I thought this was a somewhat interesting spot.

1/2, Saturday evening. 8 handed.

Hero saw black KK at UTG. Hero standard opened to 8.

Folded to the Button who then raised to 15. This is a strange size, either he thought my open was a straddle, or he is a newbie player who was misled by another newbie player a couple of minutes ago who 3-bet from 8 to 12, and was told the binding 3-bet sizing was 14.

Anyways. Hero 4-bet from 15 to 55.

V was the effective stack with 400. He thought for a while and 5-bet to 135. Yep another strange size.

It's a weird one because normally at 200bb depth you do not wait till 6th bet to jam, and I know jamming now is the standard play / no-brainer.

I just wondered if anyone would just flat at this super tight configuration?. After all, who on earth is going to heads-up 5 bet with a hand worse than KK? If so, what's our strategy on the flop OP with 1 SPR? Check-fold any ace high flop? What about a queen high flop?

I didn't want to fold PF, but if anyone thought this could be a tight fold, I am opening to hearing your thoughts.

Some player background if anyone wants to read:

Villain is Asian between 20-30 years old. He doesn't look like a student. In the last 20 minutes his VPIP was low. I don't remember playing with him before.

Hero moved to this table 20 minutes ago. Hero won a medium-big pot when opening with A7cc to 15 from SB after 3 limpers, and check-called on an ace high flop, check-called an overpot turn bet with top pair & nut FD, and won the pot with nut flush (river went check-check). Not sure hero noticed any of these, but it went to showdown so the info was available to anyone.

Do people really 5bet like this without KK+? You could fold to the 5bet - you're in terrible shape against a range of KK+, you're about flipping against KK+,AK, and you're only 57% if he does this with QQ+,AK.

I see your point. I haven't gone through the calculation for his possible hands. Have you included AKo but no QQ in his range?

yes "you're about flipping against KK+,AK"

gonna be honest, there is almost nothing that could be much less valuable with your brainpower than finding spots where you should fold KK pre.

Like im not saying they dont exist. We cant read his mind, so we gotta like create a weighted range against population of players who have done this. who knows, maybe its a small error to ship it vs a 20s asian man with a low vpip and strange sizing, but im not gonna lose sleep at night worry about jamming too wide with KK. Even if its an error, i guarantee you made at least 3 larger errors within that hour of playing.

I like the statistics. Thanks.

In the past I just remembered the conclusions what are our least strong hands to jam with at what stack depth. The hand vs range statistics are things I should keep in mind.

This.

After years of playing I’ve realized that for all the thought we put into them, in the end, our Hero Folds and Hero Calls almost certainly balance out in the end to 0 EV. If we removed them completely we’d be no worse off.

I'm curious if V may have shown any sign that his initial raise size was some sort of mis-click, unintentional, and if there's any chance he might think hero is just trying to push him around. Might the previous hands hero played have made V think hero is just trying to muscle the weaker players out of the pot with raw aggression?

I can't remember ever seeing a 4B at 1/2 or 1/3 with effective stacks of $300-$500 that wasn't just an all-in jam, but usually that's because the opens are like 5bb, and the 3B's are at least 3x. The 4B jam from rec-fish at 1/2 or 1/3 isn't just AA/KK/AK nearly as often as people seem to think, and can be all sorts of odd stuff, like 99 or A5o, in my observation. But a non-all-in 5B at 1/2 is uncharted territory for me.

Part of me does think this is heavily weighted towards AA, but part of me hates / refuses to fold KK pre, and wants to believe this is some random nonsense or shenanigans V is doing because he's leveled himself into thinking hero is jumping on his mis-click as an excuse for larceny, or just trying to muscle him out of the pot.

Once he gets to 135, I think our decision is just jam or fold, not call and possibly fold post-flop. I don't mind jamming. If he has AA, then he has it. If not, and he somehow wins, so be it.

If he does have AA, I would make a mental note that V is capable of manipulating the pot size and inducing aggression with under-sized bets.

It sounds like you're putting in a lot of thought into something that is pretty clear cut, almost like the beginning of a bad beat story or trying to control variance in some way.

Sometimes you get dealt Kings into Aces and that's ok. A decent portion of the time he's going to have some hand that he shouldn't have, but it's live low-stakes and people do weird button-clicky ****. Finding a call or fold in this spot would open you up to making so many more mistakes than the one you're worried you may be making now.

Get it in.