AK 3bet pot flopped trips

[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?

[Unknown Soldier]

no way you can tell whether he's more likely to give you action if you bet or check so you should bet.

You seem to be concentrating on our range which is unecessary because we have never played with villain before, we have no idea how he percieves our range (or if he even thinks about our hand at all!), so we should be playing our hand here instead of our range. We hve trips -> bet that simple really. I don't see why you are making this so comlicated for yourself. With histroy, and the knowledge that he's ok then our range matters more, but not here. We can always bet AK here and always check KK and it won't matter if we have never played against villain before.

[bilbo-san]

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no way you can tell whether he's more likely to give you action if you bet or check so you should bet.

You seem to be concentrating on our range which is unecessary because we have never played with villain before, we have no idea how he percieves our range

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"Our" range is basically a standard 3-betting range.

On an AAx board, AK/AQ is a very small part of the range.

Or, to put it another way, all the good made hands in that range (say TT+/Ax) accomplish very little by betting this board, irrespective of history.

This isn't about balancing in a metagame sense.

[Dread13]

I say bet the flop like 95% of the time.

When I slowplay, it's either to let my opponent hit a good second best hand, or to induce bluffs from a maniac or very aggressive player. I don't slowplay to disguise my hand, because it doesn't work. If we check the flop, then later in the hand we want to play for a big pot, our hand becomes obvious. Betting the flop is more deceptive and will often look like a c-bet bluff.

In this case, there is absolutely no hand your opponent can hit that he will want to get the stacks in with, unless he hits a full house and crushes us. (He had JJ, right?)

We have no reads that he will bluff hard so just bet the flop and hope he gets curious with a hand like TT - QQ or hopefully he has a worse ace.

Readless, checking flop is bad IMO.

[theplux]

Betting flop checking turn and pushing river works more often than that line but that line is fine.

Just something for OP, work on your betsize to make those river not a overbet. Just think before you bet "if i bet X i'll have Y left and vilain will have Z and the pot will be W"

it sounds like a cooler. reload.

[Zaid_Ahmed]

bet, bet, bet. nh

[AFennewald]

I'd normally bet the flop but this works too. I think i'd make the turn bet a little bigger but no a big deal.