I played a couple of hands this weekend that are bugging me and I wanted to get your perspective on them. They actually both played nearly identically.

Villain was unknown an unknown young guy who seemed to play tight-aggressive competently. Folded a lot pre-flop, but often raised when he did come in. Had hands at showdown that made logical sense.

Hand 1:

Villain raises UTG, hero in MP 3-bets AA64dd, villain 4-bets (I've seen people 4-bet pre in this game approximately never so I assumed he had an extremely strong hand)

Flop KJ9r, villain leads, hero calls. Turn and river both inconsequential low cards with villain betting and hero calling.

Villain tables KKT9 and scoops.

Is it possible to find a fold somewhere in there or do I just pay him $50 after putting in $40 pre basically always?

Hand 2: (game is now 6 handed)

Hero raises AAT9r UTG, villain 3-bets on the button, hero 4-bets.

Flop QT8, hero leads, villain tank raises, hero calls and also pays off the turn and river low cards.

Villain tables AQQ7 (no clubs) for hi and low and scoops.

This one I think had to be spewy at some point as there was more out there to be afraid of and I knew his range for 4-betting wasn't exactly tight, but I just HAD to see his hand. I'm mostly wondering which street I am supposed to find a fold on. Would you take a deep breath on his flop raise and release right away? Do you wait to see if he bets the turn again? It just seems like it could be exploitable to 4-bet aces pre then fold HU because the board doesn't suit you. On his flop raise I was getting $125 to $10. That's gotta be exploitable if you're regularly folding it, right?

I could see an argument for just calling the 3-bet since my aces were so trashy but his KKT9 was burned into my brain at that point. Perhaps some of you don't raise that hand in the first place. Keep in mind though we were short handed for that one.

In summary, I hate aces in LO8 and always manage to misplay them/get married to them. Thoughts?

Is it possible that even though his 4-bets pre seem illogical they might actually have merit since if not for them I may have found a fold post when shown resistance?

Whatever the merits or lack thereof of these two opponents' preflop raising, some more thought from you may have found you a fold in both hands after the flop.

In hand 1 once you call the flop he has to figure you aren't on a draw and have 2 pair at best, and he still bets. So once the turn brings no help and he's still firing I think you can fold there, and if not, fold rivers that don't pair up (pair ups are good because it makes you beat some counterfeited 2 pair hands).

In hand 2, I would first consider folding preflop (because it's a bad hand, rarely flops well and you're UTG), certainly wouldn't be 4 betting, and if not, you should just fold to the flop raise or call and fold to a turn bet (which IMO is worse). What are you hoping for? Do you really think he will raise the flop and bet later streets with air? Yes you are getting a great price right there but you can only beat pure air and it's way too hard for him to have air.

Both times they have to figure aces make up a good part of your range, plus you say the guy is tight, so you're definitely being too ambitious with your call downs here IMO

Both hands are foldable, its just a question of which street

Your read on the villain as competent tag seems off, but it it was correct it should make folding easier

You're not including any AK2x or AJ2x or AAxx or other missed A2 hands he could be C-bet bluffing with? People don't like to give up on 4-bet heads up pots that easily... I should know

AAxx is never a bad hand when you can get heads up IMO. It's usually a favorite and if not it still has flip equity. You just need it to hold up it's fair share.

I always assume any decent player is capable of betting streets with air since bluffing is clearly part of an overall winning strategy. Particularly when heads up. Again I also include hands like AQ2 and 2 pair combos I have outs against. I also had the last ace and a gutshot straight draw so I wasn't stone dead.

Fair argument, but do you realize that all anyone needs to do when you raise aces is to iso-raise you with any 4 and bet every street if an ace doesn't flop? Seems way too exploitable.

Yeah sorry that was my read on him up to that point. After the first hand I realized he was a bit more unpredictable than I thought.

On boards where an ace doesn't flop, that's actually better for you when you have aces, because an ace counterfeits any low draw you have unless you have 2 low cards with your aces. And mostly, unless it's 3 high cards or 2 high 1 low, aces play pretty well in HU pots. But if you are playing AAT9, well, you don't have a low draw so that doesn't apply.

