Background: playing $600 buy in/no re-entry. Blinds 500/1000, 100 ante
Avg stack 81k. Me 125k. Opponent 70k.

Ok, on to the hand.

AA on the button, raise to 3k, opponent in the bb defends.

Flop is 877. bb checks, i bet 4500, bb calls.

Turn is the 5. Bb checks, i bet 10500. Bb raises to 24000, i call.

River is the 3. Bb goes all in for 38,000 (roughly half my remaining stack).

Do you call?

Full board is 87753. His most likely holding in my mind was some combo with a 7 or possibly something like 96. I didnt put him on a flush draw, bc i think he would have raised the flop. Him flatting my flop bet with a 7 makes sense, bc if he put me on big cards, he wants me in there and theres no benefit to raising.

I tanked for a couple min and folded face up. Opponent didnt show (another reason i think i made the right decision).

AA is a bluffcatcher here... If you think he overbluffs call if you think he underbluffs (which I imagine given runout and action) then fold.

Check back the flop and go from there. We never get x3 streets here but we can get x2 streets.

We don't block any fd/sd so sb will x/r flop some % of the time with draws along with all his 7x value hands which put us in dicey spots

+1

Also gives opponent chance to bluff us

I would not check flop unless I had the Ah. I like your line, except for calling the turn raise.

+1 to x back flop

Our flop betting range here should be mostly boats, 7x, a mix of 8x, a mix of 99-QQ, a mix of FDs, SDs and combo draws, and a mix of air

AA and KK in particular are 100% pure checks. Unless you think your opponent is the type to spaz with 8x or a FD (he's really not supposed to be x/r these OTF).

I think betting here without the Ah is fine, with the idea that we can often check our strongest overpairs with a heart in them. AA seems too high in our range to always check and w/o a heart vulnerable enough that we should want to bet for protection.

Flop sizing is too large, make it like 2600 or something.

For me to check back AA I'd want to be confident vill will open up turn with more hands than he'd continue with v a bet. These players are also more likely to x/r a balanced range so we save ourselves headache as a bonus.

That's common online so AA should make a good default x but live? Not into handing out freerolls for no reason and it's not like AA is some amazing bluffcatcher with redraws. No reason to nurse this hand to showdown bar 'I has aces' entitlement.

As for river, I fold. We have flushes, we have trips, we have boats.

check back flop is OK, but I'd prefer to bet something around 1/3 pot and go from there. we want to keep worse hands in and you're pushing them away.

as played, check back turn. it looks like you've stabbed at the pot on the flop and are now giving up. important to have some hands that can call a 1/2 pot lead from V otr (and prob bet for value if checked to because V will be forced to bet value hands otr).

as everyone has said this is a two street hand, not 3.

What do you guys think about checking back turn instead of flop?

I have no issue with checking back turn.

It makes it look like we have something like AK/AQ and may induce a river bluff.

Also there should be a bunch of 7x in BB's range so its a way to pot control since its hard to let go of AA.

I'm virtually always betting the flop here unless its a super aggro villain (who I want to bet turn and river thinking he can get us to fold) or my image is I only bet when I have it. But I would bet closer to 3500.

Pretty much this

I'm aware this is a live event but thought you guys should know:

Protecting ourselves from getting valueowned by 7x and boats, and also protecting our checking range OTF (which should be vast bc of how little our wide BTN open range actually improves on this texture--prob ~50% checking freq) is way more important than any other consideration, at least that's the GTO explanation.

There's a reason trips lose to flushes--we're facing 7x more often than we're facing a FD or SD or combo draw which we can charge with a cbet. I'd estimate at least 50 combos of 7x and boats--though if V defends super wide, it's gonna be many more than 50 combos of 7x--and by my counting if V never 3bets and therefore has all heart combos then he can't have more than 43 combos of XhYh. And yeah we have 8x and AJo and some random stuff we're targeting for value as well, but the trips and FDs are the operative combos IMO--the ones we really care about because they're wither crushing us our have some semblance of equity vs us i.e. worth protecting against.

Almost everything else he's floating us with is drawing close to dead and as other point out not giving us 3 streets anyway such that we can afford to delay aggression vs that part of his range--only the trips and FDs matter when deciding whether or not to cbet, at least in this particular spot.

Hence why we should ALWAYS be checking back AA and KK in particular at GTO equilibrium. I ran this spot when it was posted and confirmed as much--these hands are 100% pure checks. There's no bones about it.

So do know that if you're betting this flop, you're being highly exploitative which is fine if you have the justification, such as V will x/r super light and/or stack off light flop vs 3bets and/or float us light OOP

You ran this spot and it's 100% check back? You got screen shots? Only Sith deal in absolutes.

If you can definitively tell me how to post pics I'll gladly do that, PP.

lol, okay. Upload to imgur. Click "Insert image" and then add the link to the screen shot. Click "Preview post" to make sure the image shows up. Then post.

