this is the first time I've ever 4-bet AK preflop

i'm sorry for your loss

Wtf you invested 37% of your stack into the pot, you think about folding to 5bet.

This is snap shove on any flop. You're literally pot committed.

Btw, the 4bet sizing is super small live. You aren't getting any folds either ship or flat.

Learn to love AK.

Once you 4bet to over 30%, you're pot committed with any single hand.

I hardly ever play with btn straddle, so I am probably not aware of some specificities here.

However, at ~80x effective, this seems a fairly standard 4b-shove preflop. Also, in theory, when you 4bet to 185, you don't really have room for folding to a 5bet.

As played, otf there is no way you can fold. If you have a read that V tends to overbluff, then you might check/call; otherwise, just shove.

If this guy was 3-betting really tight like a lot of people at low stakes, then flat is better. Otherwise, I don't mind the 4! sizing with the intention to call a shove and shove most flops. Need to shove here. Might even get a pair to fold. If called you are about 25% against a pair and almost have odds to gii if you knew he had a pair.

I limp in but that's my style.

What's our image? How often does this guy 3bet? The nittier image we have and the less he 3bets, the more we can actually lean to a nitty fold preflop. The crazier laggy image we have and the more he 3bets, the more a 4bet might be fine, although the idea to put in 1/3rd of our stack to fold seems a little gross to me.

As played I guess just shove and hope to fold out JJ-/AK?

FWIW, if you're super uncomfortable in these spots / perhaps struggling, you may want to consider sitting shorter (where we can comfortable get AK all-in preflop and be the ones applying the pressure).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I mean...we 4B pre. We're supposed to c-bet the flop near 100% of the time, at least in theory. We're supposed to bet small, but with AK on Q82, I don't hate jamming for a little less than pot.

If V is a competent player with LAG tendencies, he won't love this spot unless he absolutely smashed the flop, and it's hard to see how he could have done that. He'd probably jam pre with QQ+, and fold 88 and 22. What's his range here when he flats our 4B? Maybe AQ at best?

He could have AK, AQ, AJ, some PP's that seemed too good to fold pre but don't love this flop, like TT / JJ, and some SC's that made middle pair and will hate calling a jam.

I dunno. I suppose we could check-fold AKo on Q82rb. If we had AKs with a BDFD, it's a little better. AKs with the FDFD is an easy jam.

Going back to pre-flop - we opened to 30, and he only 3B to 2.5x, and then flats our 4B? That smells a little fishy to me. I'd think he'd want to just get it in with QQ+. AKs, maybe AKo, and occasionally AQs. This sort of line sort of feels like 99-JJ - some decent PP that a LAG would 3B, but then can't find the fold to the 4B.

All that said - my default strat is to check range from OOP when HU as the PFR. Even in a 4BP, I might still check from up front. With 1 SPR, we don't necessarily need to worry about V jamming as a bluff.

ETA - just read some other comments, pointing out that we're pot committed when we raise to 185 off 500. They're right. Either flat call, 4B to a smaller size, or just jam pre for max fold equity. Once we get to the flop this way, we're pretty handcuffed, and should just jam from up front. No reason to think about it.

Au contraire, although I did have one more stupid play left in me:

On the flop I forgot I didn't have the "infinite ammo" cheat code turned on and slid out a standard c-bet size of $275. Villain put me all-in for the rest and tabled AQ. I got rescued by a K on the turn.

Seems fine. I stuff the flop like 75% of the time. Check/fold like 15%. Check/call 10%.

Disagree. Shove 100%. Preflop is fine too, unless you is 3-betting a really tight range.

Pre: Jam or call 3 bet. 4 betting to more than 30% of your stack don't make sense.

This post tilts me so much.

You got V to 3bet/call mostly pot committed with a dominated hand, and it looks like you think you made a major mistake?

Looks like you think the better line would be to call preflop and then x/f the flop? GG /thread

With $6 straddle you don't even have 100bb to start with.

It matters a _lot_ if there was a limper or not, before your preflop raise.

At the very least it matters for future info. if V had AQs or AQo.

Not obvious if V's 3bet size is genius or button clicking, would tend to assume button clicking given the 4bet call.

Actually hard to think of a great 4bet size, given stacks. Smaller than shove is fine, as long as you aren't thinking of folding a lot post. Would tend to not like calling here with this hand, maybe half the AKs combos. if I really wanted to.

If you don't shove flop, I'd go smaller 80-125 ... but we aren't folding unless V turns over his hand (or QQ).

Your description of your hand as "air" on the flop is concerning in a few different ways, some of which are likely why you are thinking about folding too much at every decision point. Given other things you've said I think one of your bigger problems is that you aren't mentally prepared to lose $1k or more in this game, in a night. This won't be easy to overcome.

Just ship your stack over his 3b, it’s never wrong to put in under 100 bigs with AK unless we have extreme reads.

Ship against this player. Some 1/2 1/3 players are only 3-betting AA/KK, so it could be bad.

Well if that's the case---and I've played against those players too---why are we calling pre? There is no safe flop, really for AKo vs KK+. Unless we're hoping they'll give us an "O-Face" when an A hits the board, and we can only then fold our worthless top/top.

AP, and reading through the thread, agreeing a lot with illiterat here.

Is our only good 4! size a shove here though? Still seems gross to pile 500 in over 75. I guess we can cib/f, knowing we're really beat on a 5!, and we're just piling it in on most flops.

There are a lot of people at 1/2 or 1/3 where you can fold AKo to a 3!. Much less at 2/5.

Really there's no point in 4bing this hand unless your opponent thinks you 4b wide, which at live 1/2 is basically never. The value in 4bing is getting someone to jam AJ or something like that over your 4b - the reality is in a lot of these games a 4b is AK,KK,AA and you have the bottom of this range. Think I would call this preflop as a default.

Very true, the $115 or so in the pot is meaningless and...

Very true, V's will never call the extra $110 (55bb) with say AQ at these stakes.

Ship pre. Ship QQ/maybe JJ as well. Save this kind of sizing for AA/KK with some AKs or stuff that can actually play on a broader set of boards.

Now you have to get all in. It’s not likely enough that he outflopped you given what’s left behind. The only question is whether it’s better to check call or put it in yourself.

Well yeh if people are going to 3b hands like AT/AJ/AQ/KQ/KJ and call every 4bet then of course 4bet, but that's a big assumption. That's literally the only reason to 4bet - if they fold those 3b hands to your 4b then it's a massive mistake. You understand?