2/3 NL, Villain is new to the table but is a 30-35ish guy who looks like he knows what he’s doing. I’d give him a TAG or Good LAG, although with only 20 minutes of history. I think he’s waiting to go to 2/5. V2 is an old lady, very loose. We all have about $300ish.

Folded to me on BT with A K, raise to $12. V1 in SB raises to 35. V2 in BB calls. I call.

Flop (110) K Q 9. V1 bets 45. V2 calls. Hero calls. (I thought about a raise but I was trying to keep the pot small in case I’m way behind. Also thinking a raise big enough to get a fold will probably only fold the hands I’m crushing and will commit me to lose my stack against the hands crushing me. In retrospect, maybe a minraise to get some value and also slow down anyone making a move?)

Turn (245) 7. V1 bets 115. V2 calls. Hero ???

(pot is now 475 and hero has about 230 left.)


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Fold or shove turn. The board is ugly enough that when there is a bet and call on the turn I fold unless I really think V1 is bluffing and V2 is drawing. It's annoying when somebody shows AQ and the other whiffs a flush draw but that is the best situation. On this board it's likely you are facing some combinations of AK/draws/hands that beat AK. That isn't a profitable situation for you.

Despite having TPTK this is a pretty bad flop for your hand in a 3-bet pot.

You are crushed by AA,KK,QQ,99,TJs,KQ. A♦️K is freerolling a back door draw and FDs and combo draws all have decent equity.

Although people typically c-bet after 3-betting, V1 still may be reluctant to on this board vs 2 opponents with hands you beat (AQ,JJ).

Especially after V2 calls I think it’s best to just fold to the flop lead as tempting as the sizing is to call.

Seems nitty I know, but we hate so many turns and may be crushed already. The fact that a brick hit the turn and you’re still unhappy speaks to this. Don’t see it ending well.

4!/GII pre.

I think raising flop to iso against V2 is an interesting option. Even the part of V1's cbetting range that's behind should have good equity against us, so we love for him to fold and to take the driver seat with just one bet left against the fish.

As played, fold turn. Protected pot so he's not ****in' for multiple streets with nothing on this board, and you're not doing well against his value/strong bluff range.

On 4-betting pre, how big of a bet?

I think I would have with AA-QQ, but with AK, I didn't want to start building a huge 3-way pot with AK, which is going to whiff the flop a lot.

On another board, someone suggested pushing the flop. I don't think that's a great idea because it allows all worse hands to fold and only hands crushing us will call. But I'm open to discussion on it.

...which is why we need preflop fold equity. Any 4bet size will basically commit us, so I really don't mind just shoving over the 3bet, which puts him in a horrible spot with JJ/QQ/AK.

Shoving flop is godawful and minraising isn't much better. As fatmanonguitar mentioned this is a pretty bad board for us. Call and hope for a cheap showdown or perhaps another K.

Folding turn would definitely be an overfold, but AK might be near the bottom of our flop calling range and other than AQ we really don't beat any realistic hands. Most randoms simply don't have enough of a pure bluff range in 3bet pots.

The more I think about it, the more I think a 4-bet shove preflop (about $300) is probably the best play. It's definitely +ev, because I expect only AA-KK to call, which is only 6 combinations since I have one of each. I'm only crushed against AA, which is only 3 combinations. And maybe one of them decides they want to gamble and calls with QQ-TT, all of which are OK with me because of the 3rd player's dead money.

About 96 percent of the time I'll just pick up $82 ($77 after the rake) and move on to the next hand.

Whenever I see these idiots raise 20X in MP because they have JJ and are afraid to play it, I think they're just wasting a good hand. This seems different, to me, because there's already a decent pot out there.

In theory, shove is the only acceptable size. Raising a smaller size would be an exploitative play depending on how bad BB is. In general, AK isn't really a great hand for a go-and-go play, but if she sucks bad enough you can induce them to call off almost half their stack and play like total ass on the flop. Can't go wrong with a shove, though.

While I'm the one to bring it up ITT, I don't like it. The flop spot is pretty good for us: our position is so particularly awesome in this hand (we have position on a TAG who has worst absolute and relative position and on a terrible BB) and the bet is small enough on such a dynamic board that we should be heavily inclined to just flat. We get a lot of information out of the turn card (it's pretty clear what cards are bad for us: 9-Q and diamonds) and both players' actions.

I also hadn't full thought through that there's less than a PSR left behind, so we don't force the turn situation I was advocating for in the first place.

If we were to raise here, it wouldn't be a traditional bluff or value bet, at least against SB. The idea would be to get him to forfeit his equity (KJ, JJ, T9s, etc all have 27-32% equity against us) and isolate us against the BB whom we'd be more obviously be value betting.

Just FYI, there's no such thing as overfolding in a protected pot. Theory works entirely differently in MW pots (I'm not even sure what GTO means since there is no strategy to where it can't be exploited by some combined strategy of the 2+ opponents), and when there's someone else in the pot who underfolds, the amount that you fold does little to expand the other opponent's exploitative options.

I don't disagree with any of your ultimate points, but just thought I'd clarify that theory point.