$25 NLHE 6-max: AK Squeeze sizing

Emperor IX · Sep 25, 2009

$25 NL HE 6-max: AK Squeeze sizing

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

BTN: $12.77 (51.1 bb)
SB: $70.79 (283.2 bb)
Hero (BB): $30.02 (120.1 bb)
MP: $67.59 (270.4 bb)
CO: $47.49 (190 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with A

K

MP raises to $0.85, CO folds, BTN calls $0.85, SB calls $0.75, Hero raises to?

I know this is a basic question, but keep in mind I've been playing limit for the last three months and have very little experience at 25nl, let alone 6max, lol

I have <50 hands on all of them, but the tightest is 26/21 (pfr) and the rest are 41/20 and 70/0 types

Lemlywinks · Sep 25, 2009

I raise to anywhere from $4.5-5 probably.

esp against these types

S93 · Sep 25, 2009

4.50$...

F Paulsson · Sep 25, 2009

Here's a fun idea: Shove.

There are some serious advantages to doing that in a spot like this with specifically AK. The first step towards understanding why is to realize that when you build a pot with AK preflop, you're bluffing.

Well, no. Not really. It's wrong to think of a hand as a "drawing hand" vs a "made hand" but let me phrase it like this: The best possible outcome for you to raise preflop is that everyone else folds. The dead money (I'm counting about 10bb?) is typically a bigger profit than you expect to see on average if you raise and get called.

The objection to this might be that you're only called by hands that beat you. This is true (well, at least in the case of sane opponents; I don't know about 70/0 droolers making hero calls with ATs here) but you also have to realize that any real raise you make at this point essentially commits you. If you raise to $4.50, and someone else re-raises, you're not going anywhere. You're going to get your stack in, and the difference between shoving here and calling a shove is that you have fold equity in the first case but not the second. When you're calling off your stack, you're making a crying call because of pot odds. When you're jamming your stack, you're a real man.

Or something like that.

This may not be the ideal play for this situation, but I'm willing to say that it's without a doubt profitable. When called, your equity should be around 40% and the dead money you pick up the majority of the time makes up for that.

A real concern is that by shoving, you deny your opponents the chance to 4-bet bluff (so you can shove over that and pick up even more money) but I'm not sure how often you'll see a 4-bet rebluff at these stakes. Probably not often.

S93 · Sep 25, 2009

F Paulsson said:
A real concern is that by shoving, you deny your opponents the chance to 4-bet bluff (so you can shove over that and pick up even more money) but I'm not sure how often you'll see a 4-bet rebluff at these stakes. Probably not often.

While in my experience there isnt alot of "light" 4betting at 25nl there are quite a few bad lags that try to over adjust to 6max by stacking random stuff like 77-88 and AQ so even if geting every one to fold it probably best case scenerio we can still expect to be ahead/flipping atleast some of the time villain 4bets/shoves over our 3bet.

Deco · Sep 28, 2009

F Paulsson said:
Here's a fun idea: Shove.

This may not be the ideal play for this situation, but I'm willing to say that it's without a doubt profitable. When called, your equity should be around 40% and the dead money you pick up the majority of the time makes up for that.

I don't like this.
At 25NL were gunna get alot of value from the KQ, AQ, 22+ hands that call us that we beat or can profitably c-bet.

The only thing I can see this folding out which we want gone is JJ maybe TT and its not like we were in horrific shape against them anyway.

I agree its likely profitable but I think a normal 3bet will be more so as we have almost equal fold equity and much more value.

ukaliks · Sep 29, 2009

F Paulsson said:
Here's a fun idea: Shove.

There are some serious advantages to doing that in a spot like this with specifically AK. The first step towards understanding why is to realize that when you build a pot with AK preflop, you're bluffing.

Well, no. Not really. It's wrong to think of a hand as a "drawing hand" vs a "made hand" but let me phrase it like this: The best possible outcome for you to raise preflop is that everyone else folds. The dead money (I'm counting about 10bb?) is typically a bigger profit than you expect to see on average if you raise and get called.

