200NL KK in 3bet pot, interesting flop

blankoblanco

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no HH, but i'll recreate it for you.

9-handed 200NL, 100 BB effective stacks

CO raises to $7 (14/10/3)
BTN folds, SB folds
Hero is BB and 3bets to $26 with KsKc (15/12/4)
CO calls

pot is ~$53 on flop, about $174 behind for each player

Flop: As9s6s

we have the nut flush draw and an underpair to the ace

what's your plan?
a) bet intending to call an all-in
b) bet intending to fold to an all-in
c) check intending to raise all-in
d) check intending to call
e) quick, call kathy liebert!
 
ChuckTs

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I think with AK he's shoving pf since your slight overbet is just a little too much to allow him to slow down and play postflop poker. AQ's folding pf, TT+ is probably calling pf I think...

I probably still play it wa/wb and ch-c two streets, folding to a big (unimproved) river bet since I think it's going to be a rare occurance that he'll 3-barrell the hands you beat here. This one's a deusy...
 
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baconn

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a) bet intending to call an all-in or b) bet intending to fold to an all-in
He might not have a spade in his hand and fold. He might call with a AQs but will probably only go all-in if made his flush or has a set. It really depends if you feel like gambling, because another club gives you the nuts.
 
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switch0723

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a) bet intending to call an all-in or b) bet intending to fold to an all-in
He might not have a spade in his hand and fold. He might call with a AQs but will probably only go all-in if made his flush or has a set. It really depends if you feel like gambling, because another club gives you the nuts.

What kind of analysis is that? youve contradicted yourself in the first sentence.

I agree with chuck in the opinion that i dont believe a,k calls pre flop wanting to play a flop. Therefore we are against tt+ i imagine. So i imagine a simple c bet takes this pot down, but i am also willing to call all in, since a hand such as qsqx may very well re raise all in here, so im betting willing to call all in
 
jaketrevvor

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I completely disagree with you guys I think we can easily see AK flat-call here and take a flop with position, shoving w/AK seems shockingly excessive/dangerous here. Also, you say you're playing this passive assuming we're wa/wb CTs but in the range you defined (which seems fairly plausable) all we are is wwwa (no ace in his hand (apart from pos. slowplayed AA obv)). And even if we revise his range so that it has AK in it we are not really wb as we have the nut fd. So the only question remaining is can we get any value at all from TT-QQ... The only way I can see this is with a spazzily small c-bet and hope he has a spade. Oh, and meanwhile we pray to god that 99 isn't in his range too :).
 
ChuckTs

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tbh I kind of spewed my answer out and I'm still not sure about what line to take. Give me a little bit to think of this one and I'll get back to it.
 
c9h13no3

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I'm not sure that betting here OOP accomplishes much other than scaring hands we crush away. We're not afraid of giving free cards really, since we have the best draw. So why not check it to him, and let him bet his whole range, and then check-raise him all in.

This way, we're still getting value out of the hands that we beat if they bet this flop. Also, we could possibly fold out AQ hands (which I think is still possibly in his range). QxQs also might come along for the ride if we shove all in over his bet on the flop since we're giving him 2:1 on his $.

I would say take a more passive, check/call kind of line on this, but I think ultimately the only hand where this kind of line makes us more money is against something like JxJs, and getting him to bet both the flop & turn is a bit too hopeful.

So yeah, worse comes to worse, he calls with AK, and we have a 40% shot of drawing out on him.

The main reason I check-raise all in rather than just check/call and try to get hands like QQ & JJ to fire another round is because if villain shoves the turn, he'll be offering us 2:1 pot odds, and we'll have a 4:1 draw which leaves us in a pretty rough position to call an all in.
 
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Viktor Von Doom

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I completely disagree with you guys I think we can easily see AK flat-call here and take a flop with position, shoving w/AK seems shockingly excessive/dangerous here. Also, you say you're playing this passive assuming we're wa/wb CTs but in the range you defined (which seems fairly plausable) all we are is wwwa (no ace in his hand (apart from pos. slowplayed AA obv)). And even if we revise his range so that it has AK in it we are not really wb as we have the nut fd. So the only question remaining is can we get any value at all from TT-QQ... The only way I can see this is with a spazzily small c-bet and hope he has a spade. Oh, and meanwhile we pray to god that 99 isn't in his range too :).
lol yeah... 3 bet to $27 and villain shoves his remaining $193 into the pot with AK?

He's probably calling with a fairly liberal range from the CO if he doesn't suck. Bet out and see what happens.

C9h gave a good answer to this one.
 
blankoblanco

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fwiw, i think he can definitely have AK/AQ here.

