Common AK spot ($27)

[taipan168]

Opp's stats were 13/11 over about 100 hands. Two questions:

1. 3-bet or call preflop?
2. Call his bet or raise?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 27 Tournament, 15/30 Blinds (8 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (Button) (t1455)
SB (t4065)
BB (t1470)
UTG (t1650)
UTG+1 (t1380)
MP1 (t1370)
MP2 (t655)
CO (t1455)

Hero's M: 32.33

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, K
4 folds, CO bets t75, Hero calls t75, 2 folds

Flop: (t195) 6, K, J (2 players)
CO bets t120, Hero ????

[Nakamura]

These are always tough spots for me personally. It depends to some extent on his stealing % from later positions, but I suspect it's fairly tight. Against a player who is quite tight, if you 3-bet, you are just making him fold all hands you beat and continue with the ones that are ahead of you. I agree with the flat PF.

On the flop I would call behind. KJ, 66, JJ, KK would all get it in. It's possible AQ, QT and some flush draws are in his range, but his range includes KT, KQ, QJ + air that we dominate and don't want to fold out.

I think the standard play would be to check the turn if he checks (and a blank rolls out), call any reasonable sized bet on the river or value-bet if he checks. Getting C/R on the turn puts us in a horrible position where we probably have to fold.

Personally I think this is a tough hand to extract much value from given the flop.

[drmcboy]

I like the flat. I think 3 betting with AK is better than having your 3bet range be QQ+ or nothing, but you can find much better spots to 3 bet where flatting is not a good option.

call for sure on flop.

I disagree with Nak, bet/fold the turn if he checks. Why is folding to a turn c/r horrible? We're usually drawing to 3 outs or less. If you think he'll c/r turn with worse I'm not sure why you wouldn't raise flop.

[Nakamura]

I understand betting protects our hand, but checking the turn gives him an opportunity to bluff and bet missed draws on the river.

[drmcboy]

Protecting your hand is a myth imo. The counter is he gets a free card with legit draws and worse made hands that he may fold on river but would call with now. So you're betting to get value out of those hands that you may not get OTR.

With no reads it's hard to know which is better. In general my assumption is Tai's image is tight, so when he calls the flop here the guy wil put him on Kx+ every time and bluff very little OTR. If he's going to get us off TP he's going to have to fire 3.

[Nakamura]

The term "betting for protection" is probably misunderstood and should be rephrased. I mean it in the sense of folding hands which have equity against us. So we should only bet "for protection" when he is folding a lot of hands which have equity against us and he gives up any equity he has in the pot.

If he calls our bet with a draw/worse hand, that makes it a value-bet since he is paying to see another card while he is behind us in terms of equity.

My above statement makes no sense as I don't see him folding many of his draws Kx hands here, so I agree turn bet is a value bet.

As for the best turn play, I agree it depends on reads. The more passive he is, the more we want to value-bet as he won't fire the river with missed draws etc.

[drmcboy]

Yeah. I had similar discussion with Tai earlier that I think I lost track of so let me spew this out now before I forget.

I think people say they are betting for protection because they are concerned about being bluffed out later. That isn't super applicable here, but if we had AJ or K9 instead it would be a valid worry.

In an extreme example, let's say the turn is the 2c and CO checks. We are granted a moment of clarity and we know the following:

On turn
If we bet and CO is behind, he will fold 100% of the time.
If we bet and CO is ahead, he will raise or call 100% of the time.
We'll assume he never hand a hand that has exactly the right price to call.

On river
CO will bet the river 100% of the time a card comes that will scare us away.
CO will c/f 100% of the time when he is behind and we can call a bet.
CO will bet 100% of the time he makes a better hand.

It feels like there is no value in betting the turn because better always calls and worse always folds. So it must not be a value bet, and so it's for protection. BUT, if we do not bet the turn, CO will end up in a spot where he plays his hand perfectly against us on the river. And given the existing pot has value we'd much rather he fold the hands he's going to use to steal it from us.


It's a little contrived but depending on the opponent and hand strength there are a lot of spots that are close enough to this made up example. A good player who has a FD and 1 over and will bluff some of the time is going to make our like so difficult on a lot of rivers that we need to make him pay for the privilege of getting to said river. Even if he doesn't play his hand perfectly, we won't either and will sometimes fold the best hand or pay off when he gets there.

