NL10 6max AQ in trouble

1st - 3bet preflop.
2nd - Why do you fold? Doesn't matter how quickly he bet. He can bet quickly even with AK and AJ, which most likely is the case here.
3rd - You flop dream cards for your exact hand, I don't see a reason to call down and fold river, makes no sense to me.

Hello,

3betting preflop is an option.

On the river I am never folding. He could easily have worse hands in his range like two pairs or even some AK.

Best,
Plamen

1st I didnt 3bet because one round before I 3betted him in the excact same position and dont want him to think that Im making a move on him,please dont try to convince me that it is mandatory to 3bet there.
2nd Ask yourself, would you bet AK in that spot or would you be willing to check call the river, same goes for AJ.
3rd Im beaten by 44,K10 and unlikely AA,QQ,JJ and winning only vs AJ and AK, which in my opinion, are unlikely to bet the river.
4th I dont see him bluffing there, because of my tight table image.
5th On the river I would bet a bit less with AJ or AK there , asuming that I would be betting there at all.

Originally posted by YaoMingelis
1st I didnt 3bet because one round before I 3betted him in the excact same position and dont want him to think that Im making a move on him,please dont try to convince me that it is mandatory to 3bet there.
2nd Ask yourself, would you bet AK in that spot or would you be willing to check call the river, same goes for AJ.
3rd Im beaten by 44,K10 and unlikely AA,QQ,JJ and winning only vs AJ and AK, which in my opinion, are unlikely to bet the river.
4th I dont see him bluffing there, because of my tight table image.
5th On the river I would bet a bit less with AJ or AK there , asuming that I would be betting there at all.

It doesn't matter that you 3bet him round before in the exact spot yadayada. You hold premium, 3bet and take initiative. In poker, the person that has initiative and position will make the most money. And as you can see, you didn't take the initiative therefore lost a hand where you were miles ahead of his range.

I would bet both AK and AJ on the river if I was him. You take passive lines which indicates you have weak range. You just because you are beat by 44 and KT doesn't mean he has them 100% of the time in this spot. Stop focusing only on hands that beat you, your villains range consists of hands that you beat and more often than he beats you in this scenario. Your AQ hand is blocking hands like QQ and AA anyways, and if he had JJ he most likely wouldn't bet the flop and would go for check/call line.

He is not bluffing here, but you have strong enough hand to call river bet. His value range here is QJ, AJ, AK, KT, 44 and only 2 of them beat you. So calling is +EV no matter how you put it.

And if you have tight image and you take passive lines, then villain is even more likely to bluff or make thin value bets vs you.

I thank you for your answer

It doesn't matter that you 3bet him round before in the exact spot yadayada. You hold premium, 3bet and take initiative. In poker, the person that has initiative and position will make the most money. And as you can see, you didn't take the initiative therefore lost a hand where you were miles ahead of his range.

I like flatting there too to be honest. We keep his weaker Ax also in his range while when we 3 bet we fold out his A9 - AJ probably since he doesn't want to play them OOP. Getting 4-bet is ugly with AQ as well I would say so let's go to the flop in position with a hand that is ahead. What would you generally do here when 4-bet?

On that flop however, what better flop could you ask for? I like just calling flop, just calling turn too but you can never fold that river.

Originally posted by ferrari1f

It doesn't matter that you 3bet him round before in the exact spot yadayada. You hold premium, 3bet and take initiative. In poker, the person that has initiative and position will make the most money. And as you can see, you didn't take the initiative therefore lost a hand where you were miles ahead of his range.

I like flatting there too to be honest. We keep his weaker Ax also in his range while when we 3 bet we fold out his A9 - AJ probably since he doesn't want to play them OOP. Getting 4-bet is ugly with AQ as well I would say so let's go to the flop in position with a hand that is ahead. What would you generally do here when 4-bet?

On that flop however, what better flop could you ask for? I like just calling flop, just calling turn too but you can never fold that river.

Flatting doesn't make sense as you lose value. In general, people play worse in 3bet pots because more money is involved and you can put more pressure on them. When you 3bet and he calls, your decisions are affected by his 3bet calling range. If someone is aggressive enough, he will keep those small Ax hands in his range here as well and will call even OOP. Remember this is NL10 so people are not so positionally aware yet, and do silly calls.