The objection to this might be that you're only called by hands that beat you. This is true (well, at least in the case of sane opponents; I don't know about 70/0 droolers making hero calls with ATs here) but you also have to realize that any real raise you make at this point essentially commits you. If you raise to $4.50, and someone else re-raises, you're not going anywhere. You're going to get your stack in, and the difference between shoving here and calling a shove is that you have fold equity in the first case but not the second. When you're calling off your stack, you're making a crying call because of pot odds. When you're jamming your stack, you're a real man.

Or something like that.

This may not be the ideal play for this situation, but I'm willing to say that it's without a doubt profitable. When called, your equity should be around 40% and the dead money you pick up the majority of the time makes up for that.

A real concern is that by shoving, you deny your opponents the chance to 4-bet bluff (so you can shove over that and pick up even more money) but I'm not sure how often you'll see a 4-bet rebluff at these stakes. Probably not often.

nice reply. I aggree with this. Shoving is probs the best way to pick up the dead money. Calling is nice n trappy but there's too many ppl to crack ur big slick.
U also give off a image that ur kinda stealing the dead money, jus they dont know u've got AK. U mite get called by AQ(ur miles ahead), AJ(even futher ahead) or mayb sum1 wants to take a shot with a med PP like 77,88 which ur a slight underdog.
The worst u dont wanna see is some1 call ur shove and see QQ,KK,AA.

F Paulsson · Sep 29, 2009

Deco said:
I don't like this.
At 25NL were gunna get alot of value from the KQ, AQ, 22+ hands that call us that we beat or can profitably c-bet.

I don't have a ton of hands from 25NL in my database (I only stayed at 25NL/50NL for about two months before moving up), but I lost money in hands where I 3-bet preflop and was called. If someone else (you, for instance) has a much bigger database for these stakes and can show that you're profitable (out of position like here, ideally, but "at all" works, too) for AK where we 3-bet and get called, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Lemlywinks · Sep 29, 2009

I'm always hesitant to question any move made by FP, but I kinda side with Deco here. Fish that you have will call off lots of 3bets with garbage at 25nl from my experience this month. I don't have those stats (co-pilot beta version) but I still feel like less hero calls will be made < more spew postflop

Mamushi · Sep 29, 2009

Any advice is villan dependent of course, but you got to assume the guy in the SB is a fish for coming along, unless he is setmining or something. At 25nl I have never had any luck with squeezing and I bet if a squeeze was attempted here you would get 2 callers. If one of these guys is a fish why not give him a chance to stack off with AQ?

F Paulsson · Sep 30, 2009

Lemlywinks said:
I'm always hesitant to question any move made by FP, but I kinda side with Deco here. Fish that you have will call off lots of 3bets with garbage at 25nl from my experience this month. I don't have those stats (co-pilot beta version) but I still feel like less hero calls will be made < more spew postflop

It's of course fine to disagree with me.

Now, just to point out something here: You're saying that the 3-bet (squeeze) is for value, which is why we don't want to shove. And the reason it's for value is that we will get action postflop from weaker hands. So far, it's all good.

The problem lies in the assumption that postflop, their hands will on average be weaker than ours. I'm not at all convinced that that's true. I mean, 2/3rds of the time on the flop, we'll have ace-high. If they call preflop with KQ, we're not getting much value out of c-bet unless they peel with king high, or unless they paired their queen. Of course, we could fall back on a strategy where we don't c-bet unless we pair up, but I don't think that's a good idea and I don't think you think so either. In order to show a profit postflop, we need our opponent(s) to fold small pocket pairs on scary boards. We need the postflop fold equity to make this profitable.

... and here is the crux of the matter. We 3-bet because we think we have postflop value, but we also need them to fold postflop. Or differently put, we're counting on our opponents to be tight with the hands that beat ours but loose with the hands that we beat.

Now, having said all that, it's really, really hard to guess how postflop will work out, which is why I think situations like these are best worked out looking at (large:ish) samples of actual situations and try to draw some conclusions from that. Personally, I'm still leaning towards us not being profitable with AK out of position in a big pot once we see the flop, but I can be persuaded otherwise if anyone has data proving me wrong.

S93 · Sep 30, 2009

FP i would say this 2 hands sum up pretty well what alot of villains will calL/ship over you with at 25nl.
First ones a reg and the second is a fish, both have AJ(the reg had AcJc).

