C-bet frequency with AK on dry flop in 3-bet pot.

On this flop, I'm range betting 1/3-1/2 pot, since we have the initiative on a board which shouldn't hit either player's range.

Thank you! Would it be a different scenario on a board like T97 rainbow?

Would this board hit the caller's range more?

Still worth a C-bet as the preflop with AK on the T97 rainbow board? Or would this be a check more often?

A solver is going to be betting this flop about half the time for a large size (60-70% pot). The logic being that this flop doesn't hit our range or our opponents range hard. So the computer likes to bet a lot with JJ-AA, and will pull from suited broadway like KJ, QJ for bluffs, hands that don't really want to see an overcard come on the turn. But it will be mixing in checks and large raise with almost all hands except for hands that actually hit this board soft like 65, 54, 66 - because getting x/r with those holdings is miserable. AKo mixes and checks more than bets. But if you look at the EV, there is like 0.01bb EV difference between checking and raising. In other words, mathematically, it doesn't matter against a GTO opponent.

Our opponents are not GTO opponents. So exploitatively, AF's idea is a very attractive one for two reasons:

1: Live Vs are not going to raise us anywhere close to as much as they should. For example, they should raise us about 15% of the time with hands like 22, K6, A4. That isn't happening in most games. I'd say in most live games at $1/$3 stakes, if we get x/r, we are against 88 or better, and we can overfold.

2: Live Vs will overcall. You say you would "only be called by better" - really? Do you believe your opponent is folding AQ here? I don't. I think you are being called by AT-AQ almost always, sometimes KQ, KJ, KT. These are all hands that are supposed to fold at some frequency, but a lot of $1/$3 players will peel off a card.

3: Taking down the pot isn't a bad result. It's a 3-bet pot, there is a decent amount of money out there and if V folds a hand like JT, that isn't terrible. Yes you are ahead, but V has 25% equity, and if a J comes on the turn, you probably aren't pushing him off. Even when you are ahead, denying equity when you have an unmade hand is usually a good thing. Especially when the pot is bloated by a 3!.

So yes, in theory this is a flop to check about half the time, and probably a bit more frequently with AKo, but in practice I think betting more frequently in 3! pots is a good exploit in the vast majority of live games. We want to slow down and check back when the flop benefits our opponents. Like if V was in the BB here and is an aggressive player, you probably want to check back because if I'm in the BB I'm x/r this board a ton. If the flop comes out Q or J high and is connected with a T or 9, you might want to check back because V should have a lot more KQ/KJ/QJ/JT type hands. On a trashy flop where nobody should have much, just bet smallish and be happy to take it down.

If you run into resistance, proceed with caution if you don't improve OTT. This is the kind of flop and hand where bet small, check back the turn, and bluff catch river can be a great line against opponents who are aggressive enough to bluff. Say he might call with KQ, x/x turn, then thinks he can bluff you on the river because you checked turn. If V x/r flop or donks the turn, you can just fold unless you have a read of aggro.

You would want to check that board a ton, even AA is going to want to check that board like 70%ish of the time. In live poker you can simplify to checking back range. In general, someone who calls a 3-bet is going to have a lot of those mid-high hands. Combinations that include T-Q, because suited broadway hands like KQ, KJ, JT, QJ, QT, AQ, AJ, AT, QQ, JJ, TT, 99 are the largest portion of their range they would call a 3! and might not 4!. A lot of Qs and a lot of Js and more Ts than you have. So T97 is giving them some nutted hands like TT and also some pretty good draws that aren't going to fold and might x/r you. I don't think it is a huge error to bet in a passive game, but if you're betting here routinely you are deviating.

Thank you, I really appreciate your detailed response.

As a beginner player, could I ask you the way to study the frequencies I should be betting/checking postflop?

I am still new very new to poker.

A lot of coaching sites have GTO trainers, or you can go to a GTO library and randomize the flop. Don't worry about the specific hands at first. Instead, focus on the overall frequency of betting vs checking and test yourself. Guess how much you should bet, check the solver, then look at the ranges and try to decipher why. Repeat. Work on identifying which flop textures are good or bad for the position and how that impacts frequency. Do this drill for a few dozen flops every day. Only after you can accurately guess the betting frequency, turn your attention to the specific hands.

Because once you know the frequency, it's pretty easy to put your hands into buckets: strong made hands, moderate made hands, weak made hands, high equity draws, low equity draws, air with bluffing qualities, complete trash. If you know whether you are betting the flop 90%, 70% or 50%, it's not so difficult to determine which buckets to bet, and which to check.

This is great advice, thank you.

Do you have any recommendations for the best GTO trainer for a beginner?

Ok so really quick - think of GTO Strategy as a "optimal way to play when your opponent also plays equally as perfect" so if your opponents plays less than perfect, you still are employing a strategy that beats those better than it, and so long run/relevant sample size (100,000 hands) will yield results that support as much.

Now think about any card room in the world and the ability of any random opponent selected.

Q: Do they play optimally?

I hope the answer to this is obvious.

Now I'm not good at reading minds but i hope to god youre thinking:
Well gee, if my opponents don't play optimally, why should I learn optimal strategy?

Gooooood ****ing question. Im glad you asked.

So: The best way to approach the game of poker is to understand it flawless at a fundamentally sound level. If we are to accept that GTO strategy to be defined as one in which neither you nor your opponent are capable of extracting any value out of the other when you both are utilizing the same Optimal strategy thus resulting in a net 0 gain or less when these strategies play against each other .Furthermore, any other strategy other than Optimal will always yield a net loss, defined as variable "y" (more on this later) against the Game Theory Optimal Strategy. then what we have is truly a fundamentally sound strategy.