On these same flop in 3bet pot I am cbetting here the top of my 3betting range (i.e. AK, AJ, KQ, KJ, AQ, QJ, AA, KK, QQ) and I don't either he calls or folds because he is not gonna continue either way if he did miss and he is gonna call any equity he gained here. He is not gonna fold Qx on this board, neither Ax, and most likely not his gut shots. Therefore we can barrel many turns as well and have FE vs his Qx hands and gut shots. He is not gonna fold Ax at any point here.

Once we get to the river, if it bricks all depends on what reads we have on our opponent. If we know that he usually floats draws and then just x/f them on river, we can bluff with out weaker holdings, if we know that he always calls turn when has Ax or better we check back weaker parts of our range and continue with the top of our range like in this example AQ and expect to payed off by weaker hands. I will give you example why 3betting is better than flatting. Though this is spot is different and I am OOP.

Example hand:

Poker Stars, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

BTN: $18.64 (186.4 bb)
Hero (SB): $12.92 (129.2 bb)
BB: $9.30 (93 bb)
UTG: $11.81 (118.1 bb)
MP: $11.27 (112.7 bb)
CO: $8.10 (81 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A♥ Q♣
UTG folds, MP raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.90, BB folds, MP calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.90) A♣ K♠ 6♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $1, MP calls $1

Turn: ($3.90) 9♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $2.40, MP calls $2.40

River: ($8.70) 5♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $8.62, MP calls $6.97 and is all-in

Results: $22.64 pot ($1.02 rake)
Final Board: A♣ K♠ 6♠ 9♥ 5♣
Hero showed A♥ Q♣ and won $21.62 ($10.35 net)
MP showed T♦ A♦ and lost (-$11.27 net)

If I would call this preflop for example, I wouldn't be able to extract that much of value simply because my hand is not strong enough to raise postflop at any point without initiative.

Basically you should be playing the ranges rather the cards themselves. I hope I cleared something here for you to consider.

Regards,

Rihard

Originally posted by Rihard4a

Originally posted by ferrari1f

It doesn't matter that you 3bet him round before in the exact spot yadayada. You hold premium, 3bet and take initiative. In poker, the person that has initiative and position will make the most money. And as you can see, you didn't take the initiative therefore lost a hand where you were miles ahead of his range.

I like flatting there too to be honest. We keep his weaker Ax also in his range while when we 3 bet we fold out his A9 - AJ probably since he doesn't want to play them OOP. Getting 4-bet is ugly with AQ as well I would say so let's go to the flop in position with a hand that is ahead. What would you generally do here when 4-bet?

On that flop however, what better flop could you ask for? I like just calling flop, just calling turn too but you can never fold that river.

Flatting doesn't make sense as you lose value. In general, people play worse in 3bet pots because more money is involved and you can put more pressure on them. When you 3bet and he calls, your decisions are affected by his 3bet calling range. If someone is aggressive enough, he will keep those small Ax hands in his range here as well and will call even OOP. Remember this is NL10 so people are not so positionally aware yet, and do silly calls.

On these same flop in 3bet pot I am cbetting here the top of my 3betting range (i.e. AK, AJ, KQ, KJ, AQ, QJ, AA, KK, QQ) and I don't either he calls or folds because he is not gonna continue either way if he did miss and he is gonna call any equity he gained here. He is not gonna fold Qx on this board, neither Ax, and most likely not his gut shots. Therefore we can barrel many turns as well and have FE vs his Qx hands and gut shots. He is not gonna fold Ax at any point here.

Once we get to the river, if it bricks all depends on what reads we have on our opponent. If we know that he usually floats draws and then just x/f them on river, we can bluff with out weaker holdings, if we know that he always calls turn when has Ax or better we check back weaker parts of our range and continue with the top of our range like in this example AQ and expect to payed off by weaker hands. I will give you example why 3betting is better than flatting. Though this is spot is different and I am OOP.

