3 Betting AQ preflop; Continuation Betting

OK these are two concepts I think I'm having trouble with. Firstly 3 betting AQ... is it ever the "correct play"? It seems whenever I 3 bet AQ im either dominated (AK,AA,KK,QQ) or coin flipping (JJ/TT). One particular time in a 9 person SnG it got folded around to blinds (I was in BB). SB raised me standard. I re-raised all in with AQo. He called with AKo. Was this right? How should I play AQo with raises behind me?

Also, continuation betting. Commonly I'm in situations where I have something like AK or TT and flop comes with overcards/ I miss my pair. The main problem here is when there are 4+ people in the pot so it seems I'm just throwing money away... what's the maximum number of people in the pot for a continuation bet to be profitable?

You have to be more specific.

Position, who you're 3betting against and why.

Your ideal number of people in pot with any pocket pair or TPTK type hand is 1 not including you.

You can't just go oh AQ, AJ i'm gonna reraise preflop. This hand is not gonna do you much if you have 4 people that won't fold. Or if you see a 9/7/2 nit open raising UTG full ring and you have AQ on the button - well gotta raise it...

Continuation bet: the same, you need to be specific and the ideal number of players in pot is 1 (not including you).

As noted, the answers to your questions are highly situational, so you won't find a formula you can follow that will always produce the optimum action. As an artificial example, if you're against someone who 2-bets loosely and who you've seen fold to a 3-bet 5 or 10 times in a row, you can 3-bet a lot more easily than if the opponent is a rock who hasn't even played a hand in an hour.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arjonius

if you're against someone who 2-bets loosely and who you've seen fold to a 3-bet 5 or 10 times in a row, you can 3-bet a lot more easily than if the opponent is a rock who hasn't even played a hand in an hour.

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I have to disagree. It's not enough to know that villain opens loosely. We must know about his 3bet calling range.

Say, if we know that villain opens loosely (which means we are ahead of his range) but folds a huge part of this range to 3bets (which means if we get called or raised we are way behind) then

* we must call with AQ type of hands because we have lots of equity against his range and we can extract more value post-flop

* instead we must 3bet our weekish hands because we have lots of fold equity.

Player and position dependant.
I've 3bet AQ against a maniac raiser who would call the 3bet with worse so sure....
Against the average micro limp tightie, no they aren't often calling 3bets with a range you beat....

In a 9 man sng, why would you raise all in? Unless you were short why bother. In that case you are 3betting huge and will almost always be called by hands that only beat you. Again, if you were short then its probably the only play and it just sucks you ran into it...

In general you have to think like them....If I 3bet this passive straightforward player, will they call it with worse?

AQ is one of those hands that is difficult... in certain situations it is a total shove, in others, a total fold. AQ can be powerful, but it is also one of those hands very easy to get into trouble with. Post hand histories and we'll try to help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Belt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arjonius

if you're against someone who 2-bets loosely and who you've seen fold to a 3-bet 5 or 10 times in a row, you can 3-bet a lot more easily than if the opponent is a rock who hasn't even played a hand in an hour.

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I have to disagree. It's not enough to know that villain opens loosely. We must know about his 3bet calling range.

Say, if we know that villain opens loosely (which means we are ahead of his range) but folds a huge part of this range to 3bets (which means if we get called or raised we are way behind) then

* we must call with AQ type of hands because we have lots of equity against his range and we can extract more value post-flop

* instead we must 3bet our weekish hands because we have lots of fold equity.

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Agree with this. If you know that enough of villians 3bet calling range is dominated Aces (AJ, AT, etc), dominated Queens (KQ,QJ), and other junk, its probably best to 3bet because you will still be ahead of villians range the majority of the time when he does call.

However, if villian only ever calls a 3bet with AK or AA, your clearly asking for trouble with AQ.

This only became clearer to me recently. Villian has a range for every action (bet, call, fold) on every street. We need to know each of these ranges to work out our optimal play in each situation. So next time your thinking about 3betting, the right question might be "what range is this villian likely to call a 3bet with and how much of this range will I be ahead of when he does call?".

It.

Depends.

/thread