$1/$3 slow played AA against strong line

So he C/R to $135? If so and 3 bets are rare in this game then it sounds like he has JJ+ or AK.

I either 4-bet to $400 and shove flop or just shove pre.

4 bet to about $290 pre.

Appreciate the feedback from those who have already replied. This hand is from a $1/$3 game in a Houston card room. Your replies make me feel like your games must play pretty differently. If I 4b my perceived range is KK+. JJ folds, AKo and AKs fold, maybe I get QQ to hang around. I'm trying to win his stack and not the $135 he's already put in. 4b is counterproductive here in my opinion. In a heads up spot like this I have no 4b range. If there's a 3b in front of me and some callers already in the pot then I would likely 4b to keep the pot from turning into a multiway affair. But never heads up. Just costing myself money by ending the hand prematurely.

Of course villain doesn't know all that but he doesn't need to. Again, perceived 4b range is KK+ and I expect him to play accordingly if facing a 4b.

Nothing wrong with preflop, as you say getting the money in postflop shouldn't be a problem. You are in position after all. Are people really suggesting 4betting to half effective stack or more?

Flop I might go larger, but that's hugely results orientated given what happened next. But that wet flop you would rather get things moving now.

Turn you are almost certainly cooked and are being milked (to mix metaphors). It smashes the limp-reraise range. But you have a gutshot and your opponent could have KK.

I would fold the river and save yourself 300.

Weird spot on turn / river since you only beat KK but that’s his most likely hand. I probably find a hero fold on the river against most V.

4 bet preflop, shove flop, print moniez.

Hmmm, I feel like there is something in here that could make us money....

Whoops, guess not, oh well...

As played, I "put him on AK" and fold the turn. Seriously, everything you say he would fold preflop to a 4 bet is beating you now, how is there even a question here? If you want to call hoping he has KK, you should have 4 bet preflop, ldo.

I fake-tank for 10-20 seconds, then 4B-jam pre, and pray it looks like I'm over-playing some worse hand.

If he folds, he folds. Now we know he has a limp/flat-raise-fold range.

Played a similar 1/3 hand last night - V to my right raises to $15 off of $600, I 3-bet to $60 off more with AA, he 4B's to $160, I fake-tank, then 5B-jam, he tank-calls with AX. After the hand he said he called because he was blocking AA and thought I was just making a move, trying to level him into folding.

Low stakes players don't come to the card room to NOT gamble. Especially in TX, I'd think there's a "who's balls are bigger" factor that leads to more bluffs and more loosr calls.

Limp reraise should be fairly strong. I would 4bet always here. I can get on board w/ a Jam making it look like you have AK.

If you are right about their ranges, and the action is

$26

$135 (JJ+ AK)

$290

And they only continue with AA KK, and lets say half of QQ then they are calling with 15 combos and folding 25 = 1 call per 1.66 folds. Youd be risking $264 to win $161, which is 1.63:1, which would be instantly profitable (as compared to folding. $26 is invested yourself) with every hand that doesnt have a J or Q in it. It would be more profitable if you had an A or K, since youd block 3 combos that fold and 3 that call.

Most people go 3x wuth their 4 bet ($390 here). Thats too big, especially if you have bluffs too. You wanna go ~2.2-2.5x, and they are very incentivized to call from the small sizing.

Also if they are 3 betting even narrower than JJ+ AK (certainly possible in limp/rr situatiom), then its just fine to fold out the rare JJ and AK they have and stack KK and half of QQ.

If everyone thinks your 4bets preflop mean KK+, how about you widen your 4 bet range to include JJ+, AKo, even AQs?

No need to torture yourself slow playing AA. SPR dictates you ship it on the flop.

Preflop is whatever, I don't mind calling AA some of the time if 3bets are unusual in the game ... but you need to bet more on the flop, your story is that you are "charging" AK and can have JJ/TT.

Turn sucks and looks a lot like AK/QQ, also some chance he has like JJ/TT/QJs or 98s if he's 3betting light but _very_ hard to see villain playing AA/KK or even As5s this way.