Example hand:

Poker Stars, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

BTN: $18.64 (186.4 bb)
Hero (SB): $12.92 (129.2 bb)
BB: $9.30 (93 bb)
UTG: $11.81 (118.1 bb)
MP: $11.27 (112.7 bb)
CO: $8.10 (81 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A♥ Q♣
UTG folds, MP raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.90, BB folds, MP calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.90) A♣ K♠ 6♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $1, MP calls $1

Turn: ($3.90) 9♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $2.40, MP calls $2.40

River: ($8.70) 5♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $8.62, MP calls $6.97 and is all-in

Results: $22.64 pot ($1.02 rake)
Final Board: A♣ K♠ 6♠ 9♥ 5♣
Hero showed A♥ Q♣ and won $21.62 ($10.35 net)
MP showed T♦ A♦ and lost (-$11.27 net)

If I would call this preflop for example, I wouldn't be able to extract that much of value simply because my hand is not strong enough to raise postflop at any point without initiative.

Basically you should be playing the ranges rather the cards themselves. I hope I cleared something here for you to consider.

Regards,

Rihard

Hi Richard,

First of all, wow, thanks for this input, it's very much appreciated.

The hand you showed, is different in a lot of aspects for sure but yes, you illustrate that aggression and initiative is so important and I am very much aware of that.

I'd like to know what you do if you get 4-bet? I also do 3-bet them a lot for value against specific opponents, but from time to time I like to flat AQ and AK, when i think that I keep his weaker hands in and extract a lot value by doing. If villain has a weak ace here, he thinks he is good and he kept firing. When you 3 bet there is a high chance he folds out the hands we dominate... So it should depend on his 3-bet calling range and 4-bet range or am I wrong? When villain is calling 80% 3-bets, it's without doubt a clear 3 bet, but when he folds out 80% and 20% 4-bet, it's not so good anymore since we only get 4-bet by better hands and never get calls while we could have extracted value from weaker aces in this case.

When you have the top of your range, I don't see a reason to just call open raise. You get your self a trouble spot. Without initiative you don't really know how much ahead are you in the hand. When you call open raise you are playing against 100% of his opening range. When you 3bet play only vs part of it which makes it easier in terms of hand reading.

When you get 4bet, it is now a different spot. Now it depends how much he folds to 3bets in general, and what is his 4bet range and 4bet frequency. If you have a hand like AK it is no brain 5bet vs 4bet, when you have AQ and you are in IP we can flat and play post flop, but it all comes down to ranges.

Well if some one folds to 3bets 80% and now calls it is pretty easy to play. If we hit, we bet, if we miss, we check. And if someone calls a ton of 3bets, we can cbet almost any flop because our perceived range vs theirs is gonna be stronger in general. You don't have to do something to extract value from certain hands or fold out certain hands, all we care is attacking specific part of the range.

Regards,

Rihard

Originally posted by Rihard4a
When you 3bet play only vs part of it which makes it easier in terms of hand reading.

This one is so simple yet an eye-opener. ♦

Originally posted by Rihard4a
When you get 4bet, it is now a different spot. Now it depends how much he folds to 3bets in general, and what is his 4bet range and 4bet frequency. If you have a hand like AK it is no brain 5bet vs 4bet

Does that mean that you plan to go all-in always with AK ? 5-bet-folding is just spewing money so no way you are folding anymore. Or what is your plan when you 5-bet here?

Originally posted by Rihard4a
...when you have AQ and you are in IP we can flat and play post flop, but it all comes down to ranges.

Yep I fully agree.

Thanks Richard for your extensive analysis and insights. This is definitely helpful to a lot of people.

No problem!

And yes with AK I am getting it in in any positions vs any position but depends on villain of course. If some has 3bet 1% and 4bet range 0.5% I most likely gonna 3bet and call 4bet, or open raise and I call 3bet and try to play postflop. But vs certain players you can have 5bet/fold range.

You're welcome.

Regards,

Rihard

Nice discussion we have here which is very good.

I do agree with @Rihard4a here about the 3betting - we should try to be more aggressive on these stakes because basically most people fail to play well against aggression.
In this spot, the fact that he could think that we are making a move is more than welcome, because this would lead him to make more mistakes with calling wider.

Also, in the specific hand, we do beat QJ/A4 as well, also AK is often betting there, and overall we can never go for fold on the river here.