When Your Opponent Will Automatically Bet

[Al Schoonmaker]

This article was outstanding. It presented a new way of thinking, and provided some great advice.

Thanks,

Al

[gergery]

Yeah, it was good. That guy must have a PhD in math or something.

[imported_Robert Andersson]

very useful information. Thank you!

/Robert

[Seether]

Does everyone really feel so positively about it? From the competition I play (5/10 6max, 5/10, and 10/20 live) I feel that 3 betting is almost always the best play in the aces situation. The author states that if you checkraise there will be as much money in the pot and the opponent will be facing a checkraise. However, he seems to not take into account the times your opponent would have capped pf, or raised you on the flop, or decided to call down with a small pair thinking you have AK on a raggy flop when you 3 bet pf representing a big hand. With the checkraise on the flop I see you losing almost all your action when your opponent folds an unimproved turn.

[Guruman]

[ QUOTE ]

Does everyone really feel so positively about it? From the competition I play (5/10 6max, 5/10, and 10/20 live) I feel that 3 betting is almost always the best play in the aces situation. The author states that if you checkraise there will be as much money in the pot and the opponent will be facing a checkraise. However, he seems to not take into account the times your opponent would have capped pf, or raised you on the flop, or decided to call down with a small pair thinking you have AK on a raggy flop when you 3 bet pf representing a big hand. With the checkraise on the flop I see you losing almost all your action when your opponent folds an unimproved turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that you'd need to already have a read on an opponent to try this play and hope for success here.
The article implies a semi-decent opponent with a moderate range of starting hands - or a complete maniac. Passive opponents would not auto-bet any flop when they could be behind, and you'd have to be pretty sure that your opponent will do so in order to give this one a try.

[skp]

The premise of the article is a good one but I am not sure that AA is the right hand to implement these ideas. I have been making this play for years with AK i.e. don't 3 bet preflop but checkraise the flop.

If you do this with AA, there are problems. I note two of them below:

1. a checkraise on say a 8s7s6h flop may see your opponent reading you for a hand stronger than AA (which you don't want as in this small pot, you want action and don't want him to fold).

2. Even if he doesn't read you for that strong a hand now, he very will might if you bet on the turn and the turn is a Ten, 9, any spade, 8, 5, or 4. Again, you stand to lose him on the turn and you usually don't want that when you have AA.

But with Ak, a little thinking will show you that you do want him to misread your hand as being stronger than it is. Also, with AK, if you just smoothcall preflop and the flop comes A65, you could checkcall him twice and then bet the river i.e. rope-a-dope. You have the best of both worlds when you do this with AK: He wont put you on TPTK when you flop an Ace or kIng. He may put you on having something pretty good on flops that miss you completely.



Bottom Line: Godd articel. good ideas. But wrong hand (IMO).

[David Steele]

Really AK? I thought the AA play was totally
standard.

I am not sure just a few flop examples is enought to evaluate this.

With AA it seems reasonable that it is the best hand to get the opponent to undervalue since it has so much value in the first place.

There are quite a few situations where a player not familiar with this will go way overboard where as they might be quite careful if it was 3-bet.

D.

[skp]

The first raise came from the button. If you 3 bet from the bb, he is not going to automatically put you on a big pair. He prolly puts you a pocket pair or an ace and he knows that you can have an ace way more often than a pocket pair. Many players will test you on many flops with a raise to see if you just have an ace. And if they hit a pair on the flop, they ain't going nowhere i.e. showdown time in case you just have an ace.

But if you smoothcall preflop and checkraise the flop with an ace, they may well give up on the turn even with bottom or middle pair because you have represented top pair, flush draw etc with your flop checkraise. Many turn cards can be scare cards to your opponent if you checkraise the flop which you don't wnat when you have AA. Those same turn cards would not be scare cards if you 3 bet preflop with AA.

I like the AK smoothcall way better.

[David Steele]

The article example is not so good I notice now. The play is much better when the first raise is most likely legitamate. I think you are right when the raise comes so late.

I probably would reraise the button raise with the AK too as I would with a lot of hands in this spot.

D.

[StellarWind]

It was a good article and the concept presented is very important.

I view a play like smoothcalling a premium hand in this situation as a way to vary your game. Reraising AA deserves to be the standard play in this situation because it really is the best play all things considered. The value of deception will not normally fully compensate for the immediate EV lost. This is especially true if opponent is apt to 4-bet a lot of hands.

There are two reasons why AA might not be the best hand to make this play with.

1. Ever raise preflop and say "oops" when you see the flop? We all have, but probably never with AA. One of the advantages of smoothcalling preflop is the option of changing your mind. When you make this play with (e.g.) JJ there is a very real chance that the flop will be so bad that you are glad you didn't raise. Now when the autobet comes you can call or fold and avoid putting extra action into a bad situation. If the flop is decent then you follow the original script and recover the foregone extra bet by checkraising. But AA is so strong that you will always be the favorite no matter what flops so this concept doesn't apply.

2. The "Ace Rule". It's a useful rule of thumb that when a PFR shows strength preflop and an ace flops, about the worst hand he is likely to have is a large pocket pair. Even many of the fish seem to understand this much of the time. Raising an ace preflop goes a long way toward killing your action when you are lucky enough to flop an ace.

The Ace Rule is one reason why smoothcalling a hand like AK/AQ works well. You get a lot more action when you flop an ace.

Now to some extent this same consideration applies to AA as well. You will lose action if you 3-bet preflop and flop an ace. But the odds of AA flopping an ace are only 2/3 the odds that AK gets. Instead you are much more likely to get a ragged flop where it looks like you might be in trouble with overcards. He is likely to at least call you down unless he has no hand at all.

In summary, big aces benefit more from the deception than AA does.