AKo in SB v. Possible Steal

3rd orbit, no reads except Villain raised my SB twice previously. Do I fold and move on?

$0.05/$0.1 No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($23.04)
UTG+1 ($10.34)
CO ($10.00)
BTN ($6.85)
Hero (SB) ($9.90)

Pre-flop: ($0.15, 6 players) Hero is SB :kc: :ad:
2 folds, UTG+1 raises to $0.20, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.65, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.45

Main Pot ($1.40)
Hero: 100.00% (EV = $0.75)

Flop: :9d: :9s: :5h: ($1.40, 2 players)
Hero bets $1, UTG+1 raises to $3.50, Hero ???

AKo looks really nice pre-flop don't it? :)

1) By "Vil raised my SB twice previously" I assume you mean "Vil raised pre-flop twice when you were in the SB). An UTG+1 raise ain't a steal, it's (usually) a value raise... You just happened to be in the SB at the time

2) Put him on whatever range you can. It's UTG+1 so prolly the tighter end of his opening range. Min raise is the ghey, but I really believe the raising amount at 10NL is irrelevant... the fact that he raised defines his range. It's gotta at least include TT+,AK, AQ, etc... obv maybe a lot more depending on your read. But take your best shot.

3) If you're gonna 3bet OOP, I'd suggest you make it .80-.90 'cause you're gonna have to play the rest of the hand OOP... and AK ain't sh!t but 2 OCs when you whiff the flop....

4) ... like so. Why do you play AKo? Mostly to at least hit a TPTK kinda hand... which you didn't. So you CB to fold out his missed Ax,Kx,Qx kinda stuff... and he raises on this flop. Now you know a) he liked his hand 'cause he opened in EP and 2) he likes his hand 'cause he's raised the PF 3bettor on the flop and now has almost half his stack in the middle. If you call, you will too... which means the time to make the decision on whether you're willing to play for stacks is now.

5) On that note, you have 6 outs assuming he's not doing this w/ AK, AQ,KQ or some crazy bluff garbage, cause there's no draw on the board 'cept maybe 67 and he's raising an inside straight draw. You are completely dead to AA, drawing to 3 outs against KK, 6 outs to TT-QQ, completely dead to 99, really close to dead to T9, J9 and A9 (might spike AA/KK on the turn/river). You beat AQ,QJ,KQ.

6) You're OOP, so even if you call, you're at the mercy of a double barrell which will suck if you whiff again. You could shove and rep a 9 which could fold out TT-QQ and even KK if he's really weak. Plus a total bluff w/ crap. All of this is read dependent...

7) Assuming no reads, being OOP, being played back against aggressively vs. our own show of aggression and the SPR involved... I'm prolly giving this one up on the flop and picking a better spot to get my stack in.

But that's just me.... and I am frequently a very sh!tty poker player..... :shock:

I either check the flop or if I bet I'll bet .7
fold as played

This is a great hand to think about betsizing, tell us why you bet $1, and why you think iopq says to bet less.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Parasurama

This is a great hand to think about betsizing, tell us why you bet $1, and why you think iopq says to bet less.

---

FWIW, I did fold the flop.

At the time, my thought process was about what Sarbox68 said on his #4.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sarbox68

4) ... like so. Why do you play AKo? Mostly to at least hit a TPTK kinda hand... which you didn't. So you CB to fold out his missed Ax,Kx,Qx kinda stuff... and he raises on this flop. Now you know a) he liked his hand 'cause he opened in EP and 2) he likes his hand 'cause he's raised the PF 3bettor on the flop and now has almost half his stack in the middle. If you call, you will too... which means the time to make the decision on whether you're willing to play for stacks is now.

---

Now, I'm thinking a lesser bet because villain will not fold; it's either a RR or call. That's 3bb-10bb less I spend to get the same info. The other reason I came up with is pot control. I flopped complete air; therefore, it's +EV for me to check until my outs hit. How far off am I? What else did I miss?

Villain's range is pocket pairs and Ax/Kx shit depending on how bad he is. By betting we make him fold overcards (which we beat, so in that sense its not that great a bet) but if we feel he more often has pocket pairs <88 that he could fold, betting is a good idea (since we'd be getting him to fold the best hand).

Now we bet less because:
- If he has a PP <88 he'll probably fold $0.70 just as often $1.00
- There are pretty much zero draws in his range
- Keeps the pot small

You need to decide how many unpaired hands he'll call 3bets with. If he calls with lots of Ax/Kx hands we could check here and try to hit common cards we can get value from. (Say he has AQ and an ace hits the turn, we've both hit but we have a big advantage) There is no sense betting if we feel his range is mostly unpaired hands - after all we beat all of those hands anyway.