AK top two pair | call or fold river?

I cant remember why I checked OTF which I believe costed me $$$ in this hand. I put villain on QQ JJ KK when he 3bet pre. Do we ever fold top two pair on river ?


Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 5 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

UTG (Hero): $2.03 (102 bb)
CO: $3.00 (150 bb)
BU: $2.34 (117 bb)
SB: $1.33 (67 bb)
BB: $2.00 (100 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with K♦ A♣
Hero raises to $0.06, CO 3-bets to $0.22, 3 players fold, Hero calls $0.16

Flop: ($0.47) 3♦ 8♥ A♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($0.47) K♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.23, CO calls $0.23

River: ($0.93) J♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.69, Hero calls $0.69

Total pot: $2.31 (Rake: $0.11)

Showdown:
CO shows K♠ K♣ (three of a kind, Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 70%, Flop: 4%, Turn: 95%, River: 100%)

UTG (Hero) mucks K♦ A♣ (two pair, Aces and Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 30%, Flop: 96%, Turn: 5%, River: 0%)

CO wins $2.20

Every time call..

Even though I feel like I'm beat I have to call there. Villain could certainly play AQ or AJ the same way.

Killdalimper said:

I cant remember why I checked OTF which I believe costed me $$$ in this hand. I put villain on QQ JJ KK when he 3bet pre. Do we ever fold top two pair on river ?

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The x on the flop seems a bit weird to me. You should c-bet there, unless you are playing vs a huge nit. But i dont think that you could have changed something on that runout. Depends on the villain and his 3betrange. Villain could have 3bet with suited connectors.If he 3bets like 4% id say he is pretty nutted, but so are you. 1 good thing is that with Ah and Kh a lot of his Flush-combos are gone. In my world id c-bet he calls (people will atleast call 1 street, as we know that were suposed to c-bet an A high board from UTG) we c-bet Turn, he raises/jams, we are allin, same difference.

In my opinion this is not a spot were money is made. Its a cooler and it happens.

Edit: Also, were do you take assumption from that villain only has QQ JJ KK if he 3bets you? Even a tight 3betrange would be something like AA-QQ, AQs+, AKo. And that would be 2.9% of his range, wich for me for 6max sounds incredibly tight.

Also, where do you take assumption from that villain only has QQ JJ KK if he 3bets you? Even a tight 3betrange would be something like AA-QQ, AQs+, AKo. And that would be 2.9% of his range, wich for me for 6max sounds incredibly tight.

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I estimated his range by his play on the river. What can villain really have to bet the river after checking flop and calling the turn? A 3bet from EP is usually quite strong ( unless we're up against an aggressive opponent) imo. From my experience at nl2 people dont 3bet lightly. But then again this is my understanding from the game so far. I got lots of room to improve.

Killdalimper said:

I estimated his range by his play on the river. What can villain really have to bet the river after checking flop and calling the turn? A 3bet from EP is usually quite strong ( unless we're up against an aggressive opponent) imo. From my experience at nl2 people dont 3bet lightly. But then again this is my understanding from the game so far. I got lots of room to improve.

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If youre analizis of ACR shows that so far than that might be true. Americans play tighter from what ive heard. But I think thats way to tight. You could certanly play vs AQo with Qh. Aggresive opponets i include medium suited connectors. There is only 1 combo of AA and KK each out there. 4 Combos of AK, And then if we include Fish that go crazy with AQo(h), AJo imo we cant fold.

Do you know the program "Flopzilla"? download the trial and play around a bit with it, to get a feel of how ranges work on that board.

Edit:Take care not to open it while on ACR. Most pokersites dont allow the use while playing, and atleast on PS they a re very strikt about banning people for that.

Edit: Now if you´re playing vs the biggest nit on earth with a WTSD of 20% i can find a fold on the Turn vs a jam from him, but thats not the avarage player for sure.

He 3-bet you preflop, and checking to the preflop aggressor on a A high board is completely standard. Why do you think, checking the flop cost you money? Because you know, what he had, and that making him fold would have saved you money? This is the kind of results oriented thinking, that is preventing you from developing a good strategy.

