How to continue if 3! AK or other high cards and miss on low flop OOP?

I would default to checking range from OOP and HU as the PFR. Let our opponents stab at the pot and tell us how strong they are with their bet sizing and future actions.

In H1, it's hard for the initial raiser to connect with 998, so I'd check, and maybe call a small bet, or fold to a big bet, with AKo. We don't have enough going on to want to play a big pot, especially when OOP, and our pair outs may not be any good.

In H2, it's pretty much the same story, except that or V cold-called a 3B, so even though he's unlikely to have connected with this board, neither are we, and he could have some over-pairs here that want to bet for value and protection. I'd probably take the same line - check-call a small bet, check-fold to a big bet.

H1, I went x/x. Turn was a 4 and went x/he bet 35. Should I have bet the turn? What do I do to the bet?

H2, I cbet 30. Won't give results yet.

I thought when you 3!, you should usually continue, representing QQ-AA.

H1: OOP, bet a skosh more to 40. Not your question, ofc. Me, unlike Doc, I don't mind continuing the betting lead on 998r. I'll have A8o/A9o though in my SB 3! ranges. AP, calling turn. They don't have anything either, odds are, and are just stabbing. The 4 didn't alter anything, so just call and see a river. You might still be ahead.

H2: 762 two-tone. I'm waiting on old guy on button. My 3! range rarely intersects this. Best I'll have is either a broadway spade draw or an OP, and I'm not eager to start building a pot until I hear from overcalling old guy. Happy to do the delayed cbet thing on turn.

Though, this depends on your variety of old guy. A lot of them, go ahead and fire 1/3 on flop. This prevents some bigger bet from, "I have a 7 and the FD or I have 89 and the FD," guy. If they raise this b33, we can usually fold, knowing we're beat. Betting can prevent a spaz, firing some b66 or more bet. I'm just not that enthused to play guessing games with only two overs and no real re-draw. We don't have 77/66/22 or 98ss. They can. They paid the price, got a favorable flop for their range and a really good one vs our hand: go them. I ain't pushing it, and I'll get them next hand.

Yeah, I guess checking is often good to see what the other player does. I have seen that in some Hungry Horse videos, etc. I guess live players tend to give a lot of information by whether they bet and the sizing. I learned sort of old school cbetting and thought you should cbet representing AA.

Checking from OOP puts the pressure on our opponents to decide if they want to start a bluff, or bet for thin value, as opposed to c-betting from OOP and having to decide if we want to try and run a multi-street bluff with ace-high when V calls our c-bet.

So the standard approach is no longer to fire 3-barrels and go allin after 3-betting and missing with AK, etc.?

Would have been better if I checked H2 on 762. I cbet 30, old guy raised to 100, I folded, he showed QQ. Someone remarked I was bluffing. Good thing is if I really had AA/KK, I probably would have stacked him.

I'm sorry to say there's not a lot to say that's generalizable across all boards for all configs against all components.

I will say:

1. AK is usually a SDV hand

2. AK alone makes up 16 combos, and playing all your whiffed combos the same (either as a b/b/shove or xf/xf/xf) on boards where it's dead obvious you didn't improve is a good way to get owned by even your most mediocre opponents.

H1 I would raise $40 pre. I personally micro-bet flop and often end up xc'ing down after that.

H2 I think the range check as PFR fad is a little overrated, but out of position to an old cold caller on a board with connected middle cards is gonna be a check for me dog. If they bet, I'm turbo-folding and never giving the hand a second thought.

If they check back, then it's time to play some poker. There are huge exploitabilities on every node of the xx tree.

I'd call the 100% c-bet line an old-school approach to the game. It doesn't work as well when everyone's read Super System and will float with a wide range in position, just planning to steal the pot when we give up and check, or fold when they have nothing and we go bet-bet-bet.

Not surprised the old guy had an over-pair.

I don't hate the idea of c-betting super-small on the flop with AK, so long as we'll also do it with some nutted hands that would otherwise prefer to bet larger. The bet-small, check-call line with AK might have some merit if our opponents are prone to start blasting off when we check turns.

Don't under-estimate the power of the OOP check as the PFR. It's important to qualify that even though our default line is to check range, we're not literally checking 100% of our range on 100% of flops. There are scenarios where we'll deviate and take a c-bet line.

The value of checking from OOP is in the information we gain and the mistakes our opponents are prone to making when we check as the PFR, especially when most of them are expecting us to c-bet 100%.

That line can be super-profitable when an opponent assumes that our flop check means we're weak, and our delayed c-bet on the turn is FOS.

