Playing a middlestake tournament online. (Ante ~ 115BB effective)
I want to know if this hand is a check fold on the flop.
UTG limps. Villain in Hijack makes it 2.5BB. Folds to Hero in BB, Hero looks at AsKc. Hero 3bets to 10BB. UTG folds, Villain call.

Flop: JdQd5x
Does hero abandon check/fold or cBET for ~60/75%.
Does hero cbet 100% of his range? If so, sizing it down to 30/40%? What is the most profitable approach.

Please include some detail I want to hear your thinking on this. I think this is the perfect example of a flop you need to abandon with AKo, if we are ever abandoning on this flop.

Thanks,

3bet bigger this deep. You're 3bet size needs to have fold equity. UTG limping isn't too significant, but HJ should have a tighter range to isolate the limper than he would rfi from this position.

I don't know what your 3bet range looks like to begin with, so your questions about sizings and whether to bet your entire range are hard to answer.

Before you do answer both of those questions, I'd say based on how I'd approach this spot with my 3bet range here, I would have some checks. QQ is a nice hand to trap blocking a lot of the hands that are willing to call three streets. AK, I'd typically use a mixed strategy of betting and checking for a few reasons. However, if you're only 3betting AK/TT+ in this spot, you should probably bet most of them because otherwise you won't have many bluffs.

Sorry my 3bet is bigger than that and I did 3bet bigger here, 5.2X to be exact, my hand history is not right.

Lets say we have 78dd, 9/10xx, to balance our value, would AKo be a perfect candidate to check/fold flop?

5.2x a 2.5 open seems a reasonable size to choose.

I think these are pretty clear calls pre flop. That is to say, I think they aren't hands that should be 3betting. You're very deep and those kind of hands don't mind the limper coming along. A lot of your value will come from keeping him in the pot.

In any range construction spot, you want to approach it by working out what your value range is and will these be betting 3 streets. Once you identify how many combos you have, you can then select a reasonable amount of bluffs to work in.

For example, I imagine my value range in this spot is going to look like:
AA(6), KK(6), AQs(3), JJ(3) So that would be 18. You might want to cbet QQ(3), or potentially trap it. You could also be 3betting AQo(9) and using that to cbet as well. A hand like TT(6) is likely to check and doesn't achieve too much by betting. Once that is done, you want to pick out some hands to bluff with and these will be the candidates which you 3bet pre flop. So this might be some weak suited hands which you feel are too poor to flat, but function nicely by giving you some bluffs to add to your 3bet range. Bluffing at least some % of the time with a hand like AK(16) is also reasonable. AK has good removal to the strong pairs on this flop such as AJ/KJ/AQ/KQ while also retaining equity when called. Effectively this means your opponents range is likely to be weighted more to mid pairs (hands which can't take much heat on boards with overpairs). As a side note, a hand like 87dd blocks 88/77 which are two hands you would like your opponent to fold when bluffing and therefor holding 87dd would weight your opponent more towards broadway hands which have made relatively nice pairs.

When going post flop, we can have a relatively higher number of bluffs on the flop, fewer on the turn with some give ups or bluffs improving to value bets, and then again even fewer on the river (You typically want something between 2:1-3:1 value to bluffs here depending on your sizing).

So to answer your question, do we always check AK on the flop, my answer would be no. However, it's vital to know what your range is in these spots to develop a fundamentally strong strategy.

In other words, get your ass on solvers and work hard if you want to get good. I get it :P.

Your rationale of not including 8/7 is sound, I did cbet, out of my general unworked strategy, but I think my sizing was a bit strong (65%) got check/raised and folded. This is what got me wondering whether I needed to always cbet AK on that board, which is what I would be doing STD.

I guess I have to work on my blind 3bet range. maybe weight it more towards value preflop, with some bluffs like KJs/KQs

Any way thanks for your input.

You also need to really consider your position in the hand and what your opponents ranges are. Like Gregz said I wouldn't be too worried about the limp, but what are the hijacks tendencies here? Any reads? Have they raised any limps prior to this hand?

You can easily call pre and play the hand under repped and it would allow you to not feel forced into having to make a c-bet. I agree with everything that Gregz says about wanting to be balanced, but OOP I don't always love bloating the pot.

Then there's the flop itself. By 3 betting OOP you will often get called by all mid pairs and suited (sometimes offsuited) broadway cards by the player IP. This flop, while you do have some equity, it is not too favorable for you if you consider that this really smacks the player who's IP pre flop calling range. It can be a good candidate to x/c though as you can improve, but not having any diamonds also doesn't help your case.

I always thought of AK too strong to flat pre due to the removal of KK / AA. But I guess in blinds OOP it could make some sense.

Also yeah your argument is exactly what made me want to check call in the first place. We smash the player IP range and we will likely see a raise from a bunch of suited hands and sets/2pairs.

I’ll think of this some more as I think it is a very important spot as we see alot of flops oop with AK. I’ll work on some range and numbers when I get a chance and do a quick analysis in here with full ranges.


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I would still cbet, usually around 30 percent.