NL100 A9o, TP facing 3barrels vs reg

3bet pre, you're going to be put in lots of difficult spots post flop (as we can see) and we print money by 3betting initially and also have the option to 5b jam if he 4bets.

3betting pre actually makes no sense at all to me. Should we really expect to get called by much worse hands that often here really? And as far as 5bet jamming goes, how would that be profitable without the right dynamics pre? I mean in order for me to be able ship A9o pre here I must expect him to 4bet bluff me a lot.

I agree though with the argument that we will aviod being put into these ugly spots by going for the 3 bet pre, but is that really enough to justify a 3bet here?

As played, would you calldown?

If you dont expect him to 4bet you alot and you are going to be put into lots of awkward spots post flop then 3betting pre should show an immediate profit as he should/will fold alot to our 3bet and allows us to win the money in the middle. If we had AJ for example I would call as we have alot more chance of having a strong bluff catch but with A9 here we always find ourself in an awkward situation if we dont flop 2 pair. As standard I would 3bet here almost 100%.

As played I'd call as alot has missed but I really wouldn't be happy about it.

edit: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh its HU! I thought it was 6max and we were in position! Ok so listen to all ym advice for next time we are in position BVB with a9o ♦

As played I just fold pre flop, its probably at the top of my folding range though but as played I call.

I am getting so confused right now.

The spot that you were (by mistake :P) evaulating was bvb 6-max? So you don't like the call there then pre? I usally call down to A8o (sometimes even all aces if its a weak opponent that opens in the SB). Might be a leak though..

I might be the worst HU-player in the world but it is very rare that I don't call all aces HU against an open raise preflop. I hate to bring the term "standard" into the discussion, but isn't pretty standard to call all Ax pre in a HU-match?

I guess against this particular opponent the argument against it would be that he is good postflop and can put me into a lot of tough spots, if it weren't for that would like the call pre then?

Yeh, defending bad aces (a9 and worse) is going to be bad unless you are extremely good post flop. Vs aggressive players its going to be even worse as they are going to be barrelling you alot and you will struggle to get to showdown (when you raise their cbet then we are first to act ott unlike BVB where we can raise flop and cb turn to see a free river)

We of course have lots of reverse implied odds with A9 and except 99x or a9x we are never truly happy to stack off or put lots of chips into the pot. We may as well be playing q5o and hoping to hit 55x or q5x flops as we are never confident calling down three streets on almost any run out with a9.

It is definitely not "standard" to defend Ax pre in a HU match and if I see somebody defending a2-a8 pre to a 3x then I almost always automatically label them as a fish or v.exploitable.

BVB I prefer 3betting to build a dynamic and to stop villain from attempting steals vs us (will make our profit line in the BB increase) and also will in turn make him play his cut off more passively which is SUPER IMPORTANT for button profits.

I think you're thinking too much of hand vs range equity with this, the thought is that if we 3bet we make worse hands, 58s K9o etc fold and better hands like AQ and TT to continue.

Whereas this is true, we need to consider the playability and visibilty of our hand (how easily we're going to be exploited by our villain, and the situations where we're going to have easy decisions - easy bluffs, easy value value bets, easy bluff-catching spots etc)

Like Pleno said, the problem with bad Ax's, is your usually end up in marginal bluff catching spots, an bad bluffing spots and rarely in a situation where you can easily Value-Bet OOP. A few examples of this are...

a) the hand you posted, yuo're completely guessing OTR vs a regular player who is capable of making good value bets and good bluffs, so really it's complete guesswork he'll be value betting some and bluffing some and you can't really make a good fold or a good call here.

b) flop comes J84cc and you wanna bluff, you've got one of the worst hands to bluff with, you're miles better off with KQ or Q9.

c) flop's A62 you c/call, turn is a T goes chk/chk, you obv have the best hand but its virtually impossible to get paid here.

As a general rule when I play HU I don't like to be too weak defending from the BB, we're already OOP (speshly vs good players) and this is going to be tricky enough to over-come, if our range is too weak we're going to get really run over really easily.

Balance this out by building an aggressive 3betting dynamic, the reason this IS such a good hand to 3bet is because it's one of the best hands you should want to fold, so if we select the top our "folding range" and use that to bluff with we'll soon have a wide enough 3betting range 100bb's deep that we can prevent our villain printing money by opening 100% of btns, we can play our OOP pots with a strong range and have an aggressive enough dynamic to get action with our big hands.

Ok, so would you say that, as a "standard" (Hu), you should be 3betting the hands that are too weak to call, but also too weak to fold? And then ofc premiums and against certain opponents who folds a lot just a bunch of other hands to punish their high fold to 3bet.

And you are saying that even though we will be dominated postflop at times when 3betting these hands, it is still compensated by the fact that our playability of the hand will be so much easier?

Does the same apply to 6-max when playing oop? I am aware that this is somewhat opponent dependant, but in general? Which players is this a good strategy (i.e. 3betting top of our folding range) against? Tough and/or loose players that neither folds or calls too light?

whats the worst hand we bluffcatch villain with? do we even have some 2p combos OTR?
Could c/raising A9 be >> c/c OTR or is it too strong of a bluffcatcher?

Nah we have no 2 pair combos on the river, worst hand we have is probably a2s.