treading softly with AKs

Wow, interesting hand. As played, I probably just call turn, but a big part of me wants to shove. However, I 4bet pre and as played I raise the flop.

It is an interesting hand.

I too raise flop with a lot of equity.

As played it's tough on turn. He almost certainly has a piece of this - is it more than a pair though? Will we get paid off on a ten or diamond river?

It's a really tough decision on jamming vs calling turn. I think I might just shove, in the hope he calls it off with less equity - e.g. KsQs or AT or AK - right now, but can't fault a call.

Call turn. Generally a mistake to raise this kind of hand - top top with nut flush draw. We are behind a lot of value on this board

You're giving him two diff reads

This deep vs basically an unknown I would 4bet/CIB pre leaving room to fold to a jam, since he's said to "play premiums" but for the first time playing with someone they're still basically an unknown. He could easily have a wide range that he picked up from watching videos but not thinking about an UTG raiser's range (fits in well with the crowd).

When he over bets the flop, we shouldn't have too much FE at that point so just call.

Every reasonable range V has here except exactly KK/AK has us crushed. We have 11 clean outs to the nuts. We have 25% equity on the river card but need 33% for direct odds. If a T or D hits the river not sure if V will call a shove with a set but he might to give us some implied odds. High variance spot but unless we think an ABC V continues to barrel turn with KK or plays this aggressively with AK I think it's a coin flip call on the turn.

I am assuming we are c/f a blank on the river. What do you do if river is A or Jd.

The main question here is how reliable your read really is, since you haven't seen this V before.
Assuming the read is correct and V is indeed a nit:

- Preflop, 200x effective, you are deep enough to 4bet and fold to a shove.

- As played, we love this flop at first sight, maybe a little less after V overbets it, since this is almost always TPTK+.
The problem with raising is that you have 0 fold equity, and very often you will face a shove, which you would have to call.
On the other hand, if you just call, you can expect another big bet on most turns, on which you will have a significantly lower equity.
It seems pretty close between raise/call and just call. In game, I'd probably go for the former, but it may be worth doing some math or solver work to figure out what the best option actually is.

- As played, when V pots this turn, he has top 2p +. You cannot do anything but call, but far from thrilled about it, even assumig he will never fold a set on the river.

- Check/fold river unless you hit your straight or flush.

I limp preflop but that's me. Definitely not 4betting this guy and not even convinced flatting OOP vs his likely nitty 3bet range is great, but for this price I prolly make a sigh call.

Also just sigh calling the huge flop bet on a board that crushes his likely nitty 3bet range.

Pretty gross turn spot. We actually don't have the odds to continue for our flush / gutter. What the heck worst hand PSBs these two streets? Think you can argue for a nitty fold... so long as our read nitty / straightforward is correct.

ETA: Surprised so many think the turn is call versus raise when it is fold versus call, imo. We really think there's a chance we're ahead sat this point? If so, our read is massively off (ok, with Bananas, that's fair enough, lol). But if our read is correct, we'd be lucky to be sucking up 25% equity and we don't have enough left to make it up.

GcluelessNLnoobG

It's not two different reads. Imagine a guy (this is going to be an exaggeration for effect) - who plays AK and AA exclusively. And everytime the flop comes 8-3-2 he bets pot with AA and check/folds or check/calls one street with AK. That's this guy, from the about 3 hours of sample size I have with him. He's just been grinding up a stack from 3-or 400$.

Then the only question is will V call a shove on a diamond that isnt Jd or a T? If yes, call and c/f or shove river. If no, then fold turn. And if the river is Jd I'd b/f like $50.

Raise bigger pre. 4B pre. If we know this guy likes to bet big post-flop, let's not let him keep the betting lead going to the flop.

As played pre, I'm not crazy about the flop call when he over-bets pot. We're basically calling to see one card, hoping to make a flush or straight. Will he even pay off if we do hit?

On the turn, when he bets pot, we're being laid 2:1 pot odds, but I don't think we're getting much implied odds. Assuming any K, T or diamond will make us the best hand, we have 16 outs, so we're getting around the right pot odds to continue.

