AA UTG, facing a 3-bet from an unknown.

AA UTG, against a 3bet.

  • 4-bet.

    Votes: 18 58.1%
  • Call and lead any flop.

    Votes: 6 19.4%
  • Call and check raise any flop.

    Votes: 7 22.6%

  • Total voters
    31
tenbob

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This is just out of curiousity, what is your line here. 6th or so hand on the table, never played with the 3-bettor before, cold caller is also new to me, so no stats on either.

pokerstars Game #17223010005: Hold'em No Limit ($0.50/$1.00) - 2008/05/05 - 15:21:01 (ET)
Table 'Freia II' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: XXXCAT12 ($76.45 in chips)
Seat 2: thatssosick ($60.05 in chips)
Seat 3: LCG847 ($98.50 in chips)
Seat 4: tatze_jo ($20 in chips)
Seat 5: imoo88 ($18.50 in chips)
Seat 6: McFiddish ($100.50 in chips)
Seat 7: viensjent ($168.40 in chips)
Seat 8: BLUFFinSON!! ($83.75 in chips)
Seat 9: tenbob ($103.85 in chips)
viensjent: posts small blind $0.50
BLUFFinSON!!: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to tenbob [As Ah]
tenbob: raises $3 to $4
XXXCAT12: calls $4
thatssosick: raises $11 to $15
LCG847: folds
tatze_jo: folds
imoo88: folds
McFiddish: folds
viensjent: folds
BLUFFinSON!!: folds
tenbob: either................

4-bets.
Calls, and leads any flop.
Check raises any flop.

Edit : If you opt for calling, how does things change if the cold caller comes along for a flop ?
 
Last edited:
c9h13no3

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4-bet to remove XXXCAT12 & to counter our positional disadvantage. If this were heads up, it'd be a different story, and we'd just be calling to get money out of TT, JJ.
 
WVHillbilly

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I 4bet as well but I'm not surprised if they both fold. thatssosick is likely just running a squeeze here. Since we want him to stick around I might be tempted to basically min raise it to ~ $30.
 
zachvac

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effective stacks are important here, 60 and 76 BBs. Even the deeper stacked guy has now committed 1/5 of his stack while the other guy's at 1/4. I'd go for the call here and then lead out with a smallish bet on the flop, hoping to get re-raised. I figure if we flat this preflop and get flat called behind we've got $45 in the pot, so I'd lead out for like $15 (remember 45/61 behind at this point) knowing that 3 similarly sized bets will get stacks in by the river and that they are not getting implied odds from any hand to beat you by the flop. Deeper stacks I'd just 4-bet it though, no need to get fancy against unknowns.
 
vanquish

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don't 4-bet. call and lead for like 1/2 pot
 
c9h13no3

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don't 4-bet. call and lead for like 1/2 pot
Why would we be leading when AK makes up a large portion of his range? I think most villains are c-betting AK in a heads up pot. If its multi-way (and we're less likely to get a c-bet) then I can see an argument for leading.
 
OzExorcist

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Thinking about it, I can probably flat call this and check-raise the flop.

If the flat caller takes the flop as well I think it actually works in our favour, as we've got two players ahead of us who are likely to bet at the flop, and we've got a chance to trap some dead money in there with our check-raise.

We're shortening our odds slightly by letting them both come along for the ride, but we're still a significant favourite going to the flop.

I say this having thought about it for a few minutes, of course: with the hand actually in front of me and the clock ticking down, I probably just four-bet and hope the raiser's got QQ or AK or something else they can call with, and pout a little if everybody folds.
 
bob_tiger

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yea I think I would I would re raise this too, prolly around 35$ or so to try and figure out at least what he has.
 
tenbob

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yea I think I would I would re raise this too, prolly around 35$ or so to try and figure out at least what he has.

Who cares Bob ? Why would raising help matters ? We know we have the best hand, all that matters is how we extract the most value from it.
 
bob_tiger

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Who cares Bob ? Why would raising help matters ? We know we have the best hand, all that matters is how we extract the most value from it.

I care. " all that matters is how we extract the most value from it" and "This is just out of curiousity, what is your line here. 6th or so hand on the table, never played with the 3-bettor before, cold caller is also new to me, so no stats on either" Ok let me explain why I bring this up. In your very first line you say you have no stats on these guys correct?

ok, and then after i posted that I would raise to try and figure out what he has you said who cares, well you are contradicting yourself, you want to extract most out of the hand but how can you? you don't know what the other guy has since you never played him/her w/e it is. I think this is a hand where you want to play your opponent rather than your hand at your level.
Raising will eliminate the xxcat12 since i believe she/he is on a marginal hand here and will get you heads up. If thatssosick pushes you back, this is an easy call for you obviously, if he smooth calls imo I think we can say that he don't have KK here so K on flop wouldnt hurt you and etc. Do you see what I'm trying to say now?
 
OzExorcist

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Raising will eliminate the xxcat12 since i believe she/he is on a marginal hand here and will get you heads up.

