PF 3bet OOP and hitting resistance @ 5NL

Hand 1

Villain is 8/6 over 130. I have no PF 3bet data. No reads of significance. Range: AQs/o+, JJ+. He flats my 3bet so im thinking that AA is unlikely. He is folding JJ probably. His reraise shove confuses the shit out of me. The only thing i see him shoving with is KQh, which i thought was too loose to include in his calling 3bet range. His range crushes me. Did he hit a monster and prematurely explode on the raise button or is my range f'd?

I think this is a fold.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 63.853% 48.31% 15.54% 81792 26305.50 { QQ+, AQs+, AQo+ }
Hand 1: 36.147% 20.61% 15.54% 34887 26305.50 { AKo }

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (9 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP2 ($5.24)
MP3 ($5.81)
CO ($5.89)
Button ($2.73)
SB ($5)
Hero (BB) ($5.12)
UTG ($3.67)
UTG+1 ($5)
MP1 ($7.36)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, A
1 fold, UTG+1 bets $0.20, 4 folds, Button calls $0.20, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.60, UTG+1 calls $0.40, Button calls $0.40

Flop: ($1.82) 5, A, Q (3 players)
Hero bets $1, UTG+1 raises to $4.40 (All-In), 1 fold


Hand 2

Villain is 14/11 over 74. Again, no 3bet information. Range: 77+, AJo+, 9Ts+. I think he flats the 3bet with QQ+ AKo AQs+. KK+ is probably 4betting/shoving but i will leave it in there.
He is folding AK on the turn, if not the flop.
I think i should have b/f river. Again, i think my calling 3bet range for villain might be f`d; too tight.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 44.495% 42.17% 02.33% 55104 3042.00 { QQ+, AQs, AQo }
Hand 1: 55.505% 53.18% 02.33% 69492 3042.00 { KK }

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (8 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 ($5.17)
MP2 ($5.40)
Button ($5)
Hero (SB) ($5)
BB ($13.08)
UTG ($6.63)
UTG+1 ($6.80)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K
2 folds, MP1 bets $0.15, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.45, 1 fold, MP1 calls $0.30

Flop: ($0.95) Q, 9, 10 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.60, MP1 calls $0.60

Turn: ($2.15) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, MP1 calls $1.50

River: ($5.15) 10 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $2.62 (All-In)

he has AQ both hands... i say you call 2 hand

Hand 1 - Don't 3bet.

Hand 2 - Shove river.

Originally Posted by HoopyDude

Hand 1 - Don't 3bet.

Can you explain your reasoning? Having 3bet i think its easier to find a fold here than if we hadn't.
I hate flatting oop.

Originally Posted by Openside

Can you explain your reasoning? Having 3bet i think its easier to find a fold here than if we hadn't.
I hate flatting oop.

The guy is playing 8/6 and we have no idea how he plays his range to a 3bet. By flatting we keep dominated hands in his range.

Depending on the BTN's tendencies there's some decent ways to play our hand post flop like leading out on A/K hi boards for value or checking if UTG+1 cbets too much as our relative position is good.

H1: If he does it with AA,QQ,AKs,AKo, you have 33.7% equity against this range Pot odds are 32% so it is a very slim call. If he has any AQ it's a fold because your equity drops to 27.7%. So if you have the slightest doubt that he may have AQ, just fold.

Why are you 3 betting AK pre against a 8/6 UTG raise? He's not folding many better hands and he's folding all his worse hands. I'd flat and wake up if I hit an A or K. Plus the button is there too, so there is a good chance that you will have to play a 3 bet pot OOP without a made hand on the flop. I also think your preflop 3b sizing is too small, would make it like 0.8. As played, I'd bet more on this wet flop, close to pot. Then it would be more of a call when he shoves with AA,QQ,AKs,AKo, because of all the dead money.

H2: I think he has more pocket pairs in his flatting range because it's pretty much correct to set mine in position in this spot. Again,bet more on this wet flop, close to pot. Not sure he folds AK on the flop with two overs and a gutshot. After that his line is a bit bizarre for a 14/11, but maybe he takes chances on the flop and slowplays a set then slowplays his boat on the turn. Difficult to see a 14/11 chasing a straight draw or overs all the way with JJ or AK here but you never know. You can't b/f river, if you bet anything you are committed so you might as well get it in if you're going to bet anything. I don't think it's good to bet here, as he never folds a better hand and he never calls with a worse hand. As played, He should be bluffing >25% of the time for this to be a call.

