AKo oop 3bet spot on Q high board

People often cbet too much especially in 3bet spots. And OOP when they should be a bit more careful. Now you have just 2 overcards, the board isn't super scary and villain might call one which leads to difficulties OTT. Now you check which looks weak and villain automatically bets because you just never would check any strong hand. And you have to fold.

So my approach would be to just check this. And if villain bets I think folding might be just fine. Cbetting is indeed also an option, especially if villain folds a bit too much vs cbets as he likely does. I would just make the bet sizing a bit smaller.

This hand was interesting because I think there are many lines that could be just fine, so I checked what Snowie would do in this situation.
OTF it looks like cbetting and checking have the same EV and it would mix in some checks some cbets. If we would check here and villain bets half pot, then it would actually call but the EV is not much higher than 0.

So in this is correct spot c-bet and give up OTT, or check-fold / check-call (if only half pot)?

According to Snowie it doesn't pretty much matter.
But my opinion is check/call is better. If you don't feel very comfortable in playing postflop in 3bet pots I think even check/fold can be fine. We don't have that many cards that improve us OTT. With a backdoor flush draw I would lean more towards check/call.

Vs CO it doesn't work, but if we change the spot to "vs BTN", I see in Combonator (unfortunatelly I don't know how to upload picture) that he has to call so many hands. (and I count with 66% sizing) - e.x. he has to call something like 66, 77, A3s to don't let me get autoprofit here - and I don't think so he will call or raise with many BD's.

Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

Hero (SB): $5.52 (110.4 bb)
BB: $4.80 (96 bb)
UTG: $3.26 (65.2 bb)
MP: $5.59 (111.8 bb)
CO: $10.99 (219.8 bb)
BTN: $5.19 (103.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K♦: A♥:
UTG raises to $0.15, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.45, BB folds, UTG calls $0.30

Flop: ($0.95) 6♦: 6♣: 7♠: (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $0.46, Hero calls $0.46

Turn: ($1.87) 3♠: (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

River: ($1.87) 8♥: (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $1.79, Hero folds

Results:

Does Combonator have a GTO solver or how did you figure that out?
But the main idea here is that no one actually defends enough. If villain would play perfectly then we obviously would play this differently.

Originally posted by la55i
Does Combonator have a GTO solver or how did you figure that out?.

Just count it. I bet to pot this amount, he can't let me do it with any two cards from my rest of the range, so he has to (pot odds) defend this % of range.

So with AK we really want to hit the TP or draw, otherwise we are in c/f mode?

Originally posted by Willy411

Originally posted by la55i
Does Combonator have a GTO solver or how did you figure that out?.

Just count it. I bet to pot this amount, he can't let me do it with any two cards from my rest of the range, so he has to (pot odds) defend this % of range.

Yea we can easily calculate villain's minimum defending frequency and get some kind of an idea how often he should be calling but in reality it doesn't quite work like that.
A GTO answer will be different here than what you can see with a calculator (or in this case with combonator). You need a GTO solver to see how much villain really should defend.
And still you shouldn't think that your villain plays optimally. You said that villain "has to call" but in reality he probably doesn't do that.

Originally posted by Willy411
So with AK we really want to hit the TP or draw, otherwise we are in c/f mode?

Wellll not exactly. If we begin from the pre-flop, with AK you even might not want villain to call your 3bet, it depends a bit.
If your 3bet gets called and you see the flop, then you have about 30% chance of hitting and A or K.
If you don't hit, it depends a bit on the board what you want to do. And also it depends whether you are in position or out of position.
Now in this situation I wouldn't want to cbet OOP with just A high. So I would prefer checking and then maybe folding vs a bet.
If this hand was suited and you would have a backdoor flush draw to go with it, then I would lean towards check calling more.

So we can't say in general that we want to hit TP with AK or otherwise we give up. There are several scenarios where we can play this hand one way or the other.

You need a GTO solver to see how much villain really should defend.

Why? you can count it!

You said that villain "has to call" but in reality he probably doesn't do that.

Yes, but if he won't do it, he is gonna loose money in longrun - mean, you should exploit it than

If this hand was suited and you would have a backdoor flush draw to go with it, then I would lean towards check calling more.

So we can't say in general that we want to hit TP with AK or otherwise we give up. There are several scenarios where we can play this hand one way or the other.

I understand that.. So hit TP / BD? : ).
I still thinking.. exploitatively he would stab the pot OTF very often. I think we should defend it. Cause which hands you gonna have in this spot for c/c?? All PP you gonna c-bet and lower PP you dont have in the range. So if we won't have AK in call, which hands we gonna c/c here? (we have to, otherwise he can stab OTF everytime)

Originally posted by Willy411

You need a GTO solver to see how much villain really should defend.

Why? you can count it!

That is because you risked money on earlier streets. Then villain can basically let you make some profit on the flop as long as you will not generate auto-profit from the whole hand. So on the long run, even if he is going to defend a bit less than what you said, you won't be printing money.
It is not long time ago that I was struggling with the same thing and I basically thought just like you do, that we can calculate it. Then I educated myself a bit more and also asked that from Matthew Janda (the author of Applications of No-Limit Hold 'em and No-Limit Hold 'em for Advanced Players) and the conclusion is that we can't calculate the minimum defending frequency on some postflop spots.

Originally posted by Willy411

You said that villain "has to call" but in reality he probably doesn't do that.

Yes, but if he won't do it, he is gonna loose money in longrun - mean, you should exploit it than

Yes, if villain doesn't play optimally he can be exploited and he should be exploited. You talked about how much villain should call there. My point was that you are not exploiting him if you assume he plays optimally when he really doesn't.

Cause which hands you gonna have in this spot for c/c?? All PP you gonna c-bet and lower PP you dont have in the range.

If we play this optimally then we are not going to cbet all pocket pairs. Most of the hands in our range can be basically be played either as a check or as a bet.
Then if we play like that and we decide to check call, we shouldn't be in trouble because we kept enough decent hands in our checking range. That is what I'm suggesting. Although I would tend to check call more than a GTO solver would.

It is not long time ago that I was struggling with the same thing and I basically thought just like you do, that we can calculate it. Then I educated myself a bit more and also asked that from Matthew Janda

Interesting... I understand that.. But if you calculate without it (if you don't have or you need to calculate faster), the result won't be much different I suppose.. And the % is the minimum you have to defend, you can't less. It is correct?

"Now, what confuses many players is that you only have a minimum defense frequency in certain spots." <-- One of them is for example when villain is raising us.

That quote is form the latter book from Janda that I mentioned.

Then there is an example of a situation where BTN opens, BB calls and BTN bets half pot OTF. With that min def calculation, villain bets half pot so he must win 33% immediately to gain auto-profit, so you must defend 67%, right?

"If you answered 67% then you have made a common mistake" then some "his range is stronger -- he has position -- it is reasonable for him to be able to profitably bet."

Now when you 3bet preflop you are risking money. You put 0.4$ there. Even if villain would fold too much on the flop and you get an expected value OTF of 0.2$ you are still losing money. So he can let you bet the flop profitably.

To conclude all of this, there are a lot of variables you must take into consideration if you want to figure out what is mathematically the best play. If you want to play as close to GTO as possible, you have to play a lot with the solvers. If you just use the method you mentioned above without taking those variables into consideration you might be shooting yourself in the leg.