On your point about aces never being a bad hand HU, I really don't disagree, but you didn't know it was going to be heads up when you opened AAT9r from UTG, and while yeah this hand and others in this AA-rainbow-nolowpotential category are better than an average hand, they're also difficult to play well and they are not exactly good, they're just not bad. So question, do you want to play hands that are only "not bad" from UTG, even if it is only 6 handed, when the world and his wife can potentially call your raise from MP, CO, BTN, and the blinds? Personally I don't allow myself to get in that spot. Poker's a situational game and you make money not from having good hands, but good situations and of course the mistakes of your opponents, so you have to try to put yourself in those situations where your opponents can make those errors and avoid the bad ones where instead it's you making the errors because you aren't sure what the heck you should be doing. And this particular situation is not in my perspective a "good" situation when you look down at AAT9r UTG.

Yes bluffing is important to winning, both in terms of being deceptive (which helps makes you cash) and winning more than your fair share of pots. Completely agree. And yeah someone can potentially take that line, but there has to be a line you draw where you say no I cannot call here. There has to be a minimum standard of hand per situation, because otherwise you end up a calling station and paying everything off, and that and calling down with one pair in Omaha high low is a recipe for disaster. Sometimes you are just gonna have to get bluffed. I'm not saying there isn't a spot to do it. Sometimes you are gonna have to say "see you at the river". This is limit poker after all. But in these two particular hands, they weren't the right spots to do it, and you could've made it easier on yourself by not putting a ton of bets in preflop with one good aces hand and one terrible aces hand.

You can make yourself less exploitable from that bluff 3 streets line by picking the particular kinds of aces to call down with, looking at the blockers in your hand and pay attention to the board texture and how your opponent reacts to your action and that texture.

AAT9, 6 handed and up UTG is a preflop fold without hesitation.

Don't post results in op. You'll get better quality responses, generally, without them.

Hand 1: meh, seems ok. river is the only spot to consider a fold. you're being offered a pretty good price but mostly hoping for half vs the other AA or a bluff. There's value in the showdown info too. Having paid, now we think he probably overvalues pairs and maybe plo hands. I'd be looking for confirming evidence that he gives too much action postflop with one way high hands (a common correlation in split pot games, imo).

Hand 2: Opening AA9Tr three off the button is debatably ok. but you subsequently played it poorly and that's good reason to fold it at the first option. Your 4bet pre gives up more than it gets, imo. for the sliver of the extra bet you're handing out info "I have aces!" In pl/nl, you come over the top because you can get significant value. In limit, it's better to forgo the value, hide the info, and play flop. Not because your aces are trashy, but because it's the better strategy. The wider your range (ie the closer to the button you open), the less that the 4bet gives away info and becomes something you can mix back into your strategy. Villain's 4bet in hand 1 is bad/worse for the same reasons. He starts with a tighter range and still splits it into raises and calls (presumably).

as played flop cbet is really thin with no clubs(?) and you can fold to his tank raise. The turn adds a low draw and we have none and calling is a huge mistake. takeaways are the preflop raise is frankly pretty reasonable if he thinks it gets HU IP often with the dead money from the blinds. One of his weaker 3b for sure but not way out of line. You don't say whether he had a suit. By itself I wouldn't see this as evidence of poor play. postflop, he thinks about what you could have and gets appropriate (maybe even thin?) value.

Thanks a lot Munga, that is some very solid analysis. I agree in retrospect that 4-betting the 2nd hand was unquestionably bad for the reasons you stated and I definitely come from a PL/NL background where you're almost always excited to 4-bet AA. You plugged a leak!

I'm not sure if he had a suit with it, he probably did is my guess, but it definitely wasn't clubs at least.

Forgot to mention I don't like betting the flop in hand 2 either!

Hand 1 I don't hate the call down. LOL him btw.

Hand 2 I mostly check the flop with no clubs. As played, I don't hate calling until the river. I'm folding there confidently. You beat next to nothing.

Villain is spewy as hell pf.

Hand 1 seems fine to me. You're not winning very often, but often enough that you can justify calling down given the preflop pot size.

In Hand 2, it's a close call whether you should even be playing the hand in the first place. If you do choose to open it, I can't imagine why you are 4-betting it, especially out of position. You're just getting yourself pot stuck to a hand that plays very badly post-flop.

I think your primary leak is in classifying both of these hands as "Aces". It's would be like in hold-em classifying KQs and K3o as "king-high hands".