Originally Posted by daviddem

H1: If he does it with AA,QQ,AKs,AKo, you have 33.7% equity against this range Pot odds are 32% so it is a very slim call. If he has any AQ it's a fold because your equity drops to 27.7%. So if you have the slightest doubt that he may have AQ, just fold.

Why are you 3 betting AK pre against a 8/6 UTG raise? He's not folding many better hands and he's folding all his worse hands. I'd flat and wake up if I hit an A or K. Plus the button is there too, so there is a good chance that you will have to play a 3 bet pot OOP without a made hand on the flop. I also think your preflop 3b sizing is too small, would make it like 0.8. As played, I'd bet more on this wet flop, close to pot. Then it would be more of a call when he shoves with AA,QQ,AKs,AKo, because of all the dead money.

This is an obvious hole in my understanding. Its 3way if i flat anyway. AK blows multiway. I want to get this to HU pre, no? HU on the flop i have alot more fold equity.
Why do i want to commit myself to calling a shove? My thinking was that anything i beat is folding to my flop bet. A call/raise and i am crushed given the range i put him on. I want to leave myself an out, no?
Thanks for your comments, mate. I obviously dont have this clear.

Originally Posted by Openside

This is an obvious hole in my understanding. Its 3way if i flat anyway. AK blows multiway. I want to get this to HU pre, no? HU on the flop i have alot more fold equity.
Why do i want to commit myself to calling a shove? My thinking was that anything i beat is folding to my flop bet.

I think the gap in your logic is that you're not understanding why you're betting. Preflop -- is your raise as a bluff or for value? You're not going to fold any hands that crush you (AA/KK) but you are folding most of the hands that you will crush if you hit an A or K (AQo, JJ and lower).

Same goes for the flop -- look at your bolded sentence. You bet into a pot expecting all worse hands to fold and all better hands to call. You aren't betting for value, because no worse hands call. It's not a good bluff, because (a) no better hands fold and (b) not enough of his range folds to make the bet profitable in a vacuum. So where does that leave you? You're just giving away money.

Originally Posted by NightGizmo

I think the gap in your logic is that you're not understanding why you're betting. Preflop -- is your raise as a bluff or for value? You're not going to fold any hands that crush you (AA/KK) but you are folding most of the hands that you will crush if you hit an A or K (AQo, JJ and lower).Same goes for the flop -- look at your bolded sentence. You bet into a pot expecting all worse hands to fold and all better hands to call. You aren't betting for value, because no worse hands call. It's not a good bluff, because (a) no better hands fold and (b) not enough of his range folds to make the bet profitable in a vacuum. So where does that leave you? You're just giving away money.

Im 3betting to get HU and for info. Point taken, by 3betting for info im folding everything i beat.
Any thoughts on why villain took the line he did?

Originally Posted by daviddem

As played, I'd bet more on this wet flop, close to pot. Then it would be more of a call when he shoves with AA,QQ,AKs,AKo, because of all the dead money.

while my poker brain's actually switched on, does anybody else think this is terrible logic in (what is, as best i can tell) a way ahead/way behind situation (in hand 1)?

for starters, this flop is not wet at all given villain's range. we block his only flush draw with our Kh. it's impossible to flop an 8-out straight draw on AQx, and he probably never gets to the flop with anything that could make a gutterball (KJ is the strongest preflop hand that can make a gutshot on this board). basically, either he's dead to two outs (vs 99,TT,JJ,KK), we're chopping (vs AK), we're dead to backdoor AA/KK (vs QQ), or we're drawing dead altogether (vs AA)

i mean betting more only makes our opponent's range stronger. that seems pretty intuitive. seems like intentionally betting so much that we can't fold to a shove is tying a noose around our neck, and standing on a stool in front of our opponent, right?

AK plays OK multiway (surely better than big PP), and surely better than a 3 bet pot OOP when you will have air on the flop 65% of the time.

As for fold equity, the 8/6 UTG is not going to fold his QQ or AA combos that easily to a halfish pot flop bet if the flop is blank, and these make up a good part of his preflop 3bet calling range.

I do not mean that you should bet the flop bigger to commit yourself to call if he shoves, what I mean is that you should bet bigger to get proper value from drawing or weaker hands. The more the flop is "wet", the more draws or weaker hands are out there, likely to pay you.

