NL25 AK preflop in limp+raise+call pot, NLHTAP concept

[WantToLearn]

Hi 2+2, some advice needed, and thank you very much in advance!

Ok I know that asking a question about preflop play with AKo clearly shows I am not a pro, but anyway: there is limping, a raise and a call before me, and I am unsure about what to do. "Wait, what? This guy has a premium hand and has position on the players already in the hand, and there´s any question left?" Well, yes. The Raiser is a decent player (speaking in NL25 terms) and he will not give me the pot often for a normal c-bet, but I don´t want to 3-bet and then play fit or fold either, nor do I want a family pot. So here goes:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

MP1 ($21.80)
MP2 ($29.80)
MP3 ($34.20)
CO ($5.45)
Hero ($24.90)
SB ($25.75)
BB ($19.45)
UTG ($11.20)
UTG+1 ($6.20)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
UTG calls $0.25, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, MP2 calls $0.25, <font color="#CC3333">MP3 raises to $1.25</font>, CO calls $1.25, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $24.9</font>,

Here´s my thought process:
--&gt; MP3 is multitabler, playing abc but not dull, plus CO (who´s 11-tabling) also deserves some credit here
--&gt; I play 18/12/2.5/c-bets <u>a lot</u>
--&gt; villains do probably have these stats on the screen
--&gt; when I shoved, I though of concept No 22 in NLHTAP. It says that moving in w/ AK is frequently correct when there is raise-call action before you (out of position example is given, though). That is because the original raiser has AA/KK only sometimes, there´s ~30% equity against KK, AK is only a very small underdog against all other pocket pairs, plus in reality favourites like JJ,TT,22 etc. might fold. So the money in the pots that shoving AK wins uncontested makes more than up for the losses that sometimes there are. The example in the book, however, is about raise-call-call before AK acts, and it is about risking 80BB to win 15. Here, I risk more to win less should MP3 come along, but less if CO should come along. How about?
--&gt; If I make a normal sized raise, they might fold. Then, going all-in doesn´t hurt me (assuming they won´t call an ai where they fold to a normal raise). If MP3 calls, he is prepared to play a big pot, and he will probably not surrender to a c-bet (which is large, given the pot-size we have then), given he know my high c-bet number, plus he might very well have a middlish pair, which might at least be an overpair if the flop comes w/o A;K. He´s not the kind who calls too much preflop and folds too much to c-bets. Firing a second barrel when missing the flop doesn´t feel good either - I am actually risking very very much when I already missed the flop, so why not try to make them fold before the flop in the first place? Playing fit-or-fold is not a good reason to raise, either.
--&gt; I don´t want the family pot that I´ll see if I only call here.
--&gt; so what´s the play?

[PLAYOFFS]

You lose value by doing that. Normally the only thing that will call that is JJ, QQ, KK, AA or AK....Given that range, I don't think that's ever a profitable play unless you know that the villain WILL call with a weaker ace.

[AlexB182]

[ QUOTE ]
You lose value by doing that. Normally the only thing that will call that is JJ, QQ, KK, AA or AK....Given that range, I don't think that's ever a profitable play unless you know that the villain WILL call with a weaker ace.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not so much about what villain WILL call with but with which hands villain WILL NOT call.
If you manage to make villain lay down or QQ or JJ, you have won 3$ uncontested, if he calls you with one of those hands you are basically racing what is not too bad if you don't have a problem with variance. Just raising here includes the risk to lose more money if hero gets called and either does not spike an A or a K and has to give up after the CB or maybe even spikes an A or a K and QQ or JJ can easily get away from their hand.
So, to sum this up: I think I like this as a mix up play but I really think that some stats or reads in OP would have helped here: if MP3 is like 24/14 this is def ok, but if he is like 12/9 then I'm really not sure...

[speedle]

[ QUOTE ]
You lose value by doing that. Normally the only thing that will call that is JJ, QQ, KK, AA or AK....Given that range, I don't think that's ever a profitable play unless you know that the villain WILL call with a weaker ace.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree.

Btw, what's your sn on stars, WantToLearn?

[Lansingg]

I wouldnt reraise that much. wow.

lose value and if he calls your a coin flip at best (assuming he's smart)

[coordi]

Wow, you obviously are a thinking player

I think some discussion has been brought up about this play and your only like 12:1 and the average call range for this shove is really really small. It can be slightly profitable to slightly -EV, but I dont see what it really accomplishes unless your going to be playing AA, KK, and QQ like this too (terrible?).

Just 3 bet it normal 4.25-5 and win with a cbet or even pre a majority of the time...

[oldschool]

OP- You are sorta on the right path of thinking accept not =) but since you put your thoughts out maybe I can help get you on the right track. Here goes.

