Slow playing Aces with 100bb stack against Whale oop 5 handed 25nl Bovada 6max

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06-14-2016, 08:28 AM
JimmyS1985

Slow playing Aces with 100bb stack against Whale oop 5 handed 25nl Bovada 6max

I don't normally advocate slowplaying strong over pairs when you're deep stacked in a cash game, particularly oop, as a general rule of thumb I consider it a fishy way to play JJ QQ KK or AA.

I was wondering if the community and flopturnriver though that in this situation it was ok to do against this specific opponent however?

Hero is in SB with AA 100+bb in stack

My table image is probably borderline TAG and LAG

Villain is a whale in the BB 99bb in his stack.

VPIP 62
PFR 22
AGG 1.5
3BET 28.1

UTG Open limps
CO folds
BTN folds
Hero raises to 5bb
BB 3bets to 11.5bb
UTG folds

Given his position, his propensity to 3bet wide and play lots of hands, I decided that 4betting and risking blowing him off his hand would not have been the best play here. I don't think he's that much of a spazz to 5bet shove here unless he has KK which is only the very top of his very wide 3betting range

Hero flats, pot is 24.2bb going to flop

Flop comes 754 rainbow, not a great board, but I still see getting a lot of value from all of his overpairs. Any naked 6 has a strong draw, but that's a pretty narrow portion of his 3betting range even if he 3bets wide.

Hero X's

Whale Cbets 17.5bb

At this point I'm intending to play for stacks regardless what comes on turn or river, even if a 3 6 or 8 hits. If he makes a monster off any of those cards, well that's just bad luck and another classic reason on why not to slowplay overpairs oop and deep stacked.

Hero flats, pot is now 59bb and villain has just over a pot sized bet left in his stack.

Turn is a 3, giving any naked 6 a straight.

Hero X's, Villain bets out again for 38bb

At this point he's getting the pot odds to call with virtually everything best I can tell, so I come over the top with a XR for his entire stack.

Hero raises 76bb

Villain calls his remaining 33bb in his stack.

River is a J

Hero shows AA

Villain shows 88

Hero wins 201bb pot.

I know this is generally a high risk, but potentially high reward way to play the hand, do you think against this opponent, extremely wide VPIP/PFR/3betting ranges that it was ok in this particular circumstance to slowplay AA deep stacked or do you think against a much more competent opponent I may have been setting myself up for losing my entire stack instead?
06-14-2016, 10:14 AM
griffey24

I think you need to define whale.

Aggro lunatic whale? Sure call and let him hang himself.
70/10/passive whale - He's probably not folding if you small 4b anyhow, so I would just 4b. Also if he's passive then you risk a turn checking through if your plan is to go for a c/r on any street.

If he's passive I'm def c/r flop.
06-14-2016, 01:50 PM
JimmyS1985

Quote:

Originally Posted by griffey24

I think you need to define whale.

Aggro lunatic whale? Sure call and let him hang himself.
70/10/passive whale - He's probably not folding if you small 4b anyhow, so I would just 4b. Also if he's passive then you risk a turn checking through if your plan is to go for a c/r on any street.

If he's passive I'm def c/r flop.

I think he was an aggro whale as opposed to a loose passive whale. I mean look at how bad I got him to get his whole stack in from overplaying pocket 8's.

Well this may sound like weird or even bad reasoning, lately I've been flatting AA and KK against opponents with wide 3-betting ranges. What I'm hoping is that their inferior hand won't hit the board hard, I don't want to blow him off an inferior hand PF when I have their hand beat. Obviously they're going to out flop me sometimes and then I'm the one who gets stacked, but that just goes with playing the game. I have often wound up getting them to stack off with their marginal holdings when I don't 4bet with AA or KK, because IMO one of the draw backs of 4betting AA and KK against opponents with wide 3betting ranges, is I'm also playing my hand face up.

Take this with a grain of salt, I think there are always caveats to any strategy at a No Limit Texas Hold Em table, the game is unsolved after all.

Occasionally say I'm 50 hands or so into a game at the table, this might have more to do with the metagame, but if I'm finally dealt QQ, KK or AA, if I don't have a 3bet or 4bet dynamic, I won't 3bet or 4bet those hands because I believe I can get more value out of them going to later streets and showdown. If it's very uncharacteristic of my image to all of a sudden 3bet or 4bet out of nowhere an hour or so into the game, should I really be 3betting and 4betting with my most premium holdings?

One example where I did 4bet today, I had pocket 6's, and this villain in the blinds had a wide 3betting range, so I decided this was the time to 4bet, and if I get any action, short of flopping a set, give up. I think he put me on a much more premium holding when I 4bet his blinds 3bet. He wound up folding to my 4bet.

People who do have tight 3-betting ranges, you know like they're pretty much doing it with AQs+ AKo, QQ, KK and sometimes JJ, I do tend to 4bet them a lot more often, because they usually don't want to fold those hands anyways regardless if I 4bet them or not, and no sense in not making them pay for the chance to out flop me.

My leakbuster does say one of my worst leaks where I'm losing the most money is I don't 4bet near enough, but if I'm not 4betting enough, could we both agree that it's at least not without IMO good reasoning?
06-14-2016, 03:40 PM
MadMojoMonkey

I'd suggest that a much better solution isn't to 4-bet your KK+ less often, but to 4-bet your A2s - A5s more often.

In general, you want to bet when you have the best hand. If the bet is turning your hand "face up," then the solution isn't to stop making the bet, it's to exploit their habit of assuming you are strong. I.e. if they assume that you are always strong when you 4-bet, then you should be sometimes weak when you 4-bet.

You should never be so weak that you have no equity, though. Against KK, AXs is fairly strong. It gains a few percentage points in equity when there are straight possibilities. It's far more likely that Villain is blocking broadway than a wheel. Also, your big AXs hands are too strong to turn into a bluff PRE.
06-15-2016, 09:26 AM
griffey24

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

I'd suggest that a much better solution isn't to 4-bet your KK+ less often, but to 4-bet your A2s - A5s more often.

In general, you want to bet when you have the best hand. If the bet is turning your hand "face up," then the solution isn't to stop making the bet, it's to exploit their habit of assuming you are strong. I.e. if they assume that you are always strong when you 4-bet, then you should be sometimes weak when you 4-bet.

You should never be so weak that you have no equity, though. Against KK, AXs is fairly strong. It gains a few percentage points in equity when there are straight possibilities. It's far more likely that Villain is blocking broadway than a wheel. Also, your big AXs hands are too strong to turn into a bluff PRE.

+1

If you think your image/ dynamic is such that you won't get action from AA/KK cause he will fold then it seems like the perfect time to 3b some other hand for sure.

I can live with you not 4b AA/KK sometimes. But not 3betting them is bad imo and you are gonna let all sorts of nonsense out-flop you and you will probably over-play your hand postflop in those situations cause you're under-repped and disguised.