AK 4BP IP vs aggro asian

As played, he's bet roughly 1/4 pot, so you have to defend with 80% of your range to prevent him from auto-profiting. This hand is probably in that range. I think you have to call hoping to spike your pair or rep spades if they come in. I'm not loving it though. It's a super high variance play with not a lot of EV.

The fact we're forced to continue with such a weak range is an indication of a mistake preflop. We probably should have folded to the 4bet. I'm never giving anyone a 4bet bluff range until I see some showdowns with my own eyeballs.

Call flop, everything seems fine.

Generally I fold AKo to a 4bet but that's based on the lower stakes games I play. In a vaccuum there's no way you can go around folding AK here to a guy who is 4 betting every other hand he plays. But I'd want to know more about many 4bets he's made. Have you seen him 4bet twice in an hour? Because that doesn't mean he's doing it light.

With your read you could probably shove if you were shallower, I'm not doing that 500bb deep though.

I’m not that proud of AK, a drawing hand
Guessing you’re in the CO & not 2buttons

I play with these kind of guys, and from your description, why start a raising war?

Now what; against most people it’s an easy fold to a 4Bet, but this guy is habitual. Puts you in a tight spot.

A lot of people raise hands because they’re supposed to, but have no plan, no strategy.

You call, you’re in for thirty bucks to the flop.

Called him an assassin and walked right into it
He takes a standard line on the flop (no info) and now you’re in for 310 looking to call 175

I'll use a smaller open size when action folds to me on the BTN and I want action. Usually when I do that, I'll have a hand that isn't worried about being dominated by opponents' 3B'ing or calling ranges.

Not sure about doing it with AJs. Seems a tad cuspy. We don't love getting 3B, nor do we love getting flatted by AQo. We also don't love going multi-way when both blinds call.

AJs is a good hand, not a great hand. Think we might be better off just opening to our normal size. But this doesn't seem terrible.

FLOP - obviously not folding to the x/r.

TURN - not sure we need to go 1.25x pot here. Our hand has plenty of equity whether V calls or folds. Feels like we should bet smaller on the turn, like 1/2 pot, and then decide what we want to do on the river, depending on whether or not we make our hand.

Then again, if he has a hand like AJcc, we don't mind him folding turn rather than risk a chop on a river Kh, or give him the chance to bluff us off a chop by donking huge. So, again, this doesn't seem too terrible.

So confused. Are we the whale on the BTN? Did you mean we're in the CO?

Trying to make sense of this...

Whale straddles BTN. V in SB to 30. Fish calls UTG. Loose-passive in HJ calls...

Actually, this sounds like a pretty good game!

So...we're in the CO (?) with AKo....yeah, go ahead and 3B. 5x sizing looks right when there were two callers in between.

And...whale folds BTN? Action back on V in SB, and he 4B's to $310. UTG fish folds, HJ folds.

I actually think I might 5B here. We're super-deep, and V's 4B is kinda small when he's OOP. Seems like he might be leveling himself into thinking that we think he was opening light, so we're 3B'ing light over all that dead money, so he's 4B'ing light. Plus, we have AKo - we block AA/KK, and we're not suited, so I kinda want to just make him fold now, and move onto the next hand.

We could make it $700. Puke-fold if he 6B-jams. Expecting him to fold everything that isn't AA/KK.

This is why I'd have preferred to 5B pre. We wouldn't be here. At worst, he'd check to us, and we could c-bet small. As played, I don't see a path forward.

We're way behind AA/KK/QQ. If the turn is a K, he checks AA, and we bet, we're probably getting stacked on the river. We won't get another dime out of KK/QQ if the turn is an A.

If he was bluffing pre with A5s...yikes.

We don't even have spades.

It wouldn't make sense for us to flat call with AA/KK pre, and then raise flop. There's no fold equity, so we can't raise as a bluff.

I know you want to call or raise, Banana. Don't. Just fold.

Just read the rest of the replies. Looks like Prez2 got banned. He'll be missed.

Part of the reason I want to 5B pre is related to what he posted there. Most regs aren't going to have a 4B bluff range.

They certainly won't give us a 5B bluff range. They probably don't think we're going to 5B-fold if they jam AA, and I'd think their 6B-jam range would ONLY be AA, making KK either a call, or a fold.

