£1/£2/£5 crap spot with KK

Icky spot; being out of position sucks. Agree bigger pre to try to cut down on SPR when we have to navigate this, but I don't hate the flop size.

Was fun to play around a bit with a sim here. I think it's fair to assume that Villain gets here with an solver-ish range; if he is routinely flatting the 3b with SCs then it changes things - I used mostly Broadway combos and pairs, 4-betting AA/KK/AKs and some AKo.

In equilibrium the solver is indifferent to betting and check-shoving, but the key variable here seems to be Villain raising (all-in) basically all pair-with-heart combos in response to a turn barrel. If you remove that option but let V shove sets OTT, the solver heavily favors betting black KK here. The river is then interesting - bricks are usually a shove, and it actually bluff-shoves hearts but only because it then pure folds things like TT with a heart. I can't see a human float the turn with a heart draw and then fold it to a shove for less than pot. Other major factor is that V has no raises OTF in equilibrium; does he really flat all sets pure here?

But the bottom line seems to be - unless V's range has way more suited heart combos than offsuit combos (like pairs), we're still ahead enough to try to GII right now and if that fails, evaluate the river.

I'd fire 150 on the turn. Let's see the river.

flop is a check-raise. If he calls that then turn is a 1/4 bet to see where we're at. If he calls that then river is another 1/4 bet to get value from overpairs. If he raises turn then we fold.

pf should be 100

id start by checking the flop and seeing what happens. if he bets small then CR. if he bets big then call. if he checks back then bet the turn like 2/3 pot. the spr here is too high to go broke with one pair and he has all sets in range.

as played id check turn and see what happens. do this with the nuts too sometimes. if he bets really big id just fold and tell him he bluffed out my AK.

disagree with going bigger on flop id go smaller or better yet check.

you have a two street hand. if you make it 3 streets and end up all in you probably lose.

Probably not solver approved but I’m claiming the flush and shoving the turn. I want to end this hand now, not worried about keeping worse hands in. Most likely he’s not strong enough to call this jam.

I’m fine with your pre-flop and flop play. But this is where I separate from the pack. Unless he has the flush, it will be very hard for villain to call my shove. I want the tough decision on villain not on me.

I don’t think this board smashed villain’s range like it does in a single raised pot. He probably didn’t call a 3bet with little cards.

Poker is about taking calculated risks. Nothing is tougher than the pressure of facing an all-in bet. When considering a call, villain has to consider that most shoves are not bluffs.

Running into a set and losing my stack in this way doesn’t bother me. If he called a 3bet with little pockets, I’ll get my money back eventually. What really does bother me is folding KK to a four liner.

Pre/flop sizing good enough. Turn check > bet. You’re losing to 88–TT, 65s, maybe 97s. Let villain bluff or realize.

+1 for the username alone.

Shoving when we’re only getting called when we’re dead is both bad strategy and a waste of a good hand.

Is 5x a standard open at this table or from this V?

In a vacuum, the 3bet size from SB should be ~ 100-125, imo.

As played, the cbet size is perhaps a bit small too. Don't know how theoretically sound this is, but my gut feeling is that we may want to split ranges in this spot: so go either <=1/3 pot or >=3/4 pot. If so, then your hand most probably belongs to the second group.

As played, I'd c/c turn and evaluate river, or check turn and bet a blank-ish river if V checks back.
I'd bet against a passive V, but tend to be more cautious vs unknown, mainly because I wouldn't know what to do if V raised turn.
By the way, GII on this board, at this SPR and without reads on V seems like an overplay to me.

Not dead very often and I missed where you wrote how to play that good hand?

Win some and lose some!

Yeah, any sim is only as good as our estimate of V's initial range. By "solver-ish" I mostly meant in broader form for flatting 3-bets IP. My base range for that scenario is HJ defending BB 3b since I think it's a decent median range and LLSNL villains are rarely loose enough in LP or tight enough in EP anyway. Also, people really really cannot fold pairs preflop. GTOW has 5x open charts I believe, but (a) they are way tighter than actual players, and (b) I haven't paid for them.

FWIW, with more suited combos in V's calling range, the flop bet is going to isolate hard against heart draws and some backdoor diamond draws, and this does cause the black KK to slow down to mostly a check-call OTT, but then bluffs or bluff-catches most rivers. For some reason it still prefers check-shove with KsKd and KcKd, which is one of those solver things I don't fully understand... something to do with blocking the Kxdd combos that floated the flop.

Also FWIW, I gave the solver b20, b60, and b100 on the flop and it just mixes, although b60 is pretty popular for KK. Like a lot of flops, seems like it's quite whatever / adaptable to any visible exploits. The problem is that SPR is just a bit too big to easily make this a two-street hand.

Check call turn. Our hand has value still we don’t need to bluff with it.

Grunch:

PRE - my default 3B size from OOP is going to be 4x. I'll size up or down depending on whatever's going on. Based on your very limited read, I might size up slightly here, and go to 120. But 85 just seems too small, unless you're trying to induce shenanigans.

FLOP - my usual line from OOP as the PFR is to range-check when HU. But I'll deviate with thick value or on really wet / dynamic boards. This situation has both, so I'd c-bet huge, probably full pot, especially when we don't have the Kh in our hand.

The 100 c-bet size isn't terrible, but it's not small enough to induce him to raise with his nutted hands, nor is it large enough to put real pressure on his over-pairs or draws that want to continue. I'd rather check than take this in-between sizing.

TURN - Yeesh. I can't think of a worse turn card. I'd rather see the Ah than the 7h.

I probably check, with plans to fold to a big bet. I actually wouldn't hate a jam, to get value from all the PP's with 1 heart in his range. Obviously that's a much higher variance play, but I don't see what size we can bet here that isn't going to look weak nor pot commit us to calling off the rest.

Actually...I suppose we could barrel for a small size, with plans to fold if we get raised, and block the river for a small size again, still planning to fold to a raise.

It may look weak, but if we had the nuts here, we might size down to 120 on the turn, and 150 on the river.

It'll be hard for V to fold any of his over-pairs with 1d on the turn, or raise as a bluff on the river, unless he has the Ad in his hand, and I'd think a lot of his AdXx combos are either getting 4B pre or are going to raise flop or turn.

Our pre-flop 3B range just doesn't have many flushes in it, and those it does have are going to block a lot of the better flushes V can have. Like, we're going to have all the AKs combos, plus some portions of AQs, AJs, ATs and A5s. When we have AKdd or AQdd, it's hard for V to get to the turn with a lot of strong flushes.

When we're 3B'ing pre from the SB, we're going to have a fair bit of AdXx that could take that line as a bluff.

So when we have AKdd, we might size down to get called by QJdd and worse, and size up when we have AdXx.

Pre: 125$

Flop: would bet decently big or plan to c/r. I like betting 75%

Turn: I check to c/c a normal size. If they are bad you could bet really small though (they will raise flushes and call with worse).

River: if it’s checked through I would lead 50% pot on good rivers. Maybe more on great rivers.