From the Hot 4.40. Any thoughts on the line?

PokerStars - 20/40 Ante 5 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 125 BB
BTN: 131.17 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 10)
SB: 118.2 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
BB: 220.8 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
UTG: 122.9 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
UTG+1: 217.95 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
MP: 126.32 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
MP+1: 56.87 BB (VPIP: 57.14, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 7)
Hero (MP+2): 130.87 BB

9 players post ante of 0 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has K K

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, BTN raises to 7 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 4 BB

Flop: (16.62 BB, 2 players) Q J Q
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: (16.62 BB, 2 players) T
Hero checks, BTN bets 8 BB, Hero calls 8 BB

River: (32.62 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero checks, BTN checks

How come you didn't 4b? OOP and super deep stacked. Both of your ranges are still fairly wide from an MP2 open and BTN 3b. Shouldn't be any reason to avoid bloating a pot with KK even OOP and it helps you narrow V's range a bit if he calls to make postflop playability a bit easier.

As played, looks pretty standard. Not much else you can do when OOP with an ugly board. You might be inclined to b/f the river but that's not a very good line when you x/c the turn. Instead, you x/c the river and catch a lot of possible bluffs.

Yeah I’m almost never calling the 3bet. I also think I like a river lead hoping to get a crying call from AK.

Well you basically answered your own question. I'm 130bb effective so I don't want to fold out the bottom of his range and build a massive pot against his calling range.

You shouldn’t be worried about his calling range until exactly this flop happens. Unless his calling range is limited to only AA, which obviously isn’t the case, then we should be putting in a 4b for value this deep. If he folds, so be it, the problem with flatting here is that you weren’t in EP so his 3b range can be pretty wide here. Your 4b, in addition to value, has the additional benefit of increasing your postflop playability. Postflop is a better time to get fancy play since you can be wary of flops like QQJ or QJ9 or QT9 and QJT which have all of the sets and straights and 2p hands likely to flat a 4b in position.

This is a tough spot. I like 4b PF as HawkesDave suggested. If we just call PF I like a lead out bet on the flop and here’s why:

On the flop we’re beaten by AA[6], JJ[3] and Qx. Qx hands he is likely to 3b PF could be: QA[8], QK[4], QQ[1], QJ[6], Q10[8], Q9s[2], Q8s[2].

Let’s assume he only 3bs PF half his Q10, Q9s and Q8s and always 3b the other combos. That means we are behind 34 hands with only 2 available outs on the turn.

Hands behind us which could 3b PF could be: AK[8], AJ[12], KJ[6], 1010[6], 99[6], KK[1], A10s[4], K10s[2], K9s[2], J10s[3]

Let’s assume he 3bs PF with half his 99, K10s and K9s. That means we’re ahead of 44 hands and splitting the pot with one.

If another heart comes on the turn some of those suited hands are going to make a flush. For that reason, I like a lead out on the flop. Anywhere between 50 & 75% of the pot.

Running the above through Flopzilla shows our hand has 54.5% equity on the flop, 51.8% on the turn and 48.6% on the river. A tie is around 1.8% by the river. Of course, these numbers are going to vary a lot depending on how much your idea of his range is different to mine.

We don’t want those flushes catching us so a lead out on the river could end it here or we force them to call the wrong odds. If they call it helps us further narrow their range and a re-raise would cause me to fold.

I do like the way you played it to though. It leads to minimal losses (if any) and this is never a hand where we’re winning big. If I checked flop I think I’d also call turn. However, if he then bets river we really have no clue what he has, we’ve never tested him.

Why would you not want to build a massive pot vs a weaker range when you have kings? I think you may be misapplying the logic a bit. You should want to build a pot here and negate your positional disadvantage which is what happens when you lower the SPR.

I like the flop check and turn action. But I'd bet the river. That literally counterfeits everything he could possibly have for value to bet except AA since AQo is a mandatory bet on this flop given how wet it is.

I'm not putting many of those hands in the 3b range of an unknown villain 130bb deep. Most players will just call with hands like QT/Q9s/Q8s/KTs/K9s/JTs.

Generally speaking large pots with deep stacks aren't good for big pair hands. Huge RIO.

As for a river bet, I think it would be super, super thin value. He's either ahead of me with almost his entire value 3b range: AA/JJ/TT and AQ/KQ (however unlikely). Anything not in that range he folds to a river bet. So I don't see a bet getting value from anything but will get called by all better hands.