The reason you are committed if you (correctly) bet 3/4 pot or full pot on the flop is not the flop bet itself: it's the preflop 3bet that causes that. If you had not 3bet preflop, it would be perfectly correct to fold to a shove or big raise after a pot sized flop bet, because the pot odds would not compel you to call. Replay the hand without your preflop 3bet, do the math and see how clear a fold it becomes.

Well if he wants to raise he has not much other choice than shoving because the money he would have left behind if called would be insignificant compared to the pot size.

Why does he raise? Because he thinks he has the best hand or in hope to fold hands that would tie with him like yours possibly would should he have an AK. He should hope to be called by the worse hands, but since he is a nit he hopes that everyone folds and he can safely collect the dead money without being outdrawn and go back to being a nit.

For the flop I agree with NightGizmo that betting would not make sense heads up against UTG, but I would think that because the button is there a bet is in order here. Please someone tell me otherwise if I am wrong.

an 8/6's UTG OPENING range is ahead of AKo, so you're definitely 3-betting as a bluff expecting to fold out TT-QQ, maybe AK. This might be ok.
It's a really retarded spot tho. idk if you can expect him to fold anything he opens, and calling is -EV unless you can totally pwn him post flop.

Hand 2: don't ever check/decide. First think of why betting might be better than checking or why checking could be better then betting. Then if you check you should already know what to do if your opponent bets.
Whenever you're caught in a situation where you check and your opponents bet catches you off guard, that's bad. And I rarely say that something is bad regarding poker... but that's bad.

Originally Posted by oskar

Hand 2: don't ever check/decide. First think of why betting might be better than checking or why checking could be better then betting. Then if you check you should already know what to do if your opponent bets.
Whenever you're caught in a situation where you check and your opponents bet catches you off guard, that's bad. And I rarely say that something is bad regarding poker... but that's bad.

I had decided to c/f knowing that worse hands probably check behind me. It was only the morning after while i was reviewing that i thought the hand was more of a shove or c/c than it appeared at the time. Folded both hands.

hand one kinda sucks because i don't particularly like flatting or 3betting. however i think flatting is the better option because villain's range is already so strong, and 3betting only strengthens that range, against which we have to play OOP. he probably never folds any of his opening range, so we're just bloating a pot OOP against a range which beats us and isn't folding. also flatting keeps the one hand in his range that we can expect to get more than one bet from post-flop and still have the best hand, namely AQ.

as a little detour, IF i was to 3bet AK here, i'd make it at least 4x his open. basically looking to fold hands which are technically "correct" in calling such as 77-TT or whatever.

so he gets the flop with a range that looks something like 99+,AK. we flop a strong hand in absolute terms, but when we look at his range, we don't really have much of a hand here.

99 - 6 combinations
TT - 6 combos
JJ - 6 "
QQ - 3 "
KK - 3 "
AA -1 "
AK - 6 "

you can choose to discount as much/all of KK/AA as you please. the above list is just the maximum combos he possibly can have of each hand. let's look at some calling ranges on the flop. starting from worst case scenario:

Board: Ah 5h Qs
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 33.682% 05.27% 28.41% 522 2812.50 { AcKh }
Hand 1: 66.318% 37.91% 28.41% 3753 2812.50 { AA, QQ, AKs, AKo }

Hand 0: 36.852% 05.29% 31.57% 471 2812.50 { AcKh }
Hand 1: 63.148% 31.58% 31.57% 2814 2812.50 { QQ, AKs, AKo }

Hand 0: 47.832% 25.80% 22.03% 3321 2835.00 { AcKh }
Hand 1: 52.168% 30.14% 22.03% 3879 2835.00 { QQ+, AKs, AKo }

Hand 0: 51.389% 27.53% 23.86% 3270 2835.00 { AcKh }
Hand 1: 48.611% 24.75% 23.86% 2940 2835.00 { KK-QQ, AKs, AKo }

basically the only way we have >50% equity against his flop calling range is if he:
- 4bets AA 100% preflop (ie never has it in his flop range)
- 4bets KK 0% preflop AND calls a it to a flop bet with an ace on the board

so basically we're hard-pressed to get any value from his calling range. it's likely that he's either dead to two outs, or we're dead to a backdoor full-house - this is a pretty way ahead/way behind situation, so we want to take the line that keeps his range as weak as possible. i think i prefer checking the flop, and against such a nit i'm probably not calling too many streets if he decides to bet when we check to him.

