[500BB] Thought process breakdown — AA vs flop check-raise (flopped quads)

Your 3-bet is far too small this deep, yes.

This may be a good flop to check. You probably aren't getting too many folds preflop (except from offsuit bluff raises like meh Ax), so 76s type hands will still be in villain's range, but at the same time, if he doesn't have 6x, you have very little to worry about in terms of your opponent catching up to you - more so because you have the As. And you can extract value on the next two streets by giving villain a chance to catch up.

My preflop 3-bet sizing is 3x so it would have been close to yours at 3189

The flop c/r can be a flush draw and/or straight draw. It could be 6x which there are a few combos like 76s/65s/A6s/etc. Given that we have a BDFD I call here.

When the spade hits on the turn it gives us a flush draw and completes Villains.

On the river we hit our flush so we are now ahead of all flushes and straights and trips.

Villain can have a straight flush. Villain can have a boat with 44 or conceivably 88 (though he probably just calls with the overpair on the flop), And Villain can have quads. I don't think there is any way to fold this river bet. Just a cooler.

In my experience most Villains don't c/r with quads or boats on the flop (I don't), they just call to get us to bet the turn if we are bluffing. Given how many draws there are on the flop I wouldn't fold to the C/R and from there on our hand improves so just life.

That also would've been too small vs. this open size and at this stack depth. I adjust my 3-bets by stack depth... vs. a standard open I'll go 3-3.5x at most depths, but scaling that smaller as stacks get shorter, or scaling it larger if stacks are extremely deep or if the open raise is smaller than what's standard. I'd probably make it 8bb here vs. most opens, though as high as 10 is fine when you're 500bb deep.

How often do you play 500bb deep? There really isn't another way for the HJ to get stacks in by the river if they don't check-raise. Which is part of the reason I like checking the flop with AA-- you should largely be good if two bets get in postflop, it's iffier if three bets get in, and if four bets get in, you probably aren't. And those bets get exponentially larger as it becomes less likely your hand is good.

I need some clarification, actually: what is the size of the BB in this hand?

It's just a cooler. I'm not sure where you could have ever gotten away. Checking back AA on the flop could be OK, but I like betting when you're deep because I think you can get 3-streets of value on clean run-outs. Your opponent should have a lot of worse over pairs and shouldn't really have that many 6x in a 3bet pot where they called OOP. It's unlucky that you backed into the nut flush when he had quads.

Hmmm. I think being deep is actually a reason to check, since the relative value of an unimproved AA goes way down when you are this deep. The hand needs very little protection. But when you are this insanely deep, your hand is a pure bluff catch on the river if all the chips get in -- even with the backdoor 4-flush getting there. Thus, we want to exert some pot control.

Bottom line is I don't think you want to play for stacks with AA here, and AA with A spades doesn't really need protection on the flop, which is why I like the flop check behind.

And yes, as others have said, raise large pf.

You saw that it's a 3-bet pot right? He really is pretty unlikely to have a bare 6, calling a 3-bet OOP. He has many more combos of pocket pairs that we have crushed. I fire 3-barrels with AA all day on clean run-outs targeting pocket pairs and I'm going to have enough bluffs that they have to call down at some frequency. I'm not necessarily trying to play for stacks this deep, but you can probably range bet small on this flop. Then with AA I think you can follow through on clean runouts with chunky turn and river bets.

Sure when we're check-raised we have to be cautious. Here though there's just never really a chance to get away. You can't fold flop as you're ahead of some value (JJ, etc) plus you can't just fold aces to one raise and let him bluff with impunity. On turn we pick up the flush draw and have to continue. River I don't think we have a pure bluff catcher. Like if he had KQs I don't see any reason why he wouldn't still shove river for value, even with the four flush out there.

I already said this, but given the stack depths and size of the 3-bet, I disagree. I'm not sure we're getting any folds from his opening range (maybe his worst offsuit opens).

I would think he would at least fold K6s, which leaves one combo of A6s, 2 combos of 76s, 2 combos of 65s, one combo of quads and three combos of full houses, and almost all of those combos have at least some chance of either not opening in that position or folding to a (even small) 3-bet. I'm discounting probably two of those combos which leaves 7 combos that have us beat vs 6 combos each of 77-JJ at least for 30 combos, plus we can get value from stuff like Broadways with a BDFD that sometimes turn top pair or something.

If we're not going for three streets with AA what are we going for three streets of value with?

The problem isn't really three streets, it's opening up the possibility of four bets, with the factors that each additional bet makes it less likely your hand is good and that the bets get exponentially larger.