Is the old fart on BU in H2, the guy with 200? Cause if so, OK, thinking of the x-r a bit differently on 762. Because he "shouldn't" have any of the hands I'm concerned about, when V calls a 30 bet pf. If that V's deeper though, I am probably still folding with AA-KK when I get x-raised to 100 after betting 30. (Though I'm really not happy about it.) AP though, lolfold. Glad he showed. Go him for winning the minimum.

Oh, no, I wouldn't have folded AA/KK to raise from the old guy with a shortish stack on 762 2-flush. If he hit a set, he has me. He could have a worse overpair like he had or maybe a draw.

I am learning a lot from this thread. Knew I was making mistakes after 3-betting.

Think about what your entire range wants to do. You have some thick value hands here.

Also look up x back % at equilibrium for V here if we check 100% of range. V is supposed to check back a lot of overpairs.

Yeah, I figured with QQ+, I would usually bet/bet/bet, so checking makes it look like I don't have a big pair.

With the 998 flop, I thought I might check with AA, so I checked, having showdown value.

I can see it was a mistake to bet into the old guy cold caller, who usually would have 99+/AQ+.

Yes, the micro bet, xc, xc line is a specific exploit of population tendencies. For that reason, I would probably do it in a vacuum with this hand regardless. That being said, micro bets are an integral part of my strategy in full ring games, so I certainly show up with nutted hands after betting B25- quite often.

This probably deserves its own thread entirely, but at the highest level: I'm very skeptical of strategies that approximate GTO by being LESS aggressive than equilibrium when we have a range advantage against players whose main leak is passivity.

Problem 1: It's an anti-exploit

I suspect the reason range betting went from trend to mainstay is that it made people MORE aggressive than GTO, and in a way that incidentally exploited pool tendencies (overfolding and under-raising in general, exacerbated by a relative inelasticity to sizes).

Range checking generally moves us in the opposite direction. Now, the range checking crowd does start to speak my language when they talk about using it as a way to create an abusive x/CiB strategy when IP doesn't check as much as they're supposed to and/or they create huge imbalances in their range by range splitting their sizes, etc. But when used as a way to simplify strats and effectively turn it into a 2-street hand, I'd say you've got the wrong idea in any spot where you've got more hands that want to put 3 value bets in than your opponent.

Problem 2: It's the wrong conclusion

I also think the range checking trend suffers from a lack of creativity. Give a solver no betting options smaller than B300, and you'll get very low bet frequencies; plug in a min bet option and it probably takes the 1/30th pot bet quite a bit, even in H2. Oftentimes range checking is the wrong lesson to take from the fact that a solver doesn't bet 50-100% pot with all that much frequency. (Kinda tipping my hand here on how micro-betting ends up being a big part of my strategy in these games...)

All that being said...

I still do range check (and would indeed do it in one of the two hands posted here) and you already said you don't always range check. I mean, when there's a cold caller involved, I essentially treat them as the PFR. And PFR vs cold caller makes up the majority of situations where you'll find yourself OOP as the PFR in a single raised pot in live poker.

So our conclusions are probably the same in many (maybe even a plurality) of hands, but I think the rationale matters if you don't want to end up misapplying it in other parts of the tree (including, often, on a later node in the same hand). So take Hand 2, for example: I think the fact that I'm range checking because we're functionally the defender in this hand and I want to get to showdown as cheaply as possible is going to make my approach very different from someone who's range checking because they always range check OOP as PFR because SURPRISE we do still have QQ+ sometimes when we check. The same goes for what I said above about feeling better about range checking with a range advantage so long as we're doing it to x/r a ton.

Mostly what others said, but also...

1. H1 you really want to go bigger pre. You are OOP and you probably aren't 3betting much. The raise size does affect how I'd play this board though, with the small 3bet I'd be more likely to try to get to showdown. The bigger we went pre. the more I'd be betting 25%-33% pot.

2. H2 With a short stack old guy cold calling, and K high I'd happily open muck to get $10 back. Def. checking AA, and very likely x/r expecting him to stack off with any pair. This spot seems bad, but I think it's much better than being here with JJ/TT.

3. In both hands I'd be more concerned about what the final board will be than what the flop is. Like 992 in H1 isn't a much better flop for AK, or our range, but it's likely the full board will be better (esp. for our range).

Re, range checking vs range betting when OOP as the PFR...

This is a dramatic over-simplification, but one way to look at it is that if we're c-betting 100% of flops, whether we're IP or OOP, we're c-betting too much, and observant opponents can exploit this pretty easily. Having a default setting of checking range OOP and betting range IP accomplishes two things. It lowers our c-betting frequency to something more closely approximating "balance", and weights our c-bet frequency towards the hands when we have the additional advantage of being in position. So we're playing bigger pots IP and smaller pots OOP.

