5/5: A6ss flops NFD

either 4b pre or fold

pre should prob be a fold the first time too.

No experience with 5/5, but opening for 15 has to be a mistake, that’s a standard open in my 1/3 game - 3bet to 40, sounds just like my game.

UTG with mediocre hand, maybe limp and try to get in cheap. Definitely fold to the 3bet - did you notice the cold call in front of you? How can you think your hand is better than both these villains? Maybe the largest population leak in poker is calling 3bets.

Flop: this is why you need position for this hand. Your question answered is that OOP, you won’t win without hitting your hand. This is why you don’t play this hand. But if you have position in the same spot, the action can lead to some successful bluffing opportunities.

Your other question about ‘brute force’ is yes, check-raising the flop will work at times. With the help of this forum, I have gotten away from this approach. Only better hands will call. I have to be pretty sure villain’s are weak to try it now and that’s not likely in a 3bet pot.

Chasing draws with a 35% chance of completion is not logical, so you need fold equity. The flop call is bad, because what’s your strategy moving forward?

Don’t play hands like this….
People get confused and think they are supposed to play suited aces, suited connectors, paint, etc. The truth is you’re supposed play good situations and without a good situation, fold.

This can almost never be a good situation. You’re OOP with a mediocre hand in a 3bet pot.

You "win" by folding preflop. You lose less by folding to the 3 bet.

I’m a nit but folding to a <3x 3b getting an insane price after BB cold call seems horrific.

Grunch:

PRE - Opening A6s from UTG seems cuspy in general. Doing it off 100BB seems more cuspy, though maybe it's okay when 6-handed. Not sure about the raise size. Seems small for a $5 blind game, but maybe it's okay if the game is capped at $500. Definitely seems like we should just fold to the 3B.

FLOP - When V c-bets big, it seems like a spot where we need to either fold or commit to our hand by x/r'ing all-in.

TURN - whatever.

RIVER - the only way we're winning is if we donk-jam all in.

The problem is that your hand is hoping to either flop the nuts, or a good draw to the nuts.

If you flop the nuts on a monotone board, it's obvious, and hard to get paid off by worse.

If you flop a draw to the nuts on a two-tone board, it's obvious, and V is very likely to size way up with his c-bet, making it hard for us to realize our equity.

What we would really love is to flop a straight with a redraw to the nut flush on a two-tone board, or flop top 2P, or top trips (66X), or a DGSSD + NFD, etc. We want to have enough equity to continue, even vs a large c-bet.

When we start out short stacked, we just don't have the room to maneuver post flop unless we smash it right away.

This board is almost as good as it gets for A6ss. If we're going to raise-call pre, and want to continue past the flop, we just need to x/jam flop.

He's probably not folding any of his over-pairs, and definitely not folding if he flopped 2P+ or a combo draw, but we can hopefully get him to fold a lot of his better AX combos, and we would seem to have decent equity versus those combos if he calls.

Yeah, 8-9 handed it is an easy fold pre utg. 6 handed, I think it is probably still a fold for the reasons given. Also factor in what the rake is and what our skill edge is, if any.

You do have to call the 3! once the other guy calls.

CR otf is ok. I don't think we can fold.

We could lead a lot of turns. This one isn't bad. A straight comes in. We can also still kind of rep a set that is starting to get afriad of draws, and afraid the PFR will check this scary board.

Board pairing river really sucks. We have to decide if an all in folds an overpair or not. I'd kinda think not, but depends on player. We can bet smaller, hoping to fold hands like AK, KQs etc.

Fold to the 3bet pre. Opening six-handed is OK.

As played, check raise the flop. You have great equity against his value range and he probably has some hands that will fold.

As played, bluff the river to get him off better Ace high hands. He shouldn't have many strong hands that check back turn and it is easy for you to have value bets here.

You have to call $25 to win what will be $120, which means you would need 21% equity to call. Take a look at the equity of A6s against a reasonable 3bet and cold call range:

So it's close in terms of raw equity. The problem is that A6s plays horribly OOP in a multi-way 3bet pot so realizing your equity is going to be really difficult. You also have considerable reverse implied odds since your one pair hands will often be dominated.

What size would we lead on turn?

I think of the x/c flop, lead turn line as a delayed flop x/r. I like the line when we flop a monster and don't want our opponents to fold if we x/r flop. We can see what size they bet on the flop, and then go for the turn donk with a sizing based on how we range them.

I think it's okay to do it as a bluff in certain spots, if V bets small and the turn really smashes our range.

