PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($25)
UTG ($25)
Hero (MP) ($24.80)
CO ($30.95)
Button ($34.15)
SB ($61.80)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Q , Q
1 fold, Hero bets $1, 1 fold, Button raises to $3.40, 2 folds, Hero raises to $8.40, Button calls $5

Flop: ($17.15) 7 , K , 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $18.65, [color=#666666][i]Hero?

I don't see leading the flop because AK is in his range, as well as the two bigger pairs to mine. Bet sizing is alright preflop? Only played for 45 minutes 8 tabling tonight so no reads and I had no previous notes on the villian.

Well I suck at NLHE cash, but I bet $9/$10 on the flop and fold to a raise. As it was played I fold. Does a pot size bet indicate he doesn't have AK, 77, 44? How often does he have JJ here?

I think in a tournament I go broke here (and have, lots).

Interested to see others' thoughts tho.

Bet/folding there is really really bad slink, you then have to call in $8 into $42 so we'd have be behind almost always to make it profitable.

I snapcall pretty fast here, you've given us no reads or stats on villain so assuming he's a standard meh reg at 25nl he's most likely going to spazz shove everything that missed this board for fold equity. If he "slowplayed" AA, AK or KK preflop why on earth would they shove this flop? I snapcall expecting to be ahead most of the time.

edit: I think re: your pre sizing, I'd make it a touch on the smaller side, like $7.20 probably, just to encourage calls from hands that have no business in the pot and also if we ever 4bet bluff it's a much more manageable size.

yea I like a call too...I'm a bit spewy in 3bet pots but that's only because everyone else is even worse

what kings are in his range? wouldn't villain 5-bet shove AK/KK+? this is definitely a weird play for AK. I can kinda see AA flatting, but AK no way, and I don't see AA shoving this board when we look like we have either queens or kings.

we're also blocking kq, which is a holding I can see some aggro villains 3-bet/calling, and I think once we get below kq villain doesn't get so shove-happy

nice hand to post

I think you lose control of the hand by checking the flop.

Is betting to find out where you are no longer valid as option in cash games?

AFter the $8.40 goes in pre, I have $16.40 left in my stack going to the flop.

Pot is $17.15

Yeah, betting for info is bad. Bet for value. Bet as a bluff. Bet for protection.

By checking, we allow the money to get in when he's crushing our face, but we also allow him to bluff, and turn made hands (TT/JJ) into bluffs...

It never was.

By checking how are we losing control? By checking we allow worse hands to bet, we can't really ever fold with a 1:1 stack to pot ratio in a 4bet pot. 90% of 4bet flats are with AQ, JJ, TT and occasionally KQ. Like it was mentioned before we have blockers to KQ/AQ so it's most likely an underpair/pure air. If we bet here, we're folding out those air hands and getting calls/shoves on by predominantly hands that beat us, and just makes the hand far less profitable.

Im drawing a bit of a blank about what he is 3 betting then cold calling a 4 bet with. Ak off seems decently likely, A's or K's is being slowplayed a bit but if you show a 4 bet he probably spazz 5 bets preflop because you clearly showed a lot of interest in the pot, 4's seem so unlikely, 7's are pretty unlikely. It is either Ak off or something like AQ, AJ that missed. My only problem is villain is commiting himself with that bet, he has what 5ish 6ish dollars left. If we had reads we could very easily know what to do here. I think we have to shove because we block most other hands he has that is overplaying themselves here but crush air pretty nicely. The only thing is i would feel really stupid afterwards if he shows up with Ak off and then i would wish i had poker tracker or been playing fewer tables lol!

Umm. with no real info on villain this is a fold 100% of the time.

Only time we can put him on jacks, or AQ is if we know he is capable of making a bet of this nature post flop.

what does he put us on with JJ that he can safely bet and beat?

Its fold.


Looking at this hand more, you almost want to call because villain overbets the pot. But your check doesnt scream weakness at all. Its such a dry board that you could be checking aces even AK here a lot

EDIT: I just noticed hero's stack size.. This makes sense as to why villain overbet the pot. (I'm also guessing it was a pretty quick bet.)

I dont see villain bluffing much. This is where the read would come in handy. It would be great to know if he just throws out bets as bluffs without any real reason.
Or is he capable of putting us on a range. Because if we think he's assiged us a range, I'll go back to my previous reply that its an easy fold.

actually. I think you're totally backwards on this. AK flats here way more than AA does.

because of your stack size. this is almost always a hand that has you beat.