now i'm gonna read everyone else's posts and realise i suck and that we should bet/fold. or something.

oh yeah as played on the flop, we're getting a bit better than 2:1, if i counted correctly. so we need ~31% equity. take your pick which of the above ranges is most likely and then, if that range has more then 31%, you should call. if it has less, you should fold. personally i'd say it's a close call. but your basically being free-rolled by his shoving range regardless. he pretty much never jams KK, or has AJ in his range.

while my poker brain's actually switched on, does anybody else think this is terrible logic in (what is, as best i can tell) a way ahead/way behind situation (in hand 1)?

You're 100% right if heads up against UTG it's much better not to bet and I must say that this did not cross my mind when I wrote my post. But the button is still there though, and this may warrant a bet because his range is much wider. But then maybe not...

to be honest i thought this pot was heads up to the flop when i responded to the quote above. typical of me not paying enough attention to the HH. that said, i doubt there are many XhXh combos in either player's range (literally none in UTG+1's) in a 3bet pot when the Ah and Kh are blocked. be helpful if the stats for the BTN were included.

hand 1 - 3b a little bigger. I don't cbet that flop vs that villain when he will never bluff with another player behind. His range is like TT+/AK and he's turning his hand face-up if you check. Fold is pretty clear as played.

hand 2 - 3b a little bigger again when oop. cbet sizing is up to you, anything from the sizing you chose through to an overbet shove. Turn is fine, AQ is in his range, so is JJ, turn i bet again and river i only check if i'm planning to check-call. You can't bet-fold river cos there isn't enough money behind, if you bet like $1 you'll be getting 9:1 on the call if he raises...

Originally Posted by daven

Fold is pretty clear as played.

we can't fold after we bet can we? based on our betsize of $1, we need 32% equity to call our opponents shove. even if our opponent's range is 4 combos of sets and 6 combos of AK that we chop with, we have 33% equity. i'm not trying to advocate getting it in here, im' advocating checking. but after we bet i think we have to call based on pots odds/equity etc etc. correct me if i'm wrong.

Originally Posted by rpm

we can't fold after we bet can we? based on our betsize of $1, we need 32% equity to call our opponents shove. even if our opponent's range is 4 combos of sets and 6 combos of AK that we chop with, we have 33% equity. i'm not trying to advocate getting it in here, im' advocating checking. but after we bet i think we have to call based on pots odds/equity etc etc. correct me if i'm wrong.

he's an 8-6. His range here is AA/QQ and maybe the two AKsooted combos

fair enough. i was assuming he shoves all six possible combos of AK when he flops TPTK in a 3bet pot. in which case we would have to call.

Originally Posted by rpm

fair enough. i was assuming he shoves all six possible combos of AK when he flops TPTK in a 3bet pot. in which case we would have to call.

calling to a best-case-scenario split vs an uber-nit seems a leak

true. but if i gave you a hypothetical scenario where your pot odds were ~31% to call and close the action, and your pot equity was 33%, you'd say "you should call", right?

Board: Ah 5h Qs
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 33.682% 05.27% 28.41% 522 2812.50 { AcKh }
Hand 1: 66.318% 37.91% 28.41% 3753 2812.50 { AA, QQ, AKs, AKo }

even though we chop with the very bottom of this range, we have 33% equity in the pot.

i agree that bet/calling vs a range which is basically freerolling vs our hand completely sucks, but that's why i prefer checking the flop.

sorry if i'm seeming nitpicky or pedantic, i am genuinely trying to understand your reasoning.

Originally Posted by rpm

true. but if i gave you a hypothetical scenario where your pot odds were ~31% to call and close the action, and your pot equity was 33%, you'd say "you should call", right?

sure, just that in this particular spot i discount AK a bunch. Nothing more complicated than that typically when you're calling at best to a split then villain has less of the bottom of their range than we typically expect

If we take AKo from his range, which I think is easy given his stats (or lack thereof), we only have 21% equity and would have a clear fold. If we add in the 3 combos of KK we have more than enough to call.

I don't think an 8/6 is doing this without top two at least. Discounting AQ I think his range is AA, QQ and that's it.

I stopped reading after everyone kept saying the same thing, fold pre in the first hand is better then flatting and 3bing...3b bigger in the 2nd pre, play it same, shove river.