AKo OOP vs semi-unknown MAWG, turn is best card in the deck

So if he never 3bets pre this should be a nutted range of QQ+,AK, maybe JJ too. I think folding the flop or raising is the way to go - probably just fold, but calling is the worst option. This flop is better for you then him - maybe it's big spew to raise and we should just fold but this is a scary board if he has say AA. I wouldn't lead the turn - as played just check/decide.

Check fold flop. Check call turn.

By "never 3B"s", I assume you just mean he doesn't 3B very often, or you haven't seen him 3B very much. We need to be careful with these hasty reads when we really don't have much time with an opponent. Ditto for thinking he's a losing player.

PRE - his 3B is kinda small. I might 4B with AK here, when we're OOP, especially if we have a tilted image. Otherwise, flatting is fine.

FLOP - his "same size" 1/2 pot c-bet on the wet flop is interesting. Not sure what to make of that, so I'd probably just call, with the Ah in our hand.

TURN - I think I could get behind a small donk lead if we were deeper. Here, we don't want to bet small and get raised huge, forcing us to either fold away all our equity or jam and pray to fade the snap call.

The alternative would be to donk big, and jam any river. I'm not sure how credible that line is, but I could see playing the NFD as a check-call on flop and big donk when we make our hand on the turn, when the SPR is as low as it is.

All that said, we turned TPTK with the NFD. Our hand is pretty strong, and we don't really need any protection, nor do we need to turn it into a bluff. So checking is fine.

I could also see check-jamming here, when V bets 1/2 pot again. It somewhat seems like he's just trying to get to showdown, and he's unlikely to fire again if we check to him on the river.

RIVER - I think we should just jam from up front. Yeah, it looks super strong and could be seen as an over-play, but I think it's just what Bart Hanson calls de-polarizing, betting for value with a merged range.

We block the nut flush, AA, KK, and AK. He can't have the 2nd nut flush, and it seems unlikely he's 3B'ing QXhh or JXhh next to act pre. There's only one combo of KJs possible. He shouldn't have any straights or 2P+ here, other than JJ. V probably won't bet QQ or worse 1P for value, and probably won't barrel with air, but he might look us up light with QQ, KQs, or AJs, not believing that we didn't 4B with AA, KK, or AK pre, nor believing that we'd just check-call turn with a very strong hand.

It would be awesome if he folds AK, and insanely awesome if he folds a better hand, like JJ or AA.

Well he just did!!

We can just fold pre. This is essentially UTG vs UTG+1 at a 10-handed table so ranges are butthole tight even in theory, and against someone who’s only doing this for straight value there’s no reason to give him the action.

Only play is really to 4! (mostly just a shove with AKo specifically), which is just a waste of a perfectly good stack here when the best you’re gonna get is a very occasional tank/fold from QQ.

My least favorite kind of LLSNL post is “fold pre and you won’t get into the post flop spot, so I’m not going to comment on that,” but that really is the only answer here. You hit the best card in the deck on the turn and now what? Villain isn’t bluffing enough for bluff catching off your stack to make sense and he’s not folding to a shove often enough to be worth doing that with a 11-outer to black aces.

Yeah this is good hand to turn into bluff as you block top of his range kkk and hearts. He shouldn't have straights. For value bets you can have a few flushes yourself so I think you can bet the three AhKx and the flushes Ax and QT QJ JT

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So we just got 3bet by a dude who "never 3bets"? If so, trivial fold preflop, imo. We have huge RIO when hitting a TP that is no good (such as a Kxx vs AA) and have little IO when it is good especially OOP (like Kxx vs QQ).

I have no idea why we are continuing on the flop. Is my understanding of our read on this guy completely off?

Even turn call is extremely debatable against this guy's perceived range since we have little IO on our 4-to-a-flush.

I guess with our nuts blocker we can attempt to blow the guy off his hand, but when that hand at this point is most likely an overpair or set, meh.

Gifmyunderstandingofthepreflopreadiscorrect,thewholehandisamassivepunt,imoG

In fact in that case shouldn't we just jam turn to realise our equity? Given these stack sizes. Raising turn is bad super deep as you have to fold to a reraise. But here you go all in so it's fine I think. The argument against this is that he might call with a set but on river will he fold sets?

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You can't fold ak to a 3b. Come on!

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I mean, obviously inb4 Villain barrels with 65o and we snap it off, but preflop is a *trivial* fold HU OOP to this player type in this massive strength versus strength configuration.

Gforrealz,imoG

Is this a tourney or cash hand?

We can definitely fold pre with essentially an UTG open and being 3bet by an UTG + 1 who "never" 3bets. We should start weighting our opponents who "never" take aggressive action towards very strong ranges when they do take those aggressive actions.

Room for debate pre. I don't see how we can justify a c/c on this flop when we don't have a good image. Are we calling because we think our hand is best? To spike an A or K? To bluff hearts?

You can do anything if you put your mind to it

I fold pre but that's just me. Even if he does occasionally 3bet, he's now UTG vs BB after a button straddle. His range should be a lot tighter there, as is ours which he should know. If I'm not folding pre I would CIB/f.

As played fold flop.

c/c river

Basically I agree with this post. You have too small a sample size to say it's a fold pre. Floating flop is ok and this flop hits our range, we have more sets etc

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We don't really need a big sample size to range someone who 3bets an UTG opener from UTG+1, but I do agree we don't really have too much info on him.

In a session where we came all the way back from being stacked earlier and we're now up 700$, the lower variance option is to just fold since I'm never flatting there from OOP so it comes down to your personal preferences.

The correct range is probably TT+ AQo+ AJs+ maybe some SC axs semi bluffs. AKo is just way ahead of a sensible range here pre flop. You can call or maybe 4b sometimes. Surely u can't fold.

