Hey everyone - I took a shot at playing $500NL last weekend and got put in the blender with AA on the board. From reviewing the hand I realized I'm honestly not completely sure about how I should've played any street in this hand (not sure if it's because it's a mix or if it's a problem that I don't know), so I'm hoping to get some feedback on each street from both a theoretical and a practical point of view.

Ignition Zone 6-max NL500 (playing 4 handed at the time):

CO (Villain): 182.3 BB
BTN (hero): 430.8 BB
SB: 714.4 BB
BB: 109.4 BB

Preflop: (Pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has AhAs

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

Flop: (Pot: 20.9 BB, 2 players) 2c6c4s

SB checks, Hero bets 7.5 BB, CO raises to 25.4 BB, Hero calls 17.9 BB

Turn: (Pot: 71.6 BB, 2 players) 8d

CO bets 53.7 BB, Hero calls 53.7 BB

River: (Pot: 179 BB, 2 players) 7h

CO bets 93.2 BB and is all in, Hero folds

Thoughts:
Preflop - Seems standard, although I think I like making it 11 BB instead of 10 BB vs a 3x raise with my range when it's almost 200 BB effective. One thing to note is at this depth I should be 3 betting every hand in my range at some frequency so I should have my entire continuing range here which becomes relevant (with AA I should be 3 betting 100% though).
Flop - I think I made a mistake here. I think in this spot I have a clear range advantage with all the big overpairs, but CO has a nut advantage with a higher concentration of sets. Because of the nut advantage I don't think it's a range bet, and my instinct in this spot is that I can use 2 sizings (big and small) and checking. I would use the big sizing with medium overpairs and the occasional for value/protection and with some lower SD value bluffs and then the small sizing with big overpairs and some other bluffs. If I'm going to be slowplaying overpairs here AA is definitely the one to do it with as it won't need protection and it's hard to get 3 streets of value, so I think AA is definitely a mix between a small bet and a check, and with this particular combo I like a check more (with no club). If I could play the flop again, I'd check back. As played, I bet small though and got raised, and I think AA is definitely a call at this point, and I think I'd have no 3 bets here.
Turn - I think turn is standard, but I'd be interested to hear other opinions. The sizing is scary but I'm still ahead of all his bluffs, and I unblock all bluffs. Plus, it's one of the strongest hands in my range anyways, so folding here would be pretty exploitable.
River - I think the river card is awful for my range. I think one of CO's most common bluffs here is 55, which gets there. In addition, A5s gets there, and Tc9c gets there as well. From a theoretical point of view, I think I might have to call here though. Facing the jam, I have to call 65% of the time here from an MDF point of view. and I'm not sure if I have enough combos if I fold all my overpairs here. Plus, I'd also have to fold all of my missed nut flush draws that didn't get there, and any other combo draw that ends with only 1 pair. I don't think I have enough 2 pair plus to fold everything else, as I think I only have maybe 10-12 combos or so of sets, backed into 2 pair, and straights. I have way more than 10-12 combos of other things, so I think AA without a club is probably the next best hand to call with as it unblocks flush draws and blocks A5s if CO was running a bluff with that hand. In real time, I think I got scared by the stakes and folded (even though spoiler - it was the right decision), but I think I might have to call here given I need to call at least half the time and my hand has good blocker/unblocker properties and is probably in my calling range anyways if I called linearly. But either way, should I just be overfolding here anyways given the really bad runout?

What do you all think? Should I be checking flop and/or folding the flop, turn or river here? How do you all approach these gross spots with overpairs? Thanks for the help!

check flop as this stack depth he has all pocket pairs + you aren't worried about overcards.

Population is bluffy on anonymous sites so I'd call river.

MDF is 66% here

1-Alpha

93.2/179+93.2

=34.2%

1-.342 = 65.8%

Checking flop also, not sure about river. Leaning towards fold. CO should have a lot of 5x combos that xr flop.

GTOWizar checks flop 87% with entire range, so naturally AA check a lot (there is not DB in sim that's why so much checking).

I think folding riv is fine (even tho it's call in that sim). I don't think ppl will just blast off 2bi with air too much, also he needs to be somewhat creative to come up with enough bluffs.

Very interesting that GTOWizard checks 87% with entire range, I wouldn't have expected that here. So would that mean that with every single hand in my entire range I would bet 13% of the time and then check the other 87% of the time (whether it's JTs or AA)? I think not checking was the big mistake in this hand and do wish I checked back for sure now, which is a good learning experience (I know I should be checking back on like a 654 flop but didn't know about a 642 flop).

Yeah I agree it's extremely difficult to find bluffs here unless he's just blasting off with flush draws which seems a bit suicidal. Plus so many of his bluffs get there on the river that it's possible that I should be overfolding anyways because I literally can't beat 34% of his range that arrives to the river with this line (the runout being so favorable to him that if he blasted the river with every single hand that I'm not ahead of enough hands anyways).

Anyways, I did fold, and since 24 hours have passed since then, Villain had 66 which makes a lot of sense, although I'm sure V wasn't loving the runout either with that particular hand.

Here is how strategy looks otf



You should check a lot because there is big asymmetry between ranges. You have close to 0 hands that want to play for stacks and OOP has around 7% of sets. I dont think betting is big mistake or mistake at all. When you flop OP and other guy flops a set you will lose a lot of money whatever you do.

Thanks for posting the strategy Haizemberg! This is super helpful!

That makes perfect sense to me given what you said. I checked out 200 BB deep range preflop strategy on GTOWizard and it's similar to what you have there. It looks like the only hands that I want to play for stacks with are the 66 that I 3 bet 33% of the time and 44 which I 3 bet 20% of the time. This works out to around 3 combos preflop compared to all 18 combos that CO will have since it will open all pairs and call the 3 bet with small pairs 100% of the time. Since CO has 6 times the number of sets than me it makes sense to check a lot on the button here.



Although betting isn't a mistake like you said, it definitely looks like I used the wrong sizing. I'll have to remember to use the bigger sizing when I do bet in this spot in the future rather than the smaller size.