Big hands are fantastic for large pots as they have the most equity. It's true that your goal shouldn't be to stack of with mediocre holdings if your very deep but that's why we want to reduce SPR so that we can stack off with a hand such as KK on more runouts. Also flatting here is just not great as someone just might punt it off with something silly and we want to start building a pot.

As played I would lead river for value

you can be called by hands like JJ,AJ,AT,TT,further on river when the other Q comes wich can lead him to think that you don't have any value or a weak value.OOP is hard to do this,thats why you should 4bet pré,to be the agressor on this board and extract more valium as possible because is very difficult to him bet this turn without a Q and fold hands like i said above.
even so,as played i think you have to bet river because the only 3bet hand how his will call is QK (2),QA (4),and others wich you're beating JJ (3),AJ(12),AT(12),TT(3).maybe 2/5 pot to represent a bluff and be called.

Ok, first of all, there’s no such thing as RIO preflop with KK. That doesn’t exist until a person is blasting off postflop on boards that smash their opponent’s range. Unless the dealer tipped you off on what cards are coming postflop, the word RIO doesn’t exist in this situation. When you’re super deep you should be piling in every chip you reasonably can preflop because you have 70%+ equity against his 3b range over an MP range. If you really feel afraid to bloat a pot preflop with KK because you’re scared to play a bad board afterwards that’s MORE reason to pile it in preflop, not LESS.

Secondly, you’re listing his value hands and including hands you’re ahead of. You’re not behind JJ or TT. You’re only losing to AQ, a blocked KQ, a rare occasional QJs and AA. That’s it. I don’t disagree with you as far as him folding much of his range if you bet the river after you check/called the turn. I don’t agree with people saying to bet here because I think V is more likely to turn AK or his small pairs into a bluff at this point than he is to check them back. I think you gain more value by giving him a chance to bluff than you do by betting into him after you just underrepped your hand the two previous streets. With that said, he’s calling all of his Jx and Tx hands on the river and you’re ahead of them all.

But seriously, your view of why not to raise KK pre is way off. RIO is irrelevant to that part of the discussion. Not wanting him to fold to a 4b is an argument but RIO absolutely is not.

I mean we could argue that we don't want to have a 4b range but as Dave says below it's not RIO unless you're gonna stack off on a horrible runout for your hand which I assume we're not gonna bet every street for value with KK as a single pair.

Yeah I agree. We beat JJ/TT here since they got counterfeited as the main reason to bet and we block KQ and AQo is possible but yeah there's not many combos anymore.


Darth if we really feel he's never calling except better then you should be bluffing more hands. But the problem is if someone said you should bluff here then people go oh but he has so much value.

Okay, okay, maybe I misapplied the concept of RIO in this spot. But the point is still valid that building big pots with top pair/overpair hands when >100bb deep is high risk. But that really wasn't the main reason why I didn't 4b, the main reason is because 4-bets look super strong and I didn't want to fold out most of his range (and run into a 5b from AA the rare time he has it).

Of all the streets I didn't expect the preflop action to get the most attention...

Of course a 4b looks super strong but that isn't a valid reason to flat 3b out of position. You can just throw in some combos of A2s-A5s to balance your 4b range so you can 4b/fold some combos of hands.

When you flat the 3b the flop is a trivial check. The turn seems fine to c/c since you block a lot of draws minus hearts which doesn't have that many combos to check back. River is interesting I guess because we should bet and we may get raised on I guess.

I'm 4 betting pre.
why the heck are you calling turn? if he bets river too are you also calling?

as you played it you checked river. why not just fold turn? unless your going to check/call river too. if the Q didnt come would you have bet river?

4 bet, then 6 bet, then 8 bet until it's all in the middle. AA and Qx are the only hands beating you on the river.

Micro villains who 3bet 3 out of 11 and 100% of vpip'ed hands generally cannot bear to 3bet/fold whatever merged nonsense they were getting goofy with. What incentive are you giving him to not mindlessly 3bet ATs?

Make him pay to continue holding the 2nd nuts, while it remains the 2nd nuts.

Uhhhhhhhhh well if we flat KANGS to 3b then he would not wanna 3b ATs ever lol.

After I checked both flop and turn, he gets to the turn with his entire range so he could be betting the turn with hands like AJ or 99. But to be honest I felt a little lost in the hand.