1/2 – Is 4-betting AKo here just spew at these stakes?

You are quite deep, but is 15 the normal open size?

Yes ranges are v tight especially given sizing. I would have thought 4betting quite a bit is still going to be good given button involvement, you would expect a lot of folds from hands like TT/AKo/A5s. That said, it's such a rare situation at low stakes that if you wanted to just make a very quiet fold that wouldn't be a bad thing, you might well see +1's hand anyway if it plays out postflop against the button.

Postflop is also a bit of a minefield. I'm trying to think if there's an argument for playing this any other way (either jamming yourself, checking or calling off the jam as played). Your line may be best?

Don't think you can go far wrong with this hand, looks well played to me

It might even be a super nitty fold to the 3bet.

No one at these stakes has a 3-bet/fold range. 4-betting can be good because of that, for the few Vs whose 3-bet range is wide, but not to squeeze, just for (high variance) value.

Here you are deep enough that I don't like it, even against a widish perceived 3-bet range.

I think it's played ok, but there's a couple of issues. First, how often do we get two folds? Yeah the 3Ber is young, but that doesn't mean he's 3-betting wide especially vs 7.5x EP open. Secondly, even if he does 3B something like AQ, we're not really getting value from worse hands by 4-betting, except with maybe 4 combos of AQs. The majority of the time he's continuing the same hand or better. Even if he flats, we still can't necessarily eliminate the strongest hands from his range like AA-KK. He could also 5B jam the same hand and we can't really call off.

That tight preflop dynamic also makes postflop very difficult to bluff. Is the plan to just fire away at every flop hoping he also missed with AK? As for this flop, we probably need to check a decent amount as he has a tight range and he has AQ where we don't. We essentially only have AA, KK, AK, and some QQ. So if we're taking this line with AK 100% anybody who knows how to count combos can see there's an asymmetry favoring bluffs.

Live with the 7.5x open raise size I don't think the 3b range is normally wide enough where 4b AK (at these stack depths) is default play.

It can be ok to 4b shove at 100bb or less, with appropriate reads. You get to see 5 cards, and it can be your "semi bluff" so you don't always have QQ+.

But here, this puts you in a spot of having < 1psb back on the flop so unless you plan on putting the rest in almost always, you're lighting money on fire.

Probably the worst way to play the hand tbh. Folding here is prob the best choice, calling prob isn't terrible if you're really confident in your ability to navigate difficult postflop decisions oop, and if you're gonna 4bet it should prob just be a jam. As is you put nearly 60% of your stack in and didn't see a showdown? That's really bad.

Is this to a full table? To open UTG and then get 3b to 45 UTG+1 at a 8 or 9 man table is extremely strong - probably just a fold pre tbh or at least a spot where you call and proceed with caution. The 175 4bet is just spew and really we don't mind keeping in the button with a range we dominate.

I agree that given stack sizes, 4bet is bad. If Vs don’t bluff enough, I would call pre and try to navigate flop. If Vs are tough players, I’m good with a fold.

Grunch:

Initial reaction to the subject line, before reading OP - yeah, don't 4B AKo at 1/2. You're rarely if ever ahead when called / jammed on, and will be flipping at best.

After reading your OP...

Ehhh...I understand the logic behind 4B'ing after you get 3B from an unknown youngster and the BTN reg cold-calls (seriously, what reg cold-calls a 3B?). But you're not deep enough to raise to $175, because you're pot-committing yourself to getting the rest in if he 5B-jams.

So, either raise to a smaller size that doesn't pot-commit you, like $135 (a totally reasonable 4B size of 3x when OOP), or just jam all in, and live with the outcome.

BTW - if you make it $135 and he jams - fold.

On the flop - I'm sorry, but $120 is just terrible sizing here. Your options should be check, bet 10% pot, or jam, and all that assumes you didn't make it $175 pre, leaving less than a PSB behind. As played, I think our options are check or jam, and we should just check-fold to anything more than a very small bet.

Here's why - if V has AA/KK, he's ripping it in pre, almost always. When he flats your 4B, he's more likely to have QQ/AK, and sometimes maybe JJ or AQs. We have AK, so his range gets weighted towards QQ/AQ, and he's not ripping it in with JJ.