Then against this range it feels ok to float with the Ah then check jam turn

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Somewhat surprised how split opinions are about continuing with AKo when we get 3B pre.

Hero's raise size isn't really that large over a $6 BTN straddle and a SB limp. It's just 4x, in a spot where we could make an argument for raising 5x when we'll almost certainly be OOP the rest of the hand.

When hero takes that smallish 4x sizing, V is incentivized to 3B from UTG at a higher frequency, to avoid inviting loose calls from behind. V should want to 3B a wider range of hands, to get HU and IP.

But look at his raise size - not even 3x. It doesn't necessarily scream strength. It looks like he's just trying to ISO without risking any more than necessary, and could be planning to fold to a 4B.

Also, we really don't have much of a read on V here:

Not to throw OP under the bus, but...we've only seen him once or twice before, we have hardly any history with him, and only a few minutes with him before this hand starts. All we "know" is that he's a losing player, though it's unclear how we know that, so the best we can do is take it at face value.

As far as "never 3-bets" - I mean, we have no real history with him. If he's a losing player, isn't it possible that he's 3B'ing here with a hand that isn't just AA/KK?

I think we have to continue when he goes "same bet" on the flop, and I don't know how we can fold when the Kh hits the turn, giving us TPTK and the BDNFD.

We're losing to flushes, but how many flush draw combos does V have that 3B pre over a UTG open, and c-bet 1/2 pot on this flop, when he can just check back? Maybe QJ or JT, but that's just two combos, and if he "never" 3B's, is he 3B'ing those hands?

We're losing to straights, but there again, is he 3B'ing QTs or T8s, and taking 1/2 pot sizing on flop and turn? Wouldn't he want to bet bigger, to deny equity from flush draws?

We're losing to one combo of KK, one of KJs, three of AA, three of JJ. Those seem like the best hands V can possibly have here. But is he 3B'ing KJs pre? Is he taking this line with a flopped set or turned set? I'd think JJ would bet bigger on the flop. Maybe KK takes this line, but that's just one combo.

V could have six combos of AK we want to push off a chop, plus fifteen combos of AJ or QQ and who knows how many worse hands that are just going to check back.

If we're only giving V AA/KK when he 3B's, that's just four combos. If we also give him JJ, that's another three, but then we have to also give him six of QQ, and six of AK. If we can stretch V's range just a little farther, he's got some AQ that picked up the ISSD on the turn, and some AJ that flopped TPTK. Maybe he plays the 3 combos of TT with one heart this way.

If his 3B'ing range is TT+ and all the suited broadway aces, we should be continuing on every street, and jamming the river.

Now, if V was some uber-nit, or a winning reg, or some aggro kid, I could see playing 4B or fold pre, but without any real history on V, folding seems like a mistake.

Okay okay people. When I say he never 3-bets pre I mean that in the 30-45 minutes I've been sitting at the table he hasn't 3-bet pre. He's a loose passive. Sheesh.

I'm not beating you up, Banana. I was just pointing out that we shouldn't assume he's a nit who only 3B's AA/KK, just because we haven't seen him 3B within the last hour or less.

If anything, I'm defending your decision to flat call pre, rather than fold, which seems like a big mistake.

Because we were just listening to a podcast on playing AK that talked about (not necessarily on this texture) but on a 7-3-2 whiff texture with 2-naked overs you actually have to have some check calls with AK, moreso IP.

Cliff: at GTO

In terms of the flat call pre the podcast was talking about continuing ranges when 4-betting and how AKs is actually closer to a 4-bet than AKo because "who calls a 4-bet with KQ, KJ, AQo or AJs?" so the continuing range is just dominating and usually you'll get 5-bet jammed on in which case you're flipping at best. Simultaneously AKo is too strong to simply fold pre without a soul read. So flatting becomes the best.

On the flop I could see a check fold. Solver leans more towards x/raise with AhKx and less so with AhKh which I'm not totally clear on. Because AhKh has more equity to realize so x/calling is better? Not sure. But with just the AhKx solver wants more x/raises (again this is all GTO not against a LP at 1/3).

At the turn I don't know. I don't know what worse hands call a jam or a big lead. Maybe go block sizing for 100 OTR?

So given small sample size here (~15-20 hands), the only thing we can reasonably assume he's likely not LAG, and given bayesian priors his most likely 3b range is going to be a typical low stakes ones, say JJ+, AQ+.

Given that I'm not folding pre.

Not all players use that range and according to his raise size, he's not a standard player who would 3bet AQ in that spot so I would think he has at least QQ and at worst AKs here (for a mostly passive weak player), but that's just me.

This is a case where a little bit of knowledge is dangerous.

So a 7 high flop is ceetainly different from a 7-low flop. J97tt is gangbusters for our range and we don’t need to be defending light.

That being said, AK with nut BDFD isn’t that light. x/CiB will tend to be a better way of continuing though.

All of this is premised on the fact that villain has much of a bluffing range, though.

This is certainly true IP where AKo rarely 4!s. It’s also true in some deep spots OOP. OOP 100bbs deep, though, you should mostly just rip AKo.

(Assuming they have a 3!/f range)

Yes, AKhh has enough equity and plays well enough on enough different runouts to be a superior x/c OTF.

Assuming villain is capable of having bluffs here, we can just call down.

That assumption is the giant asterisk hanging over this whole post though.

Our flop play is the problem here, ofc. Since we x/c flop, x/c turn, we should x/c the river. Seems passive, but our hand is underrepped, and he could bet worse at us otr.

Sure, you lose sometimes (maybe a lot), but simply by already doing solver work on the flop, we have gained something invaluable from this hand.

Are we check-folding every flop where we don't spike an A or K?