Getting back to this hand it seems like the worst case scenario for us is QT that is planning to bluff hearts and Jx and value bet when it gets there.


It's sorta the reverse of the problems with calling getting 10/1 from the SB with Q5o. Sure you are probably not a 10/1 dog, but you're often going to end up badly misplaying the hand from there so you fold instead.

I can't decide if all that makes sense, will re read later.

[Duffryn]

^^^ makes a lot of sense. Great post

[Nakamura]

Right, I thought about the hand a bit more. There is a possibility he has hands like KQ, KT, K9 if he checks back the turn, to control the pot size. Most opponents would lead these hands, but some opponents will check them to us. His range could also include draws that want to get to the river cheaply.

From what I understand we are are betting the turn to prevent villain from exploiting us. I'm not sure I agree with. We want the villain to feel like he can either value-bet KQ, KT, K9. We want him to bet when his range is obviously weaker than ours.

If we check the turn, we obviously have to have a plan to call a river bet since he is probably going to fire a wide range. But I don't see what is wrong with giving a free card here when he thinks he bluff or value bet with a wide range. It's not like we are going to go broke by raising the river.

I know villain can bluff-raise the river with a draw if we bet, but this happens so rarely in SNGs.

[rong]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if you're confident he folds to a preflop 3b anything you're ahead of, don't you just open up your 3b range against this guy. Whilst looking at the hand in a vacuum this isn't optimal, assuming you play him often this let's you steel from him until he adjusts at which point you can start 3bing for value.

[TLR]

I dont really like the flat preflop, it gives BB good odds to call with a variaty of hands (note that the initial raise is 2.5BB). If we 3 bet and opp folds it is not a bad result for us, if he 4bet with his stats its a fold, and if he calls we have position on him .

I would not make a big raise, raise to 200 or so and take it from there

As played I would raise flop

[drmcboy]

if we 3 bet and he fold a worse Ax or Kx hand (and most 13/10 will) it is definitely a bad result.

What's worse is then you're in a spot where if you make TP and get action you won't like it, because again you expect he folded most of his worse TP hands so usually you'll look at a set. So mostly you'll be bluffing the flop after your 3 bet. If that's the case, it doesn't really matter much that you have AK except in blocker terms.

But, if you flat the AK you'll often get two streets of value and maybe 3 depending on texture when you hit. And you still have a good float or semi bluff hand if you miss.

Not clear why 2.5 BB changes anything, BB is getting a great price at 3 or 4 BB as well.

at Nak if you think we're only going to get 1 street of value from worse Kx it may as well be the turn since betting the turn is much better vs the draws and other weaker hands that he's done with unless he outdraws us. I again disagree that he'll bluff a wide range on river, he just got called by a tight SNG player and should be putting us pretty solidly on Kx.

[TLR]

[QUOTE=drmcboy;2020102]if we 3 bet and he fold a worse Ax or Kx hand (and most 13/10 will) it is definitely a bad result.

What's worse is then you're in a spot where if you make TP and get action you won't like it, because again you expect he folded most of his worse TP hands so usually you'll look at a set. So mostly you'll be bluffing the flop after your 3 bet. If that's the case, it doesn't really matter much that you have AK except in blocker terms.

But, if you flat the AK you'll often get two streets of value and maybe 3 depending on texture when you hit. And you still have a good float or semi bluff hand if you miss.
[QUOTE=drmcboy;2020102]

Lets assume you flat and the most common scenario happens - you miss the flop and villian bets, what is the plan now ?

[QUOTE=drmcboy;2020102]
Not clear why 2.5 BB changes anything, BB is getting a great price at 3 or 4 BB as well.
[QUOTE=drmcboy;2020102]
We 2.5 BB raise BB has to call 1.5 into a 6.5 pot (1:4.3), with 4 BB raise villian has to call 3BB into a 9.5BB pot (1:3.2), thats a big difference...

[drmcboy]

As the BB what's your range to flat here vs 3 or 4x? Yes, 2.5 is a smaller number but the point is that any hand that makes sense to flat for 2.5 will make sense at 4. With deep stacks the price pre should not be your deciding factor.

the other question is way too general. what is the flop texture? How much did he bet? My standard is to float but sometimes I'd fold and sometimes I'd raise.