10NL - AQs in BB vs EP open

[kiwiMark]

First, a small ramble: Probably the single biggest thing holding me back at poker is my ego. When I do these hand analyses I tend to ignore the spots where I'm like "Oh jesus, I butchered that" or "I actually have no idea about that whatsoever" and go instead for the ones that I know I'm gonna be able to easily assign a range, etc. Obviously this is retarded, so from now on I shall aim to tackle the spots that I have no idea about, rather than ignore them, even if that means that my own analysis will be somewhat lacking and I'll need more help.

Now the actual hand:

Villain is 50/17 over six hands, virtually unknown.

€0.05/€0.10 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG (€5.20)
CO (€11.58)
BTN (€8.34)
SB (€10)
Hero (€11.39)

Pre-Flop: (€0.15, 5 players) Hero is BB
UTG raises to €0.40, 3 folds, Hero raises to €1.60, UTG calls €1.20

Flop: (€3.25, 2 players)
Hero bets €1.10, UTG goes all-in €3.60, €2.5 to Hero (€8.69)?


Preflop: Here for instance I don't know if I should just flat preflop or 3bet, against a virtual unknown. What I do know about him (it's 10NL, he has a halfstack, he's 50/17 thus far) suggest he's fishy and so I think I can probably 3bet AQs for value here, expecting villain to continue with a range like {TT+, ATs+, AJo+, KJs+, KQo, QJs} against which I have a bit over 50% equity. He's probably shoving {KK+, AK} in which case I can just fold.

Flop: Cbetting in 3bet pots really confuses me, and looking back I don't think I like my cbet here. I doubt I'm folding out TT-QQ or any King, so it can't really be a profitable cbet bluff. Even with my 1/3 pot cbet, once he shoves over I need to be good just a bit more than 20% of the time so it's not gonna be easy for me to fold here.

[mrchevyceleb]

hey kiwi

the simple answer to this hand is don't 3-bet preflop. Just call. If you 3-bet an UTG raiser and you plan on folding to a 4-bet (as you should with AQ) then don't 3-bet in the first place. Not to mention you have to play the pot out of position.

As played it's an easy cbet for you on the dry board and an easy fold when he jams.

Don't bluff the fish in the micros!

[fatguy'06]

would you have folded to any 4bet here if you thought AQo had value over villain or only a 4bet shove?

[JKDS]

I like pre. i disagree that hes only 4betting AK, KK+ though. He seems pretty fishy to me and might 'defend' his open a bit wider. Like, i can see him shoving AJ and 99 here as well. I like 3betting to 4x as well cuz most fishies make larger mistakes pre (calling to much, then folding when missing) and we can isolate about 2/5 of his stack when he calls.

Then again, fuck this board, and i have no idea what i want to do here. i probably fishcake myself into putting him all in for shits and giggles and then seeing im a 4:1 dog to his K7

[Donachello]

I think I like a flat here entirely because of stack size. As played I'd say his range is essentially any pair 55+ loads of Kx and Ax junk. But that's why it's so key to have a plan going into the hand when you 3bet. If I am going to 3bet I might even just make it like 3.5x instead of 4 due to stack sizes but again I'd prefer a flat vs this villain unless you plan to just shove literally every flop which is what I would do instead of cbetting.

[Imthenewfish]

3 bet is fine because he is probably flatting worse, but if you're going to be 3 betting for value I think it should be smaller to keep worse hands in and lose less when you get 4 bet. Flop is funny because if he's aggressive you're pretty much screwed no matter what. I hate the flop bet because it's less than you bet preflop and he's pretty short at this point. I think i would shove flop if I had 4x 3bet pre, but I think a better amount in this instance would be really small, somewhere between 2-2.5x.

[mrchevyceleb]

3 bet is fine because he is probably flatting worse, but if you're going to be 3 betting for value I think it should be smaller to keep worse hands in and lose less when you get 4 bet. Flop is funny because if he's aggressive you're pretty much screwed no matter what. I hate the flop bet because it's less than you bet preflop and he's pretty short at this point. I think i would shove flop if I had 4x 3bet pre, but I think a better amount in this instance would be really small, somewhere between 2-2.5x.

this is actually quite -EV

4betting to 4X is standard when you'll be playing out of position post-flop. But against an UTG with a 17% range, I am only 3-betting AK, AA, KK in this spot.

Can you bet for value? Not against a 17% range, check out the equities:


equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 39.752% 36.93% 02.82% 447744264 34171164.00 { AQs, AQo }
Hand 1: 60.248% 57.43% 02.82% 696224640 34171164.00 { 88+, AJs+ }

you're in rough shape there. So just flat and play post flop (as a side note NEVER 3bet less than 3x at the micros unless that stacks are shallow), and 4X from the blinds always because you want to make the villain pay for you playing the hand out of position

[Imthenewfish]

It's been 6 hands and he's running 50/17. He's raised one hand and played three in the first six hands during the first orbit. Obviously PFR of 17 is usually way off here because we've only seem him raise once, so I don't really like the plan of assigning him 88+ and AJs+ when he's been involved of 3 of the first 6 hands he's played at the table. in your post you said never 3 bet less than 3x at the micros unless the stacks are shallow. THE STACKS ARE SHALLOW LOL. Flatting and playing passively postflop seems like a very bad idea because we'll always be playing defensively and won't win much when we do flop a better hand than him. Raising pre actually narrows his range to hands we have more equity against if he's shoving AK and KK+.

[kmind]

Kind of weird spot because you made it awkward with stack sizes. I think I'd just jam that flop. He's calling with better a lot but every so often he has worse and lots of times we have 6 outs if behind.

I disagree with the first response but haven't really read others. I probably just make it a lot less pre and call if he shoves preflop.