Which, again, I already said:

I also think you're underestimating the value of letting some hands catch a top pair they can call two bets with. And it's still no-limit. You can just make your turn/river bets larger to make up for what value you might have lost not betting the flop.

I can understand the theory behind it but again it’s very easy to say in hindsight…
I have to agree with Greatwhitefish. Realisticly speaking, playing in the moment at the table, when are you ever going to cb AA on this flop?
We obv cant fold to the cr even though its massive. Cant fold turn, cant fold river. Its just a cooler. Even if we cb flop are we planning to be a calling station all the way to showdown, missing value from all of villains combos that we beat?
A raise gets in at some point in the hand and the money just goes in one way or another

To be fair I'm not saying checking back with AA doesn't have some merit. I'm just saying OP didn't really do anything wrong (other than the pre flop 3-bet sizing, which he acknowledged in his original post).

So I was estimating the math on the hand, and the villain looks like he got about 41,000 chips (and change) in by the river. And we're 410bb deep? Does that mean the BB is 100 and he opened to 1,063?

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Damn..
You guys calling LSC's (low-suited connectors) from HJ against a 3-BET?
I fold that like 100% of the time almost.
Maybe sometime against like 20% 3-better I re-raise the LSC. But now in hindsight the 3-bet doesnt make any sense at all.

Sorry for the late replay.
It was 79BB vs Hero 105BB

Perhaps a hand that improves from being one pair on the flop, turn or river?

Edit: it was 80 bbs, not 410bbs? I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

Now I understand the pushback I was getting about going for 3 streets with AA, lol.

When I read the original post I was looking lower in the post where it said the SPR was 5.57 on the flop, and must have skimmed over the part that said there were 410 bb effective.

I felt like I was in the twilight zone reading people writing that he needed to check to pot control on the flop, and that he should have folded river after he made the nut flush. It makes more sense now that I know they thought the SPR was like 28 and not <6.

Ha, yes. My advice was on being 400+BB deep, which is not the case here. I'd still 3-bet larger preflop at 80bb, but ultimately stacking it off as it ran out is fine at that depth.

isnt his betsizing development and checkraise on that runout very indicative of nuts / fh's?

This is sort of true, but as I said something like a worse flush is also possible.

KQ or KJ of spades or something like QQ, JJ, or TT with one spade could also have possibly taken this line for value.

Also another way to think about it... We pretty much never have 66 or 44, so we are literally at the top of our own range with the As flush. So theoretically if he is ever bluffing or value shoving anything worse this is the first hand we would call with.

If we're folding the A high flush we would be folding our entire range, which could be OK exploitatively, but in theory you need to be calling with something against an opponent who constructs their range correctly to include some bluffs.

I'm beginning to realize that the reason my thoughts diverge so much from a lot of the other players on here is because we play such different styles that players respond to us differently. I'm more of a red liner who battles and semi-bluffs a lot and many players on here are more nitty/value oriented with their ranges.

Like just last night on a similar board I took a line like villain took except I was bluffing and got hero called by an over pair with no flush. So naturally because I turn up with some bluffs I can also value shove like a K or Q high flush and get hero called by worse. I see that runout and think it looks like a great runout to bluff, and because it's a great runout to bluff I will also value shove thinly.

I dont think he's sizing up with anything less than a king high flush on river again.

and he probably also doesn't size up with a king high flush.

paired board, 3bet pot, had a flush on turn but went small, then fourflush comes in and he goes big again. gotta be called by something too, which will be a queen high flush or something weaker if he beats it and that seems rather unrealistic.

baseline would call his jam with Q high flushes with EV ~0.1. but he checks almost all his king high flushes there, thus if we make him jam them, Q high flushes would become folds.

so if he's not jamming his king high flushes, but bets them small or checks, we'd only hope for him to have a bluff.

we block his ace of spade bluffs, and would he bluff anything else?

like a pocket (with or without a spade, baseline would bluff the ones without a spade) or a now paired Q8hh backdoor flush flop checkraise? I guess it's often not gonna be a thing.

an ace of spade would call a river jam with EV ~35, so a lot would need to happen for it to become negative.

but if there's no worse value and no bluffs, it may be the case. that we're doing best folding top of our range (solver would only be left with 66 and 88 that are better than our hand).

would he go for a random bluff with that betsize development? hard to imagine. maybe a pocket that he was protecting with and turns into a bluff? the question is how often. as a sidenote, his small turn follow up size is actually the most common used with ~60% frequency.

I read that after my post xD

you bluffed on similar paired fourflush board in 3bet pot with similar betsize development? what did you bluff?