AK 3bet pot flopped trips

[RolloRolf]

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i don't think i fully understand what you are saying. I have a feeling it's got something to do with balancing which is completely pointless in this spot.

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It's got nothing to do with balancing.

There are 2 Aces on the board. You just are not likely to have an Ace here, it's pure combinatorics. Even bad players grasp this instinctively.

So, let's look at ALL your made hands here. Regardless of whether you have AK, Ax, or a PP, you are way ahead/way behind here. Pretty much no matter what you have, you don't want him to fold unless he has an Ace (which he won't do, so this case is irrelevant). In some rare cases (AK, boats), you don't want him to fold EVER.

So, no matter what you hold, betting here gets him to fold just about everything that you want him to call with. (I know there are some exceptions, like betting with QQ and hoping he folds KK. This, too, is stupid, because it's so unlikely he has the ONE hand you want him to fold and that he will actually fold).

As I said, mixing it up is best, because you do actually want to be able to bluff here when you have nothing. For this purpose, too, I'll consider "made" hands like underpairs, etc, to be situations where you are just bluffing and want him to fold.

But if I HAD to choose between two arbitrary "I do this 100% of the time because I am too lazy to mix it up" lines, it would definitely be to check 100% of my hands.

Oh, and by the way, if your 3-betting antics are such that you are almost always bluffing here, then betting 100% of the time is even more lol unless you are playing a bunch of COMPLETE idiots.

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If my opponent think it's unlikely I have an ace, then isn't that a very good reason to bet?

[bilbo-san]

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i don't think i fully understand what you are saying. I have a feeling it's got something to do with balancing which is completely pointless in this spot.

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It's got nothing to do with balancing.

There are 2 Aces on the board. You just are not likely to have an Ace here, it's pure combinatorics. Even bad players grasp this instinctively.

So, let's look at ALL your made hands here. Regardless of whether you have AK, Ax, or a PP, you are way ahead/way behind here. Pretty much no matter what you have, you don't want him to fold unless he has an Ace (which he won't do, so this case is irrelevant). In some rare cases (AK, boats), you don't want him to fold EVER.

So, no matter what you hold, betting here gets him to fold just about everything that you want him to call with. (I know there are some exceptions, like betting with QQ and hoping he folds KK. This, too, is stupid, because it's so unlikely he has the ONE hand you want him to fold and that he will actually fold).

As I said, mixing it up is best, because you do actually want to be able to bluff here when you have nothing. For this purpose, too, I'll consider "made" hands like underpairs, etc, to be situations where you are just bluffing and want him to fold.

But if I HAD to choose between two arbitrary "I do this 100% of the time because I am too lazy to mix it up" lines, it would definitely be to check 100% of my hands.

Oh, and by the way, if your 3-betting antics are such that you are almost always bluffing here, then betting 100% of the time is even more lol unless you are playing a bunch of COMPLETE idiots.

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If my opponent think it's unlikely I have an ace, then isn't that a very good reason to bet?

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In a vacuum, yeah.

But it's not a good reason to bet 100% of your hands here. Do you see why?