It's just Ace high but I love it

[SuuPRlim]

Pre flop flat the 3 bet almost always in this specific spot. 
Reasons being hes passive and you are too deep.  Also when you flat your hand is somewhat disguised as a lot of players dont expect you to flat with AK.
Check/fold any flop that doesnt hit our hand.  If the guy likes to hero call you and you know he has a hand like 99+ then id donk bet 3 barrel any Ace high/King High flop. 
Folding pre is bad as you are effectively folding the top of your range.

Decent points but slightly counter intuitive imo. The problem we have with AKs here is that our immediate equity is very high even vs such a reportedly tight 3betting range. If we flat and c/f most flops we are burning our pre-flop equity and never get to realize it.

If we flat, to try spike vs the lower part of his apparently tight 3betting range then we will struggle for value being OOP, and again don't really realize the value of our hand.

OTF in this spot with the money dead in there we don't even need to get him to fold TT hardly EVER to find profit in a jam imo

[Mondeoman]

Don’t get wrong my default play with ak is probably to 4 bet but my default play in this particular situation is to flat.
3 bet is coming from a strong position from a passive player.  When passive players raise they are usually strong, when they 3 bet then the alarm bells start ringing in my head.

My question would be why am I 4 betting? 
Will opponent call with a worse hand?  Well we have him on a strong range but we are discounting aq somewhat (according to Alex).  So its unlikely he calls with worse.
Will he fold better?  Our read is he likes to hero call so again id say no.
Will he fold a hand that has good equity versus our hand – maybe although somewhat unlikely.
Is the pot big enough to win here and now?  Given stack to pot ratios id say no.
Is there benefit to 4 betting so that our range remains nutted?  Somewhat although from the reads it doesn’t seem like he’ll give us a huge amount of credit and I imagine its going to pretty hard to get him to fold a better hand on a board with no A and no K.
Will he 5 bet bluff/shove AQ – According to our reads no as he’s passive and doesn’t have AQ here that often.
Will it be good for metagame purposes to 4 bet here?  Some benefit to this as it makes us harder to play against than someone who just 4 bets AA/KK/QQ.  But in this case I don’t necessarily think we think villain is that much of a deep thinking player/this spot wont come up often enough for it to be valid.

When he just calls the 4 bet I don’t think we lose that much but when he ships it in pre and we call we are in bad shape (maybe around 40% equity versus his range).


Will calling the 3 bet make my hand look face up?
Don’t think so you could still have anything in this spot from JJ to 56s.
If I call the 3 bet is he likely to barrel me off the best hand?  Given hes passive and likes to pot control and we think he has a good hand then no.
Can I get him to call when I have the best hand?  The guy likes to hero call so I think we can donk into him and get minimum one call out of him – maybe three streets if we size our bets suspiciously enough.
Will I get to see free cards?  As opponent sometimes checks back then yes sometimes you will and our hand will often benefit from seeing more cards.
Can we outplay opponent post flop?  Probably yes as we have him on a reasonably tight range of hands and we have some reads on tendencies.

As played on the flop its close but I just never think hes folding a better/same hand.  Versus this range we have about 25% equity.  Also when we check (as actually happened) he doesn’t always bet and we get to see free cards.

[skolsuper]

Pre flop flat the 3 bet almost always in this specific spot. 
Reasons being hes passive and you are too deep.  Also when you flat your hand is somewhat disguised as a lot of players dont expect you to flat with AK.
Check/fold any flop that doesnt hit our hand.  If the guy likes to hero call you and you know he has a hand like 99+ then id donk bet 3 barrel any Ace high/King High flop. 
Folding pre is bad as you are effectively folding the top of your range.

Decent points but slightly counter intuitive imo. The problem we have with AKs here is that our immediate equity is very high even vs such a reportedly tight 3betting range. If we flat and c/f most flops we are burning our pre-flop equity and never get to realize it.

If we flat, to try spike vs the lower part of his apparently tight 3betting range then we will struggle for value being OOP, and again don't really realize the value of our hand.