I follow you here I think, but 4b bluffing a game where people don't 3b nearly enough doesn't seem like the best exploitative play. Maybe at a "once per session if no one at the table was present for my prior session" frequency, otherwise I'd expect people to adjust. Maybe not, they are mostly terrible.

Calling behind a little wider since there is minimal chance of being 3b is probably a better exploit.

If everyone thinks my 4b range is KK+ then I'm not sure those are the hands I'd want to include in a widened 4b range...I would basically be turning them into bluffs (I have to fold them if I get jammed on as it's never worse). Better 4bing A5s type stuff like the solver says than those hands, right? Not loosing as much value when I fold to a shove that way.

You can potentially 4B all of them. Don't assume V will 5B shove. What if he calls? Good to have JJ, AQ, and A5 in our range on the flop.

To be honest with you, I dont think you need to 4 bet A5s. I mean, i mathematically proved above that any hand you intended to fold could 4 bet and become instantly profitable, if your reads were correct, but especially now that youre saying they could adjust (i agree!) i really think your issue is 3 betting. Correct me if im wrong, but i bet you dont 3 bet hands like A5s either.

I dont have this problem where my 4 bets never get called, in fact nobody ever folds to my 4 bets, to a point ive cut down on my bluffing and am considering abandoning 4 bet bluffs completely.

How? I play GTO 3 betting ranges, which is wider than basically anyone else at even 2/5 3 bets, so im viewed as a maniac. I mean, look, ramp your way up to 3 betting K6s, but i got a feeling you arent 3 bet bluffing practically ever.

The easiest training wheels strat is to 3 bet and then just half pot every flop and go from there. They tend to overcall your 3 bet and then just fold 80%+ on the flop.

I wouldn't straddle.

I might actually raise smaller preflop at this stack depth to create a more manageable SPR.

Against an unknown (especially someone who might be bad), I'd more lean to a smallish 4bet preflop (ETA: Just realized he limp/reraised preflop, which is typically a huge hand, so I'm definitely 4betting). I'd only consider flatting against a solid known reg who is very aware of my super nitty image.

Very odd flop check by villain. You'd think he would cbet almost everything here as a gutshot + overs is often his worst hand. Are we being tarped? But with an SPR of ~2 I guess we're just supposed to go broke so I probably bet enough to setup a turn shove.

Nut low turn card as QQ/AK now get there and even KK picks up a hope. But whether we should be able to manage a fold at this SPR for this price, yikes.

River is a little weird in that the flush draw gets there and yet he still bets, where it is so unlikey he has a flush given we have As and you'd think he'd put more action in with KQss. I mean, we beat KK / KQ / AQ / hail mary 99. Stoopid spot. Prolly just supposed to grit our teeth postflop and not fold at this SPR, and obviously we lose far more than we win... but do we win enough for this price?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Getting back to pre and post-flop play...

PRE - The BTN straddle often leads to some players slow-playing bigger hands from EP / the blinds. The thinking appears to be, "I don't want to raise from the blinds and get multiple callers, so I'll slow-play and look to put in a 3B squeeze."

It's not clear from the OP, but I read it as V is in the BB and "completes" rather than "limps" from EP.

When we raise, and he 3B's, after just completing when the action was on him the first time, he's saying he has a real hand that was strong enough to raise but didn't, likely because of the BTN straddle. For this reason, I think we can 4B pre.

Whether we want to 4B or flat call for deception is going to depend on our reads and stack depth. I'm not sure what to make of our limited observation of V, but if he's loose pre, and raising a lot, I think that's all the more reason to 4B him, rather than go to the flop with 2 SPR.

The 2 SPR is the bigger concern for me, especially against a LAG opponent who could show up with a wider range that connects with a lot of boards. If we 4B pre and he calls, we can just jam most flops. But here, he could have enough JJ, TT, JT, and 15-out combo draws in his range to make this a tricky hand to navigate.

But, once we flat call and get to the flop...

FLOP - c-betting around 1/3 pot seems okay. I think heads up and IP with an over-pair on a wet board, we could maybe size up a bet, and bet half pot, to set up a turn jam on a brick.

