AKo OOP

cardshark202

Fitz Cash Game hand from last thursday

Relevant stacks:
Button: €65
Villian: €700
Me: €800

Villain is pretty tight and is a fairly decent player, hasn't been at the table that long so no reads.

Whole table limps to button who makes it 20 to play, I repot it to 55 with AKo in the SB. Villian thinks for a while and calls. Button tanks his last few chips and I call and villian calls.

Pot(200ish)
Flop: AQ7r

I check, villian bets 125, I call.

Pot(450ish)
Turn: T

I check, villian checks.

Pot(450ish)
River: 2

check-call, check-fold or bet?

fuzzbox

I dont like repotting when so deep in a PL game, and oop, with AKo (AKs is a different story).

You hit your flop, and here you are trying to keep the pot small.

He wont bet if you check, so check/call is no good. Are you going to bet and fold to a raise? What do you think he has?
What worse hand will call you? Does he play AJ to this action?

pokypoky

I know the answer to this one. Lucky me. I thought at the time his range was medium pocket pair/ strong ace given the preflop action. Its hard to see him playing any other hands in this way. I recommended check calling for the laugh.

cardshark202

fuzzbox wrote:

I dont like repotting when so deep in a PL game, and oop, with AKo (AKs is a different story).

You hit your flop, and here you are trying to keep the pot small.

He wont bet if you check, so check/call is no good. Are you going to bet and fold to a raise? What do you think he has?
What worse hand will call you? Does he play AJ to this action?

Well I prefer playing a big pot with fewer players than a big pot with loads of players with AK, especially OOP. With one or two players I can bluff at the pot too.

Normally I bet this hand but for some reason I decided to check here. The way villian bets the hand, I wasn't sure whether to fold(bad option) or raise(bad option) so I decided to take the option of calling and re-evaluating on the turn. The turn gave me a middlepin but it also meant I wasn't beating much so I had decided to check -fold the turn. He then checked which confused me and made me think I may still have the best hand. At the time, the two hands I was worried about were AQ or 77, but I didn't think he'd check the turn with those. I then decided to put a blocker bet on the river of 125 which he called pretty quickly with 77.:(

Against an opponent I had down as a pretty tight player, I think I should be betting and folding to a raise on the flop, or betting and shutting down on the turn if he calls. The way I played it, I was unsure as to whether I had the best hand or not.

fuzzbox

cardshark202 wrote:

Well I prefer playing a big pot with fewer players than a big pot with loads of players with AK, especially OOP. With one or two players I can bluff at the pot too.

If you check when you hit your Ace here, but bet when you miss, you are pretty easy to exploit, and once he calls preflop, has position, and is deep, you hate your hand.

I think its better to play small ball oop when deep with this hand (against good players who wont stack off with KQ). Plus the AQ/AJ brigade are only too happy to play with you when an Ace flops.

In saying all that, I think you played very well, but I think Mr. 77 should have managed to get more value from his hand ... I guess he was just as scared as you were.

cardshark202

I probably bet here about 95% of the time, but I instinctively decided to check here. I read villian for a strong hand but I didn't know him well enough to be certain that I was behind.

FullOf..IT

fuzzbox wrote:

I dont like repotting when so deep in a PL game, and oop, with AKo (AKs is a different story).

Why is suited better here, isnt it only about 2% better?

fuzzbox

FullOf..IT wrote:

Why is suited better here, isnt it only about 2% better?

In absolute terms, yes, but in practical terms ... when deep and OOP, no.

Its much harder to hit a *big* flop with AKo than AKs. With AKo, you are looking to flop an ace or a king ... but with AKs, you can flop a nut flush, or a nut flush draw, or a pair and nut flush draw, or a nut flush draw and a gutshot, and so on and so on.

Flopping big allows you to play harder during the hand. Since you are OOP its much more difficult to control the pot size, and you dont really flop *big* very often with AKo ... so you dont really want a big pot with the other guy having position on you.

This is all due to
A. Being really deep (effectively 350 BBs)
B. Playing a Pot Limit game
C. Being out of position.

In position, reraising is much more appealing, because you can win it now, and if not, you have position throughout the hand, and can thus control the hand better.

FullOf..IT

Another learning...