If the flop was low-low-low and rainbow, I'd rip it in with AK, just like we'd do with AA. On Q72rb, I'd be hating life if we had AA, expecting V to have QQ a lot, more than if we had AK, because we now block more combos of AQ with AA than we did with AK.

Don't do this to yourself. If you need to get kicked in the nuts just to prove you're still alive, DM me your address. I'll see what I can arrange, and charge you less. I know nut-kickers nationwide.

Sorry. I only got as far as you kicking yourself in the nuts before I started my reply, and overlooked this last part.

Random thinks...

Being $500 deep at 1/2, maybe $15 just becomes the standard open and your sizing doesn't mean nothin' to nobody. If it means anything, it should mean you're not f**king around, and they shouldn't be f**king around when they 3B.

Rando kid 3B's - I mean...he's rando, and he's a young kid. Remember doing stupid $hlt when you were young and dumb? I do, and now I get to watch my boys do it, despite me trying to warn them that it never ends well, and "seemed like a good idea at the time" is the battle cry of all those headed to the ER past 2am.

All that is just me saying I don't know if you raising to $15 and him 3B'ing you anyway, next to act, means anything.

The BTN cold-call by a reg makes me question if he is one. If he really is a reg, I'd assume his range is clustered around playable trash like KQo and he has zero respect for you, and / or the rando kid who 3B you. If he respected you or Rando, he wouldn't be cold-calling, because you could 4B, and the kid could 5B, and he's just torching $45 needlessly.

I dunno. It's 1/2. Nobody at the table is Mariano or Bungleman. In theory, V's 3B should be tighter than a virgin on prom night, but 1/2 is where poker theory goes to die, but not before it gets forced to wear a ball-gag and gets violently ridden before finally being stuffed into a steamer trunk to await its next round of abuse.

Flatting with AK from OOP in what will be a multi-way pot with us first to act post-flop feels icky. So does 4B'ing for more than 27.5% of your starting stack (exactly $135, to the penny), and having the rando kid rip it in your face. The only path to salvation is 4B'ing to exactly $135 and praying he doesn't 5B jam, and you see the flop, and it's not Q-high.

Otherwise, just YOLO jam your five hundo and dare the poker gods to do their worst.

It's only money.

I don't play 1/2 but I do sometimes play 2/3 which is the lowest stake in my room & I think the quoted part is untrue.

the past 5 years there are a lot of younger semi reg type guys playing low stakes who have read/watched/studied enough to be 3 betting light, being aware of positions, stacks, 4 bet ranges etc. The old 'a 3 bet is always nutted, they're always going with it', a '4 bet is always AA' just isn't true anymore and different 3 bet ranges will have suited A wheel, A broadway, suited broadways & connectors, weird pairs, random spew in it

as to the hand, 4 bet smaller so you can fold to a jam and it allows you to c bet far smaller

Maybe in some markets. I've yet to see it, but I do play in West Bumblef*!k when I get to play at all these days.

How's West Bumblef**k? I hear East Bumblef**k is being gentrified.

Well, the low stakes poker is still really soft.

+1

IME used judiciously, the AKo 4bet is extremely effective at folding out all but the absolute nuts.

Really this behaviour is the correct adjustment to the stakes, which experienced half-decent regs will tend towards. One usually should bet wider than QQ+/AK and one usually should fold everything but KK/AA to a 4bet.

I like AKo as a 4-bet here, especially as a squeeze, even at $1/2 in an UTG vs. UTG1 configuration. I just don’t like the sizing. With these effective stacks, the sizing leaves you with a very shallow SPR and not much room to navigate postflop. I prefer the 3x sizing others suggested.

Holding AKo also blocks AA and KK significantly (only 6 total combos left), which is important in tight configurations. The 4-bet does a good job of denying equity to lower pocket pairs.

The downside is that you fold out a lot of dominated Ax holdings, aside from maybe AQs.

If villain jams, I’m folding. Calling and going 3-ways out of position feels pretty awful to me and not something I would ever do. I’m also not folding to the 3-bet initially unless I’m confident the 3-bettor is extremely tight, and “young kid at $1/2” usually doesn’t fit that archetype.

