5NL: KK vs shorty on Axx flop

No read on villain.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (7 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP2 ($9.97)
CO ($6)
Button ($1.78)
Hero ($4.98)
BB ($3.46)
UTG ($1.98)
MP1 ($13.45)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K. CO posts a blind of $0.05.
UTG calls $0.05, 2 folds, CO (poster) checks, Button calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.45, 1 fold, UTG folds, CO folds, Button calls $0.40.

Flop: ($1.07) A, J, 8 (2 players)
Hero hates this spot, sighs and ???

Does my hand still have value against his range which contains a lot of Ax hands?

That's a tough spot to be in, especially when OOP with no read on villain. I might get bashed for this but I'll throw it out anyway. Take about half your time and then check. If he bets, raise him quickly. I'm not saying do this every time, but occasionally it works. Just ask yourself what he might be calling your raise with before you make a decision. Go with your first instinct.

bet, do not give up on your kings on a flop like this at 5nl unless you have a better reason to do so.

I would rather check-call. If you bet, there's a wide variety of hands that could just call you, and you won't really know where you're at. If you check and he checks behind you can be almost certain that you have the best hand, and if he doesn't have you beat you might induce a bluff. Either way you can't really loose too much on a board like this. I would try to maximize in the likely case that you do have the best hand.
It's a tricky spot though.

I'd bet 1/2 of the pot and fold if reraised.

check

I'd say check. What hands do you get action from if you bet? Likely only Ax, sets, or 2pr, all of which you are behind. And none of those hands are going to fold to a bet here. However, you still have value against underpairs, gutshots, and of course unpairs undercards. Which by checking you give the hands you are beating a chance to play along.

Originally Posted by poker_pup

I'd bet 1/2 of the pot and fold if reraised.

That is an especially bad line to take considering stack sizes. You are going to end up getting better than 3-1 on a call. You have 10% equity anything that has you beat here except AAA so he would only have to be spazzing out about 15% of the time when he shoves.

Originally Posted by poker_pup

I'd bet 1/2 of the pot and fold if reraised.

I don't think that's all that great. If I'm the villain, and I already expect you to c-bet, I might even re-raise with something like QT, QJ, and smooth call with Ax hoping to get you to bet on the turn. If a blank comes on the turn, and he checks, I'm almost certainly going to take a stab at the pot. - not that I would call with these hands preflop.

I think the real problem here is the pre-flop raise. It's too much in my opinion. I would much rather raise 15, 20... and hope for a re-raise.

Originally Posted by oskar

Originally Posted by poker_pup

I'd bet 1/2 of the pot and fold if reraised.

I think the real problem here is the pre-flop raise. It's too much in my opinion. I would much rather raise 15, 20... and hope for a re-raise.

We are in the sb with KK and 3 players with position on us limped. They are not going to 3 bet if we make a ridiculously small raise. The minimum you should ever make it here is .35.

I agree with pankfish on the preflop bet-sizing. I'm more likely to bet even higher here ($0.50c-$0.60c) at 5nl, than smaller. More passive players here than anything else, so not only is a 3b totally foreign to them, a limp/raise (which I don't care for) probably has such a low frequency here.

Originally Posted by pankfish

Originally Posted by oskar

Originally Posted by poker_pup

I'd bet 1/2 of the pot and fold if reraised.

I think the real problem here is the pre-flop raise. It's too much in my opinion. I would much rather raise 15, 20... and hope for a re-raise.

We are in the sb with KK and 3 players with position on us limped. They are not going to 3 bet if we make a ridiculously small raise. The minimum you should ever make it here is .35.

For some reason I thought it was one limper.
Still, the maximum I would make it here is 30. Sure, depends on where you are. On your average partypoker table you would get called about 30% of the time in that spot if you open for 50. Unless the table is extremely fishy.
I still prefer to make reasonably sized raises. I'm having much better results raising according to the blinds and not according to what I think will get called. The problem is that a good player can easily exploit someone making 10xBB raises, even more so if he's only going to raise AA-AK that agressively.

its 5nl. We would probably get a caller if we raised it to 100x. about 50% of the time. Even if you disagree with that though, you're almost guaranteed a family pot if you don't at least raise pot. Thinking goes like this at 5nl

"Hrmmmm, costs me two quarters to see a flop with my QJ sooted...i call!"

Well, it certainly isn't terrible. I'm not completely convinced that it's the best option to raise that much.


Sometimes I feel like I could do just about anything at 5NL, and still walk out with a profit

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

I'd say check. What hands do you get action from if you bet? Likely only Ax, sets, or 2pr, all of which you are behind. And none of those hands are going to fold to a bet here. However, you still have value against underpairs, gutshots, and of course unpairs undercards. Which by checking you give the hands you are beating a chance to play along.

So checking is to induce a bluff from the worst part of his range? But then I have to call/raise his bet (aware that a lot of times he'll show a better hand), right?

I saw this spot a lot when I was at 5NL. Check and use his bet size (if he bets) as a read. I have noticed that at those stakes people bet half the pot or less when they don't have the ace, and bet 3/4-pot-or shove when they do. If he checks bet out 3/4 on the turn. This worked great for me.. I was almost always right with this read.

Your average fish at this level does not understand nor vary their bet sizes. They play their cards and nothing more.. when confident in their hand they bet more.. this is only on average, and this is all we should be concerned with.. being right more than 50% of the time is +ev.

Originally Posted by oskar

Well, it certainly isn't terrible. I'm not completely convinced that it's the best option to raise that much.


Sometimes I feel like I could do just about anything at 5NL, and still walk out with a profit

Standard for every winning player on the internet is 3-4x the bb to open. This is 5 nl so you want to open to 4x pretty much every time. Add an other big blind for every limper in front of you, and add a big blind if you are in the blinds because you are going to be playing the entire hand out of position so you want to charge them extra for the flop.

4x is .20. You have 3 limpers, so .35 is a good amount to bet. Being out of position I would add an extra bb to that and make it at least .40.

These are fundamentals. You could play tricky if you knew the pot was going to be heads up, but this one is not going to be.

I think the most money I make with QQ-AA is if garbage hits top-pair, and if I can get mediocre hands to go all-in pre-flop. I think I'm increasing the chances of either of those things happening when I raise less. Also, I'm generally raising whenever I think I'm above the limpers range, so I'm raising quite a lot. I've tried to apply that rule, it didn't work out that well. If you're only going to play top range hands then it makes perfect sense. - which might work better for most players anyway... so...
As a rule of thumb you're definitely correct.

I've been up and down from micro to mid-stakes over the last year, and I have found that the micro stakes are generally less likely to call me down, which seems contrary to what everyone else is experiencing. I had to tighten up considerably at 10/25 and above.

I'm also playing a lot more sng's lately... that might have a bad influence on my cash game

c/c. c/f ui. c/c ui.