Having a default setting doesn't mean we never deviate. It simply gives us a starting point from which to deviate, and hopefully forces us to have logical reasons for deviating. There are scenarios in which we'll start out c-betting flop, looking to build a big pot, even when OOP, and scenarios when we'll check back IP.

I just don't see the reasoning for c-betting from OOP in either of these hands. We're not letting opponents out-play us by checking from OOP with a hand that has some marginal showdown value and doesn't want to play a huge pot. Quite the opposite. We're out-playing them when they incorrectly assume we're always checking when we whiff, and start bluffing or stabbing with weak value, because we will have check raises and check calls, not just check-folds.

In both these hands, I think check-call a small bet and check-fold to a large bet is a reasonable line with the nut no pair. We're just making things harder on ourselves if we decide we're going to deviate and out-play our opponent now, this hand, for no reason.

Settle down, Mike McDermott. V isn't Johnny Chan, just trying to push you around. Our low stakes opponents will probably make more mistakes vs a check than a c-bet, and we'll make fewer mistakes when we have more information gained from their response.

Deviating from equilibrium in order to exploit identifiable pool tendencies is a good thing actually.

(For the purposes of this response, I just assumed what you're referring to is even related to equilibrium or "balance" because trying to address that point low-key tilted me.)

I think it should be clear from my posts that I cbet more IP than OOP.

We both obviously agree here and have said as much.

Well how hard have you looked? I strongly suggested one very good reason in the very post you're responding to.

So there's a big difference between arguing that we should check AK and KQ specifically in these spots and saying you should check range. My stated reasons for checking H1 notwithstanding, both are reasonable plays in a vacuum.

If you were to argue that we should check these two hands but still bet others for exploitative reasons, I'd be all ears.

Again, even putting aside the fact it's not for "no reason", I'm not sure how micro-betting is making things harder on ourselves than it is on our opponent. To that, my friend, I humbly say "Opposite!"

Seems like a poor justification for checking aces, but I'm happy for you that you fit your Rounders roast in.

For any spot where you have more 3-street value hands than your opponent, the fact that villain isn't going to attack your checks is a great reason to not range check!

I don't even disagree with this out of hand and this could be a really interesting discussion. Hence why I said people pique my interest when they discuss specific lines and exploits like x/CiBing when opponent's range split their size.

But between your opening about "balance", your middle section about how you're going to surprise your opponent by not just check folding, and your ending about how villain isn't going to try to push you around it is entirely unclear to me (and seems unclear to you) what exact tendency you're ascribing to villain, much less exploiting by checking to them. This is quite a long post on such a subject to never once comment on the frequency villain is betting/checking/raising/folding, much less how that compares to equilibrium, much less how your adjustment exploits that.

With all due respect, it seems like you're just kinda sayin stuff.

You usually want to cbet QQ-AA after 3-betting. Sure, I agree with checking some hands on certain boards and maybe even range checking OOP on certain boards. However, you often want to go bet/bet/bet with and overpair, and you sometimes can represent an overpair and get folds when you don't have that much.

I would cbet and maybe barrel with air on a lot of flops as the 3-bettor. Sometimes, you want to check with showdown value, but not a hand to value bet, maybe AK/AQ or if you have 3rd pair or something from 3-betting a sc or Axs. Also, maybe check some flops, like paired boards and wet medium or low boards.

H1: x/c a small bet, but on paired boards we usually size up because we have all the overpairs. That doesn't mean you should cbet with AK, just know our range wants to bet big.

H2: x/f unless you have a backdoor flushdraw

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I'm pretty sure this is misleading, at best.

AIUI the big effect at play is that in solver land HU to the flop with "EP open; SB 3bet; EP call" EP has basically no 9x hands (when calling preflop it's roughly: 1 combo. of T9s and 1 combo 99, sliver of 98s, half a combo of 88). So by the flop V has maybe a full combo. (roughly 3% of range) that has improved.

The fact we have the better overpairs plays into it, but the main thing is that V's range is in bluff catching mode ... you can see this play out in responses where H bets 75% pot or checks but when H bets V has 0% raising range (and when H checks V still checks a lot and only bets 20% of pot).

This is important because IME humans have a lot more 9s.
Solver isn't even opening J9s UTG+2, less than half of Q9s/T9s and almost no 98s. Then it pure folds K9s/Q9s and half of T9s etc.
Also humans will raise flop.

You can maybe say that at 1-2 most humans aren't opening many 9's UTG+2 (because they split their range and limp them) ... but in solver land if you look at CO/BTN vs. SB even though V opens a bunch of suited 9's it's a similar result after the 3bet/call, and I think humans will be diverging a lot at that point.