Playing AKo vs the nuts...
Posted by RaoulFlush
Posted by
RaoulFlush
posted in
Low Stakes
Playing AKo vs the nuts...
Cheers guys,
just went through a spot yesterday that made me struggle....
Limit is NL25 regtable and all players 100BB deep.
A reg (22/20/8) opens UTG and a nit (17/15/5) 3bets in mp....He folds to 4bets 38% and has a 5-bet range of 1.2%.
Hero wakes up with AKo in the SB and goes into the tank.....
Thankfull for any advice on this kind of standard spot
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My first instinct would be 4bet. If he folds 40% and 4bets 20% (lets round it for simplicity, if he has a 1% 5bet range and a 5% 3bet range it gives 20% 5bet when vs a 3bet I think) he calls 40% so you will be doing either decent or well when he calls depending on how his calling range is built, even being OOP.
Then again, his range will be much tigher MP vs UTG so it will be a fold I guess. What would you say his MP 3bet % is?
But I'd much rather do some math on this than give an half assed response like this, I can probably build a spreadsheet to estimate EV depending on their ranges and sizings, would just need someone to help me estimate some ranges.
One thing to consider/be careful of is that if we 4b large and utg folds, AA might flat the 4b fairly wide, confusing our decision somewhat...
nit doesnt even 3bet QQ vs UTG so its AA/KK only, fuck your blockers fold AKo
This, the EV loss of a bad fold will probably much much lower than the EV loss of a bad raise in this case.
Basically my thoughtprocess (word by word :))
Just felt like hell of a nit myself folding this...but as citanul calculated well, every other option kind if sucks here even more
Can you explain this?
I think assuming a nit won't ever 3bet a top 1.5% hand vs. a 17% opening range is a bit too strong. My thought is that he'd be more likely to bet-fold or bet-call. In general, isn't one of a bad nit's bigger problems being that his range is overly elastic ?
You can approach this spot by the numbers if you want.
The nit 3-betting 5% means a range off JJ+, AJs+ AQo+.
UTG open is around 17% for most.
If we then look at a continue range of QQ+, AK, AQs+ that's a total of 2.87%.
Which means UTG will fold 1-(2.87/17) or 83.12% off the time.
MP will fold 1-(2.87/4.83) or 40.58%.
Let's assume 2.5x open and a 3-bet to 7.5x. We 4-bet to 19. We are risking 18.5 (SB) to win 30. So we need this to work 61.67% off the time. UTG will fold 83.12% and of those %'s UTG only folds 40.58%. So that's 33.73% off the time. Not enough, not even close.
But our hand has equity! It has 42.74% against that continue range. So when we do get jammed on we play a 201BB(+BBs from player who folded) pot for 42.74% off that.
So when we make this play it needs to be higher than -0.5. I'll go with the smaller pot where UTG folds and when we win it's 103.5 in profit.
-0.5 < 33.73%x11 + (1-33.73%)x103.5x42.74% - (1-33.73%)x100x(1-42.74%).
-0.5 < 3.7103 + 29.31513093 - 37.946202
-0.5 < -4.92077107
So it's a losing play. We also can't 4-bet and fold to 5-bet jam because the fold % isn't there. Then there's also rake. And the possibility for BB to wake up with AA or KK as well. Which makes this even worse.
Thanks for this deep analysis mate!
Think rake cap at 25nl is 10bbs so gotta take 10 of the pot.
Range of QQ+ AQs and AK is 1.96% when AKo is our hand, opening range of UTG goes to around 15% and MP's 3bet goes to 3.43%. So, UTG fold will be 1-(1.96/17)=87% (rounded from 86.9) and MP will be 1-(1.96/3.43) = 42.8%. So, we get 2 folds 37% of the time. (im changing to decimals, sry about that)
0.37x11+(1-0.37)x93.5x0.4274 - (1-0.37)x100x(1-0.4274) = -6.8278
Lets change the continuing range and keep the same 3bet for MP, taking out AQs of the continuing range. equity is now 38.82%. For fold equity we get for UTG 1-(1.71/15) =88.6% and MP 1-(1.71/3.43)= 50.1%. Both folding is now 44.3%.
We get 0.443x11+(1-0.443)x93.5x0.3882 - (1-0.443)x100x(1-0.3882) = -8.896
Now, lets change 3bet range. to QQ+ AQs+ AKo (very extreme one I know). MP folding is now 1-(1.71/1.96)=0.128 or 12.8%. Both folding is now 11.3%
0.113x11+(1-0.113)x93.5x0.3882 - (1-0.113)x100x(1-0.3882) = -20.8284871
So, even with blockers accounted, if you pay rake, it's a fold
(nice catch on the original math mistake)
Oh yeah. Our blockers even reduce things. Forgot to add that.
