Crazy move with AQs

BB is 22/14 and likes to 3-bet in position or re-steal from blinds

Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

BB ($26.50)
UTG ($7)
MP ($36.10)
CO ($20.30)
Button ($21.95)
Hero ($28.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, Q.
4 folds, Hero raises to $1, BB raises to $3.5, Hero raises to $7.9, BB calls $4.40.

Flop: ($15.80) J, 9, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $20.6 (All-In)

I did not know why I made this move with no draws. I don't think a 3/4 pot continuation bet would work. Spew at this level?

If villian had AJ here that would totally suck!

wow.
You have no value on this play. Your folding out hands you beat and stacking off to hands that beat you. I dont even 3-bet preflop, AQs just isnt big enough, you basicly have to hit the flop. You bloat the pot and...

really, i dont get it.

Plan ahead, make a slightly bigger 3-bet.

3 bet all day but make it bigger

Originally Posted by SHAKE

I dont even 3-bet preflop, AQs just isnt big enough

You mean 4-bet? If given the chance (we don't get the chance in this hand) I 3-bet this 90% of the time.

Thank you for the replies. How big should I bet? 3x the raisers bet or pot it?

Originally Posted by Fnord

Plan ahead, make a slightly bigger 3-bet.

What should I be thinking/plan in situation like this? I'm still the kind of player who just only sees/playing my 2 hole cards.

Originally Posted by kmind

Originally Posted by SHAKE

I dont even 3-bet preflop, AQs just isnt big enough

You mean 4-bet? If given the chance (we don't get the chance in this hand) I 3-bet this 90% of the time.

yes my bad, i ment 4-bet

If you're going to make this play, re-raise enough to leave yourself about one potish sized bet. Adding another buck or two makes things work out and is pure value.

i really think call pf. It disguises your hand and you dont have to stack off here. If you call pot on flop is 8~ ad your stak is 27ish..you could lead 6.50 and fold to a shove.

Originally Posted by Fnord

If you're going to make this play, re-raise enough to leave yourself about one potish sized bet. Adding another buck or two makes things work out and is pure value.

Fnord I see you time and time again talk about 3betting and shoving flops or 4betting and shoving flops.

Can you explain your thought process and why playing AQs like this is "pure value"

It seems only recently that you've really been advocating this play, I would just like to understand it better.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Can you explain your thought process and why playing AQs like this is "pure value"

If this play is +EV against this opponent with his image then re-raising a little more pre-flop is value.

Im actually referring to your raise PF then shove all flops line you've been advocating a lot recently (or at least it seems a lot.)

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Im actually referring to your raise PF then shove all flops line you've been advocating a lot recently (or at least it seems a lot.)

It's a great line.

Fnord, I'm trying to figure out with these little cryptic clues if you are just being mean to us lesser players or if you are giving us just enough of a hint to get us thinking about things, posting our thoughts in our own words and then going to expand on them from there...you know, the give a man vs teach a man thing.

I'm going to assume it's the latter because I don't think you really are that snarky and try to nut out why this line is so good.

My first instinct would be that if we're 3 or 4 betting against villain and closing the action then we can put him on less than AA (and likely less than KK for most) so on any flop that comes he has to be worried that we already have the overpair and if he doesn't hit his set/2 pair then he isn't getting the odds to try and draw out for a straight or flush so has to lay it down.

For instance in this hand, if the OP 4-bets to about $10 he leaves himself with a psb on the flop and pushing there gives only 2:1 for villain to call with which is a highly unprofitable play if he has an underpair or no combo draw.

We also balance this out with those times we are 3 or 4 betting light (eg TT/JJ) and shove on a flop that hit our set etc so there is no way villain can every safely make this call without the nuts on the flop and that's going to be at best 1 time in 8 that he hits his set.

Am I close?

Alright, so the first consideration is what is this guy re-raising with. If he's a tight re-raiser (common at this level), then we certainly have no buisness re-raising back. Given the read and just trusting the OP's gut here, we think we probably have the best hand or a coin flip. Also, ranges tend to widen up a bunch when it's a battle of the button and/or blinds. AQs figures to be a very strong hand.

The problem is that if we just call we won't be in a position to win the pot without hitting or get any cheap/free/freerolled cards to suck out. When we do catch good, our opponent will tend to get away from his hand.

However, if we just push we will rarely get called by worse hands and often have the slight worst of a coin flip. Also, we don't win very much when there is no call.

By re-raising and setting up a single potish sized continuation we take the initiative back in the hand and take away any chance of our opponent bluffing us out. Even if he makes a correct call on the flop, we still figure to have outs to suck out. Weakish players rarely will fold to the re-raise as they seem to be committed to seeing a flop and seeing if we follow through. Once the flop comes we give hands like JJ-22 a chance to see scare cards and fold incorrectly. AK gets a chance to miss the flop. Weaker Ace hands lose any chance of bluffing us out.

