ES: $325 & I've got Villain covered. He just got here and this is his 2nd orbit. I've seen him before - he's not a rec player. He hasn't gone to showdown in the 2 small pots he won, but I've played him before. He's tight, somewhere around passive/aggressive.

So I o/r to $12 UTG+2 with AK and get 4 callers. Villain is in the BB.

Flop [$44 raked] KK7

Villain checks, I bet $22 everyone folds except Villain.

Turn [$77] KK7J

Villain leads for $25. Hero?

$85

How are you getting slapped on turn?

Make it $75. Not folding. If he has KJ/JJ/77, good for him. He has many worse Kx too.

I made it $100 & he slaps me by going all-in. When he bet the $25 I thought he was probably drawing to a diamond flush with AQ, calling my flop bet from disbelief that I would bet out with my trips.

He wouldn't call flop bet with AQdd when you bet out into 4 people.

Sucks if you ran into KJ or something.

The more I think about this passive V, I feel he would only call your turn raise with worse Kx. His shove is telling you he has AK beat. Does anyone like r/f to $75 in this spot?

Think about it, you O/R in "utg+2", when you show so much aggression, he HAS TO KNOW your range is heavily weighted towards AK. Yet, he goes over the top of your turn raise. Does he really do that with KQs/KTs knowing worse isn't calling his shove? I don't think so, now that I think about it.

So tough to fold though but probably best.

Turn is a definite raise though, you probably made it slightly big, he rarely has draws here, you should target weaker Kx's with a smaller raise so you can cheaply lay it down if V comes over the top.

What do others think?

What is your image to the villain? It makes a difference to how he perceives your range.

try not putting someone on a specific hand, but an overall range.

AdQd would probably not be in his range here, given the action and what others have said.

you're probably shipping the turn, but expect to be behind here like > 50% time, given your description of the villain.

What is your image? His betting small into you on the turn is scary. Personally, I don't think a raise accomplishes anything, unless he could have a draw here and is making a blocking bet to see the river cheap, but what draw could he have? If you are going to raise, why so much? Only raise that much if you are planning to go for it. Against this V, you can probably fold unless there is a chance he has KQ. I doubt many of us could fold in this situation, unfortunately. Your image really does matter.

When the Villain bets the turn, is he communicating to you that the jack helped his hand? What worse Kx are improved by the jack?

I doubt there's much value in raising the Villain's bet. We're behind: JJ,77,KTs+,KTo+

It's pretty annoying to bet-fold in a spot where we're not much ahead (if we're ahead at all), of Villain's calling range, and when we have outs to improve.

It's not like our hand is under-repped or hidden. Our hand is pretty face-up.

We beat KQ/KT.

I don't think V's turn bet necessarily means that the J helped him. V's line is kind of inconsistent with a flopped or turned boat. It looks more like some kind of blocker bet.

V is donking for 1/3 pot on the turn. Just calling out of fear and then calling another tiny river bet looks like missing lots of value against the hands that would probably call us down.

Thanks for all the replies. My raise to $100 was due to my reacting to what I thought was the most obvious play on his part & my 1st read: He was drawing to a flush.

I was able to fold, but had to go for a walk. Got a table change when I came back. Lost my Mojo on that table.

He may not even have KTo in his range, but we're behind: JJ,77,KTs+,KTo+


Why does his bet necessarily mean that he has a second-best hand that he's willing to call a raise with?

One should only raise if they're confident they're ahead of the Villain's calling range. Hero's reward for his fearlessness was folding a hand that's going to improve 14% of the time on the river.

au4all, we are ahead of KT and KQ. We have AK. We are behind KJ.

(I don't like the raise, either.)

We ARE confident that we're ahead of V's turn calling range, but not his turn 3betting range, which is why I consider a fold to a turn 3bet in a later post. If he calls our turn raise and then checks river to us, we're pretty much always ahead and hoping for a crying call from KQ/KT type hands.

Also, I don't understand how you say KTs+, KTo+ is ahead of AK here? Only KJs/KJo from that range beats us.

The entire range beats us. We have less than 46% equity against: JJ,77,KTs+,KTo+

To bet, we should want to have more than 50% equity against the calling range.

If we bet 100 dollars with less than 46% equity, on average we lose more than 8 dollars.

If we bet 100 dollars and this is his calling range JJ,77,KTs+ we lose 42 dollars.

Au4all, I knew what you meant, but I also see the confusion:

Probably better if you format it like this:

We could r/f to $60-65 to keep worse in if we feel V is that tight. I think you're assigning way tight of a range to V in the first place. There can be more hands than that in his range.

I'm not a math guy, but calling a 1/3 PSB here feels slightly too MUBSy. Unless V is a mega-nit, you can't be so afraid just because he donked the turn for a LOL1/3PSB.

You HAVE TO target weaker Kx that are trying to pot-control here.

I like the raise/fold to $65 line. It's small enough that typical LLSNL villains will never fold Kx, and most of them won't spaz shove KQ in response--although that is a possibility.

You think a competent player is calling weak Kx offsuit hands from the blinds?

Calling, getting good odds, with a hand too weak to value-bet isn't fearful.

It is a very slight possibility, as they would be afraid of AK fairly often, which is why they are donking so small to pot control in the first place.

It's also possible that they would slowplay and flat our turn raise with a boat and level us into spewing more $$ on the river. But again, that's a slight possibility.

We should focus on extracting max value in this spot in my opinion instead of worrying about boats, and we begin that by raising the turn and betting small-ish on the river again.

Pot will be 127$ after call. What's wrong with bet/raising all rivers?

I don't think OP indicated anywhere that V was a competent player.

Weak Kx offsuit hands: no, weak Kx suited hands: possible, KTs/KQs/KQo: definitely possible.

How is AK on KK7J a hand "too weak to value-bet" lol?

With five way action in front of him? Yes, IME the vast majority of players in the pool are saying lolpotodds and calling a lot wider than Kx.

When I read this I felt even worse about my raise on the turn. However, when he has KJ [which he did] I only have 5 outs, ~9% chance to improve.

Of course, I couldn't be sure he has KJ & not JJ or 77. So, raising V's bet on the turn was extremely costly. However, since he had KJ, I only had 3 outs to win [~6%] & 2 to tie [~4%].

Since I doubted V knew my play, I felt he'd call with any Broadway pair on the flop, since most common players at 1/2 won't lead out with their flopped trips.

I made an extremely costly mistake jumping on the conclusion that he was blocking with $25 for a flush draw.

So you called his shove after raising?