1/3 ~ ak vs passive guy

Seems like a straight-forward 3! to me. As described, he isn't the kind of player who is 4!ing with QQ, JJ or AK. So if he 4!s we just lol fold and save ourselves a ton of money when the K hits the flop. If V has anything weaker than AA/KK, he'll flat and his face-up style should allow us to play pretty perfect post flop.

I generally agree with this.

The only potential deviation I might make is to simply fold if we think his raise size is an obvious sizing tell of a monster hand and we expect to get 4B. Alternatively, I might flat call to disguise our hand.

I'd want to be sure in our read. Like, does he 4B QQ? What does this size tell us about his range? We probably don't know enough about him yet.

The 10x open off a $500 stack over a single limp makes 3B'ing dicey. A standard 3X to $90 would be twice the normal 3B size. If we're going to torch $45 by 3B-folding, I'd rather flat call or just fold now.

What are we doing if he clicks it back to $180, or just $150? I assume we're not folding to a min click. Or are we? If we go to the flop with $300-$360 in the pot and $320-$350 back, we're hating it when he jams most boards. Even if we spike TPTK on the flop, we could still be beat.

Seems pretty close between all three options IMO.

Giant raise could be QQ/JJ which wants to charge 76s, or is just generally scared of losing with a pretty good hand. Or it could be AA/KK trying to pile money in with the nuts preflop.

At $500 effective I would lean away from calling preflop ... at 600+ I like it more, even though you only hit a pair ~33%, but even that's mostly for balance reasons. Also with AKo you don't want to encourage more people to get into the pot, so it kind of sucks at 1-3 (or even some 2-5). And you are capping your range perfectly.

So I think your two best options are just shrug fold, or raise to like 60-75 and see wtf happens. Mostly you are turning your hand into a bluff, but you have a decent amount of equity when he calls.

Will probably get flamed but I think the genius play is to just fold and not tell anyone. Would call QQ- down to some point, and raise AA and mix KK. Like this guy basically never has AQ, so play AKo like an OMC.

80, fold to jam

We don't have to 3x - V is normally very passive so we just want to play into his natural fears by announcing we have a good hand too. We could even min-click ourselves. We want V to raise with his AA/KK and call everything else. If V reacts with aggression, even a min-click just fold it's AA or maybe KK. We save a ton 3!ing and folding compared to what we will put in if we call and flop a pair. If V calls and we flop a pair, we're almost always good and can go for value. And V will probably check letting us get a free street if we miss. If V checks twice we can probably bluff targeting weaker pairs on a lot of textures.

I'd have to really know V is a complete nit to fold pre. I think most players RFI with 99-QQ, AQ and sometimes worse. And it isn't terribly unusual to see them choose large sizes with those because they are afraid and are just hoping to win the blinds.

Looks like the new forum software doesn't like when we edit our posts in Tapatalk. You basically said the same thing I did in my post edit...

Again, I mostly agree, with the assumptions that most opponents are going to 4B AA/KK pre, and / or that most opponents are going to check to us on the flop when they just call our 3B pre, and we're not going to c-bet and get check-raised all that often.

The challenge is what happens when the assumptions start to break down. What if V just doesn't ever 4B, even with AA/KK? What happens when they just call with TT-JJ, and then come out and donk on a dry, 9-high board? What happens when they flat call pre, and go for a check-raise when we c-bet that board?

I think the underlying issue is that it's hard for us to save a ton when V is opening to $30 off $500, and it could be hard for us to make a ton. If his raise size is an indicator of a hand like 99-QQ, we may not get another dime out him when an over-card to his PP hits the board.

Conversely, since V is passive, we might make more money just flatting, and letting him c-bet flop and even barrel turn on an A- or K-high board, then check-call a chunky river bet, because we under-repped our hand.

That's why I want to be sure in our read. If we think he's going to 4B when he opens for this size, we can play call or fold. If we know V is going to shut down on an A- of K-high board, we can just fold pre. If we've seen him auto-pilot c-bets, we could just call.

3bet to 75
I don’t think you have to go big, just let him know you like your hand too.

This guy seems like he plays face up. Probably not gonna 4Bet and likely to check to you on the flop. So, what’s the problem. You can take a free card and see how villain reacts to it or charge if you hit.

At the same time, I don’t at all mind folding this hand and I think he will make it clear if he has a monster. I’m not calling a 4Bet or preflop jam with AK and not bluffing off my stack with it either, but this guy could have a pair of sevens. You can take a jab or two and see what he tells you.

The more I think about this, the less I like 3B'ing.

He opened for a huge 10BB raise over a single limp. If we flat call, it doesn't seem all that likely that we'll get a bunch of people over-calling behind us. So I'm not overly concerned about this going multi-way with us in the worst relative position.

Assuming we call and everyone else folds, we'll be HU and IP, and we'll get more info when we see what he does on the flop.

If we 3B, I'd think we'd prefer he fold and we just take it down, which doesn't seem very likely when he opens for a huge size. More likely we'll go to a flop with a bloated pot and low SPR, reducing our positional advantage and skill edge.

If our plan is to fold to a 4B pre, then logically I'd think we'd fold if he jams flop or turn when we don't improve. A 3B makes it more likely this will be a very expensive two-street game, possibly just a one-street game, whereas if we fold now we lose nothing, and if we flat call we give ourselves more ability to maneuver post, with a more disguised hand.

We'll be able to rep a lot more hands on a lot more boards, opening up more opportunities to steal the pot when he doesn't like the board texture.

I think we can flat call. Otherwise just fold. I wouldn't 3B this.

Don't the OMC's say "AK is a drawing hand," and just flat with it?

FWIW, I think I'm seeing more non-OMC's flatting with AK recently. Not sure why. Maybe they're watching people get wrecked with AK on vlogs or streams. Maybe they're just fish who aren't comfortable 3B'ing anything that isn't AA/KK.

It's happened often enough that I'm starting to put more AK into their ranges post.

This size is enormous he probably has JJ+ AK. We should call and see what develops.

In game I folded.
Didn't even think about calling. Maybe this is better.
The sizing screams premiums, so 3betting seemed not that good.
I took the lowest variance route.

Later on, V opens w/AK,88 for 15 even with limpers.

When you say he "flat TT/99 in the blinds" does that mean he just limped in / completed these hands from the blinds, or that he flatted a raise? Against someone who is just limping TT/99 from the blinds (which is how I'm reading it), I think this is a trivial fold to this EP sizing preflop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Ok fine I can get behind a fold. I just have a tough time folding AK.

I think folding is fine. I think calling is fine. Which way you went is less important than whether or not you put enough thought into the decision before you made it. If you didn't pause long enough to consider all your options, you should try to force yourself to avoid snap decisions.

i do get the inclination to fold but just dont think theres enough info

I mean i don't hate folding but I think we can take a flop