OTF in this spot with the money dead in there we don't even need to get him to fold TT hardly EVER to find profit in a jam imo

The massive preflop equity of +6bb when there are 31bbs in the pot already and 150bbs behind? Preflop our equity is marginal, but by flatting we disguise our hand, we pretty much always get at least a cbet on the flops we hit (and live players cbet big) and he may barrel off. Personally I'm never donking out into the raiser as Keith says, this doesn't achieve anything except narrowing the range we get value from, we're never inducing a passive player to raise but even nits know how to cbet when they miss. If they do check it back when we hit, we can check or bet the turn and are likely to get one street because they're going to know how weak they look and we've already said they like to make hero calls.

[SuuPRlim]

The massive preflop equity of +6bb when there are 31bbs in the pot already and 150bbs behind? Preflop our equity is marginal, but by flatting we disguise our hand, we pretty much always get at least a cbet on the flops we hit (and live players cbet big) and he may barrel off. Personally I'm never donking out into the raiser as Keith says, this doesn't achieve anything except narrowing the range we get value from, we're never inducing a passive player to raise but even nits know how to cbet when they miss. If they do check it back when we hit, we can check or bet the turn and are likely to get one street because they're going to know how weak they look and we've already said they like to make hero calls.

My point being that we have the equity preflop, and it will most likely be damaged down the streets - at least 4b calling we get to realize it and can't really make any mistakes

[skolsuper]

The massive preflop equity of +6bb when there are 31bbs in the pot already and 150bbs behind? Preflop our equity is marginal, but by flatting we disguise our hand, we pretty much always get at least a cbet on the flops we hit (and live players cbet big) and he may barrel off. Personally I'm never donking out into the raiser as Keith says, this doesn't achieve anything except narrowing the range we get value from, we're never inducing a passive player to raise but even nits know how to cbet when they miss. If they do check it back when we hit, we can check or bet the turn and are likely to get one street because they're going to know how weak they look and we've already said they like to make hero calls.

My point being that we have the equity preflop, and it will most likely be damaged down the streets - at least 4b calling we get to realize it and can't really make any mistakes

Wow really? Time to give up poker if you think you can make any mistakes with this hand postflop.

[George2Loose]

GG Dave. U had a good run

[millidonk]

  = AIP.

 He has AA we river a flush.... he has KK we river an ace..... he has 1010 the board runs qq2jj. 5 cards pleasse, AIP.

Poker is simples

[kinboshi]

Don’t get wrong my default play with ak is probably to 4 bet but my default play in this particular situation is to flat.
3 bet is coming from a strong position from a passive player.  When passive players raise they are usually strong, when they 3 bet then the alarm bells start ringing in my head.

My question would be why am I 4 betting? 
Will opponent call with a worse hand?  Well we have him on a strong range but we are discounting aq somewhat (according to Alex).  So its unlikely he calls with worse.
Will he fold better?  Our read is he likes to hero call so again id say no.
Will he fold a hand that has good equity versus our hand – maybe although somewhat unlikely.
Is the pot big enough to win here and now?  Given stack to pot ratios id say no.
Is there benefit to 4 betting so that our range remains nutted?  Somewhat although from the reads it doesn’t seem like he’ll give us a huge amount of credit and I imagine its going to pretty hard to get him to fold a better hand on a board with no A and no K.
Will he 5 bet bluff/shove AQ – According to our reads no as he’s passive and doesn’t have AQ here that often.
Will it be good for metagame purposes to 4 bet here?  Some benefit to this as it makes us harder to play against than someone who just 4 bets AA/KK/QQ.  But in this case I don’t necessarily think we think villain is that much of a deep thinking player/this spot wont come up often enough for it to be valid.

When he just calls the 4 bet I don’t think we lose that much but when he ships it in pre and we call we are in bad shape (maybe around 40% equity versus his range).


Will calling the 3 bet make my hand look face up?
Don’t think so you could still have anything in this spot from JJ to 56s.
If I call the 3 bet is he likely to barrel me off the best hand?  Given hes passive and likes to pot control and we think he has a good hand then no.
Can I get him to call when I have the best hand?  The guy likes to hero call so I think we can donk into him and get minimum one call out of him – maybe three streets if we size our bets suspiciously enough.
Will I get to see free cards?  As opponent sometimes checks back then yes sometimes you will and our hand will often benefit from seeing more cards.
Can we outplay opponent post flop?  Probably yes as we have him on a reasonably tight range of hands and we have some reads on tendencies.

As played on the flop its close but I just never think hes folding a better/same hand.  Versus this range we have about 25% equity.  Also when we check (as actually happened) he doesn’t always bet and we get to see free cards.

