Hi Everybody,

Just wanted to get your opinion on this replay of a hand. I called first raiser with A/4s. But I'm not sure if 3betting would have been more appropriate. What do you think?

Thanks.


https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/4qdlQbf

The suited wheel ace hands are the best bluffing hands preflop, because they block hands like AA and AK, and if they get action, they can make a nut flush or a straight, so they usually have at least reasonable equity. Therefore it is typically never correct to just call with these hands, unless you are in BB, where you close action and get a good price.

You dont always have to bluff 3-bet an UTG open, but then you should just fold. If he was a nitty guy, that would actually be the best play, because on flops like this you get into sticky situations, when he has you outkicked with his AK or AQ. This guy however opened a suited 1-gapper from UTG, so he is playing way to many hands, and then 3-betting is literally printing money. He either fold to much, or he end up calling 3-bets out of position with way to much junk like this.

I would take it a step further and say that you should not be 3-bet bluffing UTG opens that often in general. On the other hand if we flat raises with these suited wheel Aces we will be dominated and drawing too often. I agree with fundiver, as I usually do. You should be mostly folding here but in certain situations as mentioned you can call or raise. But you want to know the range of the person you are raising before blindly putting in a 3-bet. UTG should have the most narrow range but as we see in this case, this V is opening way to wide. If we are at a weak, tight table and we know UTG is opening way to wide then perhaps we can go for the bluff. But typically we want to have less action behind us and attack a later position raising range. Some of the problems with flatting are that we will typically be playing a multi way pot often with a dominated hand. Unless we flop 2 pair+ or a draw we can be in some really tough spots.

I also wanted to comment on sizing. Were you using 1/4 pot sizing on purpose? In my experience this will not only get loose calls it will induce loose raises. And while we don't mind weaker hands calling we need to have a plan for how to deal with a raise. The 1/3 and 1/4 sizings are more often used by the PFR for c-bets, especially in 3-bet pots. I can understand wanting to go smaller into a 5 way flop with 3 players behind but I think it's a bit lucky that no one played back at this and you only got action from the 57ss.

Originally Posted by fundiver199

The suited wheel ace hands are the best bluffing hands preflop, because they block hands like AA and AK, and if they get action, they can make a nut flush or a straight, so they usually have at least reasonable equity. Therefore it is typically never correct to just call with these hands, unless you are in BB, where you close action and get a good price.

You dont always have to bluff 3-bet an UTG open, but then you should just fold. If he was a nitty guy, that would actually be the best play, because on flops like this you get into sticky situations, when he has you outkicked with his AK or AQ. This guy however opened a suited 1-gapper from UTG, so he is playing way to many hands, and then 3-betting is literally printing money. He either fold to much, or he end up calling 3-bets out of position with way to much junk like this.

You just opened another thought process for me fundiver. The blocker idea never has even crossed my mind when playing any hand that would involve Ax suited.
Thank you!

Originally Posted by c0rnBr34d

I would take it a step further and say that you should not be 3-bet bluffing UTG opens that often in general. On the other hand if we flat raises with these suited wheel Aces we will be dominated and drawing too often. I agree with fundiver, as I usually do. You should be mostly folding here but in certain situations as mentioned you can call or raise. But you want to know the range of the person you are raising before blindly putting in a 3-bet. UTG should have the most narrow range but as we see in this case, this V is opening way to wide. If we are at a weak, tight table and we know UTG is opening way to wide then perhaps we can go for the bluff. But typically we want to have less action behind us and attack a later position raising range. Some of the problems with flatting are that we will typically be playing a multi way pot often with a dominated hand. Unless we flop 2 pair+ or a draw we can be in some really tough spots.

I also wanted to comment on sizing. Were you using 1/4 pot sizing on purpose? In my experience this will not only get loose calls it will induce loose raises. And while we don't mind weaker hands calling we need to have a plan for how to deal with a raise. The 1/3 and 1/4 sizings are more often used by the PFR for c-bets, especially in 3-bet pots. I can understand wanting to go smaller into a 5 way flop with 3 players behind but I think it's a bit lucky that no one played back at this and you only got action from the 57ss.