VVD, you say c9h gave a good answer, but you suggested a different line. "bet out and see what happens", i'm guessing means you're calling a shove? cause i think bet/folding would be the worst line i could take here (note from Kathy Liebert: "I agree!")
 
ChuckTs

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Let's run through the scenarios; 1) is by way of playing the wa/wb style, 2) is betting out and dealing with whatever happens when we get there.

AK/AQ with no spades:

1) we save money, though possibly get pushed off on the turn (barring a spade obv)
2) we lose money, we're stuck in extremely ugly spots on the flop and turn if we're called/raised

TT-QQ (I think QQ may 4-bet but a call w/position is possible):

1) we make money by inducing bets from them, otherwise make money by possible calls (for ex if it goes ch-ch down to the river, we can possibly put out a value bet)
2) we let them off the hook very easily and lose value

99:

1) we save tons, give ourselves a chance to get away from our hand as well as win lots when we hit our flush
2) we get raised and find ourselves in another tough spot

I think the biggest problem with this spot is dealing with AK/AQ. tbh I'm not really sure what they do if we play the hand passively following the wa/wb concept (though we're more wa/not so behind due to our draw), but my guesses would be:

betting flop, shoving turn (I see this, esp with the AxQs)

or

betting flop, checking turn for pot control, maybe shoving non-spade riv, maybe checking behind again. obv ch-folding riv.

It still looks to me like the wa/wb line is the best, but it's still a tough spot since we get shoved off the turn so often, and possibly bluffed off the turn by something like QxQs etc.
 
jaketrevvor

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I agree of course with the above, betting into vil with no info, deep stacks (well, they're not short at least) and a widish range is a cataclysmic mistake. The trouble is that if we do get bet at then we are defo chasing as vil wouldn't bet TsTx-QsQx most of the time - theyd be happy to take a free card due to our strength pf. So in a way it's annoying we're in a position where we can't bet and get these hands to perhaps draw along a little... If anyone finds a line that magically gets around this that would be nice :)
 
Viktor Von Doom

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The main issue is that you guys are assigning way too tight of a hand range for the villain in this example, in my opinion.
 
c9h13no3

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The main issue is that you guys are assigning way too tight of a hand range for the villain in this example, in my opinion.
I think the range so far is fine. Even if you include hands like KQ in his range, he still hasn't flopped a flush, and that just makes us a bigger favorite against his range.

QsJs, AJ is most likely folding to a big fat 3-bet preflop with villain's stats. I think 99 is probably still in his range. What other hands do you want to include? 88-66? KJ? We still crush all of those hands except 66.
 
Dorkus Malorkus

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The main issue is that you guys are assigning way too tight of a hand range for the villain in this example, in my opinion.

i think whether this is true depends on how regularly we've been 3-betting.
 
Viktor Von Doom

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i think whether this is true depends on how regularly we've been 3-betting.
A good player should be opening up his range here from the CO no matter what, IMO.

He still has position if he decides to call with any suited connectors higher than, say, 54 suited. He could even decided to call the 3 bet with suited one gappers like J9 suited, etc.

Hand range is wide enough where I'm not scared of this flop if I'm the hero. If anything, I think he should be.

Doubtful that anyone decides to get way out of line in this hand unless the players have a history.
 
ChuckTs

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Well OP has given us very little info about villain aside from his vpip/pfr/ta. Yes, a player (even with those stats) will have a much wider range from later position, but that doesn't necessarily mean they defend their raises. What I mean is he won't float us very often unless he's a very tricky tag, which I doubt due to OP's brief description of him.

Definitely possible, but not that probable imo. Then again I play 50nl and basing my response on what I've experienced there which could obviously be way off considering it's 200nl.
 
blankoblanco

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you guys are so demanding! well, he hadn't been at the table for incredibly long but hadn't done anything out of line either. mostly your basic unexceptional TAG, i guess. i had 3bet either two or three times over the last like 50 hands, none showed down.

someone raising 10% of the hands at full ring is fairly tight but i think his CO raising range is probably still kind of wide. his calling range once i raise? probably AK-AQ, 99+, maybe 88, maybe KQ, some suited connectors wouldn't shock me either. it's not like i agree with calling with all these hands, but you gotta realize not everyone plays solid kathy liebert poker like you yourself might. at small-ish stakes you shouldn't always (or even usually) project your range, or a +EV range, to a relative unknown's. in a similar situation, a guy who had seemed extremely tight called my SB 3bet with king-ten suited. a lot of players just don't like to fold once they've put some chips in. it's so easy for a lot of players to click the call button and hope they cream the flop. many people have gambling streaks

so i think he can be in with AK-AQ, TT+ with a high probability. and then weaker pairs, AJ, KQ, some suited connectors with maybe a third of that frequency
 
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ChuckTs

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ok, well fwiw I think that if we're assuming he will call with a pretty wide range that suited/offsuit connectors and pairs are going to be calling a 3-bet much more often than hands like AT or A9 since they're so often dominated.

