Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

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Yes after the flop that would be accurate. Before the flop there is already a blind bet out there. Therefore a re-raise of an original raise is a 3 bet.

Class dismissed.

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technically an open is a 3bet, as the small blind is initial bet, and the big blind is a min raise. :P

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

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Yes after the flop that would be accurate. Before the flop there is already a blind bet out there. Therefore a re-raise of an original raise is a 3 bet.

Class dismissed.

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technically an open is a 3bet, as the small blind is initial bet, and the big blind is a min raise. :P

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I'm far from an unquestioned authority on this, but you are wrong.

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

Did you attend clown college?

A preflop 3bet, according to 90%+ of the posters here (and this is being very conservative), is a raise, reraise, followed by a reraise.

For example, you raise utg with AA, villain minraises on button. You both have 200bb. In order to protect your stack, you would put a 3rd bet in. This 3rd bet is known as "the 3bet".

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

Actually no, I did not attend clown college. A claimed forum consensus on your part does not make me incorrect.

When someone opens a pot with a raise, and someone else re-raises, that's a 3 bet. I don't peruse the small stakes forum too often, so if you guys have all agreed to be wrong on this definition, then if I post in the future, I'll be happy to amuse you.

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

This is just a bad player paying you off. The only hand that has you beat is AA, and he's definitely not playin it postflop like AA. Rarely will you get this much action postflop w/ someone holding QQ (if I'm wrong, I need to start playing more NL!)

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

I think that's the point. I've won my share of monsters from a tight player that just absolutely refuses to fold QQ/KK, ESPECIALLY when you play it fast.

If you guys feel that advice along the lines of getting maximum value from very weak players is misplaced in the SMALL STAKES no limit forum, feel free to ignore it.

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

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This is just a bad player paying you off. The only hand that has you beat is AA, and he's definitely not playin it postflop like AA. Rarely will you get this much action postflop w/ someone holding QQ (if I'm wrong, I need to start playing more NL!)

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it's very difficult for villain to have AA when hero has 1 and there are two on the board.

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

you got lucky against bad player.

w/o read of opponent being so bad that they get married to KK/QQ regardless of ace flopping or not, the preflop call sucks.

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

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you got lucky against bad player.

w/o read of opponent being so bad that they get married to KK/QQ regardless of ace flopping or not, the preflop call sucks.

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So finally we get to the crux of my orginial post! I certainly did not have a read as specific as, "will not fold QQ with an ace on board". But I certainly had a read that he was a very weak player. Is that read not specific enough to make this call?

Re: A discussion of implied odds of flopping one pair with AK
 

Your example is poorly chosen. You've chosen the situation where you're against a donkey who begs you to take his money once you outflop him. You happen to hit TPTK + the nut flush draw, and donkey with a lower pair min-bets and calls your raise all the way down. This hand becomes much more comfortable for you to play, by the way, since the turn is another ace, eliminating the one hand you would likely be behind.

So sure, against a bad player who you will go to the felt with even less than top pair, you can probably expect to get paid off when your AK hits. So let's pretend you're against a slightly less donkey player (somebody who will only go to the felt with an overpair or TPTK).

So you call a "3-bet" (note: though I'm not sure about the terminology either, i think this would be called a 3-bet in limit hold'em, but in NL when i say 3bet i usually mean open-raise-reraise=3bet) with AK -- in your example, you call 35 to win 63, getting less than 2:1. Let's assume your opponent's reraise preflop = AA-QQ,AKs.

If your opponent holds QQ and will take one stab if you flop an ace or a king, then your preflop call is profitable.

However, if your opponent holds KK, then you'll flop an ace ~1/6 of the time, and your call was not profitable (plus, you may get into big trouble in the unlikely event you hit a king). If your opponent holds AA, then you're in horrible shape.

Even if your opponent holds AK, unless you can get them to fold you're drawing to a split.


All of this is made more complicated by the fact that, if you hit, you're most likely to hit a 1-pair hand, which can be tricky to play and which will only get a lot of action if you're behind. So if you hit, you can expect to either win a small-ish pot, lose a small-ish pot, or lose a large pot. Overall, then, a *call* preflop is -EV.

If I'm going to be playing against a reraise with AK, i'd like to be able to see all 5 cards, so if I want to stay with the hand I figure my best option is to push, though i'd only do this if Villain is an aggressive player and has a WIDE reraising range.

-j.a.