I don't like it as much when we're semi-bluffing with a hand that had a ton of equity on the flop, and picks up a smidge more with the BDGSSD. The donk lead doesn't generate as much fold equity as a check raise. But we can't check raise if V checks back.

We could just donk jam turn, but if we're going to do that, it seems more credible to do it on the flop, if we're trying to rep 2P+. On this turn, we could still have 2P+, or some straights, but it also seems more bluffy. If we were trapping, we'd probably just go for a check raise on the turn, not donk. We wouldn't want to stop V from barreling.

I'm not sure he has an over-pair when he checks back turn. Probably not a premium. It looks like he's got SDV or AX. I'd mostly be targeting his better AX to fold by donk jamming river.

We'd be jamming around $405 into $285. Hard for V to call with very many hands that check back turn.

Appreciate the suggestions, but I don’t think jamming flop makes sense vs this specific player / range.

If I check-raise all-in on 8♠7♠3♦, what am I actually targeting?

- From what I’ve seen, he folds AK/AQ to a check-raise

- And continues with overpairs / sets / strong draws

So if I jam:

👉 I fold out the hands I’m doing well against (AK/AQ)
👉 And get called by a range that is strong and not folding

At that point, I’m basically:
> risking ~100bb to realize ~30–35% equity vs a continuing range

That doesn’t seem great.

Also with this SPR, if he continues, I’m rarely generating fold equity later anyway — so I’m just turning my hand into a high-variance semi-bluff vs a range that doesn’t want to fold.

Feels like:
- Call flop keeps in worse hands (AK/AQ), realizes equity, and avoids isolating vs strength
- XR/jam just narrows his range to hands that have me in rough shape

Unless people think this type of reg is actually folding QQ/JJ/TT to a flop jam (which I haven’t seen), I don’t see the upside.

Curious if I’m missing something here, but vs this profile it feels like a call is just cleaner.

flop call is probably fine but you have to bluff river. i dont think you have to bet that big either. 1/2 pot should be enough to get AK to fold. you rep TT, JJ, QQ.

maybe it wont work but the fact that you didnt bluff river here suggests to me that you dont bluff enough in general and are too worried about playing your own hand and the board vs playing your range vs their range. and if you dont bluff enough and play face-up you should not be opening this wide preflop.

playing wide pre means you have to bluff postflop otherwise you are burning money.

You're not doing that well against AK/AQ. You're basically flipping versus those hands (48.4% equity vs their 49.4% with a 2.2% chance of a chop).

He's not always calling with his over-pairs. We could credibly have 88, 77, and 87 here. We could have 99-QQ that didn't 4B pre. He's not going to love the situation if he has 99 or TT.

Even if he calls with an over-pair, as long as it isn't AA or a PP with a spade, we're basically flipping vs OP's on the flop (we've got 48% equity vs red QQ with 52%). Even if he has KsKc, we've got 45% equity. Even against AA, we have 39% equity on the flop.

Basically, you're close to flipping vs his entire range. If he folds any AX, or any OP, it's a tremendous victory, because he's basically surrendering his superior equity.

If you're going to play A6s pre, and you get this flop, playing this shallow, what more can you hope for but to flop the NFD with a BDSD?

If you x/jam $485 over $80 into a $125 pot, you're generating a ton more fold equity than you'll be able to if you flat flop and then jam turn for less, into a pot that will be bigger.

Even when you pick up the BDGSSD on the turn, you're not doing as well as you were on the flop. You're basically down to 34%.

On the flop, you'll get some folds if you x/jam, and when he calls, you'll make your hand about half the time. On the turn, you'll get less folds, and you'll only make your hand about 1/3 of the time.

Suppose you spike a spade on the turn. Is he going to put much more money in?

Check-jamming flop isn't the higher variance play. Calling and hoping to make your hand is.

I would fold pre to the 3b - this hand plays poorly to a typical strong 3b range and I think you lose money calling. On the flop two ways you can play this - if you think he bets his AK/AQ/AJ?/etc along with his big pairs then go for a x/r to like 250. If he only bets like this with big pairs calling might be better, but even against say KK you have plenty of equity. As played if you're going to call the flop maybe consider leading the turn as it completes straights and if he has AK/AQ/etc maybe he folds to a turn bet. You played it very passively and just another example of why you should fold pre

I am kind of OK with preflop 6-handed. I would x/shove the flop for a little over pot. You are close to flipping with a pair of face cards.