only stacking off when they have a better hand, then I'm sure you can find a counter strategy to exploit them...

I would either raise to $850 or fold. I am not a fan of playing AK OOP in a 4-bet pot against anyone with decent post-flop skills.

a shove is a tad bigger than I'd prefer

but it seems better than flatting, esp given villain's description

Not trolling. Ofc squeeze AK, just don't fold to the 4bet, ldo. Otherwise, you're just raising "to see where you're at"

If you can't get AK in pre profitably, then you're not squeezing enough. Unless the person is a massive, massive nit, you can't just 3b then fold to a 4b

I disagree. You are raising to take down the dead money already in the pot first and foremost against a speculative hand that could have decent equity against AK, and raising as a bluff to get a fold if villain has 1010-QQ (also AK) and puts you on AA KK. Finding out where you are likely at, is just a secondary piece of information and not the sole reason for the 5 bet.

So you're raising to take down dead money...aka bluffing? Why not do that with any 2?

If villian folds 1010-QQ to ur 4bet, then ur simply not 4 betting enough.

The other players can do something other than fold or 4b...

Yes, and the same statement could be said for "information raises" as well, but we all know those are bad.

You're referring to when a fish raises a hand that beats all bluffs but gets called by nothing worse. This isn't the case here. People can and frequently will call you with a lot worse. They wont frequently snap 4b you to a gigantic size.

They might call you with worse, sure, but they have position on you, in a multiway pot where your hand is the #1 hand people put others on.

I'd rather get 4 bet so I can shove over and collect the dead money than get 3-4 calls oop. And if you're called, even if they have KK, you still have 30% equity or so. As long as they don't have AA you're in great shape even if called.

Calling is the worst of all scenarios imo, not being 4 bet. If you were in pos it might be different.

Half of the value of squeezing with AK is shoving over 4bet bluffs and collecting all that dead $$ without seeing a flop.

EV(shove vs QQ+ AK) = (425+140+35+35)*x + (4470*(0.388) - 2060)*(1-x)
EV(shove vs QQ+ AK) = 0 @ 33.9% fold equity, $140 at 48.5% fold equity

EV(shove vs KK+) = (425+140+35+35)*x + (4470*(0.185) - 2060)*(1-x)
EV(shove vs KK+) = 0 @ 66.0% fold equity, $140 at 73.5% fold equity

Keeping in mind that at EV = 0, we lose the entire pot once we are 4-bet, so it would be a terrible outcome to be 4-bet at these fold equities.

I like shoving a little bit more than I did at first glance, but I still wouldn't hate a fold for someone taking a shot and not wanting to bother with the stress and tilt of risking 2k to win like 50 bucks. And I believe that our fold equity of the squeeze and equity when called will be so high that 3-betting will still be by far the most profitable play even if we're sacrificing a little equity by making a tight fold to his 4-bet.

I think that would be pretty different. I would expect him to be opening a wider range for a minraise than for 3.5, and I think he would probably have a higher 4-bet bluffing frequency at those stacks as well.

Also, I'm certain that vs a decent player this hand ought to be a shove to his 4-bet, and I may not be keen on the current state of live poker, where it may be standard to get this in vs anyone these days. My suspicion is that live poker hasn't reached that point yet, though.

It hasn't, trust me. There is nothing wrong with having a very high 3bet/fold frequency with AK, even at 5/10, because they are really just never playing back.

This excludes good players that you build history with and whales. No one else. They just always have it, or at the very least their bluffing frequency is so unbalanced you can still make very comfortable folds. Their (usually) terrible sizing further adds to our comfort in folding.

Pretty sick that I actually ran into this almost exact spot at 2/5 yesterday.

Almost same scenario, im still the young 22 year old kid, except in this spot has shown to be able to 3 bet light in other spots. Villain here is 2/5- 5/10 reg. Early-mid 20s who just sat down with his group of other 2/5-5/10 pro friends who are waiting for the 5/10 game to start. Villain is hyper aggressive, really good LAG player who I don't have much history with.

2/5
Hero $~700 BB
Villain covers BTN

Folds to villain on BTN who asks me and the player in the SB if we chop, in which I said I do not chop. I like to play my blinds.
Villain raises the BTN to $25, SB folds, and I look down at AKo.
I take a quick glance at his stack and he quickly responds by saying "I'm probably not folding by the way".
I respond with, "Good" and throw out 4 green chips pretty quickly ($100) for a 3 bet.
He almost instantly throws out 5 blacks and I go all in and he calls.
Cards are ran, I end up with A high and he has AA. oops..

There's a risk of running into the nuts every time you don't have the nuts. Does that mean we should only push the nuts? LOL, no, of course not.

Btw, iirc, you still have 7% chance to win even if they have AA. But, you have 0% chance of winning if you fold. Now, obviously 7% is far from good, but it's not 0%, and the number of times AK runs into AA are laughably low.

I'm not saying get in AK vs an utg raise for 200bb per se, but vs steal positions, not felting AK means that either #1 your opponent is playing extremely badly or #2 you are. No exceptions

I'm obviously never folding my hand here. Just pretty gross that I run into this almost exact same spot twice. I'm just hoping that the first time that I made a good fold, although in this spot, against a LAG opponent I can never fold my hand here.