You could apply a 100% flop cbet strategy (people have tried), but imo the negatives outweight the positives. There are just some flops that are bad to bluff, and furthermore if you think you have edge on your opponent it seems senseless to virtually nullify that skillgap on the flop (which is kinda what you do by betting your entire range). Slightly offtopic, but yeah.

If this is true (which I doubt), the obvious strategy of course is to check all valuehands and bluff everything else. Are people really that bad though?

I check Ax as the aggressor quite often in this spot and find myself winning vs worse Ax, KQ or even worse a lot of the time. The reason for that is of course that a check is smelly on this texture and reps showdown value or slowplay.
A thinking opponent knows that he will have to fire at least two barrels a lot of the time to move me off my hand. Also, river can get pretty interesting when it checks thru all the way. It's usually a much better bluffing spot, because you can bet smaller and rep a much wider range of hands.

Fwiw I'd lick my lips against an autostabber in the hh OP provided, because if he's bad enough to bet everything on this flop he's probably also bad enough to bluff my outs as well.

After reading everyone's comments it seems its a battle of 'value & protection' vs 'balance' Imo i dont think you can CB this flop with AK and be balanced, but is Cbetting AK OTF for value?
As also mentioned several times by others, by CBetting flop what happens to our turn barrel range with Ahi? Are we looking to XC or XF? if XF then doesnt that make the CB bad?

They are in micros and from my experience. Well.... maybe not that often.

You can, you just don't have to do it every time.

Also, if you bet flop, AK is a pretty good candidate for a 3barrel. The reasons are that you're blocking slowplays and have a good chance to improve on turn/riv (plus of course the usual stuff with your range being uncapped etc).

Btw, I see a lot of people hyping "protection" in these forums, and it's really not as big of a deal as many make it out to be. Whenever this term pops into my head during a hand, it's usually a sign of my own uncomfort or frustration.

I don't want to minimize it completely, because it's actually a (somewhat) important aspect of the game, but compared to the stuff that really matters (ranges, handreading etc) it should be waaay down the list of your brain priority and really isn't worth all that much in terms of EV.

I think a c/c OTF and leading out any scare card OTT is best. Then if the turn bricks check and your opponent has to double a terrible turn to push you off.

So in the scenario where there is a scare card OTT you like the XC/ Lead line better than B/B?

Why?

Because it's far more likely that there is no scare card on the turn. If we could guarantee a scare card we would b/b but I think the dreaded OOP float is the best play here because 70% of the time the turn bricks and out villain can't double barrel.

There's some villains I would c-bet this flop close to 100% of the time and other villains who I would often check back to. It's really about their F3B stat and the aggression they show in 3B pots.

In a pot with an unknown I'd be more inclined to c/c the flop, reevaluate on the turn. You're an unknown to him as well and if he's willing to bet flop against your range he probably has some decent holdings. Otherwise he may be a little maniacal in which case its probably not the best idea to c-bet the flop here anyways because he's capable of shoving with all kinds of crap and you can catch him bluffing the A or K when you hit it.

You said you had 88 here. Which I figure means you 3-bet a lot. All of your other 3-bets that aren't A5s or suited connectors miss the flop by a mile. I'm not sure why it's difficult to see that we don't 3-bet much 5x/8x. Not connecting with the flop doesn't mean we don't have aces. It means we don't connect with the flop.

This is a good reason to have a flop checking range.

Well we can't double barrel turn card if we check flop....

88 would be in a 4% range.....

What? Are you trippin?

Cheers, never thought of that. GG. WP.

I guess it could be, but it's a weird choice of 4%.

hypothetically if the ev of betting is always higher than the ev of checking should we ever check?

if so why?

EV of checking is higher when EV of betting is negative.

A lot of these arguments can change based on bet sizing. Mixed strategy is good here. Can cb entire range that bets ~30℅pot.

Most villains SB vs MP 3b range is extremely narrow, villains call ranges often contain close to no 5x here either.

In general terms I think its hard to say, simply because if we choose to B this flop, we arent choosing to B the same flop vs the entire field of players, vs good players checking for balance would be the easiest solution imo. But vs an unknown im stuck between checking or betting, I think the more aggro line would be better (even though i chose to X)

Are you suggesting that at times we might need to take a less EV line because of balance ?

Isnt being balanced the most +EV vs a good player? Vs a bad player being balanced is still +EV, but its more +EV to be unbalanced, do you see where im coming from?

I see where you are coming from and it's just a big misunderstanding most people have thinking GTO poker doesn't exploit GTO poker

Not to **** on your parade but being balanced doesn't just mean GTO. having a balanced range here is just being balanced, please keep the GTO talk out of uNL or will be on a 10 page tangent. carry on.

Don't read it if you can't handle it....

He has a point talking about GTO at uNL is stupid.

agree. People have way.. way too many leaks at these stakes to be crying about "GTO"
Exploiting >>>>> being balanced. cus we like money and exploitative approach makes more money.

Here I would look at opponents PFR, Fold to 3, Float %, Fold to flop,turn,river cbets, etc and make my decision.

i.e. he has wide PFR and low fold to 3bet, has a bunch of crap broadways here, has high float % I would actually check here for value.

Is is not... Every discussion about poker can be interpreted as being related to GTO on some level. We are talking about a common situation in which we missed the flop where we 3-bet and got called OOP, how we play in this spot will have a notable impact on our winrate. And add to that that this is not a ABC spot (hence the 5 page discussion).

GTO is not a complex theorem per say, it can be used from basic spots to complex optimizing strategy.