I kinda want to jam. We block AA/AQ/AJ and KT. I don't see a good way to get him to pay us off if we make our hand on the river. If we make our hand and donk into him, he'll probably fold. If we check, he'll probably check back.

If V has AK, we're free-rolling to the flush. So, yeah, I think we should jam, and be indifferent to whether or not he folds or calls, but expect him to mostly call, and expect to be behind AQ/AJ/QJ.

I like how you played this hand. I would call turn and call river.

Btw this is an unknown player that Hero has played with for 1 hour. Let’s not get too caught up in reads here. We can’t know for sure that he is a nit unless we’ve seen multiple showdowns (and even then, it’s only a few hands). It is very easy to be card dead for 1 hour. The fact that he hasn’t 3bet yet doesn’t mean very much.

Where is V position wise? OOP I probably sigh call given short amount of time we've seen V, but probably no shot I 4bet/fold pre. and I don't like 4bet/call for 200bb.

I probably just x/r flop, he can easily have AA/KK and maybe worse 1 pair hands ... if he has QQ/JJ life sucks but we can get there. Also there's value in him folding AK, because if it bricks out he probablys wins with it if he bluffs.

On turn I call, AQ probably never folding now and it seems less likely KK!d is playing this way. Will be annoying wtf to do on A/K rivers, but he should be checking back sets a decent amount too. Also think we need to donk shove rivers when we hit.

Check raise to 220 shove all turns.

He claims he folded top set??? Not sure I'd believe him.

If he's telling the truth, you could have gotten it all in pre, or on the flop, or the turn. It's okay to go broke with AKs in spots like this, when the board doesn't run out in our favor. Sometimes we just run AK into AA, and go broke.

So long as our read is solid (admittedly questionable), I really disagree with this versus a nit taking this betting action/sizing on this board. There is no reason to intentionally put all of our chips into the pot at any point pre river when it is very clear we are up against a very tight range that smashes this board and we have no FE against.

GimoG

1. Banana's read was that V is a "nitty guy I've never seen before".

Not looking to beat up on Banana's reads, but I'm not sure I'd put a ton of weight in that read, if we don't have hours of observation prior to this hand.

2. Banana said he was "playing to have fun tonight" - i.e, he's playing loose and splashy.

If V noticed, he might be 3B'ing hero light, or he might think hero is getting out of line by 4B'ing light. Even if V doesn't notice - AKs is pretty strong, and hero will be OOP post. We block AA/KK, and aren't doing terribly against KK. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to 4B, and make V fold some of his PP's, or get V to call with worse AX.

Given the two points above, I don't see how we can assume with 100% certainty that V has a very tight range.

3. We're starting $620 eff, and V 3B's to $30.

We have plenty of stack depth remaining behind, if hero wants to 4B to $100-$120. If we 4B, and V 5B-jams, we can fold, if we think he's really that nitty. But that would require us to put him on AA or KK exactly, a hand we block.

When we'll be OOP and have a big SPR post flop if we flat call, I think we can justify putting in the 4B with our hand, in this spot, when we opened UTG, and can credibly rep AA/KK.

4. How can V be nitty, and also smash this board of QdJs6d?

We have AKdd. So V can't have too many good flush draws here. He shouldn't have any OESD's. He can't have AJdd. Is he 3B'ing with 66 or QJ? Really? A nit? 3B'ing those hands? Is he even 3B'ing JJ? Are we certain he 3B's QQ over a UTG open?

We still block AA/KK. We also block AQ/AJ and KT. We have two overs, an ISSD to the nuts, and the NFD. No matter what hand V has on the flop, we're never drawing dead. Can we ever have fewer than 12 outs here?

If V smashed this board, why is he over-betting the flop, and betting pot on the turn, like he's praying hero will fold, rather than trying to get hero to call?

5. We make TPTK on the turn.

We still block AA, AQ, AJ, and KT. We now beat KK. We have TPTK, an ISSD to the nut straight, and the NFD. No matter what hand V has on the turn, we're never drawing dead, and if V has AK, we're free-rolling him.

We're losing to 1 combo of AA, 3 of QQ, and 3 of JJ, assuming V has QQ and JJ in his pre-flop 3B'ing range. Feel free to throw in 66 and QJ, and AQ/AJ. Even against all those hands - we still have a lot of outs.

