Is it too ambitious to bluff into potential top top, low stakes, 3 bet pot?

Grunch from thread title alone: yes. Low-stakes players rarely fold even bad TP, much less TPTK.

OK, off to read post.

Post grunch edit: Good critiques here:

Definitely don't bet to fold AK. People shouldn't and genetally don't fold top top for half pot.

It's actually kind of close to a value bet on the river. V may level self into a call with KK. I would never raise flop though. You don't need to raise to see where you are at. See what villain does. If they pot a ton of money in the pot, they probably have a good hand.

As played I would just check back the river.

Preflop raise is spew big. 3bet is kind of big, even OOP, unless there are inbetween calls of your raise. Calling the 3bet with AJ is just bad without reads he's bluff 3betting a lot.

I don't think V (or anyone) should fold AQ on the flop, as it's basically the nuts given the previous action. If you are terrible enough to have 55/22 here WP. If you are genius enough to have AA/AK here, w/e. Also V's flop sizing is pretty good, way too many bad players will bomb this flop for 100 or even more.

I doubt it's good to fold any AK on the river for half pot, but 100% not if you have the Ah and I would auto call if I had the Kh. If you are terrible enough to have 3x WP. If you are genius enough to have AQ/QQ, w/e.

Didn't read everything but IMO there's just too much thought for a low SPR spot where you are praying that V does the nut worst thing so you can win. If you would seriously fold AK/AQ anywhere in V's position (and don't just really want him to do that so you can win) then stop making terrible folds.
AK/AQ is almost the best hand in your range in a 3bet pot with 2.5 SPR, we could argue about if you should shove or call vs. the flop raise but fold isn't a viable option without god like reads.

I don't open so big and I don't call the 3-bet unless I know the guy is way wide pre. Once you flop TPGK BDSD and BDFD you're committed at SPR 2.5 imo. Raising flop doesn't make sense, just call. Once you raise flop, jam turn IMO. You're going to get snapped off by AK/AQ a lot I think.

FWIW, there's a UTG straddle. Guessing to 5. So 15 open isn't OOL. Opening AJs UTG+1 8-way, immediately after the straddle might be though... Accordingly, if SB is paying attention, their 3b to 50 should indicate a really tight range, right? (Or they're polarized.) Especially with BB and straddle still to act.

H only has 300 to start. SPR, if H calls when BB and straddle fold, is going to be like 2.5. I think we should be folding to the 3b, even though we close the action and will have position.

Since we don't fold, and flop an ace + bdfd, a lot of V's pf range of big pps is now losing. Of course if they were getting frisky with Ax low trash, we might be losing. I think we might be able to call this 1/3pot cbet and eval. Raising is a big misclick.

4h puts a flush draw on, though not ours, and one to a straight (if we think either player has a 3). We have a 1/2 bet left in our stack, we're committed already because of the flop raise, and maybe we can deny equity if V has a heart draw. So I just shove turn.

Thank you.

Yeah I thought it was too ambitious to try to make AK fold. He might not even fold to a pot-size bet if I had more chips left but I'm not so sure.

I think if V had KK, he probably would've folded to my flop raise. He wouldn't be there at the river but you can disagree.

Next time have AhJh

Grimstard, you really should stop posting. It's posts like the above that make me ignore your hand posts.

OP: Others have nailed it (except Grimstard). Fold to the 3bet, don't raise the flop, check back. It is tempting to shove, though. I would do it if I got the right vibe from V and I could easily reload with no tilt issues.

Lol Grimstard was teasing me - it's fine 😀 For what's worth club is my lucky suit.

Very soon after the hand I've worked out the mistakes PF and the flop and I was honestly tilted by them. It was the river that made me wonder whether it's worth shoving hence the discussion here.

"I could easily reload with no tilt issues." I envy you for the mental strength. If I pushed for a suicidal shove and got called, I couldn't avoid tilting. If I checked back I would keep wondering 'what would happen if I shove' in my mind for hours.

Fair enough, not sure why I missed that.
Put it into GTO wizard for 6max (obviously looser pre) 50bb...

UTG open
SB 3bet (worth remembering that SB is mixing 3betting with AJo/KJo/99/QTs/K9s/A8s/A5s/etc.)
UTG call

Flop:
SB bets 20% pot over half the time, but does bet 33% pot about a third of the time (seems randomly mixed).
UTG only raises 6% of the time, to 33% of pot with AQo and some AKs/AQs.
In response SB doesn't fold any Ax, but does shove a decent amount of AKo and some AJo.

Assuming UTG just calls flop:
Turn:
SB checks 67%
UTG checks 66% of the time but does bet 33%/50% pot with AsJs about 33% of the time (AhJh checks 90% and only bets 50% 0.4% of the time but does bet 20% pot as well as 33% pot).
SB never folds Ax to either sized bet.

River:
SB checks 80%
UTG checks AJs apart from the 0.4% of AhJh.

If you bet turn 33% instead then SB checks river 99.3%, and UTG plays AJs the same (but has more AhJh in range).

Thank you very much for the sim output. My opening and defending ranges assessment needs a lot of work.

PRE - opening UTG1 with AJs and calling the SB's 3B seems fine, especially given his 3B sizing.

FLOP - Just flat call. See what he does on the turn.

TURN - If we just flat called flop, and V barrels turn, we can call and evaluate river, depending on what sizing V takes, or fold, or even raise.

RIVER - I think I like to just check back here, the way this was played. We could be best often enough, but we're just not going to have many flushes or straights when we raise flop, and get this run-out.

What are we repping when we flat call the 3B pre and raise this flop? It seems like 55 and only 55. That hand wants to blast the turn, not check back. But bluffing to rep a set is kinda sorta not really a thing. Like, we can bluff that we have a straight, or a flush, or trips, but no one thinks their opponent has a set unless the opponent check-raises the flop, and even then, people want to put us on a draw so they can rationalize calling.

