5NL-AK in BB vs steal

[ATM]

No reads

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (7 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 ($5.07)
MP2 ($2.10)
CO ($1.84)
Button ($12.70)
SB ($2.45)
Hero (BB) ($5)
UTG ($3.80)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, A
4 folds, Button bets $0.15, SB calls $0.13, Hero raises $0.55, Button calls $0.45, 1 fold

Is this good spot to squeeze ? raise more or flat ?

Flop: ($1.35) 9, J, Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

even that its hard to put here an unknown on range , when he called the 3bet he might hit very well this flop w/hands that he could possibly call the 3bet

Should I cbet this flop ?

Turn: ($1.35) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

same as the flop+ I have shown weakness so bet unlikely going to take here the pot

River: ($1.35) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $0.70, Hero folds

Total pot: $1.35

Just need some opinions on how the hand played and if I need to change here something .

[Shotglass]

i think I'm c-betting this flop to about 70% psb almost allways

[ATM]

Don't you think this flop hits some of villain's range when he flats the 3bet ?

[Shotglass]

It's possible, but he's also gotta think that it hit your range pretty hard. IMO, the times that he's gonna fold a better hand will more than make up for the times he calls/raises and we lose.

When you check that flop and turn, you turn your hand pretty much face up.

[ATM]

It's possible, but he's also gotta think that it hit your range pretty hard.

Ok I wasn't think this way when played the hand .

So I should cbet here 100% of flop in this spot vs unknown?

[tripaces]

I play hand the same way, probably better to 3 bet more - although I am trying to learn about 3 bet sizing so would be interested on why you 3 bet what you did?

[ATM]

I think its standard 3bet size oop in this squeeze spots , I just wonder if its better to raise bigger pre here ?

[Carroters]

Looks fine. Villain will probably fold hardly ever to a c bet here, your overcards are often not clean outs and yeah this board smashes his continuing to the squeeze range.

[Nekrogovner]

Though villains range is wide and flop is horrible i kinda feel its mandatory to cbet here. After all, if your 3bet stat is optimal, and villain is observant, you will have no trouble to represent a strong hand. Bad thing about the cbet plan is that you will probably make him fold only junk in this spot. So at least you can take a note that he steals with junk if he folds.

[OngBonga]

What are we 3betting with? Surely at 5nl we haven't got a polarised 3betting range, so we're 3betting JJ+ AK for sure, maybe AQ and TT to a button steal. When we check flop, we narrow our range down to TT/AK. Villain is an idiot for not betting this flop, and so is hero imo. Villain's range includes all missed pocket pairs, hands that are beating us that he folds, and he also has Ax and s-conns flush draws that we beat at the flop and can get some value from. Plus we have outs to improve, giving us a little more equity. If we're not cbetting this flop with AK, I don't know what non A/K flops we are betting.

[d0zer]

After all, if your 3bet stat is optimal, and villain is observant, you will have no trouble to represent a strong hand.

3bet stats? observant villain? Sounds like you're on the road to leveling yourself all the way to busto.


checking & giving up on this board is pretty std. it's hard for villain not to have some piece of this flop. I guess we're folding out small pairs but we have great equity vs them anyway and they're probably just checking it down.

[Carroters]

If we're not cbetting this flop with AK, I don't know what non A/K flops we are betting.

Perhaps the ones that don't completely nail our villain's range....

[Carroters]

Though villains range is wide and flop is horrible i kinda feel its mandatory to cbet here. After all, if your 3bet stat is optimal, and villain is observant, you will have no trouble to represent a strong hand.

No idea why you're even thinking about this. He's got a hand he doesn't want to fold on this flop a very high amount of the time, what we rep is irrelevant given this and also the fact that this is a random 5NL villain who should be assumed to be likely retarded at poker.

It really doesn't take much to beat 5NL guys, it defo doesn't require assuming your opponents are competent nor trying to "rep" things vs them when they just plain don't care nor have enough weak hands to fold even if they did care.

[Carroters]

When we check flop, we narrow our range down to TT/AK

And I think he'll definitely be aware of this and exploiting it so badly that our lives are ruined.

Also it's not even true, since we can c/c 2nd pair + gutter etc or weak top pairs here pretty freely.

Seriously stop worrying about retarded players exploiting your range and just make the most +EV play.

What are we 3betting with?

Who cares, not villain, that's for sure.