Funny Corn, I learned alot more from this replay than I expected because of you and funddiver. Blockers, sizing, bluffs, additional calls/raises, etc. Just a wealth of information there. Thank you.

You are a relatively new poker player at the $2 NL stakes. 3 betting A4s is a play that should be reserved for a point where you have a lot more experience. I think your play of the hand was fine.

Originally Posted by Sidetracked

You are a relatively new poker player at the $2 NL stakes. 3 betting A4s is a play that should be reserved for a point where you have a lot more experience. I think your play of the hand was fine.

I tend to agree that many players over-value or mis-play hands like suited wheel Aces and suited connectors. But to that same point I would argue than until they are better understood they should be folds instead of flat calls vs UTG opens in MP with action behind. Too many times these same players will be out-kicked, draw too thin, or otherwise losing more money by flatting pre then just folding and working on other parts of their game.

Originally Posted by c0rnBr34d

I would take it a step further and say that you should not be 3-bet bluffing UTG opens that often in general. On the other hand if we flat raises with these suited wheel Aces we will be dominated and drawing too often. I agree with fundiver, as I usually do. You should be mostly folding here but in certain situations as mentioned you can call or raise. But you want to know the range of the person you are raising before blindly putting in a 3-bet. UTG should have the most narrow range but as we see in this case, this V is opening way to wide. If we are at a weak, tight table and we know UTG is opening way to wide then perhaps we can go for the bluff. But typically we want to have less action behind us and attack a later position raising range. Some of the problems with flatting are that we will typically be playing a multi way pot often with a dominated hand. Unless we flop 2 pair+ or a draw we can be in some really tough spots.

I also wanted to comment on sizing. Were you using 1/4 pot sizing on purpose? In my experience this will not only get loose calls it will induce loose raises. And while we don't mind weaker hands calling we need to have a plan for how to deal with a raise. The 1/3 and 1/4 sizings are more often used by the PFR for c-bets, especially in 3-bet pots. I can understand wanting to go smaller into a 5 way flop with 3 players behind but I think it's a bit lucky that no one played back at this and you only got action from the 57ss.

Hi Corn, I bet a quarter pot trying induce a call. What would be your suggestion on bet sizing there?

Originally Posted by stil370

Hi Corn, I bet a quarter pot trying induce a call. What would be your suggestion on bet sizing there?

There are a lot of things to consider here. First, not to belittle things but it's 2NL and Vs are capable of crazy things. Betting 1/3 or less I would consider a more nuanced play for certain situations. Here we want to keep things more straight forward. The board is very dry with no real straight or flush draws. This is somewhat of a blessing and a curse though because our relative position and hand strength against anyone who will call a bet are both pretty bad. When we bet this flop into 5 players we are saying we have at least an Ace. When we size down to less that 1/4 pot though it will be confusing to many Vs. They will likely either think we are super strong and want a call or super weak and afraid to size up. So it's dangerous out of position in a multi way pot. If Vs are good they will be able to narrow our range because we didn't three bet pre flop. So even if we have an Ace they know it's not a super strong Ace. So our value range is compressed / capped to something like AJ- or two pair or a set. Since it's tough to make two pair someone may put us to the test if they think our flop bet is weak and raise without an Ace. We need to have some reads on our opponents to size down this much, or a very nutted hand that has tons of equity or will be hard to beat. Long story short, I'm not in this spot often since I would have folded pre but I would probably check this flop behind the PFR and call any reasonable sized bet behind. We have top pair and two back door draws but there are three players behind us and if anyone has an Ace we are toast. What card are we scared to see on the turn? Nothing really. Our hand isn't strong enough to bet three streets anyway and it's hard to get action from lower pairs with the scare card Ace out there. We get to keep the pot size in control. If we bet and get raised how can we call? So we plan to bet turn and river instead of flop and turn since there are no draws to protect against, our range is capped and relative hand strength against hands that can call or raise is poor. If it checks around we can bet around 1/2 pot or more on the turn and then evaluate river. Possibly value betting river depending on the action and run out.