You should order more skips that aren't delivered on time imo.

Post more!

[Mondeoman]

I donk lead a favourable flop because we think villain has a hand like 1010/JJ  he checks back a lot if all of these hands on say a k42 flop but will always call at least one street if we bet.  If we check he bets and we call then he knows we have something - but if we donk donk donk we could in his mind conceivably have air

[GreekStein]

Mondeoman, you almost think on my level, not far off. Wp

[SuuPRlim]

The massive preflop equity of +6bb when there are 31bbs in the pot already and 150bbs behind? Preflop our equity is marginal, but by flatting we disguise our hand, we pretty much always get at least a cbet on the flops we hit (and live players cbet big) and he may barrel off. Personally I'm never donking out into the raiser as Keith says, this doesn't achieve anything except narrowing the range we get value from, we're never inducing a passive player to raise but even nits know how to cbet when they miss. If they do check it back when we hit, we can check or bet the turn and are likely to get one street because they're going to know how weak they look and we've already said they like to make hero calls.

My point being that we have the equity preflop, and it will most likely be damaged down the streets - at least 4b calling we get to realize it and can't really make any mistakes

Wow really? Time to give up poker if you think you can make any mistakes with this hand postflop.

we call, flops  he cbets with AQ we fold. = mistake in my books

[SuuPRlim]

GG Dave. U had a good run

was great whilst it lasted, see ya guys

[SuuPRlim]

The massive preflop equity of +6bb when there are 31bbs in the pot already and 150bbs behind? Preflop our equity is marginal, but by flatting we disguise our hand, we pretty much always get at least a cbet on the flops we hit (and live players cbet big) and he may barrel off. Personally I'm never donking out into the raiser as Keith says, this doesn't achieve anything except narrowing the range we get value from, we're never inducing a passive player to raise but even nits know how to cbet when they miss. If they do check it back when we hit, we can check or bet the turn and are likely to get one street because they're going to know how weak they look and we've already said they like to make hero calls.

My point being that we have the equity preflop, and it will most likely be damaged down the streets - at least 4b calling we get to realize it and can't really make any mistakes

Wow really? Time to give up poker if you think you can make any mistakes with this hand postflop.

we call, flops  he cbets with AQ we fold. = mistake in my books

mind you i spose if AQ is the actual rock bottom of his range folding wouldn't be much of a mistake.....

[Rupert]

he never shows up with aq appaz

[skolsuper]

he never shows up with aq appaz

This, but if he does have AQ in his range then

mind you i spose if AQ is the actual rock bottom of his range folding wouldn't be much of a mistake.....

This.

Also if we say he can have some dominated hands in his range pre, then it's reasonable to assume he's 3bet-folding them, so vs this part of his range preflop our equity from a 4bet is +31bbs, where by calling we

1) lose 16bbs when we both miss and we check fold (71%)
or
2) win 155bbs when we both hit the 2 outer top pair (12%)
3) win 31bbs plus a cbet (around £30) when we hit our 3 outer top pair and they miss (17%)

percentages are approximate, but that would put our ev from flatting at -11.36 + 18.6 + 10.37 = +17.61bbs. Obviously this is a massive oversimplification, but I think the final number is close enough, all the complicating factors such as our flush draw, the times when our opponent flops 2pr vs our 1 pair, the times we don't get one more bet etc will roughly cancel out I think.

So, against dominated hands preflop, if they are in his range, we still win significantly when we flat and only slightly less than we win by 4betting. Coupled with how much better we do against his stacking range preflop (do a similar analysis to the above but with villain's hand as KK or AA) I think it's not close. Bear in mind that this is the first time ever on this forum that I have advocated peeling a 3bet pre OOP, when usually I am the only one arguing for an aggressive line pre (see the AJ vs lolufold hand off skypoker that homer posted a couple of months ago), that should tell you how strong I feel the merits of a flat are in this particular case. Most of the time 4betting OOP is hugely better than peeling because of the information disadvantage we usually have against some aggressive opponent that is 3betting a range of hands in position. In this instance we know enough about the villain to be reasonably sure their range is not merged (to the extent that it contains suited connectors or any hands that he would otherwise fold to the open rather than flat) so we are able to play the hand pretty well postflop despite our positional disadvantage.