So he's supposedly a poker coach, but he has glaring holes? He might just be lying his ass off.

I'd 3-bet bigger pre-flop. You guys are very deep, so I'd like to get in some money, and make him folds some hands that can crack your hand.

Flop looks good.
Like the turn check as well because KQ is a decent part of his range. You also block his NFD, and there are no straight draws except for 56/46. You definitely shouldn't fold yet, though.

I like the c/shove better than a c/c. He might flat AK because of stack sizes, but you don't beat anything else. The deciding factor should whether Villian is good enough to fold a small flush, or two pair. If you think he is, go for it for sure.


Do you know his real name/online name/where he coaches?

I never played live game in my life, but what i noticed in posts on RIO, is that live players are always on tight side  of advising on forums unlike online ones

Biggest reason i guess is that you play so many hands per hour, hundreds even if you play zoom or many tables, so...IMO when  online player has a flush in no limit, its very unlikely he wil hit fold button ever ( in your case, muck cards when  you encountered online player in live game ) and most likely will call 2 pair on flush board, because online opponents are very capable of using scare cards to bluff, as well as blockers, so many just call not to be exploitable GTO wise, many just dont care cause wil be dealt hundreds of hands soon anyway and wil be in reverse situation with higher flush better 2 pairs .. and wil make up for that loss very soon

So from your perspective, i think the play is excellent, because you  hold nut flush blocker  and high pair best kicker as well, but thing is that you are thinking from your brain.. he cant call cause he doesnt have nuts, and i just reraised him...and im not sure that will work often enough against online player, you gotto put your brain in his head, and his head, i believe will call off light

Beside cards, you gotto play opponent :) not sure if thats helpful at all from someone who never played live, but i noticed live players have very different mind set then online, and id recommend you incorporate that in strategy as well

Play as play was good, logical creative..., but as Chael said, you gotta know you are up against opponent who is capable of folding low flush , 2 pair etc...given the fact you said hes online selfproclaimed hero.. i dont expect such plays to work enough to show profit

Well put.  As much as you guys think it's a good play, in retrospect, I don't like my play very much for the reasons mentioned by Aleks.  It's good for my CR range oTR, but balancing is over rated in live games, and I certainly don't think that it's necessary to develop a balanced CR range on the river.   In a vacuum, I don't think online players will think twice about calling here with KQ and just chalk it up as a cooler.  I'm not quite sure what's the alternative.  I hate check calling, and I hate check folding.

Bet folding the river seems lame, too.  What are you guys' thoughts?

I don't want to blast him publicly, but I know his name and the training site he makes videos for.  I don't know his online name.  It appears that he actually is a coach for the website.

Im not sure at all, i hate deep stacks plays, cause such spots totally confuse me, when i first started play poker, i would play nitty and  very tight, get  up to 3 x - 4 x buying, and lose all in one such hand sooo many times, when i dont have any solution i like as well , CRAI usually put you up against hands that are better then yours but aint nuts who stil call anyway, check call, you lose again sameway just lil less, yet too much, check fold is a PAIN, so i simply switched to...whenever i hit 200 bb, 250 max i restart from 100 ( i play zoom so is easy , not that i have to wait in line for table )

Some pro advise on deep stack plays of AA would be good here i guess

Suggestion is maybe play more Ax suited cards to try hit nut flushes, low pocket pairs to hit sets, and in general suit connectors that can crush some boards and pocket pairs easily, maybe different ranges are more suitable for that stack depth

Yet you cant fold AA, question is how to best play it

I dislike your sizing, somehwat slightly more then half pot after 3 betting on flop , but i have no clue to give you better suggestion :) hope someone wil give some useful advise, im very interested as well for playsolution for this stack depths of pocket aces kings type hands 

 i stil get in this spots in MTTS...and is just gros.. 3 bet pot pot...called only by better usually , or slowplay , bet smaller check some street pot control and you gave scare cards cheap ride to river to  kill you..BLAH..

 i do opt for first solution myself for now, til i hear better play suggestion, id rather die potting aces then checking potcontrolling and let T9 hit 2 pair by river, if opponents gonna get there, i prefer to be sure he pays for fishing and playing gros ranges, that does lose you buyin or tourney life when opponent hits, but more often then not you do win and he is out or without buy-in

So IMO you should POT POT you got aces..online view :)

and o:  i do hope someone has better play suggestion then mine :)

Since I play mostly live, the reason why I like your play, not going too deep into blockers etc, is that in live play very few and I mean very few are capable to c/r as a bluff, so if anything even an online beast will know this and will fold a lot just because he will not expect that type of play like never.