He is expecting you to call.

why? this is villain dependant. AA could flat more because it doesn't wanna lose the hero leading out on flop. AK (in particular AK suited) almost always have to 5 bet to build the pot, flatting just sucks with this hand imo. The problem is this very much changes based on who villain is.

because of the betting and our table.

we (hero and villain) are only 100bb's deep. Our raise/re-raising is at 50bb's Before villain even closes the action. If villain was to re-pop again its all in IMO
whats he going to do? repop to 13 and then shove the flop for 2/5 the pot?

This is why AK flats here way more often.

reasoning can be summed up to: The stakes being played, The positional advantage of villain and his willingness to invest pf with AK.

since we have no reads we have to eliminate the idea that he values or undervalues AK. We go on the fact that he is a 50nl player, that this is the 4th bet and that he has position on us.

Its very likely he has already told himself that if an A or K falls on the flop, he is all in.
If Hero checks to him, he is all in.
If he misses and Hero shoves, he'll re-examine.

Protection .... value. I'm not seeing a difference.

I would not have re-raised to $8.40 pre-flop. I think calling the villian's raise to $3.40 is better. I know not everyone agrees with me on that, but that's my style.

If you just call the pre-flop bet and see the same flop & villian makes a near pot sized bet on that flop, it's not nearly as difficult to call and see what happens on the turn. It won't cost you your entire stack. For nearly the same amount of money as your pre-flop re-raise, you could get to the turn and have a whole lot more info on the strength of both his and your hands.

Just thought I'd provide a different take on this hand.

I think the protection bet he's referring to is a probe bet. Value bets, probe bets, bluffs, and semi bluffs are the only reason to put any money in the pot.



I think that is a good opionion since there no reads on the villian. I was 8 tabling for a while waiting for Sons of Anarchy to start and wasting time. Playing more on auto pilot than anything.

Given the stakes I play, I see a lot of players putting in stacks with worse hands than QQ. I fully expected villian to either fold or push. I did not see him flatting the bet.

True

LOL Royal. Seriously? Villains are not flatting 4bets with AK, people get it in so light it's basically never AK and is going to be aces slightly more but still almost never. He's a retard, he's not going to shove this flop with the nuts. Nobody would really. He'd check back, bet $4, anything retarded to induce. This is a bluff like 80% of the time and we only need to be correct 35% for it to be a call. Super standard snapcall here.

As for flatting pre, flatting 3 bets OOP is basically throwing money away. Okay so the flop comes Kxx and we c/c, then what do we do on any turn to the shove? c/f after putting in half our stack because we're never good? Flatting OOP to a 3bet basically makes us set mine with queens, and I think there's just way too much value in a 4bet against an idiot who is going to flat hands we dominate like JJ and AQ.

Just to reiterate, here is a range I've stoved. We're just giving him the standard AQ/JJ/TT as well as KQs and also a few combos of AA/AK (without reads the standard is to shove these pre so I'm removing a number of combos of each).

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

151,470 games 0.031 secs 4,886,129 games/sec

Board: Kc 8d 5s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 71.321% 71.32% 00.00% 108030 0.00 { QQ }
Hand 1: 28.679% 28.68% 00.00% 43440 0.00 { AdAs, AhAs, JJ-TT, AQs, KQs, AdKc, AhKc, AhKd, AsKc, AsKd, AQo }


And in fact, even if I don't remove any combos of AA/AK

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

216,810 games 0.005 secs 43,362,000 games/sec

Board: Kc 8d 5s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 52.431% 52.43% 00.00% 113676 0.00 { QQ }
Hand 1: 47.569% 47.57% 00.00% 103134 0.00 { AA, JJ-TT, AQs, KQs, AQo+ }


We're still a favourite to win, and well above the breakeven threshold of ~35%

Are you serious??? You will sit there and seriously say that if you're villain you're stacking off with AK pf.???

I have GOT to get back into online poker. Am I the only person capable of playing AK?

There is argument to say that given the stakes... maybe 25NL is breeding ground for people who 5bet AK in this spot i dunno.. but all these kids here saying you need to flat with AA and 5bet with AK are too spewy for me to even debate.


You 2nd portion is well thought. I agree. flatting 3bets is silly. But saying back to that 1st part about villains never flatting 4bets with AK is just insane. (or rather that people flat AA here, but not AK...also insane)


as for the super snapcall and your pokerstoving.. all way off.

but i stil like the 2nd portion of this post.

Thanks for saying it's all way off without any proof of anything sir. You realise that AK is a fistpump shove at any level of online poker right? And I mean any level. 100bb deep it isn't even close with how aggressive the games have become. You can profitably stack off AQ in some spots too. But I don't know many regs that won't get it in with AK 100 deep as a standard.