You with me on it still? Feel free to ask a question here if that needs further clarificaiton.... no? cool - then lets move on from Theoretical to Practical Application of Sound Strategies.

A an optimal strategy is one in which any other strategy other than the very same one being employed is unable to offset a net gain in its favor. In other words, any other opponent playing against GTO not using GTO will not win an edge over the GTO opponent.

What about when your opponents are not using an optimal strategy - will I both ahve an edge and prevent them from stealing any net gain when our strategies collide on the table? Well, yes you will have the edge and they will not be able to gain any exploitive advantage over your strategy (see definition of Optimal Strategy above) and the further their strategy deviates from optimal the more they will lose to an optimal strategy.

But here's the curve ball: Its best to think of GTO as a kind of defensive strategy. Your decision tree in the game has no exploitable holes, and your actions are not concerned with those of your opponents as long as you are always playing the sound strategy defined by the manner in which you mathematically deduce a GTO strategy. THIS is the critical part that people forget. GTO Strategy while in practice can ignore the opponents choices and focus solely on the decisions dictated because when people say "its been solved" what they mean is : every decision tree/decision node has a solution wherein even against the BEST strategy (itself), it does not lose. So its application doesnt require you to think about your opponents at all if you have memorized every decisions tree node that GTO would implement against itself effectively (this is largely impossible but i keep getting these youtube recommendations for "linus is a computer and knows his ****" so maybe 1 dude on earth has it almost perfect according to some dude on youtube who talks about this **** non stop)

But wait... there's more:
What if I told you that by knowing when and how you could deviate from GTO strat because you understand it fundamentally that you could extract / maximize value from all these weaker strategy to gain even more profit?

Question - Do you hate money?

I'm assuming i know the answer to this one. Once you have a solid understanding on the fundamental WHY of GTO (this part isnt easy and will take a lot of time), you can then utilize your knowledge to deviate from GTO when your opponents are deviating waaaaaay further from GTO to maximally exploit their mistakes. Remember the variable 'y' defined above as the profit potential?

GTO yields at its base without any changes 'y' profit from any strategy that is not equal to its own (y=0, and all y values would only move in positive direction over robust sample size of implementation) . BUT there are ways where coupled with sound understanding of the strategy that would allow for a "y + w" where "w" is the additional maximal exploitive profit yielded from capitalizing on the larger mistakes non-gto strategies employ. Even if you're opponent is a mouth breather who doesnt think, they are using a 'strategy' whether they know it themself or not.

etc .

so learn some GTO. but then learn why you dont wanna use GTO at the 1/2 game. Then when you face better opponents, having already mastered GTO, you wont get crushed but you'll learn how to shift back to a pure GTO strat or see the avenues where deviating would yield a "w" to add to your "y"

hoep this helps.

If you 3-bet and get a dry flop and miss with AK or whatever, I would cbet, representing QQ+. Some people are only 3-betting like KK/AA at low stakes, so you want to represent it. Agree GTO is not that relevant here.

I would cbet a lot more at 1/3 or 1/2 than at 2/5. At 1/3, you will get some folds from mid pps who think you have a big pp, because some people 3! so tight.

Curious about this, too. I haven't found any free tools that let you train with flops...is it possible to do this type of training without paying to join a coaching site or subscribing to gto wizard, etc...?

addressing OP's post though:
frequency wise in this setup you should be C'betting pretty frequently with a large portion of your range here for about 1/3rd pot. Collectively i wanna say its like 30% check 70% 1/3rd pot c-bet.

I'm cbetting this flop about 100% with my range HU at 1/3. Maybe check some middle card wet flops, etc. Go to continue to represent JJ+.

GTO Wizard - the starter level or more than sufficient. The higher levels are a waste of money until you are already pretty proficient with solvers and want to start doing deep analysis. I think it's like $40/month, which is the cheapest you'll find unless you're already subscribing to one of the coaching sites. The other solvers are basically trying to play catch up to GTOWizard but are serviceable for the basics.

The part in bold face seems to imply that we're hoping to just take down the pot on the flop when we c-bet. But there are still two more streets to play. If we c-bet the flop and V flat calls, we can barrel turn and river, or check back turn and bet river, or bet turn and check back river.

C-betting may take down the pot on the flop, but if it doesn't, we're building a pot that we can still win on a later street, if we make a hand or not. Part of the value in c-betting is that our opponents will fold some better hands. Part of the value is that we're denying equity. Part of it is getting value when we have value, even if it's thin.

Consider that HJ in this hand may have folded a worse hand, but we'd actually prefer HJ to float with his worse hands, and possibly make a 2nd best hand that can pay us off on a later street.

The above about wanting opponents to make 2nd best hand is true but right now we only have A hi and we are equally likely to turn an A as our opponents are to turn a pair if they have 2 overs. We have equity but if we whiff the turn and we bet again and whiff the river but our opponent has binked equity or a pair we're just betting without a proper plan, just hope effectively.

Sometimes we bet to simply deny equity of our opponents as well. If our opponents range had more unpaired hands relative to the pairs in their range checking with AKo benefits more but in this situation I do think trying to take down the pot with a C-bet on a board that misses a lot of ranges is fine with the back up plan that if called, we have outs to and A or K and a BD SD.

this is absolutely not the case at 1/2 and higher.

Other weaker A hi hands
Other suited broadways below the A

89s, 69s, etc etc

unless your game is full of 5%-10% vpip'ers, there are ton of hands that call on a low flop like this with little to no equity.

The point I was making is that if we have AK, V could float with worse AX, and we'd love to see an ace roll off.