2/4: Charging Opponent with Aces in a 3bet Pot

I will simply say that I play a lot of cards a lot of ways, but I’m always straight forward with aces pre-flop. I always picture Patrik Antonius and in this case 4Bet to an even 100 nice and easy to call.

If they fold, I smile and quietly muck my hand face down like I’ve seen Patrik do so many times. This is just not that bad of a result to me. If they call, that’s good too.

Don’t want to convince anyone that a 4Bet is the best play here. It’s just what I will do every single time. Not many things I do every time.

Don’t think you could rely on a flop check-raise with this line, but I like the idea as played.

I'm like most and raise AA nearly always, but I have occasionally flatted AA to a bet/3b for deception, but its nearly always when I'm in position. OOP it's gonna be harder to build a pot up.

As played I'm betting 60-70 hoping to get called by KK and JJ assuming both in his range. I feel KK carries on on turn a lot, so by river I think his range is weighted to JJ, AK motsly with KK, QQ, AA, AQ at lower rates.

So you have bluffs in your 4 betting range but you don't have any value hands?

I'd probably 4bet exactly KK for value, against this player. But I don't worry about balancing. Against players with ego problems who think folding to my raise will make them less manly, I have no 4bet bluff range (or 3bet bluff range for that matter). My play in general is grossly unbalanced vs 90% of the live field

Reveal: So I really didn't think KK was in the range after the Turn check, so I figured I'm either against AK or JJ or TT. And AK probably doesn't pay anything, so I should just choose a sizing that JJ or TT will pay -- and I thought they'd probably pay a lot given how the hand went down, so I bet 120 (reminder that the pot was 166, so it's a three-quarter Pot bet). Villain said "that strong, huh?" and then thought for a while and called. After I showed, he said he had "just a pocket pair", which I took to mean JJ or TT, though I guess it doesn't actually rule out KK.

Seems like this sizing was decent based on what other people wanted to do, but I agree the real story of this hand is missing the check-raise on the Flop (or even the donk).

I actually kind of love the donk bet the more I think about it because it would be such a WTF move that you're not supposed to do, and also because everyone is obsessed with slowplaying Aces, so I don't think anyone expects Aces to flat a 3bet and then donk the Flop. And I don't think it looks like a set either (who calls with a small pair, gets the perfect flop, and then announces that they have it right away?).

Imagine donking the Flop for 60, checking the Turn and, assuming Villain checks behind, betting 250 on the River. That line looks so weird that I bet you'd get looked up by JJ. Wish I had played that way.

Since when are we obsessed with slow playing aces?

Yeah you should 4bet KK against almost every player and you should have 4bet aces in this hand as well. You're losing so much value by not 4betting. The goal isn't to win small, the goal is to win big, especially with your nutted hands.

If you don't have any 3bet bluffs then you have a major leak in your game.

I prefer winning 200€ over winning 40€, but thanks for the well argued point and understanding everything I said.

I think it's a thing among most weak players, not so much people who visit this forum

Appreciate you kknoob24
Have seen some thoughtful comments

Recurring theme from you: Goal is not to win small, but to win big with your big hands. I agree, but I have to balance this with taking the dead money without variance.

Also agree, you must 3Bet bluff - probably can get away never 4Bet bluffing, but If you don’t 3Bet at the right frequency, it costs you money. You have to recognize when these situations arise.

I think when you make some moves here and there & don’t play too unreasonably tight. Then driving aces isn’t noticed.
Don’t overthink it.

i think ip u can flat vs the 3b some but oop i think its too hard to actually get money in the pot

Grunch:

PRE - all due respect to your reads, you're too deep to just flat call pre and play the rest of the hand OOP against an uncapped range. If V is tight-passive, I'd think his 3B range is pretty strong, perhaps strong enough that he won't mind putting you all in with a 5B jam.

FLOP - Part of the reason I want to 4B pre is so that we'll have the betting initiative going to the flop. If we 4B pre, we get to effectively range-bet almost any flop for a small size. Now we have to choose between check-raising and hoping he just calls, or check-calling, and letting him dictate the size of the pot we play.

As played, when V bets 1/2 pot in a 3BP, there isn't much we can do but flat call. If he bet smaller, I might check-raise, but a x/r vs a 1/2 PSB looks so strong here, and stops him from bluffing when he just has AK / AQ type hands.

Then again, we double-block AK/AQ, so he's more likely to have TT-KK, and he's not folding those hands to a x/r, so I suppose we could x/r, perhaps for a smallish size, like 2.5x. That's a size that may not generate too much fold equity, and lets us play the rest of the hand with the betting lead.

If we make it $100, it should be easy enough to get stacks in by the river. We can bet $200-$250 on the turn, and set up a less than PSB jam.

TURN - That's an interesting check-back when the BDFD appears. Hard to think he'd check back AQ/KQ or better, so I'd be giving him either TT or JJ, when we have the Ad in our hand, blocking him from having the NFD.

RIVER - At this point, we've under-repped our hand, and we've failed to maximize the pot size as a result. With the Ad in our hand, it's credible that we might get here with AXdd, or just all the combos of AK, and over-bet as a bluff when he checks back the turn.

As such, I think I'd bet 2x pot and pray he can't find a fold with TT-JJ now that the board has paired Q's, making it less likely we have one (or the one combo of QQ).

It's a shame. We really should have been playing for stacks here. Instead we're letting him keep about 200.

Taking you at your word on the bold / underlined part above:

So what?

You're playing a low stakes game, wherein many people may 3B wide and over-fold to 4B's. If people are calling your 4B's 1/3 to 1/2 the time, that actually seems like you're getting called a fair bit. I'm pretty LAG, and my 4B's don't get called that much. Maybe 1/5.

Not wanting to get wrapped up in the actual frequencies, if your point is that opponents over-fold to your 4B's, open up your 4B range a bit.

If you think THIS guy over-folds to your 4B, I'd caution you to consider what I and others have said. Notwithstanding your read that he's capable of making a disciplined laydown, you also said he's tight-passive, which should make his 3B range pretty strong. He shouldn't be in too big a rush to fold.

If you 4B him, he may level himself into thinking he's flipping against AK, and rip it in with JJ+. Even if he only has TT, he may not be able to fold before the flop. Instead of worrying he may find a tight fold pre, worry he may find a disciplined fold post. Let's get more money into the pot before he exercises that discipline.

The goal should be to get as much money into the pot as possible, as soon as possible, when we have top of range. Let's not let this guy see a cheap flop, and then decide how much he likes his hand, while we're struggling to cajole him into putting more money in, from OOP.

Suppose you min-clicked him to $70 or $80. Is there any chance he finds a fold before the flop? Unlikely. He'd call, and we could just go bet-bet-bet on most run-outs. We'd almost certainly have won more with that line than we did here.

Even your river bet was too small, when you get there the way you did. If he's calling 120 into 166, he'd call 170, and if he's calling 170, he's calling 180, and probably 200.

If you go 2x pot, yes, maybe he folds more of his range, but it doesn't change much when we've narrowed the range we're targeting for value down to just JJ and TT. Like, if he's disciplined, he's probably not getting here and calling the 120 with 88 or worse. So we really are just targeting JJ and TT.

When he checks back the turn, he's doing it for pot control, with the intention of calling if we bet river, almost no matter what size we choose. And he should be able to intuit that we'll be bluffing a ton when he checks back the turn, and the most obvious draw in our range bricks.

We couldn't ask for a better river card to go huge for value, expecting JJ and TT to get curious enough to flick in the call, when our range is mostly going to be AK that HAS to bluff if we want to make him fold a PP lower than QQ.