Where you lost value was by not betting the river. You were still way ahead of his range, and you could certainly get called by all his worse two pair or even just top pair like AQ. So no. We never fold top two on this river, we bet it for value. His range for 3-betting is not only JJ+, unless you have a big HUD-sample showing a 3% or lower 3-bet, and even then you also have to include at least AK.

Without that info he can have any suited ace, and he can also have all AQ and possibly even AJ, which would be awesome, since then he rivered a worse two pair. Everyone are not nits, especially not in a 5-handed game. Admittedly there might be a bit less 3-betting going on at 2NL, but without HUD-data you still cant narrow someones range down to only big pocket pairs.

Luepso said:

Edit:Take care not to open it while on ACR. Most pokersites dont allow the use while playing, and atleast on PS they a re very strikt about banning people for that.

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A few years ago Flopzilla was not allowed by pokerstars during play, and the program would automatically refuse to work saying "pokerstars.com detected", so that people did not inadvertently break the TOS. Since then Pokerstars have actually updated their third party software policy, and now Flopzilla and many other similar programs are allowed.

I guess, they figured out, that noboby have time to plug hands and ranges into Flopzilla during play, and therefore it does not really matter. For most people it was just an inconvenience, that they had to log off the server to do some study with Flopzilla between sessions.

fundiver199 said:

A few years ago Flopzilla was not allowed by PokerStars during play, and the program would automatically refuse to work saying "Pokerstars.com detected", so that people did not inadvertently break the TOS. Since then Pokerstars have actually updated their third party software policy, and now Flopzilla and many other similar programs are allowed.sessions.

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When was that change? Im pretty certain i got an "bad" email from them because of "Equilab" saying i should not use it or they would ban me like a year ago.
But If thats true thx for the rectification.

Edit: as Fundiver said this is irrelevant. My bad, i thought we were preflop aggresor:

Luepso said:

In my world id c-bet he calls (people will atleast call 1 street, as we know that were suposed to c-bet an A high board from UTG) we c-bet Turn, he raises/jams, we are allin, same difference.

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I dont know, exactly when the change took place, but it was effective, when I started playing on Stars again in may 2018 or something. You can find a complete list of allowed programs on their homepage.

I would've called probably, just cause I'm a s***er a bit loosy goosy..
That being said, recently I've had a bad run playing AK, AQ so I try not to act on these hands very much.

jokkerivanapoiss said:

I would've called probably, just cause I'm a s***er a bit loosy goosy..
That being said, recently I've had a bad run playing AK, AQ so I try not to act on these hands very much.

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This hand is just a cooler. We lose to AA, KK and maybe JJ, if he made a loose call on the turn. We also block AA, KK, so we are talking about a whopping 2-5 combos of hands, that beat us. Maybe once in a blue moon, he can have a flush, but if he is 3-betting anything, that made a flush on this board, then he is also 3-betting a ton of AX, which we can get value from, if we bet the river. And given, that he did not raise us on the turn, he would probably also have just called the river, so we would not even lose anything ekstra. The possibility of a flush would have protected us from getting raised.

Killdalimper said:

I cant remember why I checked OTF which I believe costed me $$$ in this hand. I put villain on QQ JJ KK when he 3bet pre. Do we ever fold top two pair on river ?


Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 5 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

UTG (Hero): $2.03 (102 bb)
CO: $3.00 (150 bb)
BU: $2.34 (117 bb)
SB: $1.33 (67 bb)
BB: $2.00 (100 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with K[emoji815] A[emoji814]
Hero raises to $0.06, CO 3-bets to $0.22, 3 players fold, Hero calls $0.16

Flop: ($0.47) 3[emoji815] 8[emoji813] A[emoji813] (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($0.47) K[emoji813] (2 players)
Hero bets $0.23, CO calls $0.23

River: ($0.93) J[emoji812] (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.69, Hero calls $0.69

Total pot: $2.31 (Rake: $0.11)

Showdown:
CO shows K[emoji812] K[emoji814] (three of a kind, Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 70%, Flop: 4%, Turn: 95%, River: 100%)

UTG (Hero) mucks K[emoji815] A[emoji814] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 30%, Flop: 96%, Turn: 5%, River: 0%)

CO wins $2.20

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I think we are probably playing for a big pot regardless in this situation.... I like the line you took... but I would have bet bigger on the turn.... and when I get called, I would check call river.... so I would have lost more then you did.

