AKo OOP 4-bet pot, now what

I generally don’t hero call rivers w AK in a 4-bet pot when pairs make sense with V’s line and the most likely unpaired hands we dominate got there on river.

Also, unless you are planning to barrel turn (which you shouldn’t here), your tiny flop cbet accomplishes nothing. The only AK I would cbet here is suited with a BDFD.

This V sounds like the variety that will “put you on AK” and go to the felt with all pairs. No natural bluffs here that you could have “induced”. To avoid feeling “capped” checking AK at this depth as the 4-bettor, just also sometimes check AA/KK.

I think it matters what position you opened to 10 - if you're opening UTG to a 9 person table vs opening CO things change dramatically. I would just check the flop - I think if he has a better hand he's checking behind the flop most of the time and might even do the same on the turn. If you check and he bets big/jams, I would probably snap it off.

Positions?

I'm UTG and he's LJ.

For a more long winded description on V. He's a loose passive with a de-emphasis on "passive", that is, hes learned a little poker from watching videos. He's x/raised me with KJo on Kd-Jd-7d when I had AdAc before. He watches mariano. One of his biggest leaks is his VPIP. Probably about 40% VPIP. Also has a sizing tell pre. 3-bet me once from the blinds with AJo for small sizing. He's called me IP tonight with AJs though where he didn't 3-bet. He overvalues hands so his value betting range is quite wide, even MW. For instance 3-ways to a flop of A-K-Qr me and fish check to him, he's betting all his AX here and not in the sense that he's "stabbing", he actually will think A9o to be a value bet here.

In this hand on 7-3-3r he's calling IP with all PPs, all 7X, and a lot of A-high. His A-high will start to fold out if I had shoved.

We once played a hand where I had a massive draw that missed, board was like 7-6-4ddc-8c-7h and I took a x/r flop, bomb turn, AI river line and he called me down with TT.

You need to carry your range analysis from street to street. What A highs and 7x does he 3-bet/call with preflop ?

Bet bigger on the flop or check unless you plan to follow through on the turn -- especially if you are considering calling the river.

River is a table read. I probably sigh fold.

You're calling hoping to chop at best. Unless you think he's calling flop with AJs with a backdoor or something. This is just a fold.

Is jamming river an option targeting JJ-TT? I don't mind how the hand was played overall, turn check seems reasonable. Any reads on what his 3bet range might looks like LJ vs UTG? How much Qx/JJ/TT etc.

I probably 4bet a little smaller, but other than that it all looks OK to me

What is A9 if not a valuebet? A bluff?

Either make it 130-140 pf, (I know we've 400) and stick it in on 733r. Or go low like you did, then do the modern 1/4-1/3 cbet on paired flop, then rip in the rest on the turn. It's a 2/3 bet, flush draw developed, why not?

Let them decide whether to call your 'obvious' TT-QQ... V never has a 7 (though neither do you) or a 3 here, right?

AP, they've a Q, they don't believe you can beat it (which is a problem for you, given how you've played it up to this point---I'd think in a vacuum you had KK/AA---so why aren't they?) = fold.

Grunch:

PRE - I don't like the $115 size for our 4B here. I'd prefer to flat call or jam when V only has $400 to start, though we can probably make it just $100 there, when we're 4B'ing, and fold if he 5B-jams.

FLOP - wouldn't hate a check from OOP, even when we 4B pre, but c-betting small like this seems fine in theory, so long as you're prepared to jam most turns.

TURN - would prefer to jam, not check. If the turn checks through, plan to jam most rivers.

RIVER - Yuck. Think we have to abort mission now, when AQ gets there. Once we check, and he jams, it's time to fold.

The problem with our line here is that we're repping AA/KK when we 4B pre, but AA/KK aren't slowing down and checking turn. When we check turn, and V checks back, if he has any clue, he's not checking back over-pairs, because it looks like we have AK that's hoping to see a free river.

Even if he does check back over-pairs on the turn, he's not jamming TT/JJ on the river, and maybe not even AQ. So this is likely QQ for value, occasionally AQ, or AK looking to bluff us off a chop.

Result:

Just rip turn he has so much junk. You kept his range wide on flop so we have plenty of fold equity. If he calls with 55 or whatever so be it.

So...that's interesting. While I respect Java's opinion that V could be BS'ing you, that hand does make some sense - a gut-shot that turned a flush draw. So I wouldn't necessarily think he's FOS.

That said, and please take this as sincere interest in helping you improve, I think we need to look at your table reads, and see if the read aligns with the reveal. If so, was there something in there that would have led us to a different course of action? If not, what can we learn from this hand, and look to improve in the future?

Okay, he's sticky post, but when he's 3B'ing and calling a $115 4B pre, with 54s, can we also say he's pretty LAG and fairly sticky pre? I mean, this 3B and his call of your 4B tell us a lot about him, and / or a lot about his perception of you, and your skill, relative to his, at least when he has position on you. It takes some fairly big balls to do this with 54s.

I wonder if he really is a losing player.

Okay, good. This is some useful info. We know he opens wide, 3B's wide, and calls 3B's wide. It would help to know if he also calls 4B's wide, but even without knowing for sure, we might infer he is likely to be wide when calling a 4B, especially when he's IP, if he's calling 3B's OOP with T5s.

Notice that in all your observations, he likes to be the aggressor. LAGs don't like facing aggression, and will over-fold when opponents push back on them.

