[10NL] AJo in BB...Good spot for a squeeze?

MP - 17/13/11 over 74 hands. FT3B 100%, 4/4. No FTCB stat.

SB - 20/16/3 over 357 hands. FT3B 83%. FTCB 50%, 2/4.

PokerStars - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: $14.26
Hero (BB): $13.27
UTG: $10.19
MP: $12.07
CO: $8.35
BTN: $12.13

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A J

fold, MP raises to $0.30, fold, fold, SB calls $0.25, Hero raises to ~$1.35???

OK, just wondering if I should be squeezing here as opposed to calling. The reason I ask is I'm pretty sure if I squeeze I am turning my hand into a bluff (?) as I don't think better hands fold or worse hands call. I expect AT/KQ/KJ/QJ those type of hands to probably fold and AQ+ plus most PP's, say 77+, to call.

My thought process is a little all over the place in these spots so any help would be much appreciated.

Calling? We definitely don't like calling w/ AJo OOP. I think this is a really easy fold.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

Calling? We definitely don't like calling w/ AJo OOP. I think this is a really easy fold.

I hate calling as well, but don't like folding either.

Calling from the blinds is generally throwing away money. My default play is to raise here. AJ is a fine hand to bluff with.

I think a better approach would be how many hands do you want to be bluffing with here? Then pick them. And I don't think AJo makes the list.

I think it looks like a good spot for bluff squeeze. You have other things to consider tho not just stats. Like yr image for one and is mp gonna exploit his position over you, if you see a flop how well are you gonna play if you bink a pair. Im shore there are moore questions you csn ask yrself.
As it goes I think AJo is right up there as yr top bluffing hand in this spot. And will prolly make you more money than simply folding.

AJo is nowhere near a top bluffing hand.

Why not? Or do you just want to be a prick

Let's think about this a bit.

The AJ is clearly a bluff, right? I'm assuming you aren't raising for value.

So, what's villains calling range? We can ignore what villain 3bs as we fold to a 3b (ie its a bluff).

Once we have a range, we can consider what plays best against it

Originally Posted by kickass

Why not? Or do you just want to be a prick

We block villains folding range and we play pretty poorly OOP and almost never flop any equity. We also get ourselves in lots of awkward spots where we hit an Ace and don't fold and pay off a couple of streets

I made this point before in chat but I really think that people try and see hands as transitive when they aren't. In your head AJo is better than A5s because in most positions you are comfortable playing AJo comes before A5s, whereas in certain spots A5s is better.

It's the whole

JTs > 22
22 > AKo
AKo > JTs

AJ blocks his nutted range really well, this is way more relevant than the fact we also block some of his folding range as the former is much much smaller than the latter and therefore blockers have a much bigger impact. I think this is a really standard hand to squeeze with vs high fold to 3-bets, it also plays much better vs 88-TT stuff than a lot of other hands and this is the exact part of their calling ranges we don't block at all.

AJ is probably my 3rd favourite hand to squeeze in this spot that's not for clear value.

AJo > A5s here easily since we block JJ and do better vs a substantial part of their calling ranges. Hands aren't transitive, but I still think AJ is a better squeeze here.

MP hasn't shown he knows how to call a 3bet yet, so it looks like it's going to be AJo playing IP vs. SB, which is a good spot.

I don't think worrying about MP calling should change the justifiably wide 3-betting range from BB. Even with such a small sample, the 100% fold to 3-bet seems worth exploiting with a decent range, certainly all PP's, Axs, SC's and S1G's, AKo, AQo certainly, and AJo isn't a huge stretch to be 3-betting with.

As has been noted, if MP doesn't fold, then his range is too strong against AJ and Hero's best case scenario is to bink an A and go for cheap showdown, expecting most of the time Hero will be dominated.

I do think the fold equity pre is worth the poor playability of this hand post. It's not as if AJo is Hero's entire range here.

Squeezing all pps here is really horrible.

