A9o BB.

You should be three betting this pre-flop. As played post flop is fine now shove. It will be about pot sized raise. He’s folding his bluffs regardless. I don’t think we have any thin value targets.

pre is bad, 3b or fold

flop good
turn good

river jam AI. if has AK so be it.

Agree with the fatman about it being raise or fold preflop, especially against a solid TAG. FWIW, the solver always folds A9o to a x5 BTN raise, regardless of whether it's a time or rake game.

The problem with calling is that you're allowing the BTN to keep his equity with hands that either would snap fold to the 3-bet or would likely fold to a c-bet on most flops, given that he views you as a nit. The fact that you're OOP and see him as a capable player makes calling even worse.

How much stronger of a hand would I need here pre flop ? ATo? AJo? How does the bigger pre flop size effect the bluffs I should have? Do I 3b 65s? J9s? etc?

Thanks!

What do you think button’s opening range is? Hint - it’s massive. A9o is way ahead of it. So we are raising for value and as an equity denying “semibluff”. It’s also a hand we happily muck to a 4-bet. Lastly, it increases our equity realization and fold equity post flop.

Let’s say V flats our 3-bet with AT or 66 and the flop is K93. Who is more likely to win the pot now? Who would be more likely to win the pot had we just defended?

Since you often have questions about specific preflop decisions, I'd really recommend that you begin using GTO-W, which gives access to the preflop charts without a paid membership. Although you won't have the ability to modify the raise sizes above x3, it will still give you a sense of how you should be responding to preflop raises...as long as you remember that raises larger than x3 means that you need to play even tighter and have a very limited to non-existent calling range.

In a situation like this if the flop comes bad for our range like 657 should I still be firing for equity denial? What if I had AK here?

My concern about 3 betting pre was that I thought this guy might out play me. Should I take away his skill advantage by firing most flops?

I agree. I'm making bad decisions which are leading to worse decisions.

Thanks.

You can’t play scared and you need to realize that we are going to have some unfavourable scenarios and it’s ok to give up / lose some pots. He has position on us. Sometimes the board will be bad for us. Sometimes he will bluff us. That doesn’t mean that passive play on your part is the most +EV.

I'm a bit confused. The flop has 6d, every other street has Kd. Which is it?

3!/f all day vs this guy and with your image. Can go higher than 60 too, of you're sweating a call.

AP, we've the 3rd nuts. What's the problem again?

We have 2nd nuts, so river is a clear x-shove. I'm ok with preflop, flop and turn as a played.

It should be the Kd on the flop.

I didn't know if a jam might make him fold compared to making just a standard raise given our stack sizes.

What;s a standard raise?

You have a play for stacks hand, and the only crime would be not trying to play for stacks. If he folds, note that you can make him fold with a river overbet, and start working those into your game.

As stated, pre is 3bet vs. this guy. If you are still uncomfortable OOP, which is fine, just fold. I like the rest of the hand if he will keep firing. However, with your image, I don't think you are getting called on river for a big bet, so I might min-click hoping he shoves w/ worse or sigh calls. Never folding -- if he has AK it's a cooler.

I would completely remove the term "defend" from our vocabulary. We are sitting at the wrong table if "defending" our BB optimally is integral to winning. A9o is a piece of cheese to begin with which is also going to play horribly OOP to this guy deep. In this spot, with no dead money and a raked game, it is only possible for one player in this spot (at most) to be profitable. Do you think it is going to be us with this hand playing to this guy OOP? I don't. So I just fold and move on, imo.

I like our passive check/call line on both the flop and turn against this guy. Aggro players attack weakness, so best to show weakness when we have a showdownable hand and let him barrel off his chips.

Interesting river. Again I like our check. With stacks this deep, the question becomes how capable is this guy. Like, reverse the spot and put ourselves in his shoes, and we just bet almost a PSB on the river and now gets check/raised for massive amounts of $$$$ at a 1/3 NL game on the river by the tight nit. What are we calling with? We're snap folding all flushes and all trips, right? So we're only thinking of continuing with boats. If I've done my combo math correctly, there are 3 combos that beat us of AK, 2 combos of A9 the we chop with (and probably won't fold?), then 10 combos of A2/KK/99/22. Competent players could fold 22 here. That leaves 7 combos of worse boats. A competent player could find a fold with KK. That leaves 4 combos. Could he find a competent fold of just one combo of A2/99? If so, a river raise is kinda meh... at least against a competent player.

GcluelessNLnoobG

He's a better player than you, in position, and deep. Your fears are well founded.

Gfoldyourwaytovictory,imoG

The way to vitiate an opponent's skill and/or positional advantage is to bloat the pot while seizing the initiative...meaning to 3-bet. By just calling, you hand him the keys to different ways he can outplay you postflop.

OTOH, if you feel uncomfortable 3-betting here with a marginal hand against a solid player in a rake pot game, it's perfectly fine to just fold.