I'd be careful about thinking he runs like a god. Anyone can sun-run in a single session. No one is inherently lucky or unlucky. More likely, what's happening is that he plays too many hands, and the times he makes a hidden monster stick out in our memory because his actual hand is so preposterous, like 63s opened UTG or T5s calling a 3B OOP.

What we're probably overlooking is all the times he's out of line, whiffs, and either folds to a bet/raise, or bluffs an opponent out of their shoes whenever they show weakness, because he has no choice, and he always has a perceived range advantage as the constant aggressor.

Clearly he hates folding. Most opponents who aren't nits or pros hate folding. I hate folding. But we know players who hate folding end up with too many weak hands and way too much air in their range on too many boards, opening the door for us to bluff them, or bluff-catch them, or take them to value-town.

Aside from how he plays, do you have any insight into how he views opponents, especially you? If you had to guess, what do you think he thinks about your abilities? If he's 3B'ing you light, is that because he thinks you're opening too wide, even from EP? If he's calling your 4B's light, is that because he thinks you're going to make big mistakes post-flop?

Awesome. More reads. Let's see...

He x/r's with top 2P on monotone boards. That's pretty aggro. He VPIP's a ton, but we could have inferred that already from your OP. He 3B from the blinds with AJo, for a small sizing - the 3B seems standard, depending on your position when you raised. Can't judge his sizing because you didn't tell us what it was. Might have been fine for all we know.

He flatted IP with AJs. Seems fine. He bets thin for value - good on him. He should, especially if he understands his LAG table image. Betting thin is good, against anyone who isn't a rock.

It sounds like maybe he likes to use small bet and raise sizes as a way to define his opponents' ranges. That's smart, and something you should look to emulate.

So far, he seems like a LAG who might actually have some skill.

With those insights, let's re-look at the hand...

Since we'll be OOP going to the flop, I'd think we'd either want to flat call his 3B when it folds back to us, so that we can play a smaller pot with a higher SPR from OOP with AKo, or we'd want to 4B smaller, for the same reasons, or we'd want to put him to the test by jamming on him, since we're never 4B-folding if we make it more than 30% of the effective stack ($120).

I think calling is fine, if we're willing to over-fold when we miss, expecting him to bet a lot when we check to him. I think 4B'ing is fine, but *ONLY* if we're willing to continue the aggression post-flop.

When he 3B's small, and just flat calls our 4B, what sort of range are you giving him, based on what we know about him? I'd think a LAG would 5B-jam with AA/KK and maybe QQ/AKs, so I'd be giving him middling pairs from 99-JJ, some suited Broadway combos, and maybe some "crackers" - SC's like 54s to 87s, hands that have decent equity against our big PP's. Maybe we could also give him some slivers of lower and middling pairs from 55 to 88.

Great flop, all things considered - rainbow and disconnected. Doubtful he has any 3x in his range, so we're really only worried about him having 3 combos of 77.

Theory says we're supposed to be range betting pretty small in 4B pots. He's supposed to call a lot.

Against a LAG who is likely to bet if we check to him, and unlikely to fold when we bet, I don't mind just checking here, to keep the pot smaller and the SPR higher. He's likely to bet, but that's fine. He'll probably bet small, and we can call. We can check-evaluate on the turn. Let's put the pressure to figure out what to do on him, by checking.

When we bet, we can probably assume he's folding out 55-66 if he gets here with those combos. He's probably also folding all his Broadway combos with no BDFD potential. So his continue range is going to be weighted towards 88-JJ, and SC's that connected with the board in some way, either 87s/76s, or 65s/54s for a GSSD.

But he'd probably 3B larger pre with JJ/TT, so his over-pairs are mostly just going to be 88, and maybe some 99, if he doesn't 3B larger with that hand too.

If he had 77, he might raise flop, because LAGs don't typically slow-play huge hands in spots where we're going to have a lot of big PP's that won't fold flop when he raises. So when he flat calls, I'd be discounting 77, and giving him a lot of weaker hands.

The 9s doesn't improve many hands in his range, just 99, Broadway spade combos, and a couple combos of 65ss and 54ss. We can target 88 and any 66-55 that didn't fold flop to fold now, and fold out a lot of his high equity draws if we jam.

It'll be hard for him to call with most of his range, when the board is both paired and two-tone. Even if he gets here with some 9x, like T9s/98s, he's going to hate it if we jam, and he'll probably fold.

We should really just jam on him here, when his range has so many weak hands and air in it. If he snaps with 99, or 77, or A3s, just muck your hand, tap the table and move on.

Of course he jams. That's what LAGs do when we show any weakness. If we snap him off with QQ, he'll tell himself his bluff would have worked against AK. In order to avoid being exploited, we might need to call off with AK here, as much as we hate it.

And I do hate it, because when he 3B's and calls our 4B pre, he's going to have *WAY* more AQ/KQ/QJs in his range than we will, and a LAG would probably bet all those hands for value when we check to him twice. The only reason he wouldn't is if he thinks we'd check twice with AA/KK, which we'd probably never do, because most players wouldn't in a 4B pot when the the BDFD appears on the turn.

But, if you can find this call, against this particular V, with AKo, it's amazing, and probably profitable, against this specific V. Even better - don't put yourself in that position, where you have to find the call, by jamming turn instead.

Honestly, and I know you've heard this before, and may hate hearing it, but I think you may be judging your opponents too harshly sometimes. He played this hand well, whether he had a PP or just a SC. I'd bet he's a winning player, not because he runs like god, but because he understands how to exploit his opponents' leaks.

If you're thinking of making this call, you should have jammed the turn when you had fold equity.