$3000 NLHE Full Ring: Line okay w/ aces?

[TenJack]

Ran into a nasty spot super deep the other day. As a note, Bad Beat Jackpot is Quads+ so this doesn’t qualify. ***This is 10/20 not 15/30. Sorry, misclick.

Hero is playing a more TAG game atm, stacked at around 750BB.

Villain is TAG, seemed to have gone card dead for a bit but suddenly came alive this hand. He has made some nice plays, but I have also seen him make some really obvious mistakes. (Bad calls based on incorrect ranges, etc.) Likes to talk about previous hands. 1000+BB

Folds to villain in MP
V raises to 60
Folds to hero on BU with AsAc
Hero raises to 200
blinds fold,
Villain 4-bets to 500
Hero thinks, 5-bets to 1500
Villain tanks, calls.

Flop: Ks Kd 4h Pot: 3000

Villain checks
Hero checks

Turn: Ad Pot: 3k

Villain tanks, checks.
Hero bets 1000
Villain calls

River: 7h Pot: 5k

Villain bets 4000
Hero tanks, sighs, calls.

I thought his mostly likely 4-bet/call hands (this deep) are AK and KK. I didn’t think he had the red aces as there is only one combo (ends up that’s impossible anyway). He might have had a loose QQ pre that deep, but I doubt that he calls turn, bets river with them.
Flop was a check for me because his entire range either folds (QQ) or has me crushed (AK, KK).
Turn, I decided to bet, I felt like I was losing to 1 KK combo and beating 2 AK combos and it was better to start going for value now than turn. I also felt like getting any value from QQ on the river was far-fetched. Is betting here a mistake?


River, I felt like I couldn’t fold because I was only losing to 1 combo, but I felt like he only really hand he ever had.

Overall, is this line okay? I felt like flop and river are good but I was concerned about turn. Also, what is a good 5-bet sizing this deep?

 

[micromoi]

the check on the flop is ok to me, 1/3 pot on the turn with this monster is too little 2/3 is better, and the river is a raise you loose to KK only and u cant put someone on one hand, on a range yes that includes KK, for me it's a raise and i will go all in if necessary it's just a monster hand to me.

 

[braveslice]

Haha I guess you lost because you had to ask, but yeah you did fine. Even though someone will complain when you did not bet flop and he is right, but you were not wrong either. Sometimes you just sigh (even though I personally call too much because of the sigh-excuse).

 

[Hujiko]

Well played you lost the minimum in a AA versus KK on this board. Calling down is correct in my opinion although I would not like it either.

 

[TheBigFinn]

For starters I like your play. You thought about Villain's range, but what does Villain think about Hero's range. What does Hero 5-bet preflop? AA, KK, maybe AKs, QQ, and and not many bluffs. When hero checks back, his range isn't diminished at all. There are no draws and hero's winners are monsters (just like hero assumes Villain's are and his losers are way behind.

When the A hits the turn, Hero is supper strong and looks it when he bets. What does Villain think Hero's range has been reduced to? Not much of a reduction. Hero could have turned QQ into a bluff, But his AA, AKs are now boats and KK is quads. Villain check calls anyway, taking QQ and any random pair out of her range.

River is a blank and Villain bets. She either has the K quads and has been walking the dog or thinks her AK boats is at least good for a tie and Hero might see it as AA and fold. No way to tell what Villain is doing, but re-raising the river gets almost everything but K quads to fold, so there is no value in betting here.

As been previously observed, if Villain has the K quads you lost the minimum. If she didn't she was unlikely to call the river re-raise any way.

Good hand.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

When we are this deep, I don't HATE 5betting, but I actually think my default would be to not have a 5betting range, and flat or fold vs a 4bet here, especially in position.

I think the flop reasoning is fine, and I'd put it in the context of our range. We most likely 5bet something like QQ+ (assume QQ is not all combos), AKs, and maybe occasionally A5s and AQs? It's difficult to say what I even want my cbet strategy to be here on this board, but I think it's super reasonable to have it be something like this:

Cbet small (maybe $1,200ish):
A5s (call it 2 combos) (bluff)
AQs (call it 1 combo) (bluff)
AKs (2 combos) (value)

Check back:
AA (6 combos)
KK (1 combo)
QQ (6 combos)

There would be some other interesting ways to structure a strategy here, like immediately deciding to turn QQ into a bluff, since even though it unblocks AK, it also unblocks aces, which we might be able to bluff off across multiple streets but I think that's super ambitious and probably not good as a default strategy.

If our strategy looks approximately like the above, then our range getting to the turn is now: AA (3 combos), KK (1 combo), and QQ (6 combos). Which is definitely a little awkward cause we are hyper polarized now to mega nutted and basically combos that can never win.

If we think his whole calling range is AK, KK, and AA to a half pot bet, and he retains all combos, I'm curious to see each hand's equity in our own range vs villain range.

AA: 66% equity (3 combos)
KK: 98% equity (1 combo)
QQ: 0% equity (6 combos)

I'm honestly pretty unsure what sizing makes sense. Typically when we're so polarized ourselves I'd advocate going quite large, but he himself will be pretty polarized to basically nuts and nothing too. I think the main thing is that he retains AK combos that we may not, and he will probably not fold them to any reasonable sizing. So while it'd be hyper unbalanced, we could consider just going into give up mode with QQ (knowing there's only one combo left of QQ in HIS range for him to be able to bluff us off of, and thinking we only have fold equity against that one combo ourselves) and then going large with our betting range?

But whatever, we bet 1/3. The thing is he's probably still never folding QQ, but I'm unsure if we will sometimes check raise KK due to our sizing here. He probably still never check raises AK.

So we get to the river and leads biggish. IF our range is QQ+, we have to call with AA and KK because we have too many QQ combos. IF our whole range is just KK+ though... things get a little weird.

Like from a MDF perspective, he's betting 80% pot so he lays himself 5 to 4 which means our MDF is around 45%. So in theory we don't "have to defend" all our combos of AA. However in practicality I'm never mixing here, and always calling, because I feel like the way the hand was played, he might not really understand the value of a hand like AK (that it's not performing that well) and just bet.

In practice I also expect to get shown KK like a lot. A LOT. But these spots are so rare and so weird that on the off chance he's doing something really weird and stupid I am never folding.

 

[RunItOnce_James]

Looks good to me. You could make an argument for making a small bet on the flop but this is such an uncommon spot that I wouldn't be too worried about how you build your range as a whole here. If you think that villain is competent, I don't see much point in raising the river.