$200 NLHE Full Ring: 80NL Live - AK on K83 flop facing check-raise

This is 80NL (NOT 200NL) live poker with $1/$2 blinds.

Hero (MP2) has $90 and Villain (UTG+2) has $120. Most players on this table have less than the $80 buy-in (since they are recreational players and don't top up). Villain is a typical $1/$2 reg. He's an old pensioner who plays a very ABC style of poker, except he does have some fishy tendencies, such as limping in preflop.

Hero is dealt Ad Kh
SB posts $1
BB posts $2
UTG calls $2
UTG+1 folds
Villain (UTG+2) calls $2
MP calls $2
Hero (MP2) raises to $13
CO folds
BTN folds
SB folds
BB folds
UTG folds
Villain calls $11
MP folds

$30 in pot
Flop shows Ks 8c 3s

Villain checks
Hero bets $10
Villain raises to $35
Hero ???

Hero has $67 behind. There is $75 in pot. Costs $25 to call. What should hero do here?

what has he done on these boards in the past? your not playing very deep, sp the value of tptk is pretty high here, 50bb effective i'm getting it in unless opponent doesn't raise with 2p or better EVER

This was the first time I'd seen anyone on this table check-raise. In the past, he'd been playing really straightforward poker. He would value bet large with big hands, bet small or check-call with moderate hands, fold weak hands. I don't think he'd bluffed yet, although I'd only seen his cards at showdown twice, so I couldn't be sure. I think he folded more than 50% of his hands preflop, although he wasn't overly tight either. I'd describe his range as semi-loose, but again, I don't have a huge history on him.

Basically, he just played like a typical $1/$2 old pensioner reg. There wasn't really anything about his play that stood out.

EDIT: Another thing to note is that my casino has a "royal flush jackpot", so sometimes players are tempted to play any 2 suited broadway cards (eg. JTs, AQs, etc.) in the hopes of flopping a royal flush and winning the jackpot.

EDIT2: So you think that I was pot-committed and that shoving all-in was the correct play?

Just get it in on the flop.

80NL you just wanna ship with TPTK type hands. People never get the odds to chase draws so they always -ev.

And the best opponents at crown are the talking ones, they think they on tv and talk through their hand before you've even acted.

If you have a few buy-ins and well bankrolled for 80NL really who cares? He has it or not, generally it's easy money. But if your restricted with your pocket you could find the fold but that's weak poker due to bankroll.

Hence why I don't play at crown much because I don't have the roll to support decent poker.


Hell at crown 80NL I had AK and K5 paid me off lol.

Aces2w1n said:

Just get it in on the flop.

80NL you just wanna ship with TPTK type hands. People never get the odds to chase draws so they always -ev.

And the best opponents at crown are the talking ones, they think they on tv and talk through their hand before you've even acted.

If you have a few buy-ins and well bankrolled for 80NL really who cares? He has it or not, generally it's easy money. But if your restricted with your pocket you could find the fold but that's weak poker due to bankroll.

Hence why I don't play at crown much because I don't have the roll to support decent poker.


Hell at crown 80NL I had AK and K5 paid me off lol.

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Haha I wish I was lucky enough to get paid off by K5 These people were a bit fishy, but they weren't like spewy fish.

Yeah I do agree that the best players at Crown are the talkative ones. They always give off the impression that they're playing in every pot, even though they're actually pretty tight preflop.

That's my issue. I'm not properly bankrolled for live poker. I only brought $100 with me to Crown and just left as soon as I lost it.

What ended up happening was:
- I shoved all-in for $77
- Villain snap-called and flipped over 88 (middle set)
- I walked out and immediately spent the next 4 hours contemplating whether I played correctly

dont beat yourself up about it, i missed out on a HUGE pot because i'm not rolled for live poker, due to quitting my job a month ago.

my friend chopped the saturday tourney at the casino for £800 on saturday, and i went up and railed him. because he wanted to stick around after on his heater he offered to put me up for the cash game. i said i'd be fine with £60, and ran it up to 200ish, as i pretty much always do in this game.