We've turned being out of position into an advantage because we get to launch our nukes first and force our opponent to fold or roll the dice with a showdown.

Next time you're in a donkament, look at all the boards that come up when people go all-in and notice how many look scary but miss both players.

Finally, we establish an image of playing our hands strong, willing to play for stacks and follow-through with our aggression. This gives our bets implied threat and encourages our opponents to try to play trap poker against us.

Ahhhh..I was close but makes more sense in that perspective.

We're essentially using a stop-n-go (with the opponent stopping rather than us) in a situation where it helps give us an image but we aren't losing out too much since we can reload and often figure to have the best hand.

Does this play change if positions are changed, eg we limp AQs in UTG, folds round to CO who puts in the initial raise and then folds back round to us?

Does our range matter or is it still a consideration that you want to only do this with hands that have showdown value....and if positions don't matter, do ranges matter in different positions?

With position we should be more inclined to see a flop with money behind since we will often get to see turn + river cards and won't miss betting a street. Against some particular types weak opponents you probably could run the line with any 2 cards (guy who just sat down and doesn't plan to re-buy but wants to gamble for less than his stack for an hour or two then stick the rest in.) However, it works best with hands with strong showdown value (since you will get some weird calls) and it's even a pretty good line to run with AA/KK, particularly if you've shown down a weaker hand with that line.

Here is an example of the play in action where I over-bet the pot to set it up.

Table '56603596 1' 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Fnord (1970 in chips)
Seat 2: dwingard (1030 in chips)
dwingard: posts small blind 10
Fnord: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Fnord [Ts Th]
dwingard: raises 40 to 60
Fnord: raises 290 to 350
dwingard: calls 290
*** FLOP *** [2d 7c 9c]
Fnord: bets 1620 and is all-in
dwingard: calls 680 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [2d 7c 9c] [4s]
*** RIVER *** [2d 7c 9c 4s] [4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Fnord: shows [Ts Th] (two pair, Tens and Fours)
dwingard: shows [3h 3d] (two pair, Fours and Threes)
dwingard is sitting out
Fnord collected 2060 from pot

Isn't your line supposed to fold out hands like 33, otherwise it seems hella spewy to be on the wrong side of 75:25's all night. I cant imagine you take the same line with QQ+.


Either way, thanks for explaining it, at least I now know your reasoning.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Isn't your line supposed to fold out hands like 33, otherwise it seems hella spewy to be on the wrong side of 75:25's all night. I cant imagine you take the same line with QQ+.

Sometimes I play QQ+ like this.

The reason it works against badish players is that they call the re-raise with a lot of speculative and weak hands setting themselves up for difficult flop decisions. Stronger players will fold to the re-raise and shove some better hands over the top of you.

Thanks for the discussion guys!

The AQs play was actually a bit more interesting. I think the villain was really pissed off by the move. I caught a monster 5 hands after that, pulled the same move and villain decided to make a stand.

saw flop|saw showdown

BB ($26.50)
UTG ($7)
MP ($36.10)
CO ($20.30)
Button ($21.95)
Hero ($28.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, Q.
4 folds, Hero raises to $1, BB raises to $3.5, Hero raises to $7.9, BB calls $4.40.

Flop: ($15.80) J, 9, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $20.6 (All-In), BB folds.

Final Pot: $-4.80

Results in white below:
No showdown. Hero wins $36.40.

5 hands after that:

saw flop|saw showdown

BB ($25)
UTG ($7)
MP ($37)
Button ($21.70)
Hero ($36)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, A.
3 folds, Hero raises to $1, BB raises to $3.5, Hero raises to $7.9, BB raises to $25, Hero calls $17.10.

Flop: ($50) 2, 9, 5 (2 players)

Turn: ($50) 2 (2 players)

River: ($50) 2 (2 players)

Final Pot: $50

Results in white below:
BB has Qs 9c (full house, twos full of nines).
Hero has Ah As (full house, twos full of aces).
Outcome: Hero wins $50.

Look, any tricky play at one point or another is going to have some meta game value. From a dry mathmatical standpoint, at this stake, i just don see value in 3 betting AQ and shoving a dry flop. There are ways to risk alot less and win relitivly the same, while losing alot less the time you are wrong.

Originally Posted by SHAKE

From a dry mathmatical standpoint, at this stake, i just don see value in 3 betting AQ and shoving a dry flop.

I'm a rather big fan of re-raising the best hand and playing low SPR pots with big Aces. But I guess I'm just sick and twisted like that.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by SHAKE

From a dry mathmatical standpoint, at this stake, i just don see value in 3 betting AQ and shoving a dry flop.

I'm a rather big fan of re-raising the best hand and playing low SPR pots with big Aces. But I guess I'm just sick and twisted like that.

im a limidonk.