Another tricky set spot: turn facing b/3b

If I am really on my A-game I make a crying fold expecting to see KK here 100% of the time. I don’t even expect to see AA—just KK.

If I am on my B or C game I guess I’m gonna call down. I don’t think 4betting makes a lot of sense.

It really depends on how you think he'd play AK. Would he check back the flop?

You're asked to call $70 right now. Let's make an assumption about the river action and say V bets $250 on the river. Then the total to call both would be 320 and the final pot would be 890. You need roughly 35% to call down here.

You're a 55/45 favorite against a range of KK, AA, and all 9 combos of AK. A very +EV call.

You're a 42/58 underdog against a range of KK, AA, and just 5 combos of AK. Still profitable.

You basically break even when he has just 4 combos of AK.

If he's ever wider than that....any bluffs at all, you have to call down.

Pre is probably a fold. Flop I would bet when checked to - he's either looking to x/r or x/c, so no point in checking behind. On the turn his line is highly suspect but based on your reads and being a 1/2 game I think it's definitely a fold. There's 3 combos of KK, 3 combos of AA, 9 combos of AK. This line just seems to scream AA/KK more so then AK, and who knows if he ever takes this line with AK. Live games esp 1/2 are so exploitable that solvers go out the window - he might literally only take this line with AA/KK.

i am not going to advocate for folding the turn without having played with him, thats something you need to gauge based on how confident you are of reads etc. i do doubt that this is AK very often / ever. probably just realistically is KK but i also just not that interested in making extreme hero folds based on a one sentence description of how v plays.

i think leading the turn is much better than x/r though

pre seems like a call given stacks / sizing / reads

I came to this conclusion when I was thinking about that hand as well. Feels like leading is going to result in going up against a wider range that we are doing better against, because really what can we x/r with?

At the table I had this sudden mildly insane thought "that Ace is a really good range card for him, should probably check again".

Ironically, in my sims it's actually really hard to want to lead turn - best I can do is force V to play b100/check OTF and it will start leading a sliver of mostly 88d and it does a broad mix if I force it to lead for a higher percentage. I think this is mostly because it's really hard to actually construct a leading range on this turn, but it's probably completely fair to expect that V is not going to be able to deduce that there isn't all that much we'd lead with other than 88 - at least it should be significantly less obvious than by check/raising. JTdd seems to be the hand that most wants to lead.

Solver of course is finding a way to get all the money in with 88 pretty much regardless of the line.

i think hes much more likely to fold aj / aq to a checkraise than a large lead

and fairly unlikely to have air given flop x or to stab the turn w jj stuff

think you could fairly easily get it to lead if we lock him to b25 and only have him bet ax / model what we expect a guy who folds too much to aggression to do (b25 obv unexpected and probably bad w any hand anyways). also seems good if we lock him to like tt-qq hands otf and never tp / ace high

so i looked at 150bb 8max ranges btn vs lj then i made his much more linear instead of polar (rly doubt 1/2 random is finding like a7ss and k6ss type stuff as opposed to more "obvious" ajss / suited connectors or maybe ato or something), also increased your call frequency bc the 3b is small, dead money from limp so its even smaller, and we should be able to play well post given reads - bluff more call less blah blah. i have him around 7% and you around 4.5%

if i make his sizing choice otf it bets around 60% of range.

range as a whole wants to bet around 11% heavily favoring b67 (the size it picked, 128 is 2e). if i get rid of 67 it will bet range about 8% and 8s very often - 60% !d and 15% :d. the biggest thing getting rid of 67 does is gets rid of our ability to lead ax at all which i think is fine here? he doesn't really strike me as a guy we are trying to get 2 with aj / aq against. if we x b25 is his preferred sizing, it likes around your raise size and continuing vs the 3b is allegedly worth 100$ / 50bb. i dont think its worth close to that in actuality vs most people (there are a handful of spazzes u will have 100% equity against here but the described villain is obviously not one of them), but i just think its way too large of a deviation with near top of range (AK i think is better continue given action despite being worse hand stregnth wise) to fold based on a one line description. ultimately you know your villains / pool more, and this is a spot where ranges don't exist. if you truly think he doesn't fold and can't overplay / find out where hes at with something which admittedly looks very unlikely given pre sizing / flop x / turn sizing both times, its up to you if you're willing to make that level of exploit. personally id see the river and see what happens. i think you could do something unexpected otr to try to provoke a genuine reaction from him, b10 or minbet or whatever that might give u more information

edit solver actually seem to like block the river w our hand if we call turn and then mdf vs jam where it becomes a 2bb deviation instead of a 100bb deviation to fold. granted there may be no difference in his range for 3bing the turn and jamming over a block and we just lose more money in actuality. i do think if u b10 or minbet here its strange enough its more likely to provoke a natural response and maybe that gives us more information

Yeah, that checks out - if I lock the sizes to be somewhat similar for lead and x/r (have to lock V for b25 only) then V is supposed to defend pretty similarly and that's not likely to happen. The biggest impediment to leading is the same to x/r - namely we have a significant range disadvantage on this board - but the heuristic that leading maximizes calls and x/r maximizes fold equity should hold here.