6. Literally every card that makes us the nuts on the river will be obvious to V, reducing our implied odds to nil, and the spade on the turn creates some RIO's.

We're going to hate seeing the Ts or Ks on the river. If V is truly nitty, he's probably not paying us off if we go check-call-check-call-jam on a diamond or offsuit T.

V's put half his stack into the pot. If he has a hand we want to fold, now is the time to jam, when there's still some FE. If he has a hand we want to call, now is the time to jam, before the river makes us the nuts and he gets away from whatever he has.

If he's got us beat, and we don't make our hand, oh well. This is as good a spot as we could reasonably hope for, after flatting the 3B pre, and getting this board.

Nits might fold overpairs on the flop or turn if we had raised at either point. If he calls we have plenty of outs.

Speaking as a massive nit myself...

Most nits have a fairly tight 3bet range. So preflop we're probably looking at something like TT+/AK (or thereabouts, I don't want to get too nitpicky, and it is actually unclear to me what his position is).

Postflop he PSB+ the flop. Can obviously eliminate AK/TT so now we're looking at an overpair AA/KK or a set QQ/JJ. If we want to expand the nitty range preflop to AQ/KQ, ok, whatever. No overs + draws cuz we're the ones with those. Admittedly we might have some FE against some nits for some parts of this range, but facing a PSB+, meh, good luck with that, imo.

Another huge PSB on the turn where he's now put in half his stack. Can now eliminate KK and KQ from his range (fair?). Which leaves AA/QQ/JJ sets and pretty much at worse AQ.

Of course this all depends on how accurate OP's nit read is. But that's all we've got: he's a nit, he's 3betting preflop, and then putting in gobs postflop on a great board for a nitty range. If anyone wants to know how a nit like me (or anyone else) gets action, look no further than those itching to get stacks in here at pretty much any point; this is not *remotely* a cooler at 200bbs. Well played by OP, imo.

Gnothatin',justsayin'G

You 3bet UTG open pre. with AcAh

QdJs6d As Th

x, Pot, c flop;
x, Pot, c turn;
UTG donk shoves river for half pot

...KQ/KK/AK are all possible, and QQ/JJ probably get money in before and AT/TT seems unlikely.
So V needs to overvalue AdTd or turn AdJd/AdTd (and worse) into a bluff?
Sick fold but vs. most players it's always Kx and so probably good.

Major downside is if he's not playing AK this way, he's basically folding range.

If you were V I would fold pre 😃

FWIW, I meant "well played by OP" as in he didn't overvalue his hand cuz I-haz-overs+drawz". Still think you can strongly argue for a fold on the turn (although I'm cool enough with a call if dood is unknown and we're not solid on our read).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'm not buying that he bets pot on flop and pots it again on turn with AA, instead of just ripping it in when there are a bazillion draws available to hero, and hero could have 2P/sets or just AX that can't find a fold.

I'm not sure JJ with the Jd gets it in on flop, and probably not on turn. Pretty much any slow-played set or 2P is gonna pucker up when the turn brings in KT.

On the river - the pot is $600, and hero donk-jams $320, half pot. All the flush draws brick. V only loses to a handful of Kx combos, and V has to wonder if hero really tries to draw to a straight on this two-flush-draw board without having exactly AKdd or KTss.

The problem there - AKs is a 4B pre, at least some of the time. And KTs is folding to the 3B pre, at least some of the time. KTss is going to jam turn, at least some of the time. AKdd is jamming turn, at least some of the time.

He's losing to exactly 2 combos, neither of which seems super-likely when hero takes this line...and V folds top set, getting 3:1 on a call? At 1/3?

Nah. I don't buy it. Very, very, very few 1/3 players are taking this line with AA and folding the river with top set, getting 3:1, when they get there the way V got there. They're just calling off and going broke.

There's only 1 combo of AA available. V could have had a lot of other hands here, the way this was played. I'm not taking him at his word that he had AA, and folded it.

I just raise the flop and get it in. Easy game. Never really a bad play. A nit can still find a fold with AQ or KK OTF/OTT, and you’ll print money.

AP, jam the turn and pray for AK or some goofy AT/T9s.