[kmind]

(as a side note NEVER 3bet less than 3x at the micros unless that stacks are shallow), and 4X from the blinds always because you want to make the villain pay for you playing the hand out of position

I disagree. Sometimes I 3bet less than 3x IP for different reasons and the whole "make villain pay you for playing OOP" isn't really the reason to bet more OOP...our range should be much stronger OOP.

[texa8]

Preflop: Here for instance I don't know if I should just flat preflop or 3bet, against a virtual unknown. What I do know about him (it's 10NL, he has a halfstack, he's 50/17 thus far) suggest he's fishy and so I think I can probably 3bet AQs for value here, expecting villain to continue with a range like {TT+, ATs+, AJo+, KJs+, KQo, QJs} against which I have a bit over 50% equity. He's probably shoving {KK+, AK} in which case I can just fold.

i think 3b/folding given effective stack sizes is bad; i think his shoving range is far wider given he only has ~50bb.

im thinking either just calling (then c/folding this flop) or r/calling $2 pre or raising $2 and shoving any flop is better. raise sizing is a bit LOL i know but whatever..

raise, then b/folding seems v. bad

[rpm]

i 3bet/call for value pre. i think vs this guys 4bet range (loosely 99+,AQ+) we have decent enough equity. plus he's flatting a shitload worse. i'm also of the adjust 3bet sizing down based on effective stacks camp, and i probably make it 3.5x here. as played i don't know what to do on the flop, but i think what you did is possibly the worst thing to do. he folds very little that beats us, 66+, Kx, and we have little pot equity vs that calling range. plus our SPR is pretty low due to his short stack so it becomes more of a mistake to cbet/fold. i typically check this flop for reasons stated above (fold nothing better, smallish SPR etc etc), but i'm too passive postflop even for FR, and i assume 6max plays a little more aggressive, so take it with a grain of salt

[PlayToWin]

hey kiwi

the simple answer to this hand is don't 3-bet preflop. Just call. If you 3-bet an UTG raiser and you plan on folding to a 4-bet (as you should with AQ) then don't 3-bet in the first place. Not to mention you have to play the pot out of position.

Don't bluff the fish in the micros!

I'm playing FR, but I mostly agree with mrchevyceleb.

As played, I 3bet to 1.40. It's a terrible flop. You really don't have to cbet this. If he has a K, he's not folding and you have 3 outs at best. If you're gonna cbet, shouldn't it be at least 2.00? And before you make it 2.00, you should already know what you'll do if he shoves. I think a flop check/fold is the best plan. Bet/fold is next best.

You're right, this is a tough spot. I think you make it a lot easier if you just call preflop.

[dranger7070]

You don't have to 3bet nearly as large as you did imo. You could have made it 1.1, saved .5 on your bet, and still easily get stacks in over streets if a Q, A or you flop a combo draw or w/e. I don't mind your sizing if you're open jamming flop when any of the above hits as well, but I just think the first way is better since you have to fold to his 4bet jam, so I guess you a save a little bit when that happens, and theres a better chance he calls with like QT, QJ, Ax, etc.

I think you can call this as played. He's jamming any PP, KT-KQ, he doesn't have any 5x unless its like 56s or something, his chance of having AK is pretty small, he'll probably jam A8-AJ, and just some other random air since he might think you're bluffing.

Curious to see what your thought process is on the large c-bet. If you're willing to bet/call here when u 3bet big like that and cbet an inducing size on a super dry flop and you're open jamming an A, Q, combo draw flop I think it's fine. If you're going to try to bet/fold like you do here, just 3bet smaller to make it a smaller c-bet, and easier to fold when shoved on.

Also, like kmind mentioned, I like jamming this flop too, since if he snaps us with a PP, we have 6 outs to improve and it justifies the fact that we should open jam when we flop a Q, A, or combo draw since we know he can call with the exact hands we want him too.

Bam.

[dranger7070]

Oh yea, and if we DID 3-bet to 1.1 and a flop like Q55r comes out and we c-bet 1/2 pot and he jams over with KQ, QJ, QT, 66-JJ, Ax, then we feel like ballers too, and we get the same result as we would have if we had 3-bet to 4x and jammed flop instead. But we also give him the chance to bluff jam over our cbet when we 3-bet smaller, so we shouldn't c-bet bluff without the intention of calling a jam like on a board like this or JJ3r, or w/e.

[kiwiMark]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Okay so what I've taken from this post is that I can 3bet smaller preflop, because even though we're out of position the stack sizes are such that a smaller 3bet isn't offering him the same implied odds that it would if we were 100bb deep. That seems to make sense.
re: mrchevy, I disagree that we should never 3bet if we're folding to a 4bet. If we take all of the ranges that I said in the OP (although I agree with somebody's point that he could be 4betting a bit wider), then the maths would be something like this:

35% of the time he calls, we're 62% to win, 38% to lose
12% of the time he 4bets, we lose our bet
53% of the time he folds, we pick up the dead money.

0.35 * 0.62 * 1.75 0.38
0.35 * 0.38 * -1.60 -0.21
0.12 * -1.60 -0.19
0.53 * 0.55 0.29

EV = +0.27

I'm also not sure what your equity calculation in a later post was supposed to be but you seem to be claiming {AJs+, 88+} is 17% of hands when it's only 4%?

As for the flop people seem to want to either open-shove or check, everyone's agreeing that a small cbet here is silly and, as I noted in my analysis, I tend to agree, and probably lean towards checking as I'm not confident I get called with enough shit to make a shove profitable.

Thanks again guys, and sorry it took me so long to get back to this.

[bikes]

This all could be solved on knowing why youre 3bing and having a plan postflop. Don't 3b AQ here if you get lost in these situations so easily.