1/2: AK facing $45 UTG open from aggrowhale

he obv doesnt care so just jam and get called by whatever he opened with

Easy to say after the fact, but my initial thought was to call. If someone behind you raises, then I would shove. Otherwise, you take the flop in position with likely the best hand. He’s been identified as opening too wide, so you should be happy to mix it up with him.

The problem with raising is that you want to play postflop with this guy and it’s a disaster for him to fold like he did. You want to double up, not win $45. If you call, he caps your range and can’t put you on AK. So, he probably keeps firing.

I think it’s a mistake to think villain is inelastic. Many that play this aggressive style are decent postflop players. They understand resistance and abandon the steal when met with it.

I would jam preflop in this spot.

Taking down the 45 isn't a disaster with AKo.

winning $45 UI is a good result.

if you cold call pre, then 2/3 of the time postflop you whiff and probably fold the best hand to a big cbet.

I understand disagreement.
I play well postflop in position. Missing the flop doesn’t mean I can’t still win. I feel very confident in playing this through the streets vs this guy. Maybe not a disaster, but he’s never calling. I would save the jam for a weaker hand.

With a hidden AK, you have a chance to get 6x that $45. Aggressive player, OOP, playing too many hands, weak range is opportunity. But I guess taking the dead money is not a disaster when it’s a sure thing. So, I understand disagreement.

Does he call if we raise to 100? We need to figure out how he can put more money in the pot - whether that's a min raise, jam, raise to 100, etc. Also like someone else said taking down the 45 without having to do anything is great as well

The more I think about this, the more I believe that if we ran this scenario (UTG bets huge, we are next to act) through modern software, then we would find that the the correct play is to create a fold/jam strategy.

We are playing an 8bb game from early position.

The value of the 1bb is so huge compared to what we can extract with superior play, that we should be playing for raw EV only. In other words, hand selection is the only EV-significant skill in play.

Factors in creating our range:

1. Villain's range, in this case we might guess 20% or 25%.
2. We are EP and anyone else can wake up with a hand.
3. Rake cuts into our EV.

I suspect we end up with a pretty snug range that we're supposed to shove.

Not saying push is best. Just that it is not a bad result whether he folds or calls allin.

I don't like making it 100. IMO, the options are push, call, and raise to like 150 and shove any flop. One problem with 150, though, is we have position, and tricky when we miss and he bets into us.

If you had AA, then 3! to like 120 is probably best.

I think it’s always about how much will he call, but he’s not calling $300 with the stigma of being an All-in bet. Popping it to $100 might work.

Why would you make it 100? What do we accomplish getting him too call 100? Then we still have no idea how to play it the 2/3 of the time we miss.

Really?
We’re in position with so many options. If we miss, we can take a FreeCard, bluff big or small. I just don’t understand people just wanting to shut the hand down, instead of playing poker.

He goes first is so important!
He’s wide, so he misses more than we do.
If you don’t know what to do with the best hand against a weak player, I can only say that some of us do.

Fantastic - how is this bad?

You won over 20BBs, adding over 10% to your stack, without any risk!

Players like V can create a ton of variance. How to adjust really depends on how much variance you can stand.

In theory, if we know he's opening UTG with too-wide a range, even when he takes this large sizing, we should be 3B'ing him with a range that only needs to be slightly better. AKo would obviously be near the top of that range.

Whether we want to 3B jam or 3B to some lesser amount somewhat depends on how we think he reacts to being 3B. Does he 4B jam if we bet less than all in? Does he over-fold if we 3B jam?

If he over-folds to a 3B jam, but he'll over-jam when we 3B less than all in, then I'd 3B less than all in, with a plan to call if he jams. If he's never folding to a 3B jam when he opens to this size, then by all means, go ahead and jam on him.

I think in a vacuum I prefer to not get stacks in pre if we can avoid it when we're IP. If we 3B to $135 and he calls, he's capping his range, such that he's going to mostly fold if we jam on the flop.

If we 3B less than all in, and he calls, he's going to be lost about what to do on most flops. If he jams flop from up front and we miss, we can save some of our stack by folding. If he takes that line - flatting our 3B pre, and then jamming the flop, he's basically letting us realize more of our equity for a lower price.

Jamming pre is very profitable and easy. Why overcomplicate with a small 3b that might not even produce more EV? If we whiff and jam do we really think he’s folding better?

He's a whale, there's no bluffing him with a 3 spr going to the flop. If he hits a pair he's not folding so explain how you are going to bluff him?

Just getting fold with AK is fine. I shove this all day like you do. With AA-kk and maybe QQ I 3 bet small cause we really don't want him to fold his garbage and most whales are never raising to 45 and folding to another 90 etc

I may be wrong about this. My thinking is that if we jam pre, he folds a lot of his worse hands and calls with a lot of his better hands. But those same better hands may not 4B jam over a smaller 3B, and / or may donk jam on what V perceives to be a safe flop.

So, if that analysis is mostly true, I think when we're IP we're better off not getting stacks in pre, and would prefer to see a flop. We can cooler him when we both make top pair but we have him out kicked, and get away from our hand when he donk jams the flop with his over-pairs.

V wants to gamble. I'd think we'd prefer to play poker. When we have a skill edge and positional advantage, we should try to maximize their value by forcing him to make more decisions from OOP.