When this player raises the limper he has a certain range of hands. like some SCs pps AK aj etc..... So when he raises such a wide range it is your job to 3 bet him enough times to disuade him from always getting to raise the limpers (which is a very profitable thing to do). you see your saying "hey dude this is my pot, your hand is most likely [censored] and i shoulda been the one to raise this dude get outa my pot" youll soon begin to realize that being the aggressor in a hand(such as one like this) give you some many more ev spots throughout a hand as well as makes hand reading easier while hiding your hand strength. This in a nutshell is why they say aggressive poker is winning poker. But I digress…..


Now if you 3 bet him to 4 or to 25$ at that point he will reraise (the 4$ raise) a certain range of hands and call with a certain range of hands and fold with a certain range of hands. Now lets compare what will happen when you raise to 4$ rather than 25$. Assuming that
1 he will not fold aa kk(probably qq or ak either but it doesnt matter once you see my example cause you are flips to both those hands) in either spot
2 hes a decent player who isn’t totally insane


ok so he makes it 1.25 you raise all in to 25. GREAT! He folded a certain range of hands BUT AA and KK make up .9% of possible hands dealt to a player. If their raising range is 10% of their hands then they will have aa kk about one in ten times. You are laying 25-1.85( limper, blinds, and his raise) that the guy doenst have those hands. Looks like you already made a “BAD BLUFF” since laying anything more than 18.5 is neg ev and anything less would be +EV. And guess what, there are players left to act who could easily have aa kk which makes it even more----- EV.

Now lets say you make it 4. accept this time he might call with more hands than he would call a shove. Lets say he calls with AK and TT-KK we could say AA but im sure he reraises both those enough to only include one of them in his calling range for simplicity sake. Ak tt-kk make up 3% of the 10% he raises which is 7-3 odds or that he folds 70% of the time you 3 bet. This in isolation is already +++ ev since we are risking 4 to win 1.85 so 30 times we “lose” 4(which we technically haven’t lost since we still get to see a flop with potential to hit a strong hand) and 70 times we win 1.85 70X1.85 – (30x4)= 9.5 of + EV ALREADY!. But wait theres more!. You might say “hey you forgot about the other players in the hand” No I didn’t- Basically if another player sees a limper a raise and a reraise from you he is gonna fold hands as strong as jj maybe qq which they would certainly want to play knowing what your hand is- and according to the fundamental thermo of poker---- “you gain when your opponents plays incorrectly mathematically against you true holding and he gains when you do the same” since the likelihood of you holding a great hand is too high to warrant his preflop commitment then hell be folding even more hands that the dude who raised the limper since hell have to call 20BBs cold to play. And if he has aa kk hell probably reraise or flat call. Either way you just found out very cheaply that your ak is no good (which is +EV compared to shoving).
Now that weve seen the bluff value of our hand and the extra information and control over the rest of the table we gain from 3 betting smaller theres something else to be discussed. THE FLOP.whats nice about being in position is that in a huge pot people will always be in tuff spots oop. When you villain calls that small raise with TT JJ QQ you get to “suck out” 33% of the time! And with AK if you both don’t improve then you get to make the bet that folds his AK and not the other way around. Now sometimes hell have aa kk and be playing sneaky guess what if you are in position you get to control the pot size and likely wont pay him off unless you flop a king or and Ace AND he happens to have aa kk (which doenst happen much at all). The sick thing about this is that I don’t even have the time or energy to hit all the points I wanted to about this but hopefully you learn two things from this

1. Position in any pot give you huge advantage
2. initiave is too
3. over shoving ai to a 5bb open for 100 bbs is simply risking to much to win too little. Risk to reward is always something to consider when playing hold em. Llike if you think villain will call that shove with hands like AJ AT (which you crush) then all of a sudden there is reward to making that move. But since youll only get the remaining 95bbs to the middle when y our crushed and not win the 5 enough times to make up for it then its gonna lose ya money =).

I apologize for what im sure is plenty of misspellings and grammatical errors.

[WantToLearn]

Thanks to all!

[ QUOTE ]

1. Position in any pot give you huge advantage
2. initiave is too
3. over shoving ai to a 5bb open for 100 bbs is simply risking to much to win too little.

[/ QUOTE ]

That´s all very true.
But 1. and 2. are worth less if c-bets might be called just because the opposition knows we c-bet a lot and thinks we might give up, plus the pot is getting too large to fire any second barrel w/ air.

Number 3. is the most important point here. I guess I just risked too much for too little. But I really want to find out where it starts to change - ratio effective stacks/risk to potential reward.

btw, as far as I can see there´s a flaw in your maths. You give numbers of how likely it is that someone has AA/KK. You seem to assume that AA, KK is just as likely as QQ,KK etc. In fact, it is not. That is because I have one ace and one king, so there´s only 3 ways to make AA/KK, while there´s 6 ways to make each smaller pocket pair. So the chance of someone else being dealt AA at a 9-handed table is only like ~2% (probability forum user told me).