The line you took we bet 3.5 BB OTF, 5.5 BB OTT, and checked back river for a +9 BB outcome. Now lets contemplate some alternate scenarios. If we check flop some one in late position may bluff at it and we can call one street, in this case PFR likely calls too and we get more than 9 BB if they dont bluff us off the hand. If it checks around the PFR may stab at it on the turn. If so he will likely bet more than 1/2 pot so we get 8+ BB on a flat call on the turn and since flop checked around we may get another occasional loose call behind. Plus we still get to play the river. If he checks river we can value bet. If he bets again we can probably call down. If flop checks around and the PFR checks turn we bet 7 to 9 BB and likely get the same call from the gut shot. So most of the time we are making about the same 9 BB profit and not limiting our upside but we are less exploitable and we induce more bluffs and gather more info on all relative hand strengths on the flop (especially the players behind us). We also limit our downside by being raised less often on the flop.

No. What you did was perfectly fine. But you should A4s in your range of 3 betting light if you think the original 2 bettor bets wide or if you're trying to rep a big hand. Plus when you play against better players, the wider your 3 bet range is the harder it is for opponents to put you on a hand

Originally Posted by c0rnBr34d

There are a lot of things to consider here. First, not to belittle things but it's 2NL and Vs are capable of crazy things. Betting 1/3 or less I would consider a more nuanced play for certain situations. Here we want to keep things more straight forward. The board is very dry with no real straight or flush draws. This is somewhat of a blessing and a curse though because our relative position and hand strength against anyone who will call a bet are both pretty bad. When we bet this flop into 5 players we are saying we have at least an Ace. When we size down to less that 1/4 pot though it will be confusing to many Vs. They will likely either think we are super strong and want a call or super weak and afraid to size up. So it's dangerous out of position in a multi way pot. If Vs are good they will be able to narrow our range because we didn't three bet pre flop. So even if we have an Ace they know it's not a super strong Ace. So our value range is compressed / capped to something like AJ- or two pair or a set. Since it's tough to make two pair someone may put us to the test if they think our flop bet is weak and raise without an Ace. We need to have some reads on our opponents to size down this much, or a very nutted hand that has tons of equity or will be hard to beat. Long story short, I'm not in this spot often since I would have folded pre but I would probably check this flop behind the PFR and call any reasonable sized bet behind. We have top pair and two back door draws but there are three players behind us and if anyone has an Ace we are toast. What card are we scared to see on the turn? Nothing really. Our hand isn't strong enough to bet three streets anyway and it's hard to get action from lower pairs with the scare card Ace out there. We get to keep the pot size in control. If we bet and get raised how can we call? So we plan to bet turn and river instead of flop and turn since there are no draws to protect against, our range is capped and relative hand strength against hands that can call or raise is poor. If it checks around we can bet around 1/2 pot or more on the turn and then evaluate river. Possibly value betting river depending on the action and run out.

The line you took we bet 3.5 BB OTF, 5.5 BB OTT, and checked back river for a +9 BB outcome. Now lets contemplate some alternate scenarios. If we check flop some one in late position may bluff at it and we can call one street, in this case PFR likely calls too and we get more than 9 BB if they dont bluff us off the hand. If it checks around the PFR may stab at it on the turn. If so he will likely bet more than 1/2 pot so we get 8+ BB on a flat call on the turn and since flop checked around we may get another occasional loose call behind. Plus we still get to play the river. If he checks river we can value bet. If he bets again we can probably call down. If flop checks around and the PFR checks turn we bet 7 to 9 BB and likely get the same call from the gut shot. So most of the time we are making about the same 9 BB profit and not limiting our upside but we are less exploitable and we induce more bluffs and gather more info on all relative hand strengths on the flop (especially the players behind us). We also limit our downside by being raised less often on the flop.

You know Corn, I am amazed at your replies.
This helped me in a couple of big ways.
The unexpected part was that you showed how more money can be extracted from a hand in addition to probably should have been folding in the first place.
Those were the 2 big things for me but in the middle of those things were 3 or 4 other gems that I can utilize going forward. many thanks