Thanks. It had to be wrong because there was no way it was so good. Even when I gave only KK and AA as continue it was way too high.
This all being said, there's still the tree where he calls.
Assuming that both players check down to the river the first scenario is profitable.
0.37x11+(1-0.37-)x21.5x0.4274 - (1-0.37-)x19x(1-0.4274) = 3.005
Now, of course this isn't realistic at all, I think that if we want to go further we'd need to have something KK+ 5bet and the rest of the continuing range calls (for MP, lets keep UTG as it was for simplicity)
KK+ is 0.49% with blockers. 0.49/3.43 = 14% (lets round this) rest of continuing range, therefore calling range would be 1.47%. 1.47/3.43 = 43%
Equity against KK+ is 18.47%
Equity against calling range is 50.8%
So, we now get (0.37x11) + (0.14x93.5x0.1847) - (0.14x100x(1-0.1847)) + (0.43x21.5x0.508) - (0.43x19x(1-0.508)) = -4.25
This is ofc assuming the full retention of equity when he calls. Being OOP we probably lose some, let's say villain gets 5% of hero's equity:
(0.37x11) + (0.14x93.5x0.1847) - (0.14x100x(1-0.1847)) + (0.43x0.95x21.5x0.508) - (0.43x1.05x19x(1-0.508)) = -4.685
(is this the calculate equity loss there? I'm tired, pls review)
Mudkip Looks good to me. I never calculated with calling ranges. I haven't gotten that far yet. And it gets complex really fast!
Best option I could imagine is putting it in a solver and taking that EV from the postflop tree.
You didn't include sample size which is an important factor in this decision.
If utg knows that MP is a nit, then what about cold calling his 3bet? I know it sucks to play oop with a hand like this, but being 3way on the flop we can definitely play straightforward and I would say even HU since we would be dealing with a nit..
I mean, I don't like the 4bet - they are going to be stronger + we don't have enough FE (as calculated above). However, if you feel like you have the edge postflop and can play pretty precisely, I think you can just click the call button and have a fun:)
I agree with other posters that the MP 3b range vs nit is important to understand here (as well as utg Ft3b, 4b%). Also, do you have the positional stats of two villains? I find that at nl25z, there are some real discrepancies by position for regs that can be insightful.
Personally, when utg is RFI 15%, i wouldn't discount JJ+, AK+, AQ from nit's 3b range here, and given the 17/15, it seems doubtful he flats much - is he really folding QQ to a raise here? I'd be curious on what the nit's 3b by position is, if that can nudge a decision one way or another.
If i was deciding here, it'd be close and I'd weigh a lot of these factors, as well as my reads on how good/aggro/tricky MP is.
My preference in order of plays:
4b-fold - if positional stats suggest the 5% is about right and we believe that the nit plays straightforwardly/face-up (i.e. not flatting a 4b with AA in position when we cold 4b and utg folds; flats with a range we're ~50% against, pays off 1 or 2 bets postflop when we're ahead on A or K high boards). Given the positions, that 1.2% 5b (or QQ+, or KK+, AKs) probably adjusts to KK+, in this hand. As Mudkip showed, given he 5betss ~ 14% and calls wide (maybe 40%), i think we can easily 4b-fold given our low equity vs 5bets and strong equity (near 50%) when he flats the 4b.
flat with AKo- We have good-ish equity vs. their ranges and it also has the benefit of defining our hand for us - if utg squeezes we can see how mp reacts and evaluate. When an A flops, it's very unlikely we're beaten (only one combo of AA).
fold - if we think that nit's 3b range is closer to 3% here (JJ+, AK) and he's shoving QQ+ (about 50% of the 3% range after adjusted, but with 70% equity vs us) and flatting most of the rest...
Think you gotta go with 3% on his 3bet range with those positions.
Flat is counter intuitive but curious. However, the amount of assumptions needed to be made to even atempt a calculation would just make any EV estimation meaningless imo
true story, decided to run some pio and go through the Carroters videos after posting. Found this one from last November.
check out the 12:25 mark:
https://www.runitonce.com/poker-training/videos/live-play-17-oct-peter-clarke-nlhe-poker-strategy/
it has a very similar spot (albeit HJ likely a bit less nitty). Not a lot of discussion, but the AKo was flatted in sb vs utg open and hj 3b, so it is somewhat viable.
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