1/3 4bet pot deep stacks

The limp/4! with AK is interesting, but I don't like doing that with AK deep. Limp reraising with AA/KK is looked down about, but seems effective here if people will call it. If you are going to balance, you might limp/3! a suited connector or something, which might be easier to play postflop than AK.

PRE - If you're going to do this move pre-flop, you need to go MUCH bigger, like $300, when there's already been a raise and a 3B, and six other people showing interest in the hand.

Honestly, if I limped UTG to do this, I might abort mission facing this action, and just fold.

FLOP - I think we should c-bet something here, like $150-ish, to deny some equity.

TURN - I'm hesitant to fold here. But I don't love calling or raising. I'm not too worried about V1 when he checks twice.

Our Q outs may not be good against a made flush. And V is betting pretty big into three opponents, with one all-in, and the side pot pretty small.

I dunno man. This is a tough one. With only $150 invested so far, I think I might let this one go.

Pre is way too small - there is $160 in the pot and you are raising it to $150. V1 & V2 already have $30 so it's $120 into a $280 pot if everyone else folded. When CO calls, the pot odds are better for V1. An aggro player is continuing 100% of their range, when he tank calls, he was almost certainly thinking between raising and calling. Folding never crossed his mind. When V1 calls, V2 can only shove or call. So I would proceed forward with the assumption that V1 had a borderline shipping hand if you can draw any conclusion from the timing.

Flop - absolutely mandatory c-bet imo. You have the Ac, you are the only one who can represent the nuts on a flush completing turn. If you had AKcc, are you c-betting? Probably nearly 100%. By checking, you open up the door for two aggro players to gain the initiative. Your AKo 4-bet pre is a bluff, and this is one of the best flops you can have to continue the bluff. $150-$200 bet on the flop, with the intention of jamming a lot of turns. That's how you would play most of your range because your range is basically QQ+ & AK.

Turn - This is why you needed to c-bet. You waved the green flag for V2 to bet. If you bet $150 on the flop, V2 checks turn a ton more whether he has it or not and you have the option to check back or shove for $570ish if I did my math right. C-bet $150, jam $570, that's really hard for him to call with anything other than a flush and since he can't have the nut flush and you have AKs a lot here, he might make a hero fold with a small flush. He showed he can fold a decent made hand against V1 in the hh. I don't think V1 is a concern, at best he has an underpair or maybe AQ I don't think he is slow-playing anything, if he hit, he'd have bet the turn if not the flop.

So turning to V2, the problem is his range is wide open. He has all the sets, he has JT, he has AJ, KJ, QJ, AT, KT, QT, etc. He was calling with fantastic pot odds and from the blind people overplay offsuit broadway, so a hand like KcJx is in his range and would absolutely play this way. He could also have KQ with a club. Since it is a dryish side pot, I'd bet he mostly has one pair hands. The problem is that a one pair hand beats you, and you don't have enough fold equity to push him off one pair. The good news is that you have 25% equity even against a set, so a call vs a set is losing $22. Maybe sometimes when you hit V will bluff/pay off your flush with the rest so you can quickly gain that back playing hit or fold on the river. At worst, you lose $145 against KQcc. You are winning +$70 if he has KcJx before river play. So against an aggro that you just waved the green flag at, I think you have enough room to snatch a break-even play from the jaws of defeat because he'll have enough thinner value that you have good equity against. I think you have to call, I think shoving is a mistake with no fold equity and nearly 100% of the time you are behind right now.

"Hero has been tight passive preflop, stationlike postflop against aggro players." - That's the key mistake IMO. You played too passively and aggro players thrive on that. If you are going to let me dictate when the money goes in, I'm going to exert maximum pressure in the most uncomfortable spots. By checking back the flop, you gave V2 the greenlight to seize control of the initiative and put you in a very uncomfortable position. If you had c-bet the flop and then jammed turn, suddenly it is V2 who is in a very uncomfortable position with his AJ/KJ/QJ that might be drawing thin to dead. Instead, V2 now has very easy decisions if you jam - he calls.

When facing aggro players, you need to meet their aggression with aggression. If you play passively, they will run you over and steal far more pots from you than you can ever make up when the occasional traps might work. Because sometimes you have AKcc here and he gets stacked, but there are 15 other combos of AK so 94% of the time you don't if AK were the only combo you played this way. And AK probably is the only combo you play this way. When you checked the flop, you let him know that you don't have an overpair, you probably don't have a FDFD and you certainly don't have a set. With such a large pot, in position, even the nittiest players would have c-bet virtually all the time with those hands because there are draws all over the place and you'd be perfectly happy to just go hu against the all in. So what hands is a passive tight pre-flop player 4-betting if they don't have AA/KK/QQ/JJ? That leaves AK. In his mind, he knows you have AK and I suspect he made it this price to milk you. He could be as weak as QT.