AJs is a decent enough bluff catcher here. I think it's generally a mistake to take a decent bluff catcher and turn it into a bluff by over-playing it. Let V c-bet flop, barrel turn, and bet again or check to us on the river. At that point, yeah, sure, we can turn it into a bluff if we don't think we're good, but otherwise, it's just a hand that's barely good enough to call on three streets, and maybe not even that good, depending on the run-out.

Interesting output. In general I probably play too exploitatively comparing to the GTO style.

I think the range setting for V's 3 bet is a bit too wide. In reality, his 3-bet range can be much narrower (hence my PF call was a punt), and when he called my disgusting flop raise it was even narrower.

In my humble opinion, AP if UTG (myself) shoves the river, SB could make an exploitative fold although he would be given the price to be correct 1/4 times - in reality he might struggle to win 1/10 times given her flop and river aggression. To be very honest if I was V holding AK, can I let go of my hands just this once? Maybe, maybe not. However if I was someone else witnessing this at the table, I will be more than happy to talk to someone and place a verbal bet at any price that she wins at the showdown (with AQ, QQ, AA, flush).

Thanks for sharing the output.

I would have been happy to book that bet. Those hands aren't raising flop and checking back on the turn.

You played this one pretty face up.

find it painful when people on here reference math while making it up. lets be serious. you have maybe 2 value combos that take this line (the 2 aqss left in the deck) and in practice you aren't going to get credit for raising the flop with them very often if ever. so you're repping i have no idea, maybe AKhh and you expect villain to fold essentially range to that because you're a girl and never bluff despite showing up with a hand that should absolutely never raise or bluff and considering it here. if you look at it from the lens of ~2 value combos (being very generous here) for v to win "less than 10% of the time" you'd need to bluff random air something in the vicinity of 0%. given that you spazzed here its likely you do that w other hands / other areas of the game tree as well. idk how you think you can either have or represent qq here but would work more on hand reading and fundamentals before being an "explo player"

your takeaway from this hand should not be that you should have bluffed the river

If you are browsing posts reading comments just to make yourself painful I'm sorry for you. Maybe you feel yourself to be smarter during this pain I'm not sure.

Never said this was the takeaway, again your are making things up so you feel better about yourself. If not, you can work on your reading.

By this sentence only your logic is flawed. I posted this hand because I am open to other people's suggestions and criticism, and indeed I listened with thanks, but your logically flawed rant is not appreciated.

ok but like im browsing threads to give feed back on hands / what people post. in your thought process you said you have air less than 10% of the time otr. when you have something like 2 value combos (realistically very few and then discounted by flop raise / turn x) you really cant almost ever bluff without that ratio being off. given that you don't really seem to understand your river range (you think you can have QQ, you ended up here with AJ, it stands to have reason you have a bunch of other random stuff in your range that you sometimes do this with) its very easy for you to end up over bluffing here, especially with the pot odds presented to villain and then the arbitrary 10% claim. then when you consider bluffing a hand like aj that's entirely too strong to bluff with (ok sdv, very few actual better hands can fold, block those hands, near top of range of non value) its very likely you're going to be over doing it otr. im not sure where you're getting the make myself feel better or whatever it is youre saying.

I am curious as to what people are flatting with when they face a SB 3B while in EP if they feel that AJs is an auto-fold in this configuration.

I like to protect my flatting range somehow and if I am flatting something like 66-JJ, ATs+ and A5s, my flatting range is well protected. I can even mix in some QQ, KK and middle suited connectors like 45s and 65s if I am feeling spicy.

Then I have a 4! range that includes a mix of QQ+, maybe a mix of another suited broadway hand like KQs and a suited wheel hand like A4s plus AKo.

Are you guys only flatting AQs+ 99-TT and 4! QQ-AA?

Smash live cash 100bb stacks raked no-ante charts (slightly simplified):

EP opens 2.25x
folds to
SB 3bets 4x
EP responds by Flat: AQs,AJs,ATs,77-22,T9s,76s-54s
... 75% call/rest fold for TT.
... 50% call/fold for KTs.
... 25% call/75% fold for JTs.
... 10-30% call/rest fold for JJ,99,88
... 50% 4bet/call for AKo,KK
... 25% 4bet/75% fold for KQs.
... 25% 4bet/75% call for QQ,A5s.
... 25% 4bet/75% call for A5s.
... Pure 4bet AA,AKs
... Pure fold QJs,KJs,AQo

But note that EP robot is responding to SB robot 3bet range, which is like pure 3bet A5s,KQs,KJs,KTs and 50% 3bet with QQ,ATs,A7s ... and roughly no SB range will look like that at 1-2, IMNSHO. Which means a lot of the hands AJs is getting value from when robot calls just aren't there, so there is no value.

Also note that unless you've studied charts I would assume the robot's raked open range is also tighter/different than your open range (75% AJo, 40% ATo, 50% QTs, basically no open with J9s/T9s/98s and 5-15% frequency open with 77-22 but does like K7s/K6s/A3s).

Hero needs 35% equity here to flat the small 3! right? He also has position. If SB 3! ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AKo, KQo and JJ+ he has 43% equity with AJs.

Now, if SB is the type of player to only 3! QQ+, AQs and AK… sure fold. There is no read yet on his opponent. In that scenario I’d default to my basic approach and assume he is not a total nit, but also not 3!ing with my SB 3! range. I also have an affinity with AJs so my bias would play into that ��

Rule #1 of micro live NL. Never try to make someone fold Top top especially AK unless there’s a 4 straight or 4 flush for any amount of money under 600 BB