i get into a pot with my friend who is stuck a couple hundred of his winnings by now trying to play like sam farah, and i run into pocket aces on the button. he 3bets me from the blinds, and i put out a sizeable 4bet, by now he knows my range. anyway he calls. we get a k96r board, and he checks, i bet slightly smaller than my 4bet because theres still plenty of opportunity to get stacks in on 3 streets as we're both sat with 200bb by now. anyway he checkraises me allin for the rest.

i tank and agonize over the moment, and fold. even though my friend was playing like an idiot, i couldn't find a call. for many reasons, 1 i think the stacks were too deep for just an overpair to be winning in that spot, 2 because i didnt have another buyin.

you can imagine my instant need for a cigarette when he showed 910.

youll find when you play live poker that its difficult to make decisions when your not rolled.

i got over the aces pretty quickly, because i knew it wouldn't be long before it happened again, and sure enough my friend stacked off to me when i slowplayed a full house.

as seen in this example, not being rolled makes for scared poker, which is bad for your winrate, when you miss out on juice like this. obviously there are times when i do fold aces in that spot, and it be correct against a super nit, but being underrolled, made me make the supernît fold.

in my opinion, you played it correctly given the stack sizes, and should be confident making that play almost every time n that exact spot, obviously, villain dependent. it's an easy fold vs a nit.

i suggest maybe waiting until you have 2 or 3 buyins behind, if you can of course, youll be alot less sensitive to the results of a hand like this, when you know you can just reload. obviously with a cap

if you want to play slighly ūnderrolled because u dont wanna miss a couple of weekends, then find a fold in spots like that and wait for some more solid spots agaīnst the more recreational players that are there. and build until you do have a few buyins gl

At these games, villains rarely raise without 2p+.


Considering the picture you painted about the villain, I think he has you beat. A set probably.



Of course, it is exploitable to fold these spots. However, there isn't too much bluffing going on at low stakes.



Dry board. So either he is getting out of line with the same hand as you, KQ (unlikely he raises this here), or he has 2p+.



I think it isn't an absolute fold, but I certainly don't like it. We are almost certainly behind here.

I would have a hard time folding AK starting with 45BB and raising 6BB pre and cbetting but thats just me.

IPlay said:

I would have a hard time folding AK starting with 45BB and raising 6BB pre and cbetting but thats just me.

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Agree 100%. My only advice would be to find a better game where you don't have to play short.

IPlay said:

I would have a hard time folding AK starting with 45BB and raising 6BB pre and cbetting but thats just me.

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Regardless of the price, investment, whatever, hero is behind here almost always.


Money saved is money earned.



I hear what you're saying. But my first thought was "dude has a set". Didn't even have to think about it. If you are way behind, and you read the situation correctly, nothing wrong with a fold.



However it is a gross spot.

WVHillbilly said:

Agree 100%. My only advice would be to find a better game where you don't have to play short.

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Touche.

The options at my casino are:
$1/$2 - 40bb max ($80)
$1/$3 - 67bb max ($200)
$2/$4 - 100bb max ($400)
$5/$5 - 140bb max ($700)
$5/$10 with optional $20 straddle - 120bb max ($1200)
And a few PLO games and high stakes games which run irregularly.

I don't want to play $2/$4 because the competition is too tough there, so my only options are $1/$2 and $1/$3. The issue with $1/$3 is that the competition is tougher than $1/$2 and I don't have a the bankroll to play $1/$3 regularly (I barely even have the BR for $1/$2).

Even though $1/$2 is played short-stacked, I find that most players are so weak that you can still have a huge skill edge over them. For example, I've seen players with a $25 stack call a $10 raise preflop and then fold to a C-bet. Also, players are regularly chasing unprofitable draws. It's fairly common to see players calling a pot-sized turn bet with a flush draw, only to check-fold the river if they miss. I also see players calling half pot bets with nothing but a gutshot. So I still think that $1/$2 is profitable. Maybe once I build up a $1k+ bankroll I'll move up to $1/$3.

Matthew Southall said:

The options at my casino are:
$1/$2 - 40bb max ($80)
$1/$3 - 67bb max ($200)
$2/$4 - 100bb max ($400)
- A bunch of higher stakes games

I don't want to play $2/$4 because the competition is too tough there, so my only options are $1/$2 and $1/$3. The issue with $1/$3 is that the competition is tougher than $1/$2 and I don't have a the bankroll to play $1/$3 regularly (I barely even have the BR for $1/$2).