H1 seems ok

H2 is an easy fold preflop imo

Agreed H2 is an easy fold, even with the game 6 handed. It'd be worth opening on the btn, but without a suited ace you generally shouldn't be seeing a flop with that hand. Even with a suited ace I think it's a fold UTG in a full ring game, possibly 6 handed as well.

I feel obligated to say that its ok to play aat9r utg, game dynamics do matter but I don't think some of the criticisms of it are correct, there are only 2 other aces in the deck and having blockers to the nut low (and 2 nut flushes) is valuable, I also think that it is not that difficult to play postflop

Could be true. However, I play in a game where no one folds the kinds of hands we would need them to be folding w/ the blockers pretty much ever. And, yes, I am grateful for that. I have zero doubt it is minus EV to play this hand utg in the game I play in every week.

There are games where everybody folded everything besides best 2% as tight player raise from UTG. I guess you should bluff raise something from time to time, so it's not a bad candidate.

Call me passive but Hand1 low potential still iffy w AA64, why not call pre flop raise & see what flop looks like? Optimal vs. aggressive? Hand2 far weaker w only 1way potential- would again look to see flop cheaply. easy fold on that board.

H1 is a clear re-raise to me because

1) Equity Advantage
2) You can leverage off the initial raise and knock out the weaker versions of A3 and 23 to promote your low
3) AA more likely to hold up in a heads-up pot

I would be very surprised if the this dry AAT9 hand was profitable from such an early position. Hands with a low draw and a pair have significant equity versus us and if the low completes on the turn they are freerolling.

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

820 trials (Exhaustive)

board: 2 6 K

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
Ah Ad Tc 9s	42.99%	175	530	0	0	0
Ac 3h 6s Qh	57.01%	290	290	0	520	0

Flop a straight and you are an underdog

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: 7 8 6

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
Ah Ad Tc 9s	48.55%	25,735	551,941	8,838	0	0
15%	51.45%	39,221	39,221	8,838	569,993	0

Even when you flop an ace you are just 2 to 1

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: a * *

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
Ah Ad Tc 9s	66.74%	269,969	529,258	1,697	0	0
15%	33.26%	69,045	69,045	1,697	307,780	0

Basically when you flop gin on the high it's not incredible, however the mere presence of low cards can turn your hand into a money loser. Your equity against a 15% hand on a non straight non flush board with a low possible:

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

11,553 trials (Exhaustive)

board: 2 6 K 8 Q

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
Ah Ad Tc 9s	33.00%	335	6,834	715	0	0
15%	67.00%	4,004	4,004	715	9,360	0

Tight Table: when good player raises from UTG 6max, what % of hands would you want to call with ? I hope our hand should be inside 10% best (OK may be 15% best). But AA blocks main part of those ranges.
From 10% there is only 4% left * 5 players = 20% probability of the call. For me it looks like immediate profit. (6% from 15% range)
Besides about 40% of the flops would be with =< 1 low card, where our hand is still rather good.

So it close to bluff raise with blockers

What do you think?

Of cause in very loose game when everybody would call with 50% range AAT9 is clear fold from UTG.

Oh when I made my post above I thought people were referring to a 9 handed game

6 handed is different for sure, way different. I would still fold it under one of my basic Poker tenets that I go out of my way to eliminate reverse implied odds.

I think a live game is loose enough that this hand is very marginal at best. We are in the worst position at the table and haven’t put a nickel into the pot yet. I just feel as if we have to discuss impact of blockers at this juncture our hand is not strong enough to play. People play low hands without an ace all the time too.

Regardless of the calling or raising range of the field players, the BB should still be calling most of the time if everyone else folds.

If you are playing in a game where the BB is erroneously laying down the majority of his hands for one more bet in a heads-up pot, you should absolutely go ahead and try to steal with this from any position.

If BB would call any4 we are still 54% favorite and IP. If he calls say 30% we still have immediate profit, have initiative, position, and 51% equity.

Appropriately enough, earlier tonight I was dealt AAT9 with a suited ace UTG in a 6 handed (at the time of the hand) chaotic game where every pot was getting bloated and I immediately thought of this thread. Obviously went against my own advice, played it, and lost way more than I ever should have. Could only laugh upon thinking about this thread.