Button is 29.1/10.4/11 over 48 hands
BB is a good reg, 13.2/8.8/1.45 over 501 hands

Not sure what to make of small reraise by button, but flat call by BB scared the hell out of me. How do you proceed on this flop?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

saw flop|saw showdown

Hero ($56.15)
MP2 ($28.35)
CO ($29.20)
Button ($64.30)
SB ($51.10)
BB ($57.40)
UTG ($5.90)
UTG+1 ($61.30)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K, A.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.5, 2 folds, Button raises to $5, 1 fold, BB calls $4.50, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $2.50.

Flop: ($15.75) 3, 8, K (3 players)
BB checks, Hero ???

Awfully smells like a big hand on BB... I would just check behind and see what the Button does. I think BB's range is very narrow here, QQ/KK/AA, and he/she would check them all OOP on the flop, IMO.

Min3bet on 50NL is often a big pair. Not always, but often. I think BBs coldcall is a pocket pair trying to setmine. So on the flop you probably are ahead of BB but you don't know what Button has. It's a dry flop, and you have relative position, i think you should use it and check here.

Thats what I thought...so how does the tiny bet by the button/flat call by the BB change anything? I don't want to fold TPTK for $3 into a $21 pot...but I don't really like flat calling or raising either (since I still suspect BB may have a big hand). Thoughts?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

saw flop|saw showdown

Hero ($56.15)
MP2 ($28.35)
CO ($29.20)
Button ($64.30)
SB ($51.10)
BB ($57.40)
UTG ($5.90)
UTG+1 ($61.30)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K, A.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.5, 2 folds, Button raises to $5, 1 fold, BB calls $4.50, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $2.50.

Flop: ($15.75) 3, 8, K (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, Button bets $3, BB calls $3, Hero ????

Call and re-evaluate on the turn seems like the best play.

Raise folding would just turn your hand into a bluff

sounds good, the flop is so so dry, BB is scary, probably set mining or high cards

Thanks for the feedback. So is everyone okay with this fold on the turn?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

saw flop|saw showdown

Hero ($56.15)
MP2 ($28.35)
CO ($29.20)
Button ($64.30)
SB ($51.10)
BB ($57.40)
UTG ($5.90)
UTG+1 ($61.30)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K, A.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.5, 2 folds, Button raises to $5, 1 fold, BB calls $4.50, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $2.50.

Flop: ($15.75) 3, 8, K (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, Button bets $3, BB calls $3, Hero calls $3.

Turn: ($24.75) 7 (3 players)
BB bets $16, Hero folds, Button folds.

Final Pot: $24.75

This sure looks like spew to me.

I don't play on Stars.....

Fold is good.

i'm raising that weak button bet to 12 or so, and proceeding from there. we have AK on a k83 rainbow board, am i missing something? BB's 8 PFR means that he would 3bet KK/AA and prob QQ imo. i don't think we can make his range exactly 33/88. and button could have anything. imo pf min-3bets from someone with those stats is bull**** 80+% of the time.

The way this pans out, I can NOT see calling preflop. If you have a read that BTN only makes these small 3bets with AA then you should be folding AK after the 3bet and flat. If that's not the case, then I think we should be shoving preflop a good amount of the time...especially with BB's dead money in there. if BB had called a real 3bet, I'd be a bit more nervous and lean more towards folding. However, BB's paying <10% of his stack so if he's decent, he may figure it's worth it to setmine against 2 players (yay implied odds).

This spot is pretty much why calling OOP with AK is bad. We hit TPTK and have an SPR of 3 but are OOP and really don't feel good about getting AI.

Obviously your table image has a lot to do with how to handle things, so if you're playing nitty, I can see folding pre. I just think calling is the worst choice out of the 3.

As played....ugh...BTN's bet is so garbage and gives us much less info on BB's calling range than a real bet would. If we're calling is it solely to fold if BB leads? What are we doing if he checks? So messy...shove pre FTW!!