Now please enlighten me on how my stoving is "all way off". Feel free to mess around with the numbers yourself

Do you pronounce your name "Shawty". Cuz I do.

Lol, like I have any idea how to pronounce Asian

Shawty sounds pretty gangsta though so we'll go with that

in theory i kind of agree with you but it is 25nl people will stick in AK off pre 100+ to almost 150 BB stacks from what i have seen, this to me looks much more like a bluff. At a higher level, your logic would be spot on. I just think you are outleveling yourself on the cold call preflop

No it wouldn't. It is much more aggro as you move up and people will be sticking money in for value much lighter because people bluff much lighter and have better ideas of ranges and such. The lower limits play much more passively and the money is to be made from people hitting the call button too much, not from them raising too often.

I kinda think villain has a K here because pple are retarded. But I'm not folding because he shouldn't have a K evah.

You're right, I have no real proof, you also have no proof. we're basing our opinions on how we view the game.

for you, AK is a fistpump shove at any level and for me its not.. thats my extent of backing up my comment.

As for your stove, its off base because the range you've assigned is too wide. IMO of course..
Our "fist pump snapcall" looks more profitable on this flop than I think it is.

but again.. thats my opinions.

similar to my opinions on AK in this spot.

I've stacked off with AK pf in the past,(for 100bb's +) but honestly couldnt tell you when the last time i did that was.

It was definitely based on the table and my villains tho. Not and i mean not a standard by any means.

Well like you said that's based off different experience. And over the last year I've played around 25k hands of 25nl while you've been not playing/playing live (I think?). I think live play is a much different beast and this hand would be much harder to play live, but I think online this is a call every time.

woah... slow down.. what games are we talking now? and lets make sure you arent confusing deeper stacks than 100bb's.

skill at higher limits is different than just boldly saying "its more aggro and people value lighter" if this was the case, you could essentially play TAG and beat the game.

am I the only person in this thread thinking on level 4? I feel like this is a spot were we only beat 1 hand (AQ.)


I would love if OP was the villain and wanted to see how we viewed the QQ spot.


Edit: I forgot it was 6max.. But still. that changes slightly.. but not enough to really make me change my mind on values.

i dont think i shove AK offsuit in preflop to 3bets or 4bets... but AKs , i raise like there's no tomorrow when im 100BB deep

EDIT: should i be treating them differently?

Can we at least find out if OP called or folded?

this is driving me nuts. I'll admit i know nothing about 25NL online if OP comes here and says he called and villain shows 10,10.

if i had to guess i would go with AQ clubs or JJ/1010.

6max 25nl online is not even close to full ring live. From what I understand of live FR it's a bit of a nitfest. online 6max, players 3-bet light, they call 3-bets and 4-bets light, and they 5bet shove ak and it's all so very std. To be honest I cannot imagine playing against a 25nl reg here in villain's position and NOT shoving AK.

Given that Tim has played up to 600nl online I think I can safely say for him that he isn't confusing deeper stacks here Give him some credit. Trust us, the game is a lot more aggro than it used to be due to bluff ranges being increased and AK is an auto stack off.

And you can't essentially play TAG and beat the game because people handread well enough in a lot of cases that if you never bluff you're never getting value, which is why you have to bluff more, which is why people value lighter. See the cycle?

Given that 90% of strat posts are hands the hero loses I'd say that hero either folded or villain flipped over the nuts

haha for me its backwards.. i always post hands i win and then ask how much of a donk i was.

600nl isnt high stakes.

i've played plenty of 2-4NL and 3-6NL online before i decided to play live fulltime. The skill gets better, the aggression increases thats true. but its because people pick up on weakness.

Its not a matter of just valuing AK more. TBH, there was plenty of threads about AK from years ago on FCP. lots of really really good insight from players playing real high stakes now.

there was basicaly the same debate that we are having now. some say it holds lots of value and should be a shove. while some said the opposite.

anyways...

Funny story, I was at venetian playing 2-5nl and JC, (prtypsux) was there playing 5-10NL no cap.

he was in for 5k, and had J,9 in MP.

JC raised standard, LP re-poped folds around.. JC, re-poped. LP re-poped. then JC make 1 more big raise. LP thought and thought, and finally folded.

I just wish i knew what LP had

Jao (babylondonks) and Trys..

I was going to ask.. if you were in villains spot would u shove..

but i see you guys are already saying yes.


Dont you find this "spewy lewis and the news"??

what do we beat? AQ, AJ...if u say KQ im going to puke.

we are crushed by KK and AA, and a coin flip vs the rest of the range.


