The villian makes a 3xbb raise in EP after one limper which doesn't make me think he's all that strong here. Then he reraises me all-in. To me it reeks of a hand like QQ/JJ. At the same time, he know's he only getting called by AA/KK and possibly AK.

Thoughts?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

SB ($50.90)
BB ($50)
UTG ($41.50)
UTG+1 ($49.50)
MP1 ($100.45)
Hero ($49)
CO ($46.15)
Button ($44.95)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K, A.
UTG calls $0.50, 1 fold, MP1 raises to $1.5, Hero raises to $4.5, 4 folds, UTG folds, MP1 raises to $100.45, Hero ???

Easy fold.

The dead money in the pot isn't enough to offset the times this isn't a coinflip.

simple, do you want to flip a coin here or not? you do not have him beat, there's a slim chance he has AK, if you feel you're a better player just fold and bust him later.

For the record, that's not a valid reason for folding.

Each hand in a cash game is independent. If you have an edge, you shouldn't be passing it up to "wait for a better spot".

That's a tournament mentality, which in itself is flawed.

In a cash game, you should be making the decision that results in the highest EV. You shouldn't fold any +EV situation, essentially.

The reason I say fold is that I think he's got AA/KK too often to make calling here profitable, especially since we practically never have him dominated.

I should probably do some EV calculations, but I'm too lazy.

Ok, quickly... there's $9.50 in the pot before his raise which puts us in. His raise is $44.50 because of our starting stack. This means we're calling $44.50 into a pot of $54. This gives us 1.213-1 odds. That means we need 45% equity in this spot to breakeven.

Just using card combinations, we aren't even close to that:



So fold for these reasons, not because you think you're passing up a +EV opportunity to get a better one later.

Do you guys really think AA/KK really plays it this fast. If he holds that, then he has to figure he's a favorite. I understand that if he has a hand like QQ-TT then I'm still looking at a coinflip, which isn't ideal for cash games.

He has to literally have AA or KK here less than 0.688% of the time (assuming his range is AK, QQ, JJ) for us to breakeven.

I think this is almost always AQ.

Zach, I think you should write a post about winning money vs pots and "waiting for a better spot" and then sticky it.

Insta-fold.

Fold. Easily.

personally i dont like the re-raise pre flop with AK, the hand needs help, i like to see the flop as i think the hand is often overplayed pre-flop

but seeing as you have raised and he has pushed i like folding.

To me this is never AQ. You are either flipping or dominated badly, and I think the latter is the case most of the time. Fold.

huh

easy fold

I don't think you have enough invested to call. You're hoping for a coin flip and being a slight underdog, I fold.

The reraise is fine - it allows Hero to build a pot with likely the best hand, to take control of the action and therefore win UI on the flop or take it down right now, and to better define villain's range.

Folding here is standard though.

fold, you are at best even money for your entire buy in.

I took his post as a thought experiment. How often is the AQ? Very seldom. So once you think of it in those terms, it's clear that this is a fold.

Sorry, I was joking in response to Zach's posts about how often this needs to not be AA or KK. I figured everyone would know this is almost never AQ.

Usually AJ or AT.

Fwiw, that percentage about it being AA or KK, is actually the right number. If it's AA, KK less than that, and the rest of his range is JJ,QQ,AK, then we can call, lol. If not, it's a fold.

I thought you were way off at first, but you're right: it's almost a fold just because of the 55/45 difference between under pairs and AK.

to not reraise this preflop is bad

haha, im a donk, so i would callllllllllll

seriously, i would though

this is where not losing a buy in can help your psyche

This is a fairly straightforward fold.

The ONLY hand that we could even consider to be in his range that we dominate is AQ and that hand seems really unlikely. There's no money in the pot to be evening out the times that he shows up with AA or KK and we're a slight dog against every other hand in his range.

i think he very rarely has AA or KK. but i also love getting all in preflop with AK. call it a weakness.

i think its 99 or AQ most often

It is a big weakness. AK is a piece of trash in cash games when facing all-in preflop situations. I agree that it's very rarely AA or KK, but it is sometimes. Zach pointed out that "sometimes" has to be such a small portion of the time here to make this -EV since there's no dead money in the pot already.

If you're doing it for Metagame reasons and your overall image (assuming you're playing with people who play with you regularly) then that's one thing. At a 1/2 NL type game, metagame considerations should be pretty much zero and you should play each hand mostly in a vaccuum.

thats definitely a big part of it. if you have that huge LAG image no one is going to go out of their way to bully you at the table. i just dont think people would be that dumb to play AA or KK this way. and maybe he doesnt want to get outplayed preflop so he sticks it in with AQ, AJ. in my mind, we are either a coinflip or 3 to 1 favorite here. i call and rebuy if i lose.

