AKo on A366 2-flush

I'd like a slightly bigger flop bet for thick value against the crap aces and FDs that are in so many limp/caller and straddler cold call ranges. This would also make shoving the turn a bit easier. AP I still shove turn though.

Grunch:

Sounds like a good game.

PRE - easy to say in hindsight, but if a $40 open doesn't fold anyone out, we can probably raise even bigger. Without that info, I'd have thought your raise size was fine, or maybe even a tad too big.

Not sure if there's enough merit to considering this as an adjustment, but if the game is playing super loose and splashy pre, yet there are also a bunch of shorter stacks, I wonder if we should be doing more over-limping from LP with hands like AK. My thinking is that we'll be seeing more flops multi-way, and we may want to delay building the pot until we see what comes out.

FLOP - c-betting a somewhat wet board with TPTK seems reasonable. Not sure what size we're supposed to use. Half-ish pot can't be too far off optimal, I'd think. I'd guess theory would say smaller is better when we're multi-way, but we're in exploit land, so your sizing seems fine, to target inelastic draws and worse AX.

TURN - I wouldn't get fancy. I'd just jam. If he snaps with better, nice hand, good game.

If you size down, I think you're just giving him too good a price to see another card and play perfectly on the river.

The half pot flop c-bet set up a nice, less than PSB jam on the turn. This seems like a spot where we'll want to play a 2-street game. If you jammed turn, it seems pretty well played, IMO.

If the blinds / straddle are at all overly raisey versus limps then at this non-short stack size I wouldn't hate an attempt at a overlimp/LRR from the button. Otherwise fine with our raise, and lol @ results (4ways for $40 each in a 1/3 NL game, standard).

Think I also just close my eyes and bet the flop and see what happens. And with just a 3/4 PSB left on a drawy board I don't see what else we can do but just jam the turn.

GcluelessNLnoobG

$40 over 3 limps of the straddle gets two calls? Juicy game!

Bet more on the flop. $100-120 seems reasonable to me. $80 isn't terrible since it does give the wrong odds to a naked flush draw, but Ax isn't going to fold to the first bet, might as well make it bigger.

As played, I would jam. It's less than a pot sized bet. If V has a better hand so be it.

Not arguing with the turn jam suggested by everyone, but I don’t think we get value. The turn helped us more than villain counterfeiting all villains two pair. We just get folds, unless we’re beat.

A flush draw might give up anyway with the paired board, so maybe can’t get a call no matter the size, but it seems like the only hand that would call that we beat. Does villain put all his money in on a flush draw, that would be nice - I’ve seen it done….

So, maybe you’re right, no use to get fancy, but the jam will only be called by a better hand most of the time - it should be rare for someone to call with worse. So, it kinda goes against the main reason to bet.

Are we simply happy to take the dead money at this point? Is there simply no better option with the pot odds?

Again I’m not arguing, but I always have questions. A previous post where I considered options for losing less when they got there, I was accused of being results oriented.

Maybe I’m willing to explore options that others dismiss. Though some on the forum have doubts (I don’t think I explain my thoughts well at times) I am obsessed with value.

Perhaps the risk of villain catching up is enough, perhaps the dead money is enough, but I don’t think a jam will be called.

Well yeah, to a certain extent I share your concern, which is why I wish we'd sized up flop. I think almost anything that called our half-pot bet would have called 2/3, and then we would only be shoving for 2/3 pot OTT. AP, we are shoving for over 3/4 pot, which reduces how often we get called considerably.

The thing is, we still need to bet here, both for thick value and to not let him draw for free. Any smaller bet that accomplishes that OTT just leaves a silly amount OTR that is committing to us, yet lets him get away cheaper when he has busted draws. So shove is really our only sizing. Also, some Vs are actually more likely to play big pots with crap aces when the board pairs because "I have 2 pair! And if the river comes with a high card, maybe I won't have to worry about my kicker anymore."

Still, I think our small sizing OTF will lose us value both then and due to the parts of his range that fold OTT to the larger sizing.

How many better hands can V possibly have here, when he limp-calls pre, and calls flop? How many combos?

A6s - 1 combo.
66 - 1 combo.
33 - 3 combos.
63s - 1 combo.
64s - 2 combos.
65s - 2 combos.
76s - 2 combos.
86s - 2 combos.

V open-limped, then called a raise, then flat called our flop c-bet on a two-tone board. Maybe we can discount flopped sets and 2P somewhat, and just give him 2-3 of those combos, rather than all 5.

He's probably not calling flop with all his naked 6x combos. Maybe he calls with half of them, or 4 combos. So, maybe he realistically has something like 6-7 combos that beat us, but to be conservative, let's say he has some other 6x combos like 96s or K6s, and say he has 10 total hands that beat us.

How many worse hands does V have here? He has to have some piece of the board to call our flop bet. He can have all the worse AX (9 combos of AXs, maybe 12 of AXo), all the flush draws (maybe 20-30 combos), and all the combos of 54s (4 combos). Even if we cut them all in half, it's still 20-30 combos.

How many combos of his AX are calling a 13BB raise pre, from OOP, and calling a 1/2 pot c-bet on flop, just to fold to an 80% pot bet on the turn when the board pairs? Probably not very many. Maybe he folds some of the worst combos, like A2s-A5s (3-4 combos).

Maybe he folds 3 of his 54s combos, when there's a FDFD and the board pairs, and only calls with 54hh. How many of his other flush draws are folding? Maybe half of them.

There are still plenty of inelastic hands that we can target for value.

If we check back, or bet small and V calls, we're basically letting all his draws see a free or cheap river to suck out, and giving all his worse AX a chance to make a better 2P or check-fold when the river brings in the FDFD.

Your jam was fine. You were being results oriented if you regretted it when your opponent made is draw. A jam here would also be fine, and it would be results oriented if we lament that V folds, or if V calls and improves to beat us.

That last part is important. We're just trying to get value from the parts of his range that might call, not worried about trying to get value from the parts of his range that are overly likely to fold to a bet, and would be less likely to pay us off on a river brick if we check back or bet small.

If he folds A2s-A5s, and 3/4 of his 54s, and half his flush draws, that's fine. Those hands weren't paying us off on the river. We're targeting the other 2/3 of his range that may call our jam, but may also fold river to a triple barrel if they don't improve.

When you shove and he calls he will show up with a lot of 6hXh combos but a decent amount of Ax hands as well.

My initial thought was to check back turn but against this super general player profile im ok ripping it in.

I think when writing an OP, setting the scene with a few more reads or HHs may help. How long have you been playing with them? Are they limping a lot? Are they sticky? It helps in ranging your opponent. I know super nitty middle aged Asian men and i know absolute lunatic Asian men.

Without reading replies, played fine—I probably bet 100 otf because it’s easier to put out a stack then cut out 16 chips for me but it’s irrelevant. Turn is a snap shove imo.

Not keeping in spoilers. Thought it was a good result getting so much in preflop and on flop, and thought I had to shove turn with possible draws out there and since I could be doing it with a flush draw.

Afterwards, thought this main villain was decent and a lot of his limp/call range was pps. Not sure he would limp/call with an ace and stack off against the preflop raiser on this board. I was obviously representing AK/AQ/AA, but could play a flush draw the same way.

One way or the other I think we were all trying to get the money in, and get called. Nobody was thinking we were behind - it’s just a cooler

This happens to me more than I would like driving top pair, while villain smiles and calls with his set.

I can’t imagine how much my bottom line would jump if someone could teach me how to see this coming.

Once V flat calls flop, there's not much we can do differently on the turn.