PokerStars - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 110.2 BB (VPIP: 24.47, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 3.42, Hands: 292)
MP: 108.6 BB (VPIP: 27.78, PFR: 13.89, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)
CO: 87.6 BB (VPIP: 30.30, PFR: 12.12, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 34)
BTN: 105.6 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 8.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)
Hero (SB): 135.4 BB
BB: 77.2 BB (VPIP: 29.73, PFR: 24.32, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A T

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, fold, BTN calls 7 BB

Flop: (21 BB, 2 players) 2 A 4
Hero bets 15 BB, BTN calls 15 BB

Turn: (51 BB, 2 players) 7
Hero checks, BTN bets 26 BB, Hero calls 26 BB

River: (103 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero checks, BTN bets 54.6 BB and is all-in, fold



3bet pre is fine I think, when he calls my 3-bet I put him on something like

77+, KJs+, KQs+, ATs+, AJo+

In retrospect I probably shouldn't have c-bet in the first place because his range is pretty strong (assuming he's as tight as his stats indicate so far)


Happy to hear some thoughts!

37 hands isn't that many to base concrete ranges on. You can say he's not a whale, but it's not a strong read.

If you plug the numbers in an equity calculator you'll find that ATo is way behind the range you assigned villain. This is not a value 3b, and ATo is too valuable as a call to be turned into a bluff in this spot.

Flop is absurdly large.

I'd b/b/x/f as played.

x/b/b seems fine if we don't c-bet. If we x and face a bet otf, I'd x/snap once, and x/decide turn and or river.

3b pre is terrible. Lol. You're 3b'ing a tight player w/ AT for value? Absolutely awful.

3b is fine if you want him to fold pre. I bet flop smaller. I fold trn. Dobtful he does that with KQ

Once again, I don't understand why we'd 3b AT here (other than "cos it has blockers", but then just 3b A2-A8, K2-K8)... I'd rather call pre with this hand and dominate his JT, QT, KT.

Especially since it's btn vs sb, he's gonna call here with his AJ, AQ, TT. And he has position. Bad hand to 3bet.

Isn't flat calling even worse than 3-betting here ? I mean he is still opening from the BTN (and is probably wider than usual) and if I flat from the SB I am opening myself up to all kinds of exploitations by the BB, don't I ?

3b is fine. many crushers barely have a flatting range in the sb.

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You don't have a large hand sample but what you have so far suggests he is tight. I would say 3 betting him PF here is a pure bluff because when he calls we are behind nearly always.


Your CB on the flop is pretty massive as well. I would say you can probably fold this on the turn and certainly on the river. It looks like he has an A and there are no worse A in his range... or he has flopped a set. Such a dry flop there are no draws, not even and BD draws on the turn.

I'd just fold this pre, small sample but we can certainly begin to draw conclusions. X/c flop, if you do bet it wants to be 10-11bb. As played folding is fine, villain doesn't have bluffs.

how exactly is the bb going to exploit you by you calling? other than him squeezing ~5% of the time?

Squeezing more than 5% LDO

3 betting ATo at these stakes is pretty much only going to lose you money in virtually all situations. If he is an aggressive blind stealer, you could do this as a bluff, but you're in trouble once he calls the flop c-bet.

Would probably flat call pre-flop raise. either small donk bet or check-call flop is ok, but once multi-street bets come out or pot gets big, you are on the losing end.

Yeah the BB at 5nl who didn't buy in full is going to decide "hmm I should expand my squeezing range here to exploit the sb". Sounds reasonable...

Forget about bb/sb exploitation etc at 5nl. At 100/200 this is a major consideration. Just stick to value betting and don't do anything crazy at these stakes and your win rate will skyrocket.

5nk players make so many atrocious mistakes, and literally none of them have any sophisticated ideas about range balancing in btn-blind play

My argument is that it's better to get a solid theoretical understanding of the game and learn to apply it at the nano stakes, even if it makes a very marginal negative impact on one's winrate by not maximally exploiting in some cases (which will be learnt on the side) - this could be the difference between 12 and 11 bb/100.

And my argument is that you can't worry about trying to learn proper theory on button-blind battle range balancing at 5nl where players aren't playing at that level.

And if you're 3 betting ATo out of position, then focusing on 'big blind exploiting a sb flat call' as a theory adjustment, that is totally ******ed.

focus on solid abc play here would iron out this problem. ie ATo is about the worst hand you could possibly 3-bet (trash would be better, at least there one would have the good sense to fold the flop). ATo out of position in aggressive games is a huge money loser. folding in these situations, or at least not building a big pot then folding after putting 50bb in is the differnece between a -11/100 winrate and a 12/100 winrate.

This is 5nl folks

nanostakes plays different from small stakes. At 5nl you'll almost never see 4b/f's, at 100nl I saw 4b/f's about once every 500 hands. Does that mean we should practice 4b/f's at 5nl?

There's lots of stuff we do at micros that we won't do at higher stakes. It's ok. 1% of players at 5nl are going to exploit us for flatting ATo in the SB vs a btn open. I'm not too worried about it.

This x1000.

We can def call profitably (even OOP) with ATo, but 3betting it makes no sense. 3bet your Ax and Kx garbage, it has the same blocker and you can't profitably call with it.