While this is true, I don't think it's really addressing the point: the important question is why would we want to push the flat caller out?
 
c9h13no3

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While this is true, I don't think it's really addressing the point: the important question is why would we want to push the flat caller out?
Because the flat caller's range is the most deadly to our hand. Suited connectors, JT & smaller pocket pairs will all call a raise like this from us. We'd like to just take that money he originally called with and go heads up against AK/TT+

Someone did bring up a good point about them not having full stacks, so implied odds isn't as much of an issue. However, I still think getting more money in the pot while we're ahead is a good thing. This may be coming from the tiny stakes I play at though, where villains cannot & will not fold JJ preflop.
 
bob_tiger

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Because the flat caller's range is the most deadly to our hand. Suited connectors, JT & smaller pocket pairs will all call a raise like this from us. We'd like to just take that money he originally called with and go heads up against AK/TT+

Someone did bring up a good point about them not having full stacks, so implied odds isn't as much of an issue. However, I still think getting more money in the pot while we're ahead is a good thing. This may be coming from the tiny stakes I play at though, where villains cannot & will not fold JJ preflop.

Thank you just beat me to this, and covered pretty much everything i was going to say. We really dont want to get involved in a multi pot with aces heads up is our best option imo
 
blankoblanco

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don't 4-bet. call and lead for like 1/2 pot

leading is dumb. most anything that's gonna call off the rest of their stack is going to bet themselves when checked to, so the main thing you accomplish by calling and leading is letting AK get away instead of possibly c-betting all in drawing practically dead

do note their stack sizes
 
OzExorcist

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Thank you just beat me to this, and covered pretty much everything i was going to say. We really dont want to get involved in a multi pot with aces heads up is our best option imo

I know I'm gonna start sounding annoying any time now, but again, I've gotta ask why - why don't we want to get involved in a multi-way pot with aces?

Granted, taking the flop against two players rather than one reduces our odds a little, but we're still the overwhelming favourite.
 
bob_tiger

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I know I'm gonna start sounding annoying any time now, but again, I've gotta ask why - why don't we want to get involved in a multi-way pot with aces?

Granted, taking the flop against two players rather than one reduces our odds a little, but we're still the overwhelming favourite.

if we don't raise here, 1- we don't know what hands we are up against since we have never played against either player 2- our odds do go down as you have mentioned and why would we want to make our decisions harder on flop? do you know what im trying to say now?
 
vanquish

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i hope you're not saying that you want to fold out a hand like JTs so you can isolate against something like AQ....
 
zachvac

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leading is dumb. most anything that's gonna call off the rest of their stack is going to bet themselves when checked to, so the main thing you accomplish by calling and leading is letting AK get away instead of possibly c-betting all in drawing practically dead

do note their stack sizes

ok I've changed my mind, I like this line better lol. Also if they check behind on flop the stacks are short enough that we can probably get their stacks in by the river anyway if they're flat calling.

And to bob_tiger, your statement is similar to the logic of shoving with 27o. If they call we know we're beat. Information is only useful if we can use it later. Say we 4-bet and they fold, we learned they didn't have a hand they wanted to stack preflop. They folded and we can extract exactly 0 more value. How did that information help us?
 
OzExorcist

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if we don't raise here, 1- we don't know what hands we are up against since we have never played against either player 2- our odds do go down as you have mentioned and why would we want to make our decisions harder on flop? do you know what im trying to say now?

I've known what you're saying all along - I'm actually trying to get you to see the alternative point of view.

Some rebuttals though:

1 - We have the best starting hand in the game. We really don't need to know anything more than that at this stage. There's nothing we can do at this stage that will tell us exactly what our opponents are holding. We might be able to narrow down their range slightly, but I don't see how that's really going to help us.

2 - As I said, the fact that taking the flop with two opponents rather than one lessens our odds is a give. But we're talking about the difference between being an 85% favourite and a 78% favourite or something like that - it's not as if we're turning this into a marginal hand or anything.
 
bob_tiger

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Yea I also understand what you are trying to explain, but we have different opinions and personally I don't like being to greedy so I rather be up vs 1 player and have a great hand and chance to take down a nice enough pot.
 
WVHillbilly

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You guys all seem to think that by flat calling that XXXCat12 will come along as well. It's fairly likely that he'll fold no matter what we do here. I still like getting a little more $$ preflop.
 
OzExorcist

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I don't necessarily think he'll come along every time if we just flat call - but we've got a much better chance of keeping him involved by calling than we do by raising.

Raising also means we run the risk of losing both our customers: remember that four-betting with two opponents still to act pretty much screams "I have either AA, KK or maybe AK if you're lucky". That makes it very tough for either of them to call you.
 
WVHillbilly

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I don't necessarily think he'll come along every time if we just flat call - but we've got a much better chance of keeping him involved by calling than we do by raising.

Raising also means we run the risk of losing both our customers: remember that four-betting with two opponents still to act pretty much screams "I have either AA, KK or maybe AK if you're lucky". That makes it very tough for either of them to call you.

Agreed that's why we give him great odds with a minraise. If he has nothing and is just squeezing he'll fold but he'd have to hit the flop HARD to put any more $$ in on the flop anyway.
 
vanquish

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another option is calling preflop and open folding flop
 
WVHillbilly

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^^^^^ Obviously knows AA never holds up.
 
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