Even though $1/$2 is played short-stacked, I find that most players are so weak that you can still have a huge skill edge over them. For example, I've seen players with a $25 stack call a $10 raise preflop and then fold to a C-bet. Also, players are regularly chasing unprofitable draws. It's fairly common to see players calling a pot-sized turn bet with a flush draw, only to check-fold the river if they miss. I also see players calling half pot bets with nothing but a gutshot. So I still think that $1/$2 is profitable. Maybe once I build up a $1k+ bankroll I'll move up to $1/$3.

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If you feel like you can do better at the $1/$2, then just play that. Just ship preflop more I guess with big hands. I'm sure villains would call you with dominated hands.

which casino is this?

Beanfacekilla said:

At these games, villains rarely raise without 2p+.


Considering the picture you painted about the villain, I think he has you beat. A set probably.



Of course, it is exploitable to fold these spots. However, there isn't too much bluffing going on at low stakes.



Dry board. So either he is getting out of line with the same hand as you, KQ (unlikely he raises this here), or he has 2p+.



I think it isn't an absolute fold, but I certainly don't like it. We are almost certainly behind here.

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Beanfacekilla said:

Regardless of the price, investment, whatever, hero is behind here almost always.


Money saved is money earned.



I hear what you're saying. But my first thought was "dude has a set". Didn't even have to think about it. If you are way behind, and you read the situation correctly, nothing wrong with a fold.



However it is a gross spot.

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My logic at the time was:

- Villain could be doing this with a flush draw. Most $1/$2 players are happy to stack off with a flush draw on the flop. Perhaps he just threw in the check-raise to be tricky and to make himself pot-committed on the turn in case I flat-called his raise. Combine this with the royal flush jackpot which would encourage hands like JTs and QTs to see a flop.

- Villain could have QK or AK too. There were 4 combos of AK and 6 combos of QK. Perhaps he was scared of the flush and just wanted to get his money in as quick as possible.

- Villain was highly unlikely to have 2 pairs here on a K83 board. Even though he was semi-loose, I doubt he would call a $13 raise with K8.

- Villain was unlikely to have AA. I would've expected him to 3bet me preflop.

- Villain was unlikely to have KK. Not only was there only 1 combo of it, but I would've expected him to 3bet me preflop.

- There were only 3 combos of 33 and 3 combos of 88.

- Villain was unlikely to have 33, since he didn't have the correct odds to go set-mining and there had been a few set-over-set situations not long before this, which would discourage people from playing 22-44.

So going by that logic, I thought that stacking off would be correct. I would be much less likely to stack off if the flop was rainbow (although I'd still consider it).

It was only after I saw his set that the check-raise started making sense to me.

duggs said:

which casino is this?

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Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.

runningdog2000 said:

yep, 1/2 might be the place!!!! what sites are you playing?

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I mainly play pokerstars, although I find that 2NL on PokerStars is about as tough as 200NL at my casino and 5NL on PokerStars is about as tough as 400NL at my casino.

Matthew Southall said:

My logic at the time was:

- Villain could be doing this with a flush draw. Most $1/$2 players are happy to stack off with a flush draw on the flop. Perhaps he just threw in the check-raise to be tricky and to make himself pot-committed on the turn in case I flat-called his raise. Combine this with the royal flush jackpot which would encourage hands like JTs and QTs to see a flop.

- Villain could have QK or AK too. There were 4 combos of AK and 6 combos of QK. Perhaps he was scared of the flush and just wanted to get his money in as quick as possible.

- Villain was highly unlikely to have 2 pairs here on a K83 board. Even though he was semi-loose, I doubt he would call a $13 raise with K8.

- Villain was unlikely to have AA. I would've expected him to 3bet me preflop.

- Villain was unlikely to have KK. Not only was there only 1 combo of it, but I would've expected him to 3bet me preflop.

- There were only 3 combos of 33 and 3 combos of 88.

- Villain was unlikely to have 33, since he didn't have the correct odds to go set-mining and there had been a few set-over-set situations not long before this, which would discourage people from playing 22-44.