The way this V is described, and with the stack depth, and the configuration, and the potential meta between us, I think he could have a wider 4B range here. Not that I necessarily think he's got many 4B bluffs, but I do wonder if he's 4B'ing QQ, JJ, A5s, or even going wider than that.

I can't seem to remember a heuristic for having a more linear or polar range here. Not sure it matters. If V is 4B'ing linear, he could be 4B'ing QQ/AK for sure, and may be as wide as JJ/AQs. If he's polar, than he could be 4B'ing something like KJs or 99, maybe.

I think his 4B range has hands that will fold to a 5B. And when he's OOP, I don't think he's going to call a 5B all that often. If we 5B to $700, the pot will be a tad over $1400, and we'll have barely 1 SPR going to the flop. He'll likely feel that his only option is to 6B-jam or fold.

Before anyone says "but we'll be pot-committed!" - no, we won't be. We're starting $2.4k effective. We can 5B to $700 and fold to a jam. It's right around 29% of our starting stack. If we can get him to fold QQ/AK, it's a huge win. If he folds KK, it's a goddam triumph.

I think flatting pre is our worst option. Either 5B to $700, or fold.

Sorry to challenge, but not fond of your reasoning, or how you came to this conclusion. I think OVERPLAYING a drawing hand is such bad advice. It’s parking lot advice, so I basically disagree. I wonder if you ‘over-think’ yourself into trouble a lot.

This is friendly disagreement, because I appreciate the time & effort you take to evaluate hands and you often come up with something that didn’t occur to me. Maybe I’m missing something you’re trying to convey.

This is called ‘poker discussion’

Problem with Pres2 is that people are not going to want to post if they are going to get ridiculed.

He attacks me and I’m unbothered as it’s hard to shake an old warrior like myself. I do wish people would not say things that they wouldn’t say if we were face to face, but it’s the nature of social media.

It's over-playing when you think you're doing something for value.

Otherwise, it's called "a bluff".

As I've said here many times, in a raked game, we have an incentive to take the pot down pre-flop (which is usually pre-rake in most rooms). It doesn't matter much what cards we hold, the incentive remains.

If we want to debate how to construct a 4B/5B range, we should look at the stack depth, for certain. There may be other factors, but stack depth is critically important here. We're playing almost 500 BB's deep.

Suppose we had AA/KK here. Would we 5B? I hope so. If we're 5B'ing AA/KK, are we ONLY 5B'ing AA/KK? I'd hope not. We should also be 5B'ing AK, for the same reasons we'd 3B AK along with AA/KK.

When you look at the combined incentives here, it makes sense to 5B - we're deep, our hand functions well as a bluff, and it's going to be difficult to play post-flop in a 4B pot as the pre-flop caller, whether we connect with the board or not.

Seems like an easy flop call - I think 5b is terrible unless he's going to 6b/jam wide, and playing a pot IP this deep against a guy who 3b/4bs wide is a dream. Would default call the small 4b and he's going to be in a really tough spot OOP this deep.

So, you want to bluff $2,100 and I want to head to a flop with fish involved, find out that I missed completely, and have only $30 at risk.

No flop, no drop is meant for little teeny pots
Not massive, all-in plays - I guess I understand it differently

What are you talking about? I said we could make it $700 pre. You even quoted me:

We're not winning a massive pot with AK when we flat call a 4B pre, and just miss on the flop. We're probably not winning a massive pot even when we hit, because V's 4B range is either going to have us beat, or not put any more money in when they see an over-card to their PP.

There was already $530 in the pot before we went to the flop. This is 2/5. That's over 100 BB's. It's not exactly a "teeny tiny" pot.

So, I want to 5B to $700 and add that $530 to my stack. You want to put another $310 in, not win another dime, probably lose the $310, and possibly get stacked for another $2100 when you make TPTK.

The villain according to OP 3/4bets at a high frequency so the goal is to keep in hands we dominate like AJ/AQ/AT/KQ/KJ/etc - if we 5 bet I would think he folds all of these hands unless hes a complete maniac. The only point of 5bing here is if he jams over us with a wide range and we have an easy snap call - if we 5 bet for example and he folds the hands we dominate that really sucks. Imagine he 4bets AJ, we call, flop comes Axx and end up stacking him. Our opponent is putting himself in a world of hurt 4bing here small creating a very tough spot for him if we play well - we're IP with like a 5 to 1 SPR and can own the **** out of him postflop. I'd prefer to keep his range wide - if I had AA I might just call the 4b as well.