As played I would always call river.

Wondering why you didn't bet the river yourself though, some worse 2 pairs out there which can call you and i'm unsure how likely he would be to turn QQ 99 with a heart into a bluff on the river here when checked to.

flop is a cbet for me and also as played id value bet the river i think your losing quite a bit of value on the river.

Evan Jarvis said:

As played I would always call river.

Wondering why you didn't bet the river yourself though, some worse 2 pairs out there which can call you and i'm unsure how likely he would be to turn QQ 99 with a heart into a bluff on the river here when checked to.

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Hey man , thanks for the reply! I was almost sure he had me beat with a flush or set. I put him on a set of jacks, kings or some sort of flush.

Colleague, do not take this distribution to your heart. Normally, you played a card, he was just lucky in this case. He gathered KKK against your AAKK, you know in any expensive tournament it can be quite the opposite and they will show you A.)) Then the opponent will be in shock, your AAAKK against his KKKAA. I am sure that such distributions were at PokerStars or 888Poker, as well as AiPoker.

Don't really understand why people suggest "cbetting", when it's just impossible OTF as Hero is a preflop caller, not a 3-bettor.

Checking the flop is standard, especially on A-high board.

Turn size looks a bit small, with top two we definitely want to get it in, and we should accomplish this by making two large bets (≈80% pot). We're only beat by 2 combos (AA,KK) flushes are highly unlikely as with Q-high draw (or a weaker one) he would almost certainly bet this flop.

Same with the river, you are just almost never beat, and he can have AJ, KJ, AQ that will certainly put money in. Keep betting and don't be scared of monsters is the closet, just give them your stack when they come for you.

Killdalimper said:

Hey man , thanks for the reply! I was almost sure he had me beat with a flush or set. I put him on a set of jacks, kings or some sort of flush.

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You say, he can have a flush, but Ah and Kh are on the board, so for him to have a flush, he had to 3-bet you with suited connectors like QhJh, JhTh, Th9h etc. This is absolutely possible, but nobody include suited connectors in their 3-betting range without also including suited aces, some suited kings and even offsuit aces like AQo.

So if he can have a flush here, then he can also have a lot of top pair hands and some worse two pair. If on the other hand he is a snug 3-better, which a lot of players are at 2NL, then he is less likely to have top pair or two pair, but he also never has a flush, when Ah and Kh are on the board.

To me this really sound like “monster under the bed” syndrome. And while a monster was in fact hiding this time, that is something, you need to get rid of. Especially at 2NL people hate getting bluffed, and sometimes you don’t even believe, what they are calling you down with on the river. So you absolutely must get used to the idea of sometimes betting for value with the worst hand, if your goal is to win.

It's a very unlucky hand for you, but I think that if you fold the river, you would be hugely overfolding in those kinds of spots.

Not a fist pump call, but a call nonetheless.

Depending on the position you are in, if you are in the first positions of the flop, the most advisable thing is to call and in the last positions it is river, to be able to make a good pit or there depending on how the opponents played.
because you have to keep in mind that at one of the strongest hands that does not mean that you win, that happened to me several times when I was just starting to play that I lost with weak hands because I was very aggravated

To me this really sound like “monster under the bed” syndrome. And while a monster was in fact hiding this time, that is something, you need to get rid of.

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This is very true! I'm always afraid of better hands being out there. I usually give villain too much credit and that's definitely holding me back from extracting value outta my good hands. I think this is because of the history I've had over the course of years of getting destroyed by better hands. This has put me in a state of mind that villain probably has a better hand most of the times especially when they're sticky or tend to re-raise otf or later streets.

In my opinion you played it quite good,i would have made a bigger raise when you hit that ace on the flop,not too many hand that had you beaten there and you would just avoid complications if u made him fold...