1-2…450bb effective with AK

At 1/2, without other reads, I would fold to the 4! and fold to 2/3 pot cbet on that flop. That is a really bad flop for you, although also not good for his range. The configuration is strong with ep action.

It is interesting that you played with him before and he may no your 3! range is wider than that of most 1/2 players.

I also would try to avoid big pots with one of the few pros or winning players in the game.

Grunch:

Reads - you may catch some flack for suggesting someone at 1/2 may be a for profit player.

How are you both so deep in a 1/2 game? Is there no buy in cap? Did someone come from a broken table?

PRE - 3B seems standard. Size seems a tad large. Would probably just make it $30, but that's quibbling.

His 4B size actually seems okay, at least in theory. Might be a tad small. Anything between 2.25x and 3x would seem to be in the "correct" sizing range, I think. From OOP I might have made it $90-$95. But when your 3B size is big, that may explain his smaller 4B size.

5B'ing as an idea is interesting. It's really hard to balance, especially at more shallow stack depths, but you would seem deep enough to have a 5B range. We should consider how we intend to play post flop if V calls. Since we'd be bluffing, and V's continue range would likely be very strong, we'll need to get him to fold a big hand.

I think it's pretty close. In position, I might lean slightly more towards 5B'ing, if only to keep our range uncapped and preserve the betting lead. The positional advantage should mean we'll win more often, so I'd be okay building a bigger pot.

Flatting certainly seems okay though.

FLOP - his c-bet size seems insanely large in a 4B pot. I'd be trying to figure out what his range is when he takes this line.

My initial gut reaction is that this might be more indicative of a hand like AK that whiffed and would be happy to take down the pot here and now. I'd think he's either going to give up and check on most turns, or bomb it, forcing us to a tough decision.

If we're putting him on AK, and we have the Ah in our hand, I think we can and probably should continue. As the pre-flop 3B'er who called his 4B, we're likely to have more combos that connect with this board. We could have JJ, maybe 99, and the NFD, as well as QQ-AA.

Never raising here. Just calling or folding. Close decision, but slightly prefer to call.

TURN - interesting decision when he checks on this card. Seems like he might have been bluffing and is giving up. Slight possibility he's trapping.

Starting to wonder if he ever gets here with KQs, or if he thinks his 4B range might contain KQs. We could have KQs in our range, but probably just KQhh when we call his big c-bet. Maybe we float as wide as KQdd. If he has the Kh or Qh in his hand, he isn't likely to believe we just turned a straight.

This may be over-thinking things, but if we start a bluff by betting here, I could see him possibly going for a x/r and blowing us off our equity. I'd be very comfortable getting it in with JJ or TT here, but I'd hate to stab with AK and get jammed on.

We only have $700 behind? It's not really enough to stab and have a big bet left for the river. Even if we only bet $150, we'll only have 85% pot left behind. Feels like we should check back or jam as a bluff. But maybe a $100 stab to set up a pot sized river jam would be okay.

Still trying to range him. Still thinking his range is QQ+/AK. But it seems like a weird line for AA. So maybe he has QQ/KK/AK. It feels like he thinks he's got some showdown value.

I think I'd lean towards checking back. See if we can spike a Q or A to make our hand.

A river K would be an interesting card. It gives QQ a straight and makes KK a set. Not sure we should try to make him fold, even if it's the Kh that also brings in the FDFD. Doubtful he's folding if he has QQ with the Qh. Maybe he folds KK to an over-bet jam if it's the Kh, but I wouldn't expect him to fold often enough at these stakes.

Not sure what to do if he checks a river brick. Might bet $250 hoping to make him fold a chop, but expecting to get snapped off by QQ+ a lot.

I have folded AKo to many 4bets at $1/$2, but I am probably calling pre in this spot, versus this player.

I would fold flop to the large sizing.

OTT, you are chopping a lot and beating whatever bluffs he might have (AQ, A5s, etc.). It might be tempting to turn AK into a bluff on this board when you are basically at the stone bottom of your range, but do you really think this guy is folding AA, KK, or QQ in a 4b pot? How many $1/$2 players (even "good" ones) are capable of that? I would probably check back.

I would have thought to this flop sizing you can fold without overfolding

I could be convinced to call the 4Bet in position, if I thought the guy actually had bluffs in his range.

I still don’t like calling the flop, but if you think he’s going to check it down from there, it makes sense.

I’m usually willing to bet big with AK, but rarely willing to call big with it.

I would check behind on the turn because it’s starting to look like villain has AK also

I should have prefaced this post with: yes this is technically a 1-2 game, however it’s private not casino, the straddle is usually on about 50% of the time or more, and by the end of the night stacks typically get deep (often times 1.5-2k or more sometimes) and it ends up playing more like a 2-5 or even small 5-10 game depending on players. Lastly, there is technically no cap but most people buy in with 300-500 to start but some who come late will buy in with 1k or close to it.

Also should have noted although most (even decent players) in this game/in general tend to under 4bet, my read from playing with this V several times is that preflop, his range is wider than QQ+ AK. I believe he can go as wide as JJ AQs as well as bluffs (suited wheel aces, suited broadways, even suited connectors wouldn’t surprise me) like I mentioned before. I weighted him heavily on overpairs and AK once he took such a large sizing on flop.

