Interesting thread! I was thinking along the lines of what Foucault said. I like the check to try and get value on the turn and river.

My 3-bet+ game is weak so I’m having a hard time building a range that calls a 4-bet that isn’t a premium pair and doesn’t have an A. Do we actually have to put a lot of Ax back in in spite of our hand blocking half of them?

The board is pretty dry. While I think we get value fairly easily from worse pairs, most unpaired hands in V’s range probably just fold since there aren’t many Ax (we block). I doubt V has many JJ-KK just calling PF OOP. 

By checking the flop we give up what may be our only chance to get value from worse pairs, but we let un-paired hands catch up or bluff at the pot when we show weakness. 

The turn has to be a blank. I can’t see V 3-bet-calling PF with 33 or 55. Quads are unlikely though I find TT the most plausible hand that hits the flop. I’m not sure how many TJ-TK are in V’s range. 

I think we look like we have AK/AQ when we check the flop and call the turn, maybe some medium pairs making a move.

SPR under 1 going to the river so we are at least calling no matter what right? If V bet less than our remaining stack, I may just call. If V checks the river I’d evaluate a raise or check at that time.

Am I placing too much weight on our AA blocking As? I mean, we’ve all seen AA meet AK/AQ, but this is low statistically speaking right?

Foucault said
Alright look I’m just going to come out and say this: you have Aces and an SPR of less than 2 on an extremely blank flop. Talking about pot control or scare cards or whatever is just ridiculous, you should be excited to put all of your money in unless the board runs out like exactly Q-K or K-Q. The only reason to check the flop is if you think it will help you get all the money in, not because you are trying to get to showdown without putting all the money in or because you want to sniff it out if your opponent flopped quads or turned a boat or something like that. If he did, he did and it’s a cooler but you have to go for full value here. Not to mention with such a low SPR there’s no pot control anyway if V wants to put all the money in he can do that whether or not you check the flop. A Q on the river might be “scary” in the sense that your equity when you get all in goes from 95% to 80% or something but it’s not “scary” in the sense that it should change the way you play or really even make you less excited about sticking all the money in. 

If your opponent has QQ and the river is going to be a Q you are going to lose your chips whether you put them in on the turn or the river, shoving turn because you are afraid the river will be a Q doesn’t make any sense. So yes if you call and he checks river you should shove any river, and you should shove over a less than all-in bet on any river. It will be less than a PSB.

As for the relevance of Ax blockers, this is something you can figure out for yourself. How many combos of KK are possible? How many of QQ? How many AK, given that two Aces are accounted for?

The last part seems directed at my post but the first part…? Pot control was mentioned further up thread, but that wasn’t my focus.

To be clear, my questions/musings were about picking a value target, not fear or looking for a fold. I might have confused things by talking about calling the turn because it was also mentioned up-thread. When V leads out on the turn I like a shove. 

The most direct hands we beat are KK/QQ, which are likely to be getting it all in regardless of what we do, so we need a lower value target right? I assume that is why we check the flop, to back-load our value (even though it is a shove rather than trying for 2 streets). 

P.S. Watching a video series doesn’t make me automatically understand everything discussed, obviously, so threads like this are my attempt at practical application of the theory, away from the table. This is why I’ve used some of the language from your Getting Paid series. If I wiffed on understanding a concept I’d love to hear it so I can course-correct. I’ve noticed applying some ideas in and out of the series to various stack sizes can cause me to question some things, for better or worse.