UTG with $29.55
MP with $4.95
CO with $36.00
BTN with $18.00
SB with $27.25
BB with $25.00

Blinds: $0.00/$0.00
Site: pokerstars
Dealt to SB:A♠ K♣
Sklansky group 2
Preflop:
2 players fold.
CO raises $0.50 to $0.75
1 players fold.
Hero raises $2.25 to $3
1 players fold.
CO calls [$2.25]
Total folds this street: 4
Potsize: $6.25
Flop:
2♣ 7♣ K♦
Hero bets [$4.25]
CO calls [$4.25]
Potsize: $14.75
Turn:
Q♦
Hero bets [$20] [ all-in ]
CO calls [$20]
Potsize: $54.75
River:
7♠
Results:
Hero shows two pair, Kings and Sevens:
A♠ K♣
CO doesn't show.
Hero collected $52.05 from pot

UTG with $20.75
MP with $22.15
CO with $31.25
BTN with $15.15
SB with $36.35
BB with $14.95

Blinds: $0.00/$0.00
Site: Pokerstars
Dealt to SB:K♦ A♦
Sklansky group 1
Preflop:
3 players fold.
BTN raises $0.75 to $1
Hero raises $2.50 to $3.50
1 players fold.
BTN raises $11.65 to $15.15 [ all-in ]
Hero calls [$11.65]
Total folds this street: 4
Potsize: $30.55
Flop:
5♠ 10♥ 2♦
Potsize: $30.55
Turn:
K♥
Potsize: $30.55
River:
2♣
Results:
Hero shows two pair, Kings and Deuces:
K♦ A♦ BTN doesn't show.
Hero collected $29.05 from pot

Deco · Sep 30, 2009

F Paulsson said:
I don't have a ton of hands from 25NL in my database (I only stayed at 25NL/50NL for about two months before moving up), but I lost money in hands where I 3-bet preflop and was called. If someone else (you, for instance) has a much bigger database for these stakes and can show that you're profitable (out of position like here, ideally, but "at all" works, too) for AK where we 3-bet and get called, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Could you tell me how to do this filter

I doubt I'll have enough hands anyway as I doubt av played over 100 AKs were av 3bet OOP and missed the flop.

Your argument for what happens when we both miss is simple, we c-bet and expect lots of money.
We can rely on them being tight with the hands that beat us and loose with the ones which don't. Even your average 25NL player isnt gunna call us with their 44 in a 3bet pot. Whilst there never gunna fold their KJ when it hits top pair, heck even when were up against second pair we'll at least get one street and maybe get their stack if we allow them to spew by checking the turn when they instantly think "OMGZ he was just c-betting"

F Paulsson · Sep 30, 2009

In HEM, just go to Filter->Edit, go to the tab More Filters, In the list to the right find and "Add this filter" for

"Did 3Bet = True"
"Saw Flop = True"
"Allin Preflop = False"

--

C-betting without a hand is generally not profitable looking at the whole hand. It's profitable in the sense that you make more money c-betting than not, but you're going to have to mount some serious proof if you're trying to tell me that c-betting the flop with a missed AK shows a profit for you.

Deco · Oct 1, 2009

F Paulsson said:
In HEM, just go to Filter->Edit, go to the tab More Filters, In the list to the right find and "Add this filter" for

"Did 3Bet = True"
"Saw Flop = True"
"Allin Preflop = False"

--

C-betting without a hand is generally not profitable looking at the whole hand. It's profitable in the sense that you make more money c-betting than not, but you're going to have to mount some serious proof if you're trying to tell me that c-betting the flop with a missed AK shows a profit for you.

106 hands.
$226
Not a big enough sample and I included 50NL in as my 25NL sample is way too small + I think 50NL is near identical.

The c-betting alone may not show a profit but the times we take the pot down and when we stack AQ KQ and lesser hands should more than compensate losing money when our AK misses and our opponent hits.
If we couldn't make money with big slick out of position against bad opponents we would simply fold AK from the SB against Calling stations would we not?

baghead · Oct 1, 2009

i say you should raise about 2.5x the pot so to me in this situation it would be in the region of $6.70 and i dont like the squeeze play with 3 already in the pot but thats just my rule of thumb

Mase31683 · Oct 4, 2009

I like popping it to about $4-$5 if that's the route you wanna take.

$25 NLHE 6-max: AK Squeeze sizing

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