I definitely took some time on the flop and almost folded but decided to play some poker. On the turn I felt that I have much more sets, two pair, and even some 8x for a straight where he has very little of. In game I thought that if my assumptions of his range are correct (him having mostly AK AA KK and QQ) maybe I can get him to fold by starting to bluff turn and following up on river? I also thought about checking back turn and bluffing some rivers but ending up betting turn.

Jh 9d 7h Tc ($400)

Hero bets $150… V tank calls.

This leaves me with possible river bluff of $550 into pot of $700. Not sure if I like this better than jamming turn as overbet bluff or checking turn back with possibility of bluffing river after we see what he does and what comes out? I just feel like betting turn and jamming river feels more believable but maybe I’m wrong. Lastly, just like to add I’d be shocked if V took this line (flop 2/3, turn check) with super thick value. Thoughts? Maybe I’m punting lol

River: ($700) Jh9d7hTc 9s

V checks….Hero?

Weird spot.

I think we might be able to push him off a chop by betting small, like $200. I'd think we'd use a small size with QQ+. Obviously fold if he raises, but I wouldn't expect him to raise very often in this line.

We could check back and win vs worse AX, but that would mostly just be AQs.

Looking forward to seeing the reveal.

In game I took my time and ultimately came to the conclusion that I would be bluffing a lot of rivers (my plan on the turn) however a 9, T, or 7 would not be good cards as they cut down on many of the value combos I’m representing but more importantly, I’ve found that people don’t really like to fold on board pairing rivers in general. An exception to this would be a Jack, that I think could be a good card to bluff in this situation. I think a 2,3,4,5,6,8,J I would bluff on.

Hero checks back, expecting to mostly lose to QQ KK AA and sometimes chop with AK, and beating AQ a small small sliver of the time.

V shows KK.

I’m just curious what most people think of the different options in this hand and what the desired line is thought to be.

1. Just fold flop to such a large size
2. Call flop, bet small turn, jam river as bluff on most cards (my line)
3. Check back turn and bluff river (size?)
4. Check back turn and don’t bluff river, just trying to get to showdown
5. Raise flop small, jam turn as a bluff

Thank you all for your feedback.

Not surprised by the results. He might check an overpair on that runout. Not sure I like that play, as he is kind of pot committed. Doubt he folds to a river push. Also, not surprised, because even if he seems decent, 4!s are not that common at 1/2 and the configuration indicates strength.

Maybe folding preflop or flop would have saved some money.

I have to be completely honest and say that I really don't like the way you played the hand.

I think floating the flop to the large sizing is probably pretty significantly -EV. As played, If we want to bluff the turn, we should either jam or bet very small (maybe $100 or less) in order to leave a pot-sized bet or more on the river.

His entire range on the turn is strong (an inclination that we maybe shouldn't bluff without better reads) and virtually every hand with the possible exception of AA (being KK, QQ, AK, AQ) has a gutshot or better to improve to the nuts, so he isn't folding a single hand when we bet $150. The point of bluffing this spot would be to put a massive amount of pressure on the villain, and we don't really do that by betting a middling sizing and leaving 75% back on the river. Doc's suggestion to bet river small strikes me as a huge error as well.

All that being said, I think preflop is well-played and I agree with you that river is a bad card to fire here.

Preflop is standard, but folding to the 4! might be better in a 1/2 game. So much of his likely range is AA/KK.

Flop float and small turn stab are horrible spews. He could have the same hand, AQ, or some preflop bluff and have cbet big hoping you would go away, but it isn't worth it to hope you are ahead or can make him fold.

Couple of parameter clarifying questions:

1- Is rake capped?
2- You are at 450BB. What is your BRM like? Can you handle this level of variance?

P.S: Flop seemed like an obvious fold to me. Interesting that many chose to fold pre, I can see that. Turn doesn't seem like a good bluffing spot. Not much 8s in your range, you'd need to overbet to get reasonable folds.

Rake is capped at $8, not too worried about variance or my BR.

My default would be to normally fold flop but I just wanted to get people’s opinions on the line I took in this hand. I appreciate the feedback from ya’ll! Hopefully I’ll have some better/more interesting hands to post in the future!

Grunch:

AP flop: Before floating this guy, I want enough hours with him to confirm that he has a fold button. If we are going to call flop, we have to be prepared to make a polar turn bet on cards favoring our range or else check behind if he x.

This turn sizing accomplishes nothing, except reducing the fold equity for our river jams. We managed to negate our positional and range advantage here.

We have turned the gutshot. We have more 88 in range and we have JTs also plus some sets. We could overbet pot on turn or x behind. Having the Ah here is very helpful I think because V cannot have NFD. This puts more pressure on him if we overbet turn.

Alternatively, we can x and plan to jam all hearts and paired boards, given our range advantage.

River: There are chops but I think our poor turn sizing reduced our river options greatly. because we're going to offer V good odds to call. I don't mind the x behind and we didn't lose too much considering that we made a few mistakes here.

I'm not trying to make over-pairs fold. I'm just trying to make AK fold.

We can't win if we check back, unless V has AQ, which seems pretty unlikely. We might win if we can make him fold a chop. And it shouldn't take much to get him to fold ace-high.

It's very far from being a huge error, as played.

The small bet on the turn is a disaster. However, at 1/2, the 4! and 2/3 pot cbet make an overpair likely and you aren't ahead on much on this flop. So better to fold the flop than try to bluff someone off of QQ/KK/AA.