flat KK oop vs nit

So 2.5% is TT+, AKs. Against which we have nrly 70%. Im really not a fan of flatting pre in this spot.

Mainly because I dont know how we can maximise our EV post flop out of position, on different boards.

I mean, it's a 3 bet pot and we flop an overpair so we should be looking to get our money in yet somehow on this board QQ is the only hand in villain's range that will pay us when we shove the River. And basically if he has all the combinations of AA/JJ/QQ in his range then -- as you say -- betting the River becomes really bad. I don't think check/call is any better though since in that line you don't even get value from QQ which is never betting the River.

This is why I struggle a bit with flatting the 3b preflop. The logic is that we keep in the few worse hands in villain's range and avoid isolating ourselves against the very top. But if the reality is that villains range is actually so tight that we are never comfortable stacking off post flop then the plan seems flawed to me and I basically prefer folding preflop.

(I may have this all wrong -- please feel free to set me straight).

i'm such a donkey to have posted the results sorry.
decided to barrel off because his check behind just confused me.
seems like he wanted to pot control so i thought i could get value.
his aggr factor is like 1.4 and not too sure how he plays in 3bet pots.

can we fold KK pre really? or should we just 4bet and ship it with a prayer?

another talking point is despite having such low 3bet%, he could still have some semi bluff hands in that range since he certainly can flat some monsters preflop right? and i doubt he 3bets TT or JJ even? it's FR right?

can we fold KK pre really?

Think of it this way: If you have KK utg and a nit 3b you out of the blinds and you end up going in against a range of AA/KK you just end up trading coolers with the regs.

But as soon as you start folding KK (in this particular spot) you get to cooler the other regs 100% when they get in KK there and never get coolered in return.

pm me for link to video discussing this.

-Tim

Wow. I would never ever thought about folding this pre.

Its mp3 vs CO. We isolate the limper. Our percieved range should be pretty wide. Even if CO doesnt care and only 3bets 2-3% which in FR is standardly AK,QQ+(2.6%) We are still ahead of his range so folding would be a mistake imho.

4bet/call cant really be mistake as i doubt he is only stacking with AA and KK.

And if we believe so then call preflop is also more +ev then fold obviously as we are ahead of his range.

I totally agree that we can easily stack off pre vs his range. I was just indicating that there are spots where we can fold it pre (against the right opponent in the right spot). In fact, we can fold any hand any time we want - thats the great thing.

And if we believe so then call preflop is also more +ev then fold obviously as we are ahead of his range.

But I dont think this follows logically. The reason is that we cant make a mistake getting KK in pre vs a 2.5% range (if that really is the range) but we can make a mistake post flop in various scenarios (e.g. folding the best hand/ overplaying our hand/ having to ch/f on Axx boards etc.).

NB, not saying flatting is a mistake here (although I dont like it) but I am saying it doesnt follow that its more +EV than a fold just becuase we are "ahead of his range".

Originally posted by Tim64
I totally agree that we can easily stack off pre vs his range. I was just indicating that there are spots where we can fold it pre (against the right opponent in the right spot). In fact, we can fold any hand any time we want - thats the great thing.

And if we believe so then call preflop is also more +ev then fold obviously as we are ahead of his range.

But I dont think this follows logically. The reason is that we cant make a mistake getting KK in pre vs a 2.5% range (if that really is the range) but we can make a mistake post flop in various scenarios (e.g. folding the best hand/ overplaying our hand/ having to ch/f on Axx boards etc.).

NB, not saying flatting is a mistake here (although I dont like it) but I am saying it doesnt follow that its more +EV than a fold just becuase we are "ahead of his range".

Agreed. 4b/call is better in terms that we avoid making suboptimal play postflop.

About calling being more +EV than folding..
We know that folding is 0EV everytime.
So what we need is calling to be +EV, ofc its not enough to simply say "im ahead of his range" as there are other things as skill advantage and positional advantage that comes into play on later streets and we need to consider them when making our preflop decision.
But in this situation i think our equity edge is strong enough to play oop with our KK profitably. Im not saying it is more +ev than 4b/call. But if calling with our KK againts his range is -ev then i think there is something wrong with our postflop game.

Im still not sure i get it right I feel like i didnt respond enough.. ♦ sorry.. I enjoy these theoretical discussions too much..

folding 0EV
If flatting is -EV in the long run cosidering postflop play then i think we have serious leaks. Especially given the fact his range is kinda obvious to us.
If flatting is +EV then i cant seem to be able to find any other reason then "we are ahead of his range". We dont have position, we might have some skill advantage but we cant be sure, its not really an implied odds situation. So i dont know.. i think if calling here is +EV then is simply because of our equity.

