$10 NL HE 6-max: Passive Line With KK vs. Suspected AA

[blueskies]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Stakes

$.05/$.10

Table Format

6-max (6 seats)

VP$IP

40

PFR

0

AF

0

Currency

$

I have KhKs utg. I open to 28c.

Everyone folds, except SB who min raises to 46c.

Normally of course I 4bet here, but this is literally the first sign of aggression I've seen from him. He has about $8.50 behind. I cover him.

He's a 40/0 in just 20 hands of history, but I could already tell he's probably not raising without a premium hand. To me it smells like AA. At least 50/50. In position I decided to just flat it.

QsQc7d flop.

He bets 10c. I call.

Turn is 5s. He bets 10c. I call.

River is 3d. He bets 10c once again.

So now I am thinking, is this dude betting the minimum 3x with aces? I am starting to thinking maybe he has something like JJ, TT, AK, which I expect would pay off a small raise.

I decided to raise to 45c. If he reraised big, I would probably fold.

He calls.

Should I have just called 10c again? Or would you have already played a lot more aggressively against the seemingly new passive player?

Spoiler

AdAs. It was aces after all. Must be a brand new player indeed.

 

[Station_Master]

Pre-flop
You need to 4bet, he can have way more hands than just AA..

Flop
I dont mind just calling at this stage as you dont need much protection and he could be trying to induce.

Turn
Now you need to raise, you almost certainly have the best hand and he likely has a lower pocket pair trying to get thin value and reach showdown. AA or a Q likely bets bigger .

River
Agree you need to raise here, but your size is really small. Pot is like 1.40 going to river so you are effectively betting 0.35 into 1.60 for just over 20% pot, I would make this closer to 50%, e.g. raise to 90c.

I assume you won but not looked at spoiler yet, the problem is you could likely have won more by taking more aggressive actions in the hand.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
A min 3-bet is sometimes AA, but in my experience its far more something else. Some people just like to take control of the action, and when its the exact minimum raise, sometimes they just hit the "raise" button by mistake, when they were intending to fold or call. So I will not read anything into this sizing and react exactly like, I would to any other 3-bet, except that I am of course never folding getting like 4:1 in position. So I would 4-bet here with intention to get it in against a 5-bet. If he has it, he has it, and its not like, his poor sizing made any difference for the outcome.

Flop
This is a bit of a way ahead way behind spot, so I am ok just calling for some pot control.

Turn
Now I would raise though. Those min-bets on every street look weak. If he comes back over the top with a 3-bet, then you are probably beat and can fold or call and then evaluate river.

River
As played a raise now, but your raise is to small.

Results
This time your passive line saved you money, and you got away very cheaply from a classic cooler, where you should have gone broke. But in the long run I think, this "monsters under the bed" thinking is hurting your winrate. Yes sometimes the monster is really there, but its far less common, than you seem to think.

 

[Aballinamion]

Normally of course I 4bet here, but this is literally the first sign of aggression I've seen from him. He has about $8.50 behind. I cover him.

Balancing range is a wise choice. If we 4-bet everytime we get QQ+ we are not going great and this is a great spot for calling.

He's a 40/0 in just 20 hands of history, but I could already tell he's probably not raising without a premium hand. To me it smells like AA. At least 50/50. In position I decided to just flat it.

40/0 from the SB is a red flag. One more reason to flat.

QsQc7d flop.

He bets 10c. I call.

Okay, dry flop, nothing scared and we keep our values standing.

River is 3d. He bets 10c once again.

So now I am thinking, is this dude betting the minimum 3x with aces? I am starting to thinking maybe he has something like JJ, TT, AK, which I expect would pay off a small raise.

Maybe villain doesn't know how to play and just betting small trying not to make us fold.

I decided to raise to 45c. If he reraised big, I would probably fold.

He calls.

Okay, we want to extract value of losign hands.

Should I have just called 10c again? Or would you have already played a lot more aggressively against the seemingly new passive player?

Both lines are fine, calling and raising. I do not like to play very aggressive in a spot like this, let's get more information first. Now we see a showdown and take a note.

 

[gustav197poker]

I do not like to play very aggressive in a spot like this, let's get more information first. Now we see a showdown and take a note.

Hey friend!! V min-raise preflop and then he cbet 10 in a pot of 90, I think that is very good information, to start using it to our advantage!!

 

[eetenor]

I have KhKs utg. I open to 28c.

Everyone folds, except SB who min raises to 46c.

Normally of course I 4bet here, but this is literally the first sign of aggression I've seen from him. He has about $8.50 behind. I cover him.