Aleks, the seemingly tiny Cbet is some what standard in live games.  ESP on dry boards, I bet 40-60% pot with my entire range.  On very textured boards I might bet 75-100% of pot.  This enables some balancing in bet sizing with bluffs and value hands and draws.  So bet sizing is more dependent on the board texture more than anything else.  Pot mashing dry flops prevents getting called from worse and it makes cbets either expensive if we make the same size, or totally face up if we bet less with them.  And as far as pot-pot-potting with AA in a deep stacked live game in a 3-bet pot is a but flawed in my opinion.  With 100bb stacks and online? Sure.  With 350bb stacks, we need to focus more on protecting our stacks rather than protecting our hand.  It's not enough of a reason to pot pot so that the opponent doesn't catch up to two pairs.  When you look at the board on KQ73ss board, we really have to consider what value hands the villain can have that will call our bet and still be behind.  

Ok :)

He shouldn't have AK because he doesn't rep any bluffs unless he floated the flop with air as there are no missed draws. Also his perceived value range is strong, KQ+. Also you aren't likely to  call down with JJ. Nor are you going to sit there with KJ and call thinking he's betting K10. That only happens in a very aggressive dynamic and you said he thinks ur uncapable. If he is indeed overvaluing AK like this then just give him this pot. He'll pay it all back with interest in the long run for sure playing like that.

Also KQ is near the bottom of his value range. If he's calling with that, it means he's calling with anything. Which also means he'll be paying it all back plus interest in the long run.

Sometimes players may mistakes and actually end up making money because of it. You can't get upset because of that. Just shrug it off and adjust next time. So if he calls KQ then start value towning him. If he was betting AK then start checking to him to let him value cut himself.

By the way the best boards for turning a blocker into a bluff like this is when the bottom of his range is robust and the top is slim.

For example: Flop K 7 8; turn-J; River 10 with the flush completing. On this type of board his combos of 2 pair hands, straights, sets etc. outnumber his flushes.

On K 7 3 Q 4, he doesn't have many K7, 37 type hands that he is likely to fold. And his calling range is likely to be flush heavy.

I mean sure not so many players XRAI river in live games, but you seem to be a reg sitting at 5/10 with 3700$, so it's not like you're a random live fish. If for some reasons vilain can think you're very weak and straightforward, then sure, go for the big bluff, but if you've been battling a bit, if you showed that you find him obnoxious (he seems to have bothered you, and if he saw that while you were playing, it will influences his decision towards more light calls), then it's very unlikely that it will work. Having blockers is not enough.

Your line is not very credible. There is one hand very credible you can have: AsQs. Except for that, it's very hard for you to get on this river with a flush, and you surely don't play a set like that.

First of all you're 3betting from the SB vs the BTN 4x raise, IDK how the dynamics are, how much you've been 3betting before, etc ; but with no more reads, I wouldn't expect you to be very light in this spot, taking stack depth into account. For instance, is it very likely you would 3b Js9s? As2s? Ts8s? Oviously it depends on BB, but I think you'd call or fold many of those hands, because your 3bets will get peeled nearly always by the BTN, and you don't seem to be the type of player to barrel bluff like crazy.

Basically your preflop range looks value heavy to me in this spot ; plz tell me what you think your range looks like in this spot (and more important, what vilain might think!).

Now lets look at the turn. I kinda understand the pot control line with AA, although I'd rather pot control on the flop or 2 barrel. I'd bet bigger on the flop as well, your reasonings for betting this amount are not sufficient IMO (you can't just take into account board texture, you have to consider your opponent and how he will play, if his range is elastic to your sizing, how your range is perceived, next streets to play, etc).

