Played this one last night and thought it was an interesting hand given stacks, the board, and my history with this reg.

Hero (~$1050) is UTG+2: Mid-20's reg at RR known as solid winner, just changed to this table. Two other regs at the table, one of which is V in this hand. Viewed as LAG by most of the regs, but I play more of a TAG-ish game and most of my raises are in mid-late position.

V (~$600) is UTG: Older guy, probably about 70, plays pretty tight and pretty much only raises PF with big pairs and AK, and probably only big pairs from UTG while limp/calling everything else. Tends to overbet big overpairs like most old guys do when flop comes low.

V in this hand either really doesn't like me or is scared of me, which IMO plays into the psychology of this hand at least a little bit as he may think I'm trying to push him around with the deep stacks. Every time I've ever played with him, he seat changes to sit on my immediate left or as close to my left as possible. When I sat down, the 1 seat was open and V is sitting in the 10 seat. He immediately changes to the 1 seat so that I have to sit in the 10 seat....so just to piss him off, I take the seat change button and as luck would have it, the guy in seat 3 leaves before I play a hand, so I take the 3 seat so I can sit on his left instead of the other way around, and walk right into the beautiful AA my first hand at the table.

Note - nobody else at the table has more than ~$250.

Hero is dealt AA

V raises to $15 from UTG, UTG+1 folds. Hero?

Seems like a no-brainer 3bet spot to me...

- V seems to have a big hand that he'll be willing to put a bunch of money in with pre-flop, so I think we should give him a chance to do that with his likely big pair or AK. Don't want to give him a chance to get away too cheap if AK whiffs or an overcard hits the board. Especially with a somewhat spewy image and history with the villain, I don't think we need to be too concerned about scaring the villain off with the 3 bet, either.

- If we just call, we risk getting a bunch of callers behind us. Unless some of the players behind us are really squeeze happy, I'd much rather try to get this pot heads up and get heaps of money from the villain than to have the flop go multiway.

Definitely 3-betting pre, sizing is more of the question.

$50 feels right.

Do you think this guy would spaz if you did something nuts like $100 straight?

I think he probably folds everything less than KK and maybe QQ if I raise to $100.

Fair enough. Sometimes these guys that make the game personal will make really weird plays against their 'enemy'.

In that case I default back to a ~$50 bet. Something that'll keep AK/AQ and JJ- hands in.

$45.

I would actually make the raise pretty small here. Maybe $45 or even $40.

Here's my reasoning: firstly, because no one else has more than $250ish, even if we make it as small as $40, they cannot profitably call behind with any hand (and if we make it that small and we run into a cooler situation like someone has KK/QQ/AK behind us, they might reopen the betting which would be great).

Second, because the raiser has $600, and you claim he would fold if we put in a big, hand-defining raise, I want to make a raise that's small enough that he might a) call with some hands that are really bad shape, like AK, and b) think an overpair is good on the flop if it comes low cards (which against this villain I'd probably try to stack him on). I also want to make the raise small because I might see some situations where I'd consider folding if it looks like he hit his set, and if I'm going to fold I'd rather the pot be smaller when I did it.

3b to $40-$50 is fine, as long as we aren't auto-stacking-off on KQ8 flops for 300bb. If there is a sizing that induces a 4-bet, go with that.

I agree with CMV..raise smallish so in case one other player calls your 3bet, villain will, most of the time, 4bet here to lol "thin the field ". This allows more money to get into the pot and we look FOS when we 5bet

3bet big based on seat changing history. rep a bluff as hard as possible without actually scaring him off.

If UTG villain flats our 3bet, I AM auto stacking off on a KQ8 board and expect to get called and see AK most if not always

raise to 40, hoping some others will call and he repops it with his kk

I'm 3betting to 50-55 pre. His range is face up to something like 1010+ and ak+. I want to raise the most that will guarantee a call from his entire range and 50ish is a good estimate. The whole idea of 3betting small to minimize loss when he flops a set is faulty. He will only flop a set 12% of the time and since his range is face up AND he plays vey straightforward, op should be able to keep his losses to a minimum when villain does flop set (or even turn or river a set). Basically any 10 or face card are the only cards that can give villain a set and if villain starts goes crazy post flop op should adjust and be prepared to eiher play pot control or even fold his hand if villain would never go crazy unless he had aa beat his deep

per OP,

Assigning villain a range for stacking off for 300bb on a KQ8r board based on the OP's reads, he will usually have us crushed. I think it's reasonable to only include AKs since OP stated he will usually not raise this UTG.:

Board: KQ8
*******Equity*****Win*****Tie
MP2****74.20%**74.04%***0.15%*{ KK-QQ, AKs }
MP3****25.80%**25.65%***0.15%*{ AA }

So if you think offering villain 15:1 stack odds to set-mine against us, then stacking off for 300bb when his range has us crushed is OK, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

This is why I suggested a sizing that will induce a 4-bet. With the 4-bet, he is not getting correct odds to set-mine if we flat. As a side benefit, it will be easier to get stacks in on a 479r board with the lower SPR.

The assumption you are making is that this villain will flat our 3bet with KK and QQ...which is just not correct
He will 4bet KK and QQ a great majority of the time because of the dynamic and hero's perceived image by villain...he will flat AK and AQ etc which is why I would auto stack off in a 3bet pot in that flop

I think raising to 40ish is too small with these stack sizes. Anyone will call another $25 to try to hit their set.

Read the OP
This guy is not raise folding UTG...ever!
Forget about the notion to keep his range intact, etc.,,it's Just not applicable here
We want villain to make a mistake ...the big mistake I see potentially happening is if a random calls our 3bet brcause it he feels the price is right and villain decides to iso 4bet

Forget about giving others the right price to set mine.,.leave that to the villain to come over the top with a big 4bet
You are sizing your 3bet to keep your range to things other than AA
UTG has a real hand which he should 4bet with alot..there are more combos of QQ and KK than AK
Just play post flop poker

OP, can we get clarification on this? What do you assign for a range for V flatting the 3bet? Does he auto 4bet [QQ,KK] or does he flat and wait for a board with no A? Does he even raise AQ UTG?

He probably 4bets KK+ only and flats anything else (TT+, AK+). AQ is probably not in his UTG raising range.

Agree with this 100%. We have position on V and want to be able to 3bet him in the future with a range of hands, not just KK+. As I stated previously, a 4bet is the best possible outcome here. Whatever sizing will induce that is best.

This is dependent on a lot of information we don't necessarily have, particularly wrt the players left to act, and how often they will cold-call the ep 3bet. In a perfect world, we get multiple cold-callers, v 4-bet squeezes and ties himself emotionally to the pot. Is this likely? Only OP can say for sure.

3b to $70/flat 4b

he's not going away with most of his range because of the immediate seat change. he'll be able to put his on a bluff a lot here and 4b his big hands and flat with the bottom his range.

Normally I would make a standard 3x-ish raise to $45-55, but decided to go $60 since V doesn't like me and will probably call anyway.

Moving on....

Hero is dealt AA

V raises to $15 from UTG, UTG+1 folds. Hero re-raises to $60, folds around to V, who insta-calls. I think we can discount KK/AA as possibilities since he didn't even seem to think about 4betting.

Flop ($123): 789

V leads for $100. Hero?

raise to $300

77-99 is folding sometimes pre

likely hands are TT-QQ/AK, maybe KK sometimes

if he has a heart in his hand, he's probably not folding and i think he only leads out with an overpair + draw