♦ Damn i know im bugging too much into details.. but hey so are you sir ♦ No offence

Definitely no offence taken - I also enjoy trying to get to the bottom of something. Apologies if I ever come across as dogmatic -- too many years as a lawyer

Thinking about this some more you must be right that if EV fold = 0 then our EV of flatting would actually have to be negative for this to be worse than folding.

Intuitively it seems really unlikely that we could have a negative EV from flatting a 3b against a range we are ahead of. But theoretically I think that can be the case in certain spots.

If you take the classic case of opening AQ in MP and facing a 3b from BU with a 3bet percentage of 11% from that position, the general advice in this spot is to 4b or fold even though AQ has a 52.5% advantage over an 11% range. (Without going into too much detail the reasons for this - as I understand it - are that we are not going to be able to extract much value from the top end of his range on Ace high boards and when we don't hit we will have to check/fold rather often so that we don't get to showdown often enough against a good, aggressive opponent and therefore we don't get to realise our slight equity advantage.)

This is a rather extreme example of course and it should certainly be easier to play our KK oop. But it's still the case that being out of position means it's going to be hard to stack those hands in his range JJ/QQ/[TT] which we beat since they can check behind on various streets to pot control. On boards with over cards ( to each of those pairs) we also will get stacks in less often. And on boards with Jxx, Qxx, Txx we always end up paying off the sets because we don't plan to get away from a hand often. On Ace high boards, too, we are not going to be able to maximise.

When we face AA, however, we always end up paying off in full since on boards without Axx we basically plan to ch/c down.

I am basically too lazy to do any maths to backup my assertions but I think we may find it's closer than expected. Against a decent opponent we may find that we extract very little value when we are ahead because they know our range for flatting a decent sized 3 bet out of position is super strong
and they can always fold if we start putting money into the pot, whereas we end up bluff catching against AA all the time and we can't really ever fold our hand. And just to clarify, if we are in position in this spot I think it makes a really huge difference and then I am a lot happier to call.

Theres nothing more to add to this topic

I agree with ur whole post.

^^
Thats not fair - I wanted to have the last word

Oh, wait...

♦

Originally posted by Tim64
^^
Thats not fair - I wanted to have the last word

Ok, in this case I'll just say I wouldn't fold KK pre but rather 4bet and get it in in the hand, and I agree with the following ♦

Originally posted by Tim64
Definitely no offence taken - I also enjoy trying to get to the bottom of something. Apologies if I ever come across as dogmatic -- too many years as a lawyer

Thinking about this some more you must be right that if EV fold = 0 then our EV of flatting would actually have to be negative for this to be worse than folding.

Intuitively it seems really unlikely that we could have a negative EV from flatting a 3b against a range we are ahead of. But theoretically I think that can be the case in certain spots.

If you take the classic case of opening AQ in MP and facing a 3b from BU with a 3bet percentage of 11% from that position, the general advice in this spot is to 4b or fold even though AQ has a 52.5% advantage over an 11% range. (Without going into too much detail the reasons for this - as I understand it - are that we are not going to be able to extract much value from the top end of his range on Ace high boards and when we don't hit we will have to check/fold rather often so that we don't get to showdown often enough against a good, aggressive opponent and therefore we don't get to realise our slight equity advantage.)

This is a rather extreme example of course and it should certainly be easier to play our KK oop. But it's still the case that being out of position means it's going to be hard to stack those hands in his range JJ/QQ/[TT] which we beat since they can check behind on various streets to pot control. On boards with over cards ( to each of those pairs) we also will get stacks in less often. And on boards with Jxx, Qxx, Txx we always end up paying off the sets because we don't plan to get away from a hand often. On Ace high boards, too, we are not going to be able to maximise.

When we face AA, however, we always end up paying off in full since on boards without Axx we basically plan to ch/c down.

I am basically too lazy to do any maths to backup my assertions but I think we may find it's closer than expected. Against a decent opponent we may find that we extract very little value when we are ahead because they know our range for flatting a decent sized 3 bet out of position is super strong
and they can always fold if we start putting money into the pot, whereas we end up bluff catching against AA all the time and we can't really ever fold our hand. And just to clarify, if we are in position in this spot I think it makes a really huge difference and then I am a lot happier to call.

^^
K, my bill is in the post for services rendered