Anyway, you choose to pot control turn (fine) and then turn your hand into a bluff river. For me your hands looks exactly like what it is. Would you really X/C a flush draw on the turn? It's quite likely you'd barrel with AsTs / AsJs on this turn, it's quite likely you'd barrel naked flush draws if you have any (which I don't believe you have a lot, as highlighted above). How many flush combos can you rep? Would you XRAI a low flush on this river if you had one? Probably not. You might be repping 2-3 combos max.

Also river consider his sizing. He's betting very small. People are very aware that they might induce light raises when they bet so small, and therefore don't fold. River your range looks like bluffcatchers almost always. A XRAI is very weird, and makes a lot of sense with bluffcatchers that feel they're beaten on this river. So 2-3 combos of value, compared to maybe 20+ bluff combos. Easy call for vilain with all his value range.

So all in all, I think you put too much emphasis on the blocker you have + the fact that not so many people bluff rivers in live games, but I think your line is very transparent, and it will not work against a pro, especially if his ego is in play (that's why I was also saying that if you showed frustration towards him with your body langage, he's more likely to snap call you).

I think the answer to whether or not this is a good play (in a vacuum) is present in your description of your opponent.

Let's start by talking about what makes this a good play.  We have blockers to the nuts in a spot where our opponent can have a decently wide call/bet/bet range (KQo, KQs, K7s, many spades, JT, 56s, some sets.)  If he's folding anything that isn't the nuts or close to the nuts then we have an extremely profitable bluff situation.

Now let's look at what's wrong with our line.  Your combos of AXss are pretty limited to begin with, because you 3b preflop.  AKss, AQss, AJss, and occasionally a hand like A2ss/A3ss.  AKss is blocked by the Ks on the board, so that only leaves us with AQss, AJss, and the odd AXss combo that you decided to 3b preflop.  When you x/c the turn you are pretty effectively removing the AXss and AJss combos, leaving you with AQss as the only sensible nut hand for you to see this river with when you take this line.  It's also pretty hard to believe that you would play other spade hands this way, so you're not effectively repping many hands that might make sets/2p/straights fold either.

Now, of course, in practice it doesn't really matter what your range is.  It matters much more what your opponent will believe your range is and how he will react.  So let's look at your description of him:

"self-proclaimed online high stakes NLHE crusher.  Coach for a small training site.  He hasn't adjusted much to live games and I find many glaring leaks in his game.  He suffers from FPS and over confidence, and I don't find him particularly competent at playing deep stacks."

With this bluff we are relying on our opponent to appreciate how unlikely it is for us to be bluffing the river this deep.  But you've already said that your opponent hasn't adjusted well to live games (where people are much less likely to bluff the river than online), he suffers from FPS (meaning he should be more likely to assign FPS-y motivations to other players at the table, and is also more likely to find some sort of hero call that might be terrible in the vast majority of spots), and isn't particularly competent at playing deep stacks (which means he might not appreciate how potentially terrible it could be to stack off with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th nuts etc. in this spot, or how drastically you should theoretically be narrowing your range).  So against this player I think the bluff actually loses a lot of its merit, and becomes a pretty bad play.

When we're making a bluff this ambitious for this many bb it's important to make sure that all of the pieces align.  We have to credibly rep an appreciable # of value combos (We rep one), and we want to to make sure that we're doing it against the right sort of player (which we've established that Villain isn't). 

Don't think you have that many nut flushes (or QJs, QTs) to turn AsAx into a bluff. AsQs, As3s seem the most likely candidates to bet flop + check-call turn. AsTs, AsJs + and A2s, A5s prob should bet turn. (I guess you can 3-bet 100% AsXs pre, but that would be sort of bad so let's assume you call A6s, A8s, A9s pre)

Because you got PSB left and only rep. only 4 combos (or 3 discounting QTs), you should bluff only 2 combos. That leaves exactly both AsQh & AsQd. Bluffing AA would be unbalanced, thus check-call with it.

Are you sure it's not you who has the issues with over-confidence and FPS?

As played the river is a clear call.  SB vs BTN ranges are incredibly wide, and given you are deep stacked should make them even wider.  If I'm villain I'm taking this line as light as KJ/KT for value.  River seems like a very easy c/c for you.

Your turn check doesn't make a ton of sense.  You have the best hand so often and you allow him to control the size of the pot when you decide to give up initiative.

Rly like your line, esp given he might underestimate you