stupid preflop question

[FlyingSaucy]

With AQ in LP, what do you do against an unknown mid position preflop 4x raise?

Edit: alright another one. In the SB with AT against a mid pos 3x raise.

[garveya1]

Against an average player I'll usually 3 or 4 bet or fold. If you just smooth call and you hit your ace you have to worry about AK, if you hit your queen then you might have to worry about Aces or Kings.

So the best thing to do is to 3 or 4 bet their raise, they may put you on AA or KK and fold preflop. Or they may fold to any c-bet on the flop. If they re-raise you, you can assume they eaither have a big PP or they have AK.

Edit- I fold AT to any raise from the SB.

[FlyingSaucy]

Is it a true statement in general that you want to either be raising or folding preflop with A-high? And with position you raise and without you fold?
God this seems so stupid but i just want to make sure im not going crazy

[garveya1]

With AK or AQ OOP I'll raise about 4x the BB then if I get re-raised from someone in LP I'll 3 bet their raise with AK 100% of the time and about 50% of the time with AQ, the other 50% or so I'll fold. (with AQ it depends on my read of the person, if they are LAG I tend to reraise, if they are a rock I tend to fold).

If I decide to raise with anyother Ace OOP (AJ and down), if I get raised I will usually fold around 90% of the time.

And like I said with in LP I always 3 bet a raise with AK, whether the person is loose or tight. With AQ I'll more often fold to tight players or people I don't have a read on and reraise vs loose players.

[Da GOAT]

saucy your not the only one.

i havent felt comfortable calling with AQ in LP. now i shouldnt be.

this post has helped me too.

[TrAdam5]

With AK or AQ OOP I'll raise about 4x the BB then if I get re-raised from someone in LP I'll 3 bet their raise with AK 100% of the time and about 50% of the time with AQ, the other 50% or so I'll fold. (with AQ it depends on my read of the person, if they are LAG I tend to reraise, if they are a rock I tend to fold).

If I decide to raise with anyother Ace OOP (AJ and down), if I get raised I will usually fold around 90% of the time.

And like I said with in LP I always 3 bet a raise with AK, whether the person is loose or tight. With AQ I'll more often fold to tight players or people I don't have a read on and reraise vs loose players.

So do you really always 3-bet with ak when ur early position raise gets repopped, even by a tight knit? I guess if it works for u that's great, but that IMO is far too aggressive (in cash game, not in tournies obv.). It's one thing if your playing against an extreme LAG maniac who is reraising preflop at least once an orbit, but if u are playing a tight player his reraise range against an early position raiser may be only jj-aa, ak, and sometimes minus the jj and ak. There are some players that hardly ever reraise, and when they do, I'm normally bailing with less than AA or KK. Now against loose reraisers, I agree AK is a repop (altho it's much better if you know ur opp. is capable of folding an 88 or 99 and isn't a complete maniac). Overall, I'd say my line with ak in cash assuming a call doesn't pot commit, in which case I generally push, is somewhere along the line of 35% raise/ 30% call/ 35% fold. These percentages are only when I am oop, when I am in position (i.e. against sb or bb), i tend to smooth call more often.

I think i definitely need to be cold-calling out of position alot less, as often times I get caught in between a raise, so maybe I should be reraising more, but I can say pretty definitively that if you are reraising ak a 100% of the time, it is -EV against some opponnents.
[Note- those figures for me are from all positions outside of bsb play, when my early position raise with ak gets reraised I probably fold more, and raise even less]

Now with AQ, u really 3-bet 50% of the time? Wow, that's very aggressive. I only reraise AQ there against the loosest opp.'s, and even then I'll sometimes call and try to outplay them postflop. Against any fairly tight play, I think u need to realize that making a play like this in cash game with aq is OK from time to time, but it is in effect, a BLUFF. AQ is ahead of no half tight players range possible hand. ANYTHING that willget called in this spot is absolutely dominated. I guess if you can get your opp. to fold a decent amount of the time it's worth it, but u say u are only reraising against the looser opp.'s, so I would only suggest thisagainst loose players who know how to fold a hand. My percentage would be probably 15 Raise/10 call/75 fold with aq from earlier position, 25/15/60 from mid,and then I don't really start playing it real aggressive until late position/bsb.