So going by that logic, I thought that stacking off would be correct. I would be much less likely to stack off if the flop was rainbow (although I'd still consider it).

It was only after I saw his set that the check-raise started making sense to me.



Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.



I mainly play PokerStars, although I find that 2NL on PokerStars is about as tough as 200NL at my casino and 5NL on PokerStars is about as tough as 400NL at my casino.

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The 2p thing I was saying is just a term I use. If a live fish raises you, it is two pair plus. Meaning your 1p hand is no good.


I hear what you are saying about range.


And just because the odds are incorrect to set mine means nothing. Most of these $1/$2 regs/fish probably can't even tell you what "set-mine" means.



Don't assume everyone else shares your thought process.



All of what I say might not be right, but it is my opinion, nevertheless.



It was a tricky spot for sure.

Beanfacekilla said:

Regardless of the price, investment, whatever, hero is behind here almost always.


Money saved is money earned.



I hear what you're saying. But my first thought was "dude has a set". Didn't even have to think about it. If you are way behind, and you read the situation correctly, nothing wrong with a fold.



However it is a gross spot.

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I'm not advocating a shove on this flop but I am never folding to this raise and want to see what villain does on turns and am probably stacking off on blanks.

Live players love to raise to "see where they are at" so I would not be surprised to see a hand like KQ that is raise folding from a live fish. Also when playing this short, villains are more inclined to get it in with draws.

I dont play those limits and I dont even play live, but I usually think twice about pay a check-raise with top pair, thats because on his range to only limp/call raise pf from UTG could be an small pair, some speculative hands or trying to trap with a monster (AA or KK), theres some options of reading that hand, If he had a top pair with a good kicker, like KQ, or even AK he probably would just check/call and not check raise, AK is a very good hand but not good enough to limp for trap because if no one calls you can be in trouble giving a free flop to the big blind, KQ is not a good hand to face a 3bet, so you could discard AK or KQ from his range, just think about what you would do in the same situation, would you check raise with top pair ? and if after a check raise with top pair the villain 3bet all in would you call or fold ?
As the flop cames Ks8c3s and he check raise he could have, at my view, 2 options:
- Flush draw (sometimes players check-raise on flush draw to increase the value if they hit the flush, because is very hard someone calls bet with 3 suited cards on board) and if dont hit the flush they just fold.
- A set, because on that disconnected flop makes totaly sense a check raise for value with a set, as if you said he is a reg. so he almost all times wouldn't risk his stack with an total air bluff.
obs: Could be 2 pairs, but 2 pairs are not a super strong hand at all, thats because lots of times cames doubled cards on board and that easily kill the 2 pairs, and if were two pairs what you think he could have ? K3 or K8 ? probably he would not limp/call from UTG a raise 6.5x with those hands.
As I said I wonder twice facing a check raise, except if I have a open-ended straight draw or flush draw without doubled cards on board or if the villain is a fish, because check/raise means a very strong hand specially on turn.
Hope it helps is always good see hands posted here and discuss about it.

Such a dry board why bet flop? He might know if you don't hit that board he can easily take you out with that 3bet, I would check flop, like what cards are you afraid to see the turn to bet flop?

MrBadAss said:

Such a dry board why bet flop? He might know if you don't hit that board he can easily take you out with that 3bet, I would check flop, like what cards are you afraid to see the turn to bet flop?

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It wasn't a dry flop, there was a flush draw out there. The turn card was 9s. How awful would it be if the villain had 99 or a flush draw?

Nothing wrong with bet on flop lol, he was the aggressor pre flop, and hit the top pair with top kicker, so its correct cbet for value on flop...
But as I said, if you bet for value and face a check/raise with top pair or even with an overpair specially coming from a reg. requires a good time of thought.

MrBadAss said:

Such a dry board why bet flop? He might know if you don't hit that board he can easily take you out with that 3bet, I would check flop, like what cards are you afraid to see the turn to bet flop?

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Why be results oriented? This is a great flop to bet, live players love limp calling suited cards so hero gets value from all flush draws and some K10, KJ, even down to K9 sooted cards.

1k isnt enough for 1/3 you need at least 4k

My goal for that level at crown is even 6k