That's a whole lof of "ifs".

Not what the OP said. It said V 3B or 4B almost every hand he played. That may have only bee three or four hands. And in the one HH OP gave us, V just flatted a single raise - no 3B or 4B.

Even if he 3B/4B every hand he played, we don't know what he had, or how many hands that was. We don't know that he's always 4B'ing light. If he is, there's merit to 5B-bluffing with AK.

You think he's 4B'ing a lot of hands that are worse than AQ? Is he going to c-bet those hands when he misses?

That's basically how you just described him.

Which is it? Is he a guy who 4B's a lot of hands that are worse than AQ, or is he a guy who does NOT 4B a lot of hands that are worse than AK?

You do realize that he probably also has QQ+/AK in his range, right? When we have AK, how difficult do you think it will be to play post flop when we flat call pre?

What? Jesus no!

The point of 5B'ing is to get him to fold some hands that are ahead of us, or a chop. We're not calling a 6B jam. It would be a snap fold, not a snap call. If he's jamming with something worse than AK, good for him.

The point of 5B'ing is to fold hands PP's we're basically flipping against, and AK. If he folds AQ or worse, it doesn't suck. We're denying equity.

Even if we're an 80% favorite, we'll lose post-flop 20% of the time. If we get him to fold pre, we win the pot 100% of the time.

On what planet do we stack him with AJ on an A-high board? He's not going to realize we'll have a better ace if we're willing to get it all in?

More likely we lose more calling a c-bet with AK on a J-high board.

No. He's giving himself a good price to see the flop as the PFR with an uncapped range. He's putting us in a world of hurt if we flat call.

He's not creating a tough spot for himself. He's creating a tough spot for us. He's making it difficult for us to play well. Yeah, we're IP. It'll actually be around a 3 SPR post flop, but it's a 4BP. We actually don't have much room to maneuver.

How are we going to own him post, when we flat call with AKo and we miss? He's just going to c-bet small, and put pressure on us to either make a light call, or fold away our equity.

How are we going to own him when we hit? He's just going to fold worse and stack us with better.

What you mean is you'd prefer to cap our range. So we go to the flop with a narrow but capped range, and he goes with a wide but uncapped range.

Starting $2400 deep in a 2/5 game? You wouldn't have any 5B range? You want to let him see a flop for $300, and have 3 SPR?

Seems terrible to me.

Can’t speak for others, but sometimes I get lost in the details of your posts, and no dis-respect, but I don’t feel like going back through it. So, mistakes are made, I’m sure.

You literally quoted the part of my post where I said I wanted to raise to $700 and fold to a re-raise.

Then you posted a rambling and possibly snarky response, which demonstrated you didn't understand the reasoning for my suggestion.

When I tried to explain it to you, you responded with a more snarky and dismissive reply, which completely misstated my position.

Now you're absolving yourself of responsibility by blaming me for your own willful ignorance.

You didn't get lost in the details. You completely missed the most important details. It's part of a pattern.

Not going to respond to all of this - disagree with it all. Keep doing your thing though.

Okay. Fair enough. Right back atcha.

Most of us can be better about being more concise. I certainly can.

V opens SB over a button-straddling whale (who is not B---thought that was a rather funny potential self-own there), gets called by 2, B 3!s (from CO?), whale folds, V min-4!s: this isn't looking good for AKo, no? Isn't V supposed to be insanely tight from SB here, first to act?Would not be surprised at all to see KK+ here.

I guess call given the price, see if an ace flops, and then go broke, but I really think they have it on these facts. Much prefer calling if suited, and I see the merits of 5!/f vs flat call or fold too.

Was V cold 4! or bet/4!? I doubt they were limping or back-raising, right?

The cbet 25% on 855ss doesn't say anything one way or the other. If you called before, I guess call now.

Not being snarky, just explaining that ship has sailed. Nobody is more thorough than you doc, but maybe nobody more arrogant.

I’m not blaming you for anything and if you think I’m ignorant that sounds kinda snarky

I don’t need an answer for why you take things too far. I’m just here to ‘discuss’ poker.