OK, I think I (partially) mispoke for which I (partially) apologize. OOPS

When I ran this the 1st time, I don't remember the tree size being 11gigs which it was the 2nd time I ran it (I didn't save the 1st run). I think I forgot to add a 25% sizing to the strategy profile the 1st time, hence the 100% check back result I initially claimed (as you'll see, AA never, ever prefers b55% or b100% compared to check--almost none of our range does, it might as well be a binary strategy profile b25% or check).

I also concede both V's and H's ranges may be off, H's 3x is throwing me for a loop assigning a range bc I personally wouldn't open any hand here for 3x. I tried my best. If you or anyone else has a better suggestion, I'm all ears and would be happy to rerun (OP that's your cue).

Also, I used much wider ranges for my 1st run but I'm just now just not confident they're as wide as I initially modeled the spot with. If anything, I think my ranges are still too wide (possibly much too wide).

Parameters (Don't worry I ran this down to .25% exploitability):


V's Range:


H's Range:


25% pot is a viable cbet sizing. BUT:

-As you can see, we're checking at a MUCH higher freq vs b25% (~3x checking freq w/ AA vs b25% freq) and KK too is more often a check than a bet

-AdAh (blocking FD and BDFD) is essentially a pure check

-Small sizing is the only viable sizing--if we're betting, never more than 25%, or maybe 33%. So OP in any case made a mistake OTF

-I was wrong on my predicted cbet freq--it's ~65%, not 50% like I guessed. Range advantage (which hero has to the tune of 1.6:1 in this spot which is pretty big) is a powerful thing.

-I still maintain that with AA in particular check, if we had to purify our strategy down to just one option, is better for our global strategy, and precisely for the reasons I mentioned. It's a lot easier to make ourselves exploitable if we're overbetting with AA compared to overchecking.

If you really think V is spewing vs cbets, by all means go b25%. I'm still gonna be checking this flop almost always, and you really can't go wrong with checking--betting on the other hand has some pretty clear downsides that don't really exist in the checking nodes.

I just ran my ranges on Flopzilla. I would check AA here for balance as well against a balanced opponent. My button range has alot of potential value hands if I just put things where they look like they are supposed to belong. And if I bet them all, my checking range is really really weak.

So by checking the bigger overpairs, it moves some hands from my value range to protect my checking range. Which also brings the bluffing range into more of a balance with my value range on the flop.

GTO solvers have a tendency (as you can see from the above) to bet the pairs that need protection from over cards as well, like A8/K8/99 type hands and will move the bigger pairs to the checking range AA/KK/QQ since they need less protection from overcards.

By moving AA into my checking range, my checking range is now balanced and can continue often enough to a turn bet, where without the strong pairs in my checking range, I would be overfolding by the river in my checking range.

However, an exploitative line to take on this flop is to bet everything. If you run the BBs range in Flopzilla, you will find he is going to have a hard time continuing with 70% of his range.

Even with a tight calling range, if he is only continuing with pairs and 8+ outs draws, he is only continuing 46% of the time.

To meet the 70% continuation standards he will have to add in all BDFDs, gutshots, and A high hands into his continuation range. Many villains don't know this and won't defend wide enough here.

So it is possible if you tweak the Piosolver to a BB call range that is too tight it will bet everything.

jj can you share your ranges?

I did not save it, so I have to try to recreate the range.

Code: Red - value hands; Blue - draws; Green - marginal made hands; Black - junk hands.

The hands with s/h in the corners are being semi-bluffed as draws with hearts and diamonds. The aces from that category not bluffed are moved into the marginal range to check, the other non-ace hands are moved into the junk range.

AA/KK were in my value range, but then my checking range was not in balance. (You need at least 2:1 marginal:junk as your plan is to call at least 1 bet with the marginal range and check/surrender with the junk range. So you want to be able to continue about 70% of the time if you check)

So to either even things out, I either needed to bluff some junk or move AA/KK to marginal. And by moving AA/KK to marginal, the additional value protects my seemingly weak marginal range.



Now comparing my result with Piosolver ~~> I think where I deviate the most from the Piosolver range is A9s I am betting as a draw with backdoor straight and 2 overs, where Piosolver has that as mostly check. I almost put KQo into my checking range as Piosolver did, but I was on the border with that. Piosolver also bets more often with 66-22 and the small suited aces than I do. But I also needed to account for more "junk" as my open range was wider than the piosolver range.

Finally, as I alluded to in a previous post, this is what I would consider as best for my range against a good, solid opponent. But against weak opponents, who will probably not continue often enough to your c-bet, the exploitation line is to bet everything. The average weak opponent will probably only continue about 46% of the time on this flop. To a 1/2 pot bet, they must continue 66% of the time for your 0% equity bluffs to not be profitable.

I 100% agree with this without any significant reads our hand plays well as flop check considering we struggle to get three on various runouts. Our hand doesn’t need much protection and we also allow villian to either pick up equity or turn a pair. Also interesting to note on some runouts after checking you will face turn probe and river bet and can raise sometimes. As played I’d definitely let the Aces go considering people struggle to find bluffs with this line and a lot of things got there that beat Aces by the river.

If there's ever a board to check AA this is it..

Pretty interesting deviation from the hand in its totallity to the appreciation of checking back AA on such flops. Cheers fellows