I'm not too worried about BB. If he had KK+, I would have expected him to raise. I don't think it makes sense for him to hope that you raise when it gets back to you. I believe he is trying to hit a set. I'm going to take you down a different road, and recommend that you 4-bet shove pre-flop. Let me explain.

I've seen a lot of posts recently asking questions about 3-bet pots with AK. It got me thinking. With what ranges are we willing to shove over 3-bets? I assume most are comfortable shoving AA and KK. I began to wonder whether or not it would be profitable to employ a 4-bet shove range of KK+, AKs, AKo.

Imagine you are in LP and 3-bet a raiser. Then, the original opener 4-bet shoves. With which hands are you willing to call? Until I began thinking about it in more detail today, I would have said KK+. Now, I'm not so sure.

I invented two villians for this thought experiment. They both 3-bet JJ+, AKs, AKo. One of them will call a 4-bet shove with any of these hands. The other will only call with KK+.

Imagining myself opening a pot for 4BB with AKo, I face a 4-bet from one of these villians. If I 4-bet shove with AKo against the tight caller I will pick up the pot 21 out of 27 times (he can have KK+ 6 ways and QQ, JJ, AKs, AKo 21 ways) for a profit of 17.5BB each time (assuming he 3-bets to 12BB). When he calls with KK+, I have 18.474% equity and stand to lose 58.775BB 6 times out of 27. Over the course of 27 attempts, I will gain 14.85BB, or 0.55BB per attempt, or 55BB/100. Against the loose caller, I have 39.785% equity, and stand to lose 15.833BB per attempt, or 1583.3BB/100.

For AKs, I stand to win 2.632BB per attempt against the tight caller, and lose 9.764BB per attempt against the loose caller.

In order for 4-bet shoving with AKs and AKo to be profitable, I need to be 96.643% certain that villian is a tight caller with AKo and 78.736% certain with AKs. In order for this strategy to be better than opening and folding to a 3-bet (to be intellectually honest, I have to assume that a sunk cost is no longer sunk in order to get these next numbers), I need to be 72.227% certain that villian is a tight caller with AKo and 46.421% certain with AKs.

In addition, AA should win 29.147BB per attempt against a tight caller and 72.11BB per attempt against a loose caller. KK should win 1.147BB per attempt against a tight caller and 30.141BB per attempt against a loose caller.

If we add the likelihoods of being dealt one of these four starting hands in relation to the other three, we can combine their expected return and determine the expected return of a simplified strategy of 4-bet shoving with KK+, AKs, AKo. There are 6 ways to make each of the pairs, 12 ways to make AKo, and 4 ways to make AKs for a total of 28 possible hands. Against a tight caller, we expect to make 7.103BB per 4-bet shove. Against the looose caller, we expect to make 13.733BB per 4-bet shove.

The main criticism I see against this strategy would be whether or not we think we can meet the certainty requirements for profitable 4-bet shoving with AKs and AKo. I think we can. If opponents see us 4-bet shove AKs and AKo a few times and try to open up from their KK+ calling range in order to counter our tactics, they will leave themselves more susceptible to calling our shove when we have KK+. In fact, we've already shown that when employed as a package, this strategy becomes more profitable when our opponents open their calling ranges.

A second criticism, and one I do not have any answer for, is whether or not this is more profitable than calling 3-bets and seeing the flop with AKo and AKs. I don't know, and I'm not sure how to find out, because we would need to know how our previous villians would have reacted to a 4-bet shove on earlier hands. I can only say that I don't expect to make much post-flop when my opponent flops an underpair to my TPTK in a 3-bet pot, and I feel more exposed to lose a large pot when I flop TPTK against villian's top set.

As played, I would check flop. You are either way ahead or way behind. If he bets flop, and you call, the turn will probably be checked, so on river you will be able to make a reasonable value bet that he will have to call. If BB comes to life after But makes CB, I'm bailing. I think there is a lot of merit to shoving PF. There are hands in his range that he will stack off with PF, but not pay off on bad flops. Also, having them fold is not a bad result either.