Yeah ok, I get similar results. My flop is only betting 56% for b100 and that seems to be the difference - turn leads 5% total with maybe 40% mix for 88 with a diamond. As you say, removing small lead size forces Ax to check pure which is fine and it's just pairing diamond combo draws with 88. If I force flop to bet 60% instead (presumably could get same result by sizing down a bit) then I get similar to your numbers on lead.

And yeah I actually thought that turn lead versus x/r is probably the more interesting thing to look at here because after facing the 3b this is really just "guess V's range" and once you do the math is straightforward as to what to do. I really don't think he is doing this w/ worse than AK but you're always supposed to assign some % that your read is just wrong because sometimes Vs do crazy things. Have played with V a bit but the only really solid read I have is that he is one of the only people who never, ever makes stupid preflop cold calls and I have never seen him get super OOL. Patient, non-bluffy TAG.

The b25 OTT is super weird, and honestly I was a little sus facing it like it was an attempt to induce. With 88 are we happy about that? Idk. I feel pretty bad after getting 3-bet.

x/r for sure, seems like a dream to follow that up with two bets versus AA or a slightly sticky AK (until the A turns ofc).

I had a similar hand I was in the blender with and my takeaway was to build a pot immediately. One guy accused me of not liking money.

Pot the flop
This guy 3bet you and is likely strong enough to call. Hidden sets are my hardest thing to discover, so it’s got to be hard for others too.
Kinda a crime to check thru

Now the turn comes and you wonder:
V has KK and thinks ace will keep you in
V had AK, hit 2pair & thinks he’s good
He doesn’t check thru flop with 55
Does he check thru flop with KK?

I would be barreling the turn
Get the money in with a big hand

To me it looks like both of you have strong hands and are trying NOT to run the other player out of the pot. Until you check-raise the turn.

Like I said, I got to the turn underplaying my set. Lot of draws came in, lot of pressure and I folded only to never know if I was good.

Putting money in early with a big hand works
I know a lady that no matter the action raises a hundred pre-flop with QQ or similar. I’m like that will never work, that’s a huge over-bet at 1/3. I’m so amazed she usually gets called, sometimes in two spots and everyone knows what she’s up to. She wins big pots.

So, I basically disagree with checking any street with a hand like this. I’m sure I could be wrong, but I’m betting (not under-representing my hand) and then I feel better folding to aggression if necessary.

Fold pre.

Really not sure what to do after that. Maybe a good spot to donk flop, but it seems like we're pretty capped, such that V can abuse us if we do.

Not sure what to do on the turn after flop checks through. I understand the urge to lead out, but I don't think this V is capped just because he checks back the flop. He could have AA/KK, and he might play cautiously with AK, because what would we be repping, if not a set?

As played, when he bets small, we check-raise 4.5x, and he min-click 3B's, I might vomit a little in my mouth.

I kinda want to fold. Trying to think of a river scenario in which we might win. I can't imagine we'd try to rep aces full on a river ace to make him fold kings full.

I dunno. There could be some leveling happening, where he thinks his small turn bet induced us to raise and AK is actually good.

Does he ever do this with A5? Is he leveling like that?

I don't like this spot at all. Not sure I could find a fold. I might call and pray the river is just a brick. If it is, I think we have to call off the rest, like it or not.

Fold pre. You don’t have the implied odds to set mine against this V because he folds to aggression with worse. Calling 3bets by tight players with 88 is a leak.

AP, I’m good with the check on the flop.

Bet the turn. The Ad is a great action card to get value from your set.

I’d call the turn reraise and reevaluate on the river.

Vs line makes no sense.

Results?

So the one thing I tend to hide from my posts here is that my game has a $100 limit (bet/raise), which is obviously going to impact implied odds here but I was honestly more curious how people would handle this with substantially more stack depth behind which I think makes the decision harder.

Still did not feel great about the situation, but with the limit structure, I have $170 to call a pot which will be $600 (28%). That's not a lot of combos of AK that have to be in range to give the odds to call down, although I did feel like AK was extremely likely to bet flop (as was AA).

I called, river was a brick, and I check/called the $100 bet OTR as well. Villain, as is probably guessable from the fact this is a thread, had KK. In terms of ranging, I think it's maybe still close even at 28%, as a bluffless villain just plays so little other than KK this way. V minclicking $30 short of a max raise OTT was just silly, and the irony is that any x/r bluff like JTdd is a snap call with direct odds whereas it's my value that goes into the tank.

It's easy to just shrug it off as a cooler, but I genuinely think it would not be crazy to get away from this on the turn - slightly -EV at worst.

I've never played with a bet / raise cap, but my hunch is that there's going to be less fold equity, and as such there'll be less bluffing and thin-value raising.

Even without the cap, we check-raised turn on a card that's better for his range than ours, and he 3B. I have to think that would be an insanely under-bluffed spot. He'd have to be turning some 2P combo like AK or A5 into a bluff, or over-playing 55. It can happen at low stakes, but not when your read is V is a tight reg who under-bluffs and over-folds.

KK sort of makes sense if you take out the min clicking