Minor details, but if he has AQ, then we're like 7-3, not 3-1.

Also, saying "we're either a 3-1 favorite or a coinflip" makes the situation seem optimistic. The fact is that it's probably a breakdown like 15% we're against AA or KK and are in HUGE trouble, 10% of the time we're against AQ and he's dominated and the other 75% of the time, we're flipping coins. It's not a good spot to put our money in.

If this line is +EV, the villain is an idiot. In which case, nice game selection!

Ciaffone says that there should be no advertising budget. YMMV.

haha, i do my best

?

I think in most 8 handed games that range is too wide.

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary

It's a phrase we old people use on usenet to mean other situations and opinions are valid.

Ciaffone is a nit anyway. In a cardplayer article recently when talking about deepstacked NL play, he said that playing small PPs in raised pots was NOT A GOOD IDEA!!!! because of the amount of money you'll lose when you flop a set over set. Seriously, who the f*ck says that? I lost most of my respect for his opinions after advocating advice like that.

Did he define deepstacked? I think that makes sense for 500 BB+, but I'm also a nit.

LOL



But then you shouldn't play AA, either, because what if you get outflopped? You'll either win a small pot or lose a big one to a set or two pair. You're better off not playing any hands whatsoever when deepstacked. You should just wait until you're blinded down to the shortstack and then you can come out of your shell.

Yeah, he got the article right here. He did say 200BBs, but even at 500BBs, you don't have to get stacked with a set over set for gods sake.

Funny he mentions a QT4 flop becuase I got stacked a few weeks ago (120BBs) playing a 2/5 game at Caesar's with 44 against TT. I didn't regret it for one second.

wow, your right. i didnt see that it was 8 handed. im so used to 5 handed right now, and in 5 handed, i call. 8 handed defintely changes things, althiough i still doubt he has AA. KK is more likely

That's basically all it boils down to.

If you think he does this with AA, KK literally 0 % of the time, and does it some small percentage of the time with AQ or some other random rags, then you can come up with a call.

Basically, if you can come up with a range that has us at better than 45% preflop, then ok, call. Take the +EV, by all means.

Against standard opponents though, I give them AA, KK enough of the time. Maybe even KK more often because they could be scared of an ace flopping. I also give them AQ 0% of the time.

If we wanted to get creative with a specific read:



This includes just one of the 6 combos of KK, 0 combos of AA, and only 4 combos of AQ (meaning 1/4 of all combos of AQ).

So, if we can limit his AA/KK hands to a small percentage, and include AQ as a small part of his range, it's certainly concievable that it'd be +EV, however I'd need a pretty strong read.

Without it, my default would be fold based on default ranges.

Looks a lot like 3:1 to me.

Weird, I thought if you had Ax and weren't against AA, then you're usually at worst about 30% to win. My bad.

I'm pretty sure this is an easy fold. Haven't read the other responses so i might be repeating some things...I think his range is 99+, AKs, AKos...I'm going down to 99 because it's 50NL and I think a lot of players would overvalue hands like 99...I'll poker stove this.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

66,779,856 games 0.015 secs 4,451,990,400 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 41.059% 29.83% 11.23% 19922408 7497050.50 { AsKd }
Hand 1: 58.941% 47.71% 11.23% 31863347 7497050.50 { 99+, AKs, AKo }


---


there is 10.25 in the pot and you have to put in 44.50 to call...you need to win a little over 44% of the time to make this break even and you're equity, with a very loose range on your opponent is only 41, thus you fold.

Suited is closer to 30%

If the ace is an over, then that's about right.

E.g., AT vs. JJ is 30/70.

AQ vs. AK is worse, though, because if AQ catches 1 of its 3 outs the the AK still has 3 outs (instead of 2) to beat it.

Thanks for the responses. First off I did fold. I don't think AQ ever plays their hand this way unless they're a complete idiot and/or are on serious tilt.

I also think AA/KK is less likely than QQ-TT. I was curious about whether or not this was a clear fold, but even more curious to hear what you'd put him on.

Later he claimed to have had QQ. Likely, but we'll never know for sure.

QFT

Also, AT vs. JJ > AQ vs. AK because AT has two live cards (A's and T's) that can pair up/make trips to put you in the lead, whereas AQ only has one (Q's).