I like 4Bets with 1k effective stacks, but not 500 because you get yourself pot committed with no room to maneuver. What I mean is when you front load like that, you end up with not enough left to bluff effectively.

2/5 of your stack is in there before you even see the flop which you missed like you will 68% of the time.

My main question is the flop
Do you really think the guy that called a 4Bet is going to fold to a flop bet. Did you consider that it takes a better hand to call with than it does to bet.

You seem almost nonchalant about losing $300 in this spot. I mix more with AK than any other hand - but rarely 4Bet with it. Always a little cautious with JJ and AK.

Would have called the 45, checked the flop & folded to a bet. Most people are too aggressive in the wrong spots with AK. You succeeded in getting cold-call out of the picture, only to build a juicy pot for villain.

When OOP, always play defensively until you’re sure you’re in the lead

I don’t think about winning
My goal is to lose less with JJ & AK than everyone else. Sometimes they win

So what’s your 4b range here? Just AA & KK?

Would assume 2-3 plays differently than 1-2, it being the lowest stake in the room is interesting but would still assume it's different without data. IMNSHO there's often a _huge_ difference in how 1-2 and 2-5 plays. Even if people are randomly open limping in the 2-5 game, and it often gets 5+ ways to the flop ... they'll still be significantly more bluffing.

Most of the kids I see doing this at 1-2 are borderline maniacs spewing, maybe they've seen some preflop charts (and then ignored them) and likely they've seen a bunch of youtube videos of mariano 5betting 43s or whatever ... but "studied" is doing a lot of work.

This also makes calling (without planning on calling down AK high often enough) or cute 4bet sizes (to fold) worse.

So the hope is you are playing against a young kid who is going off the rails with 3bets, but is going to see the cute 4bet size as a red flag and fold?

Gonna be a great time when you do it and the kid decides "you can't have it" and shoves 88 or even QTo.

KK? Do I look like a maniac?

Your regular reminder that solvers are "nits" ...

150bb 8max GTOwiz:

UTG opens 2.5bb
UTG+1 3bets 8bb
folds...
UTG mixes AK call/4bet-28bb roughly 50/50 ... both are 0.01 EV for AKo AKs 4bets maybe 5% more often but has higher EV.

KK 4bets maybe 25% of the time, and calls the rest.
QQ basically pure calls.
AQo/KQo/KJs/A9s pure folds.
AQs mixes about the same as KK.
AJs pure call.
ATs mixes about the same as AKo.
A5s mixes about the opposite of AKo.
A4s mixes about the same as AQs.

...and in this spot there's a "reggy" cold caller on the BTN, which doesn't exist in solver land ... but if BTN cold 4bet we pure fold AKo/QQ and half of KK.

You opened from UTG for a large size, 7.5x. You should have a good a tight/strong range. V 3B you to 3x, next to act. In theory, he should have a legitimately strong hand.

If action folded back around to us and we were HU, we might only 4B AA/KK. But we're deep enough to have some 4B's with other hands. We probably shouldn't be polar by having any bluffs. Our 4B range may just be QQ+/AKs, very linear.

This spot is made awkward by the BTN's cold call. I'd want more info on him. Specifically, is it possible he might be trapping with a monster, hoping we 4B so he can back-jam? If he's a reg, his cold call is weird.

In a low stakes game, I'd tend to doubt he's trapping. But his cold call still creates the incentive for us to 4B. The challenge is that our $15 open has led to an awkward remaining stack depth.

Our 4B size should be all in, or under $150, to avoid pot committing us. Really, if we're going to 4B-fold, I don't see any constructive difference between 4B'ing to $150 or $135. I'd probably just go to $135, and pray for a disconnected ace-high or just totally bricky flop we can YOLO-jam.

To play devil's advocate...

Based on observation of live low stakes, my developing heuristic is that the pool can open wide, and 3B wide, and will call 4B's light when they have position, but they're just so rarely 5B'ing with anything that isn't AA/KK/AK and occasionally maybe QQ or some other PP or AX when the stacks are short.

If, hypothetically, we 4B and V ripped it in with 88, folding or calling with AK would be pretty close in EV. But if our heuristic weights them towards QQ+/AK, it seems like a reasonable fold.

They just aren't playing anywhere near close enough to equilibrium to completely rule out 4B'ing AK.

agreed