If people are honestly 4betting light like you say they are, then ok.. but common... I cant see this as a good strategy long term

thing is Royal when we're 100bbs deep what are we going to do ? AK is too strong to fold and it sucks to just flat with it, even in position, since we miss the flop so frequently. if we're against aa/kk then, OK, we usually save the rest of our stack by flatting, because we're going to flop TPTK less often due to card combinations, but we're bleeding chips to other hands.

if you include AQ in a range of JJ+/AK/AKs then we are ~50%, way too strong to NOT shove.

so basically you have to say, "Does villain's range include AQ?" if it does then your equity is high enough to justify a shove. if not then I guess you have to fold if villain's never bluffing because we only have 40% equity. but we cannot be sure that an aggressive regular at 25nl is only going to have jj+/ak here. I see AQ a lot and sometimes something dumb like AJ, and sometimes villain will fold. if he folds ~20% of the time to our shove then it's a breakeven play even against a calling range of qq+/ak. many regs at this limit are too aggressive and try to run you over. I know that's a "weakness" of mine, folding a lot to pressure (e.g. I usually have a high fold to 3-bet%), so when I get AK I'm simply not folding to one player for 100bbs

We beat QQ, AQ and any 4bet bluffs (and the occasional JJ type hand). AK also has blockers to both aces and kings, which lowers their frequency somewhat. Also keep in mind that even against KK we're about 30% to win iirc, so we're very very rarely drawing dead.

hero made the 4-bet.

No one suggested this, but depending on the villian i might bet/fold something gay like 4-4.5 as it will get a lot of folds out of JJ/TT/AQ. Your range looks a lot like AK/KK/AA so the gay little bet must be hard to call for villian knowing that you are 99% to shove the turn after with your AA/KK/AK.

hero made the 4-bet.

No one suggested this, but depending on the villian i might bet/fold something gay like 4-4.5 as it will get a lot of folds out of JJ/TT/AQ. Your range looks a lot like AK/KK/AA so the gay little bet must be hard to call for villian knowing that you are 99% to shove the turn after with your AA/KK/AK.

why do you want to fold out jj/tt/aq?

are we talking as a general view? We can only really assign a range when we know the type of player we;re against. We can give some general rules of thumb. but you'll agree, that with zero info, its hard to know what villains range would be on a 4bet.
correct?

My rule has always been, with zero info on villain or the table, I assign a TAG style to them until they prove otherwise. It only takes a rotation to find out how the table has been playing

If OP tells us he has a read on villain and that his range is as wide as we're putting him on, then i agree. Its a shove given the equity.

But if we assign villain as a TAG (villain being the hero or OP) then his range might tighten up to AA,KK AKs. and our equity goes way down and becomes a spew.

Its the whole innocent until proven guilty. right now you guys are grouping all 25Nl players.. which sorta sounds like guilty until proven innocent..

**note. i'm talking about being the villain and looking at hero as an unknown.
we cant forget that we're trying to find out if our Hero is viewed as someone with a tight range, making a person with AK want to flat rather than push

huh? how does AK beat QQ.. we're talking preflop here right.

we're looking at this hand from villains POV.. and assigning our Hero as the villain.

This is from villains perspective facing the 4bet. And why on earth do we want to fold out those hands?

It's flipping against queens, which makes it approximately neutral EV. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you take AK out of your pre-flop shoving range, then you're left with only aces and kings (and perhaps queens, though if you're shoving queens and not AK it's pretty LOL) which means you're going to get A TON less action with those hands.

You also lose a ton of money flatting AK because when an Ace or King flops you're not getting any action from worse hands, and if you are, they're calling a shove anyway. Meanwhile you always get stacked by hands that beat you.

---
575,334,144 games 0.719 secs 800,186,570 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 39.594% 19.26% 20.33% 110831016 116968584.00 { AKs, AKo }
Hand 1: 60.406% 40.08% 20.33% 230565960 116968584.00 { QQ+, AKs, AKo }


---


If villain shoves over hero's 4 bet he's risking 21.40 to win a pot of 28.55 if we call

if we fold villain wins 12.15

28.55(.3959) - 21.40(.6041) = 11.30 - 12.93 = -1.63

ev of a shove for villain if we call is -$1.63


x = times we fold
1-x = times we call

12.15x + -1.63(1-x) = 0

12.15x -1.63 + 1.63x = 0


13.78x = 1.63

x = 0.118

If we are 4 bet bluffing 12% of the time, and calling a 5 bet shove with QQ+, or AK, then shoving AK over the 4 bet is profitable.

I thunked bout it for ten seconds(ish) and folded.

I quit my session ten minutes after and never really got a read on the villian. He never really got out of line that I would have noticed from bouncing back and forth from tables so I would assign him more of a tighter image.