I didn't know ppl can call 150$ preflop. I thought I was supposed to take it down pre good amounts of time. The raise is small relative to the pot, but it's big relative to the game. Somehow V1 and V2 think I was giving them pot odds to call.

Cbet flop??? really? hardly any side pot. I thought our mission is to go showdown cheaply even with a hand like AA. 1 allin, 3way action, on a wet board.

Yea I probably should've let it go on the turn.

Really??? 100%???? Raising??? overcalling the 3bet then back5bet????? I never knew aggro players spews so much.

Hm...Is it mandatory??? There's barely any sidepot. At the end of the day we have A high, betting into 2 other players on a wet board.

These are all dominated hands, do they really overcall 3bets/4bets with these?

Depends on board and hand. When I have marginal hands that has showdown value, my first instinct is to go to showdown cheaply if possible and not turn them into bluffs. We can have all sort of bluffs/semibluffs which is way better than turning showdown value into bluffs. Also, some aggro players are very sticky even when facing aggression, it's like they're aggro yet also have station tendencies combined. So imho, turning into a station/nit against aggro players can maximize EV sometimes.

Yea true, position matters too much against them. If I'm out of position I'm less inclined to call down light when I know I might be facing 3 barrels. In position, we can call/raise/fold and pick our poison against them. Yes I get run over when I'm out of position vs them.

Regarding pre-flop, there are a couple problems. The first is the short stack who cold calls the $30 3B off $122. He's not folding, so we need to take that into account when action gets back to us and we contemplate the 4B. We need to think about the fact that he'll be all in for less, creating a side-pot if anyone else calls behind.

Even disregarding the CO, the V's in the blinds have cold-called a 3B from OOP. They both have hands they like. Even if we think the CO is going to fold (we shouldn't think that, but if we do), they could still come along for another $120, with so much dead money in the pot.

If we're paying attention to the action, we should see there's about $160 in the pot already, and there will be another $90 when CO calls all-in for less. With our $150, the pot will be $400 getting back around to the blinds, who'll only need to call off another $120 to see the flop, and another $750 eff behind - appetizing pot odds / implied odds for V's who are either aggro, or running hot, or both.

If you want to sell the idea that you have AA/KK, then SELL it, with an obnoxiously large cold 4B. Going to $150 looks like you're trying to find an efficient size with a bluff, hoping it will get through. If you raise $300 into $160, that's 1/3 your effective stack of $900. Anyone who understands the game will see you're not screwing around, and there's no fold equity if they jam.

Once we get to the flop, all our over-pairs are going to want to bet for value and protection. So, yes, we want to c-bet here. The fact that there's not much in the side-pot doesn't matter as much if we're repping QQ+ and betting for value and protection.

Generally, we get to c-bet small with nearly 100% frequency in 4B pots. It's unusual to be in a 4B pot multi-way, with another player all-in, so that should cut down on our bluffs. But we can continue to semi-bluff here, with the Ac in our hand. It's not that we're hoping to make a flush, it's that we block the NFD's that are going to want to continue to a c-bet.

There's a reasonably good chance that we have the CO beat with AK. It would be a tragedy to let either V with a draw spike a pair and win the main and side pot, if we can fold out some of those hands on the flop.

"Hm...Is it mandatory??? There's barely any sidepot. At the end of the day we have A high, betting into 2 other players on a wet board." Yes, we bloated the pot preflop, we have a hand with decent odds of being ahead or drawing out on whatever CO has and we have two Vs with wide open ranges. If we wanted to play small-ball, then we could have called the 3! and seen a flop cheap playing fit or fold. But when choosing the high variance path of 4 betting AKo when three players already called a 3!, I think slowing down on a favorable flop is a disaster.

The side pot is "only" $80, but that's half your preflop bet back if V1 & 2 both fold and you have great equity against COs range to win the rest. CO, V1 & V2 all had the option to 4! themselves and chose to flat. So probably no AA/KK. More importantly, it gives you the option to bluff the turn which I think is the logical path on a bunch of turns.

Your range is QQ/KK/AA and AK is your "bluff". That's your whole range. 13 combos that love to gii on this flop, and the other 15 have at least a gutshot to the nuts. We have range and nut advantage, which means we should bet frequently. You could actually bet big if you were deep enough because you don't have enough bluffs for a 1/3rd bet theoretically.

Yes I agree we have to call OTT AP. V2 was probably hoping to x/jam the flop. If we bet $150 on the flop and he jams for $500 more it's a fold we can consider now that he told us he smashed the flop. The problem OTT is we don't know if he hit hard, or is value betting lighter because we showed weakness so we are priced in and then repriced in when we find out he is strong because we picked up just enough equity.