A5s is fine hand too.
vs tight villains that pretty much only call vs 3bs with pairs i like big cards so i can out flop them and often get to showdown. I think we still have plenty of fold equity vs these guys as long as we havent been going crazzzy 3bing before now even if we block his Jx hands.
when it comes to being 4b bluffed (which happens occassionaly at 10nl) AJ is the kind of hand folks like to do it with (top of the folding range type shit) so blocking AJ actually helps cos we are folding to 4bs.
just my thoughts
I have also read spoons blockers posts and understand where your coming from concerning reverse blockers. but i dont think its important to pick all yr bluffing hands before you play a hand but rather have hands you will bluff with sometimes and fold others using dynamics to decide.

that must of taken me a week to write. post explosion on this page

Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

MP hasn't shown he knows how to call a 3bet yet, so it looks like it's going to be AJo playing IP vs. SB, which is a good spot.

4/4 really isn't a sample to be drawing any huge conclusions from. I don't see why we'd want to be 3betting as much as most people think we should be.

Originally Posted by kickass

A5s is fine hand too.
vs tight villains that pretty much only call vs 3bs with pairs i like big cards so i can out flop the, and often get . I think we still have plenty of fold equity vs these guys as long as we havent been going crazzzy 3bing before now even if we block his Jx hands.
when it comes to being 4b bluffed (which happens occassionaly at 10nl) AJ is the kind of hand folks like to do it with (top of the folding range type shit) so blocking AJ actually helps cos we are folding to 4bs.
just my thoughts
I have also read spoons blockers posts and understand where your coming from concerning reverse blockers. but i dont think its important to pick all yr bluffing hands before you play a hand but rather have hands you will bluff with sometimes and fold others using dynamics to decide.

Do people really 4bet bluff w/AJo? I dunno if that can be good. And once again you kind of assumed transivity, AJo has really bad equity against most 3betting ranges, the top of our folding range is the hand that has the most equity against that range, taking into consideration blockers etc.

And I'm not sure if I understand the top of your post but I made this point in IRC (maybe ITT too) and although this shouldn't come into consideration to someone who is good, if we assume AJo and A5s are exactly the same in terms of equity we spew much less post flop with A5s than we do AJo when we hit an Ace, hitting a J also can cause us to spew against stuff whereas hitting a 5 we can get away from.

So hitting an Ace isn't exactly a bonus when we have AJo because people tend to start finding folds with PP's when an Ace hits and all the Aces in his range are better than ours.

(Sorry that post is a little all over the place, I got distracted multiple times whilst writing it and lost my thought process quite a lot)

You dont understand it cos it doesnt make sense.
I agree with you about the dangers of flopping a pair esp if we arent good hand readers (pretty much everyone playing micros).
AJ was my 4b bluff hand of choice obv folding to a 5b. Having yr 4b flatted was always a rare occurrence back when I played, mebbe its the cool thing to do now, I dont know.
I also agree that this isnt a snap 3b given our reads but one we can and should consider based on the table dynamics, saying that, im looking for a reason not to 3b not a reason to do it cos I believe its gonna be way more profitable than the 100bb per 100 hand loss we are getting folding here.

Also sorry for the lack of direction in all my posts: my head is a mess

Originally Posted by ImSavy

4/4 really isn't a sample to be drawing any huge conclusions from.

Obvious troll. Subtle leanings are just as important as huge conclusions as long as you keep perspective.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

I don't see why we'd want to be 3betting as much as most people think we should be.

The -100bb/100 for folding forces us to play a wider range than position alone makes sensible.

The wide range means we are playing with hands that don't generally play well OOP, but even still, the EV is better than -100bb/100.

Playing speculative hands w/o initiative or position is, in general, throwing chips away.

So we respond by widening our 3-betting range while thinning our calling range, always keeping in mind how we exploit the villains in the hand.

Well, you guys may be interested to know, that carrotz, M2M and yawn just argued in IRC for 20 minutes, 1 saying fold pre, 1 saying call pre, 1 saying 3b pre, neither agreeing with the other by the end.

SoI guess it's open to debate.

Now you all wish you knew who said what don't you? Well, come to IRC bitches!

Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Obvious troll. Subtle leanings are just as important as huge conclusions as long as you keep perspective.


The -100bb/100 for folding forces us to play a wider range than position alone makes sensible.

The wide range means we are playing with hands that don't generally play well OOP, but even still, the EV is better than -100bb/100.

Playing speculative hands w/o initiative or position is, in general, throwing chips away.

So we respond by widening our 3-betting range while thinning our calling range, always keeping in mind how we exploit the villains in the hand.

A fold to 3bet stat should be pretty high, if we're assuming it's somewhere around 0.7 that's like 25% of the time he folds 4 hands in row to a 3bet, which isn't going to be massively exploitable yet for some people this is justification that he is massively exploitable.

I understand all the rest but there are lots of better hands to 3bet imo than AJo, so even if we are having a pretty wide 3bet range in this spot (and I don't like calling much) I don't think AJo falls into it.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

We block villains folding range and we play pretty poorly OOP and almost never flop any equity. We also get ourselves in lots of awkward spots where we hit an Ace and don't fold and pay off a couple of streets

I made this point before in chat but I really think that people try and see hands as transitive when they aren't. In your head AJo is better than A5s because in most positions you are comfortable playing AJo comes before A5s, whereas in certain spots A5s is better.

It's the whole

JTs > 22
22 > AKo
AKo > JTs

the parts i bolded range from dubious to plain wrong imo. AJ's blockers are nearly as good as any other hands if we are looking to increase fold equity. AJ flops fine against 3b-calling ranges - we're only concerned about AQ,AK dominating us and AK will be 4b some non-zero. we flip vs most of the pockets pairs that will call (but we have initiative and these hands are hard to play vs aggression without reads on barreling frequencies etc). and we dominate some hands in villain's calling range (JT,QJ,KJ).

couple all of the above with the fact that AJo is not strong enough to cold-call here (particularly 3-way) and that we generally want to 3b " bluff" with the stronger hands in our folding range (obv because they have the most equity of the hands we can't call profitably). so yeah i think AJo is a fine 3-bet here.

Originally Posted by rpm

the parts i bolded range from dubious to plain wrong imo. AJ's blockers are nearly as good as any other hands if we are looking to increase fold equity. AJ flops fine against 3b-calling ranges - we're only concerned about AQ,AK dominating us and AK will be 4b some non-zero. we flip vs most of the pockets pairs that will call (but we have initiative and these hands are hard to play vs aggression without reads on barreling frequencies etc). and we dominate some hands in villain's calling range (JT,QJ,KJ).

couple all of the above with the fact that AJo is not strong enough to cold-call here (particularly 3-way) and that we generally want to 3b " bluff" with the stronger hands in our folding range (obv because they have the most equity of the hands we can't call profitably). so yeah i think AJo is a fine 3-bet here.

JT, QJ & KJ aren't in villains calling range. The only aces that call dominate us. I dunno why you think those three hands are in his calling range, no one else who has spoke about this hand thinks so. So what I said about blockers is true.

When villain calls with a PP and we flop an Ace we tend to not get any money whereas when villain does have an Ace we are always putting in monday with AJ. Hence it plays pretty poorly OOP and we hit a much fewer number of boards than with hands like A5s which we can at least semi bluff and apply pressure with. Maybe never flop any equity was bad wording, but we almost never realise any of our equity with AJo and I think against a realistic calling range A5s has almost exactly the same amount of equity anyway (and blocks less of his folding range) and we flop equity we can actually realise.

Once again assuming AJo is the top of our folding range because AJo plays better HU vs A5s and whatever other stuff is meant to be in our folding range, when it's all about how it plays against villains range that defines where it is in our ranges.

Vs a range of {88+,AQs+,AQo+}

AJo has 31.13%
A5s has 31.76%

Vs a range of {JJ-88,AQs,AQo+}

AJo has 34%
A5s has 32.68%

yeah all good points, i'm rusty as these days. though surely everybody calls the better suited-connectors to 3b's 100bb+ in 6m?