I don’t like slowplaying AK out of position on a 19bb stack. I would much prefer a 3bet and, at this stack depth, I think shoving is your best play.

As played I like your flop check. I usually don’t have a leading range on the flop as the preflop caller, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a viable approach. If you want to stay relatively balanced I think it will be a lot harder to do so if you need to construct both a leading range and a checking range, and I’m not sure if most players will benefit enough by leading to justify the effort involved in executing a more complicated strategy. However, if you feel that most of the player pool is not folding enough, taking the initiative on the flop to set up a turn shove may be a good exploitative adjustment.

Villain checking behind probably indicates a draw or marginal showdown value. I think most air hands will cbet here because the preflop raiser has a big range advantage and any bet puts our entire stack at risk on future streets. I also expect most if not all top pairs to bet. I like your sizing on the turn and I think shoving river is the best option even though we will be shown a better hand fairly often when called. I think we’re too strong to check-fold, and missing too much value by turning our hand into a bluff catcher by check-calling. I wouldn’t hate a small bet and folding to a shove, but I still prefer shoving.

I think you played this as well as you could post-flop but I think the preflop flat is a big mistake.

Maniackid11 said

I really never thought about a few things you mentioned: “most air will cbet, check behind indicates draw or marginal SD value”. Thank you for that! I think I play my draws more aggressively if I’m villain. IDK if that’s correct or not, I just feel that if we hit a draw, we are just building the pot, and if we miss and opponent shows strength we can just get away from our hand with some stack left. Interesting though , because in terms of stack preservation I see the benefit of checking a draw. In terms of concealing the strength of our hand I also see the benefit of betting our draws…

I should clarify that I don’t expect all draws to check behind, but that when villain checks I think they are more likely to hold a hand with some decent outs rather than a complete airball. The word probably is also quite important. Every villain is a little different, and there are more ways to play draws in NLHE than there are to skin a cat.

There are clear advantages to playing draws aggressively. Adding fold equity to a draw will often dramatically increase the Expected Value of your hand. Draws also make some of the best bluffs to balance against our value range. However, at this stack depth, it can be beneficial to play medium strength draws more passively. One of the main reasons for that is that we don’t want to face a check-raise.

In villain’s shoes, imagine you have a hand like T8 on the flop, you bet $900 and the BB shoves. You’re almost getting good enough odds to call, but you absolutely should fold. As a result, you’ve been denied a lot of equity by not seeing the last two cards.

My personal approach to playing draws at this stack depth is to bet my strongest and weakest draws while checking the rest of them. I would bet any combo draw, most nut flush draws, and a lot of gutshots. I can fold the gutshots without giving up a lot of equity, and the other hands are strong enough that we don’t mind playing them for our stack. I would check back most if not all of my remaining flush draws and open-ended straight draws. I can call most turn bets if villain leads, and I’ll usually make a delayed cbet if they don’t. I can still get forced off my hand by a check-raise, but I find delayed cbets get check-raised much less frequently, and I’m not giving up as much equity with only 1 card to come.

Maniackid11 said

As you have mentioned DDD, we are def. shown a better hand when called. Which brings me to one last question if either of the two of you would mind answering: After leading the turn and Villain calling, what about check/calling river if Villain only leads for like say Half pot or so?

I don’t think we are definitely shown a better hand when called, I view this shove as a value bet. By definition, a value bet is winning at least 51% of the time when called. I think we’re missing too much value by check-calling the river. I’d be happy to break down the combos and figure out the approximate EV of each play, but I can’t promise how soon I will get to that. It takes a fair amount of time and a type of mental energy that I may not have until after WCOOP ends.

If we always win when we hit our flush then yes, we are getting the right price to call based on chipEV, and probably even when risking our tournament life. However, the reason T8 is so much different than a nut flush draw is that we will be up against larger flush draws much more often than against flush draws we dominate. We also don’t have an overcard that can draw to top pair.

Against a range of many kings, 44-33 and a boatload of flush draws, we have 31.59% equity. If the villain (or us in the original hand lol) is not defending the BB with some of his trashier suited hands than we are in worse shape than that.