[rpm]

every street looks fine to me. 3betting pre is the right decision and your sizing is good. i can't see us getting enough folds on the flop to cbet here (though i could be wrong) and i don't really see any merit in betting turn or river either

[rpm]

also, after reading the thread:

what we rep is irrelevant given this and also the fact that this is a random 5NL villain who should be assumed to be likely retarded at poker.

It really doesn't take much to beat 5NL guys, it defo doesn't require assuming your opponents are competent nor trying to "rep" things vs them when they just plain don't care nor have enough weak hands to fold even if they did care.

i agree with this post. it's good to know what your own range is and why you want that to be your range. but that's not to say we need to start concerning ourselves with our opponents' perceptions of our ranges because, as carroters said - they can't form ranges, can't hand-read for shit, typically only concerned with their own two cards, don't understand the concept of absolute/relative hand strength, etc.

[d0zer]

3betting pre is the right decision and your sizing is good.

I would make it 3-4 big brinds bigga, but w/e

[rpm]

sorry i didn't notice the SB caller at first. this would be roughly my standard size had SB not called (i do 3.5x out of blinds vs LP steal ranges), with the SB caller i'd just add his call amount to my standard 3.5x sizing, so bumping it to roughly 0.65 or 0.70 in this spot.

thanks for pointing that out d0zer

[Imthenewfish]

seems really std except 3b a little more pre
edit: also wtf at btn calling pre with junk and folding it on the flop

[oskar]

^^ what all the cool people said. Also Carrotz.

I would 3b to .7 but for no reason that I could articulate.
Since our outs aren't clean it prolly pans out to us needing ~40% FE to make this profitable if we cb 3/4 as suggested. With ~100 broadway combos that aren't folding I have trouble coming up with a range that I would want to cb against on this board.

Onga. You got the 'thinking about your own range' down. The trouble is, your opponents are only concerned with whether or not a picture in their wholecards matches a pitcture on the cards in the middle of the table.

[OngBonga]

Yeah ok carrots, I guess I'm giving 5nl villains too much credit when it comes to putting hero on a range. But I still think we have a decent amount of bluff equity against crappy pairs. This flop doesn't always hit the villain. I'm not suggesting we triple barrel this spot, but I'd definitely fire once to fold out any pairs that can't stand the heat.

[oskar]

HOW MANY COMBOS OF CRAPPY PAIRS ONGA?
HOW MANY COMBOS?!

[OngBonga]

42

[Miffed22001]

42

Bout tree fiddy Imo

[oskar]

42

So this hast to be like at least 2/5 of his range for us to make a profitable cb here. What's the other 3/5 pls.
Hint: max 63. gogogo. GlGl!

[bikes]

pre is good. .60 is def too much, anywhere from .5 to .55 is fine.

c/f flop
c/f turn
c/f river

shitty boards happen

[oskar]

You saw that sb called?

[bikes]

yes

[OngBonga]

Ok we got no reads on villain, so do we assume he is an idiot or strong? I tend to err on the side of caution when it's an unknown. I don't know what he calls a bb squeeze with on the button, but I'd stump for a range of something like 22-JJ AJs+ AQ+ and maybe QJs and TJs

22-88 = 42 combos
99-JJ = 12 combos
AJs = 3 combos
AQ = 12 combos
QJs - 4 combos
TJs - 4 combos

I guess sometimes he traps with QQ-AA, which is another 15 combos
And sometimes he's gonna have crap like 89s etc, but sometimes he folds these too, so I'll add another 8 combos or random hands.

So, there's 42 hands we're losing to that he usually folds to a cbet
There's 12 combos of AQ which he might peel with but we're beating
And up to 46 combos we're losing to that he's not folding

Bearing in mind we're betting something like 70-80%, plus the outs we have to improve, we don't need 50% equity to make a profitable cbet here. I don't know how to do the maths from here, but I think it's close, but +ev. Is checking more +ev? Have I counted my combos correctly?

[Carroters]

It's pretty ridiculous to give him EVERY combo of PPs and this few combos of broadway hands.

[OngBonga]

I blatantly missed out KQs in his range, that's another 3 combos. But even with TJs+, he sometimes folds them. His continuing range isn't that much greater than his folding range, I don't think he's hitting this flop often enough to make a cbet -ev.

[OngBonga]

I'd be calling every pp to a squeeze of this size with the sb still in the hand. I'm not so sure about broadways.

[oskar]

So you also automatically 3b 100% vs unnkown btn opens at 5NL cos they fold 80% of their opening range? Or is 15% steal standard?

And if that's your calling range, then what's your steal%?