[DonkDonk]

With AK or AQ OOP I'll raise about 4x the BB then if I get re-raised from someone in LP I'll 3 bet their raise with AK 100% of the time and about 50% of the time with AQ, the other 50% or so I'll fold. (with AQ it depends on my read of the person, if they are LAG I tend to reraise, if they are a rock I tend to fold).

If I decide to raise with anyother Ace OOP (AJ and down), if I get raised I will usually fold around 90% of the time.

And like I said with in LP I always 3 bet a raise with AK, whether the person is loose or tight. With AQ I'll more often fold to tight players or people I don't have a read on and reraise vs loose players.

If you are 3-betting w/AK 100% oop against somebody that reraised you (we will assume they 3-bet you as well), imo that's a huge leak.

[garveya1]

No DonkDonk it actually makes me a good amount of money because most of the people at lower stakes are pretty weak players and will always assume aces or kings. C-bet on the flop will almost always take it down.

[jackvance]

I think it also depends on the tables/stakes. When I play 10NL I only 3bet AA/KK (sometimes QQ/AK) and I'll call with AQ. When I'm playing 50NL I'll 3bet with AQ preflop.

About calling raises.. I'm always a bit hesitant to call a PFR with hands like AJ/AT/KQ.. I'd rather call with AK/AQ (so when I hit my TP I probably have the best kicker) or with a more speculative hand like a pp or a sc, so that I always know where I'm at and I don't trap myself. Depends a lot on villain's PFR though. If a guy with a PFR of 2% raises, AQ is an insta-muck.

[DonkDonk]

No DonkDonk it actually makes me a good amount of money because most of the people at lower stakes are pretty weak players and will always assume aces or kings. C-bet on the flop will almost always take it down.

I agree that players at the low stakes are weak and will assume a 3-bet after their pr raise is AA-KK. However, remember these "weak" players have 3-bet your 5xbb raise pr from position, and weak players typically only 3-bet w/the goods. Your pr raise @ 50nl will be 2.50$, their 3-bet will make it 7.5$ to go. Your reraise 3-bet will make it 22.5$. If villian calls this, they are almost always never getting away from their hand on the flop because they have nearly already invested half their stack. Also in my experience a lot of the time villian that 3-bets u preflop at these low levels are more than happy to reraise your 3-bet reraise allin preflop. Therefore for the times villian reraises u allin pf and the times they call your allin on the flop your AK doesn't have a lot of showdown value, because simply your going to be beat a lot of the time. Playing AK oop is a very tuff spot.

[zenbitz]

This advice is for FR, somewhat passive tables (i.e., pf re-raises are rare)

AQ in LP. Unless the raiser is particularly loose (justifying a 3-bet) or tight (justifying a fold), I think a call is fine. You shouldn't typically want to play a big pot on an A-high flop anyhow. If for whatever reason you are three-betting light (say an agressive 6max table, or trying to establish a Laggy image) then you should certainly 3-bet AQ.

ATo in SB vs 1 typical PFR is basically an instafold, or *occasionaly* re-raise semi-bluff (under NLT&P ATo qualifies as "best of hands you would usually fold")

[garveya1]

Yeah DonkDonk I didn't even read what I had initially posted. I agree with you, I really don't know what I was thinking when I posted that. Actually, I very rarely reraise a reraise with AK and definatly not with AQ. Simply because the range inwhich low limi players reraise is so narrow. I usually just smoothe call their raise.

I thought the issue at had was do you reraise someone who raised in late positiion if you will be oop post flop, like in the blinds. In that case I think you definatly reraise, but yeah I misunderstood what was going on.

[jackvance]

Your reraise 3-bet will make it 22.5$.

That is actually called a 4bet fyi