He's a 40/0 in just 20 hands of history, but I could already tell he's probably not raising without a premium hand. To me it smells like AA. At least 50/50. In position I decided to just flat it.

QsQc7d flop.

He bets 10c. I call.

Turn is 5s. He bets 10c. I call.

River is 3d. He bets 10c once again.

So now I am thinking, is this dude betting the minimum 3x with aces? I am starting to thinking maybe he has something like JJ, TT, AK, which I expect would pay off a small raise.

I decided to raise to 45c. If he reraised big, I would probably fold.

He calls.

Should I have just called 10c again? Or would you have already played a lot more aggressively against the seemingly new passive player?

Spoiler

AdAs. It was aces after all. Must be a brand new player indeed.

Trust your read---the paired board means this dude is going to try to get to showdown with the AA now- don't change your mind because of how you think he should bet river- you knew this was how he would bet stay with that read easy river call for info-- if our V are this far from optimal play we can if we are wrong- get that ev loss back anytime we want

 

[300HPGOD]

A lot determines how I think this hand should be played based on the number of hands you have against the opponent with those stats. If it were 35+ hands then I think we can really be fairly confident its QQ, KK, AA and we have KK and the flop is QQx. Plus those types of players never fold when they raise pre, they might play scared as they did here but they dont fold so after the flop with those parameters I would just call down just to know only giving up 30 cents. The actual situation, though, is tougher since we only have 20 hands. We still know its a premium hand like 1010+ and even with 20 hands I would be thinking of discounting AK although that could be wrong. So given its only 20 hands I would either call as you did or 4 bet with the intention of only calling a 5 bet if its min (get the odds to hit the K). If the 5 bet is a jam, I just dont think players who dont raise (and 20 hands is right on the cusp of knowing what they do or not since it involves a metric that is a decision on every single hand) do that with JJ or 1010 and even QQ probably just calls a 4 bet so to me a 5 bet here is AA every time.

Flop as played with QQ would be a good flop for KK vs AA if the villain was "normal" but as mentioned before these players who very rarely raise pre flop will also very rarely fold pre flop after they do raise. The flop would tell me that I lose to AA, and QQ and its harder now to extract anything from JJ or 1010 should they have it so I would just call here as you did. The flop is a really bad one in this situation vs this opponent since their are now extra hands from their already truncated range that beat us now that didnt pre (Like say if a AQ was in their range which I dont think it is but of course it could be) and its hard to get value from the stuff that we beat

Turn is nothing burger and in my mind I would still be thinking I am either behind here or getting max one street of raise value. In thinking that I am getting one street of value only, I would wait to river to raise (if I were going to raise at all) instead of raising turn. I dont think with this board and more importantly this opponent type you will be able to raise turn and bet something on river and get calls on both streets unless you are beat.

River is another blank so its decision time after facing another min bet. I will probably get frowned upon by others but this is a spot (again, against this opponent type only) where just calling is not bad. I personally probably would raise in game but if I really trusted myself and my read I would just call to be honest. Others have said your raise sizing is too small and I think it is... but not by much. If we are raising here as played we are trying to get a JJ or to call so blowing them out of the water wont work especially since this opponent type generally plays scared and wont have the "he's bluffing me" mentality. I like 60 or 70 cents as a raise sizing if you are going to raise which isnt too far from what you make it.

I think all in all you played the hand well cause you had a read and in playing against you in the past your reads are pretty good so you know you can trust them. You had a feeling about the hand as soon as pre flop and used it even with the raise on river. You lost the minimum here KK vs AA and as mentioned, for the most part I like the way you played the hand. Against other opponents, this is a bad way to play KK but I think that is known and irrelevant to this specific hand due to villains uniqueness, which again you read quite well.

 

[fundiver199]

I think all in all you played the hand well cause you had a read and in playing against you in the past your reads are pretty good so you know you can trust them.

I do agree, that HUD-stats like 40/0 over 20 hands matter. Or after this hand it would be 45/5. However it is not always true, that this mean, that an open raise is a top 5% hand. Quite often it means, that the opponent decided to raise a random hand like J9s this time, whereas other times he limp it. And sometimes he might limp a premium hand like KK or AK to "trap". So actually fish do a lot of randomization, even though they likely dont know, what the word means

This time it was not an open raise but a 3-bet, and it was a min 3-bet. Which as I wrote already could be nothing more than a misclick with a random hand. So another thing to consider is, that if we 4-bet and get 5-bet, we can rule out misclick and start to give them significantly more credit. So there is an "information" element of 4-betting, which makes the hand somewhat easier to play.