Stop assuming people have the same stupid ranges you do. It's way wider, unless my perception of 5NL is way off. (it's not)

[OngBonga]

I don't assume everyone has the same range as I do. I assume unknows do, I just use my range as a basis. This guy might have QJo or KTs or some crap like that, but I'm not gonna assume everyone is calling these hands to a 3bet pre just because it's the donkros, I'll wait until I see villain show something like this, then make a note, then add lots of broadways to his future ranges in similar spots. We don't have zero reads on villain, because we can see he's doubled up. Sure, he might have donked a big pot, but I'd approach with caution.

And at 5nl, I'm rarely raising to steal, I'm nearly always raising for value. If I'm BU in this spot, facing a bb squeeze, I'm set mining 22-99, I'm calling TT/JJ AQ+ AJs+ and reassessing flop, usually 4betting QQ-AA (though sometimes I'll trap with these) and sometimes AKs, maybe calling some suited braodways, and depending on my perception of villain, I might throw in some Axs and Kxs 4bet bluffs, but this would be rare and read based.

I don't see what's wrong with using my range for villain, the alternative is to just pluck a range at random. How is that better?

[d0zer]

I don't see what's wrong with using my range for villain

Well that would be fine if you're as bad as the average 5NL random.

...and judging from your posts, I guess it's fine.

[kiwiMark]

ZING

[OngBonga]

zing if I was struggling at 5nl. Let's just be clear... at 5nl, I'm pretty much a nit, so any range I put an unknown villain on is going to be nitty. That's erring on the side of caution. I know I can improve a lot at poker, precisely the reason I'm posting my thoughts on this hand. These missed ak hands come up a lot, and these are the kind of missed flops I'm likely to cbet, especially if there's tons of pps in villain's range. I'm more than happy for you to tear apart my logic, that helps me improve, but comments like dozer's and kiwi's incredible follow up just brings out the part of me that likes to argue about shit. Can't we leave that to the commune? The BC is for poker.

[d0zer]

Well either you're struggling at 5NL or your idea for using your range as a basis for a 5NL random 3b calling range is horrible, doucy?

I don't see what's wrong with using my range for villain, the alternative is to just pluck a range at random.

hint: picking a range at random for villain is not the alternative. Without wasting anymore time on your stubborn ass I'll just say one of the biggest problems with your range is that it's weighted way too heavily towards low pairs, probably because you're still trying to justify the cbet everyone's told you is bad.

Do you pay attention to the retarded shit people pay you off with when you 3b for value, or are you too busy fistpumping over a 10 cheeseburger pot?

[OngBonga]

"Do you pay attention to the retarded shit people pay you off with when you 3b for value, or are you too busy fistpumping over a 10 cheeseburger pot?"

Of course I pay attention, that's how I get my notes.

I'm not trying to justify my cbet, I'm trying to find out why it's a bad cbet. Do you guys really just go around assuming someone you've got no history with is going to call KJo and christ knows what else to a bb squeeze, just because it's lol 5nl where everyone's a donk? My range for villain is weighted towards lower pairs because I assume he folds out QJo, KTs, AT etc. Maybe I assume wrong. Maybe I'm giving unknown villains too much respect, but I do so with the logic that they won't remain unknown for long. If villain is a donk, he's not going to stop being a donk after 30 hands or whatever.

My cbet is going to be +ev against a good player and -ev against a donk. But the donk is paying me back every time he calls his KT or whatever to my 3bet.

What range do you give villain here? Are you giving him all broadways?

[d0zer]

good players don't setmine in 3b pots. they also don't exist at 5NL

Do you guys really just go around assuming someone you've got no history with is going to call KJo and christ knows what else to a bb squeeze, just because it's lol 5nl where everyone's a donk?

pretty much yeah.

[OngBonga]

"good players don't setmine in 3b pots"

Well, this as a blanket statement is surely wrong? However, I have just put the effort in to properly work out the pot odds villain has here after hero 3bets, and it's not a great set mining spot at all. At a glance, I thought we had around 13:1, which I can just accept considering sb is still in, but we're way short of even that figure. Perhaps you should say "good players don't set mine here". And yes, I recognise this means my range is now flawed... if villain is bad enough to setmine here, he's bad enough to have unsuited broadway. At least now I can see that the cbet is indeed a bad one, so thanks I guess for helping me to realise why.

[bikes]

let me lay a blanket statement that both A) took me a long time to understand and B) saved me a fuckton of monies once i learned it.

NO ONE PLAYS LIKE YOU THINK THEY SHOULD

[OngBonga]

LabourHater does. ZING.

I'll be sure to let you know when that really means something, which it will.