TURN - his smallish turn donk looks like he's got some sort of marginal showdown value, or he picked up a draw, or both, with a hand like KQ or Q9, maybe KJ or J9, something like that. We've only got $430 more behind. It doesn't seem to make sense to call turn and fold on any river, so I think this is a spot to either jam or fold. When we don't 4B pre, I think we have to jam.

RIVER - I don't see how we can fold now, when we got to the river the way we did, and have the As in our hand. If he's got 2P+, not much we can do about it.

Moral of the story = button straddles are stupid and bad for the game. Also, 4B pre with AA. Don't over-think it or try to get fancy when you're only 100 straddles deep.

Also, just opening up the logic for examination...

OP - you say there isn't much 4B'ing in this game, nor is there much 3B'ing, either. If that's true, we should wonder what V's 3B'ing range looks like. Logically, if 3B's are rare, then the range should be strong, unless V is wild, or thinks you are, and is playing you, rather than his cards / range.

We can drill down further, by considering how his 3B range might change when he's in the BB and the BTN straddle is on, and he just limps in by completing the bet, before putting in a re-raise. There again, if 3B's are rare, then a limp-3B would seem even more rare, and thus even more strong, unless, again, he's wild, or thinks you are, and is just playing back at you, specifically.

If we assume his limp-3B range from the BB is fairly strong, if not super-strong, then 4B'ing makes sense. He's not going to want to flat call and play the rest of the hand OOP with a low SPR. He's more likely to just 5B jam, or just fold.

If he 3B-folds to our 4B, that's okay. Our AA can still get cracked by worse PP's and other combos. Say he has JJ-KK - he'll still win around 20% of the time, making his equity in a $1300 pot $260. If he folds pre, he's surrendering his equity, and we win his $135 without a contest. That's not a terrible outcome. And if he calls - even better.

If I had to choose between 4B'ing AA and my opponents only calling or jamming when they have QQ+/AK, or flatting AA and going to the flop with >2 SPR and an opponent with a wider range, that's an easy choice - I 4B every time.

If we assume that his 3B range is NOT super-strong, then flatting his 3B is allowing him to exploit our lack of a 4B range, by 3B'ing us with a wide range that can connect with a lot of flops. It's effectively allowing him to realize more of his equity, with his entire 3B'ing range. I'd rather 4B and play against a range of JJ+ than flat call and play against whatever his limp-3B range looks like.

Seems to me like you got greedy by not 4B'ing pre, and then got this gross run-out.

Villain has 100 effective bbs and has 3b me to 22 bbs. Say I 4b to 2.5x which I'll call 55bb. Pot will be 110bb and we'll have 45bb left. SPR = 0.4. Why do I want A5 in my range in this spot?

2/5 in Vegas and I'm 3bing GTO (or close, don't have K6s in my range too often!). In this game I'm playing an exploitative strategy, GTO here is just throwing money away. Doesn't seem like anyone in this thread is willing to accept that, but that's fine - I didn't post expecting to get a bunch of pats on the back and attaboys! But, I graduated from "training wheels" 3b strat back in 2006 or something. Not trying to backslide into it.

Button straddles are stupid is for sure the hottest take in this thread! I won't disagree that they're bad for the game, but if they're an option and you're not doing it then I guess you hate money. "No sir, I don't want to play a bunch of big bloated pots in position and at a discount." Come again?

Got greedy? No ****, it's poker and I'm trying to win all the money. Sorry, some of your logic seems very poor to me? I'm trying to maximize here. There are plenty of great outcomes, why are you setting my ceiling at "not terrible"?

If I give him JJ+, AK as a range:
There are 8 combos of AK remaining, I have 87% equity against them
There are 18 combos of JJ+, I have 83% equity against them

AK is going broke when it connects. JJ-KK are going to be over pairs very often and are going broke in those spots. There is way more money to be made here by getting his whole range to the flop. Of course I'll lose sometimes. But only getting what he has already committed in this spot is a huuuuuge L. If I broaden his range those statements become more true.

I may have blown this one post flop, but you guys that pushing 4bing preflop with these stacks (see the math in post #21) must just hate $.

easiest 4b in the world when you raise your BTN straddle and get l/rr by one of the blinds. literally a dream spot.