I say this only to help you...

Please SHUT UP and let a bunch of people respond rather than debating and commenting on each post as it arrives. You will get more from these boards that way.

It helps those who wish to comment as well.

Normally I would say that if you are going to 3 bet and fold to a 4 bet then you have devalued your hand somewhat and turned it into 72off.

However there are variations such as this one where villain has options other than 4 betting and you wouldnt mind having a hand that plays ok post flop.

I am not a big fan of the way a5s plays post flop out of position though and I probably would have just folded pre.

As played...I cannot see myself making this call on the flop after leading into that board and getting raised like that, but nice read and tough beat.


sheets

Why dont you wanna flop an Ace? Once you get flatted pre and flop an ace, you have the nuts a goooooood % of the time, since when villain has good aces he is jamming pre most of the time in this spot.

First of all, the reraise preflop is not a high variance play as OP says. Most of the time villain eaither 4-bets or fold and you lose or gain a chunk without a showdown.

If you get flat called, A5s is a lot better to have than A5o or 75o or whatever. However, if you hit either of your cards, you don't know where you are at. A lot of times when you miss, you are ahead with ace high. Your ace may be an out and you may flop a gutshot and often a backdoor flush draw. You have a pretty good hand winning percentage-wise, but it is awfully hard to play.

If you are going to make a bluff 4-bet like this, better to have two cards 8 or higher, preferably suited. The better hand, the better. However, with something like AJ, JTs, or 77, I would just flat call, rather than turning my hand into a bluff. 3-bet/call maybe 99+, AQ+.

Here folding is probably best, although flat calling or 3-bet/folding are not terrible.

That's what I meant

Its not that you don't want to flop an A, its just that you rarely win anything more than the preflop pot when you do, except you have to risk another bet to win it. And when you bet/call the flop, you are way behind villain's range for getting it in. This is a Sunday MTT, people flat the weirdest stuff sometimes. They must be thinking they are deep enough to see a flop, have position, value tournament life etc.

OP you said you thought you had thin value preflop. IMO that thin value is negated when you will have to play 1-2 streets OOP when he doesn't 4 bet. If villain is HJ and you are button, I think this is a strong play, here I think you have little to gain by 3 betting & would fold or possibly call if I had a reasonable understanding of villain's style.

Edit: Random thought A5s only has ~3% advantage over A5o. And by making the PSR smaller pre, you are reducing a lot of the fold equity that gives you an edge when you flop a FD. If it wasn't for that 3% which really matters little in playability in a shallow pot, I think more people would say muck pre.

A5 > 72 in that situation bc of the ace blocker!


Unless ofc we know he only raises this size with pocket 7s and 63o then 72 would be insta jam

since my plan was to shove the flop if i missed, i wasnt worried about playing multiple streets OOP. alot of the time my A high is the best hand, and he will most likely fold his one pair hands that flop 2nd or bottom pair. u said yourself that people flat with stupid **** in the million. since i busted though, i def think i shouldve folded pre

Yeah by weird stuff I meant he has A6+, 66+ in his flatting range, hands you & I would mostly shove or fold, sorry I didn't explain that well.

I don't know the math on shoving 1 2/3 pot on a flop that you miss...if you say its +EV great, I'm just curious since I don't really have this line in my game.

It sorta makes me wonder why if you think you're in such good shape if you miss, why a check on an Axx flop wouldn't be better. You can C/Shove or let him think you missed & bet OTT.

what it ultimately comes down to imo, is that there are so many better spots to ship your chips in

you will never be an overwhelming favorite against any villain playing A5s oop this way

You have to win ~64% to make shoving any flop profitable. That includes Axx flops that are good for hero. I tried to give a range to villain with some midpairs, some Ax, discounted TT-QQ, KK+, and quality sooted cards.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 41.807% 38.15% 03.66% 415437398 39848314.00 { A5s }
Hand 1: 58.193% 54.53% 03.66% 593891318 39848314.00 { KK+, QdQh, QdQs, QhQs, JdJh, JdJs, JhJs, TdTh, TdTs, ThTs, 99-66, AQs-A5s, KJs+, QTs+, J9s+, T8s+, 98s, 87s, AQo-A8o, KQo }

So you only have 41.8% eq vs that range and that includes favorable flops. If you are committed to shoving every non Axx flop, I think its going to be very hard to do better than 41.8%. Also since you are bluffing in first position, villain can make a profitable decision to call or fold based on how the flop helped him. And I don't think you gain enough by bluffing him off the best hand because he's going to like his hand often enough & the huge overbet signals weakness just as frequently as it causes folds.

so many variables... def a marginal spot. over shoving against randoms though in spots like that has yielded a ton of folds for me in the past. i will probably chill out though as i do agree that there are better spots... especially in the million

Overbet pushing will definately get a lot of folds. Think it is bad to do it on every flop you miss. You are looking for a dry flop and/or a flop where you have some sort of draw. A gutshot or even a backdoor flush draw improves the percentage of the play a lot. You should check/fold action flops you miss.

FWIW, I think you are wrong, and often some good or even very good players seem to interchange "not being able to articulate" with "having no idea what they are doing".

I fold this pre fairly happily against an opponent who you claim will 4bet most dominating hands and flat lots of suited connectors.

In fact, this is exactly the type of opponent who you shouldn't be 3betting