If that's the case it makes a case for check-calling down even more appealing since we're rarely getting value from those hands except in spots where they decide to bluff or bet second pair or w/e.

I'm still a little unsure about this one. I'm definitely in the camp of checking the flop, but I'm not sure about the ch-r AI on the turn UI since we're only getting better hands to call us, and very rarely hands like QxQs. I think this is just a case of ch-c down, get our chips in somehow if we hit the nuts, and just give up if we get bet out of the pot on the turn?

meh.
 
blankoblanco

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chuck, what about check/raising all-in on the flop as c9 suggested? main benefits of that i can think of are that we probably fold out AQ (without Qs), AJ (without Js), not sure what else
 
ChuckTs

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Oh, I thought he meant we ch-c, ch-r AI on the turn.

Still not sure about it; we lose tons of value from those smaller pairs and connectors that have missed, but might bet at the pot on the turn/river if they catch a piece. Yes, we gain value vs AQ, but I'm not sure we fold that out every time. AJ much more likely, but it might look us up occasionally as a ch-r AI on the flop does look a lot like KK as well as AK.

Are we ever ch-r AI with AK here anyways?
 
blankoblanco

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well that's a really good point that i considered, but i just don't expect an unknown to handread too much. but yeah, after 3betting, c/r-ing is a draw very often. the only AK i'd consider c/r-ing here would be AK with the Ks, but he doesn't have to know that, i s'pose

i think he can fold the AQ without a spade. he won't always but if i have a draw he's only slightly ahead and if i have like AK with the Ks he's completely crushed
 
Tygran

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Man this is a tough spot. I think I like that ch-call flop line. If he shoves it yeah he probably has the ace (with a spade more likely..if he doesn't have a spade then the flop + your action ought to scare him), but he could also shove TT-QQ... especially if he has a spade in his hand. 99 would be really ugly here too.

If a spade falls on the turn, I may ch-call again with the intention of a lead out shove on the river. If a spade does not fall on the turn I don't know if I want to ch-shove it or not... like Chuck said..what's going to call us that we can beat? Another ch-call maybe unless he bets us out? i dunno this is a tough spot.

If he doesn't have a spade he probably won't stick around though without 66/99.

I suppose you could alternatively c-bet it on the flop, with the intention of calling if raised but meh... I wouldn't feel too good about that.

I play $25 NL though so take it for what it's worth, I'm sure $200 nl is quite a bit different.
 
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c9h13no3

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If a spade does not fall on the turn I'm probably ch-shoving then and there.
I think the pot will be too big to check/shove the turn at that point. We won't be able to fold out any hands that have us beat (AQ, AJ).

$53 on flop, about $174 behind for each player

So if Villain bets 37$, and we just call, the turn potsize will be 127$, and we'll have $137 left behind. So if we check the turn to him, and he makes any sort of bet it will probably be all in and he will be pot committed even if he doesn't shove. Thus, shoving there doesn't give us any folding equity.

I think if we're going to make an aggressive play at this flop, it needs to come in one of 2 forms:

1) Check-raise all in on the flop
2) Shove all in on the turn, after we've check/called the flop.

At least at that point he will have the ability to fold some mediocre hands. And if we're going to be shoving, I prefer to do it on the flop, since we have the best odds for our draw. I think a case can be made for leading out the turn with a shove, since it looks less like a draw.

Check/calling the flop & then check/folding the turn could also be an option here, but we have a 27% shot at winning this hand against AA, and a 40% chance to win against AK & AQ. Thus, since this pot already has 50$ in it, I'm not all that comfortable throwing away the equity that we have in this pot.
 
blankoblanco

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okay, well fwiw i like checking. i think i slightly prefer c/r-ing all-in just because we have a good amount of equity (the right amount, given pot size) when called and can sometimes fold out better. if we c/c we prolong the pot out of position, and if the turn blanks like it will like 3/4 of the time it seems sort of easy for him to just bet again and then we're not getting the right odds and have to fold. and i agree that the pot will be too big to check/shove the turn, assuming we want some fold equity

so

Hero checks
CO checks behind

Turn: As9s6sKh (Pot still $53, $174 behind for each player)
Hero...
 
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