5 bet win, was the risk worth it?

joeblowpoker

Just going through a hand I felt a little unsettled with. I felt that if I had taken the same line in a higher stakes match the risk may not have been worth the reward and I'm hoping to find some good advice for future spots like this. Ok, this was a 0.10/0.25 NLH 6 handed game. I was delt AKo in the big blind with a starting stack of about $25, villain was UTG and open min raised to 0.50 with a starting stack of about $26.50. His Vpip is 30% and pre flop raise is at 20%. Action folds around to me. I figure he's opening wide enough that I can get value from many of his hands. I 3 bet to 1.33 thinking he'll probably call and I'll see a flop with me in a good spot. Surprisingly he 4 bet raises to 4.26. At this point he's showing a lot of strength and his range is a lot more compressed than how it started, somewhere in the A10o to AKs and all pairs. I wasn't worried about AA or KK due to my blocker hand. I felt a bit handcuffed but figured best move to put the pressure back on him is to 5 bet raise to $15.60, my thought on this was that it puts him in a position were he has to shove or fold and if he does shove it's pretty likely a coin flip. He did end up folding but I've been wondering if maybe my 3 bet looked too weak coming from BB and given that it was only about a 2.5 raise. Any advice in this scenario is appreciated!

compuease

What do you think he thinks of you? Tight, weak, also aggressive? Your 3 bet was quite small, I assume you wanted to get it heads up? Are you ok flipping? If he thinks you are tight then his 4 bet could be almost anything. However if he thinks you are aggressive then his 4 bet means strength. Likely you are flipping. Just variance,

moose

joeblowpoker wrote: »

Action folds around to me.

compuease wrote: »

I assume you wanted to get it heads up?

Achievement unlocked

joeblowpoker

I got the feeling he thought I was loose-aggressive, this was maybe the 10th hand in, so not a whole lot for him to base off of. Once I made the 5 bet decision I was already committed if he did shove. If I had a high pair like AA or KK or maybe even AKs I would have been more comfortable calling a shove and the line I took would have been okay with me. What sizing would you have made the 3 bet?

MrCaspan

Like comp said from the Big Blind facing a min raise I am doing 3x the persons bet at min, at 100BB deep this is just par for the course. If you are down below 30 BB then that smaller 2.1-2.5x bet seems normal.

And again like comp said its really important to know how you have been playing in the past with this player from the Big Blind or if they are on tilt. In my opinion with AK facing a 4Bet it's a 5bet shove and put all the pressure on them. Dont let them have the upper hand control the hand. Thats the only thing i personally would have done different. unless this guy was really tight and you wanted to read that info to see what they would do. Ill take a flip any day.. great odds!!

joeblowpoker

Thanks! That's a lot to think about, with the 2.5x 3 bet I felt that I had inadvertently brought on the 4 bet looking weak. The goal of the 5 bet I made was to look like I wanted him to shove, which seemed to work because it made him think twice about commiting. All in all there's a few lessons here, I need to work on 3 bet sizing and get more info before making moves haha

MrCaspan

Looks like the pros are also 5bet shoving lol Always trust in the church!! (Kevin Martin refrence)

https://youtube.com/shorts/aCvw63df384?feature=share

MrCaspan

Also just to go with that. From all the book I have read as long as what ever you do was for an actual reason and you can explain the reason later and feel justified then thats playing smart poker. If you didnt know what to do so you guessed and did random things without thinking, thats bad poker. Evaluating the hand after write it down and thats whats important. Everyone else is always going to have an opinion on somthing that is different then how you think for what ever reason. I think it was Eric Seidel that i took that quote the most literal from the Maria Konnikova book The Biggest Bluff when Eric just said to Maria after a huge hand and she wanted to complain or whine or talk about a hand or a bad beat. Did you have a plan and did you follow through or did you just blindly stab at it, did you have a read, what were the stacks effective, what kind of opponent were you playing" paraphrasing here not exact quote but you get the point. Sounds like you have about 80% of that in you initial post but sounds like an online game so easy to replay the facts after but during the hand you have to be thinking of these things and as long as you were and had a plan story to you carried out and told then thats smart poker and learning from mistakes and loosing the hand does not mean you made a mistake it was just the outcome of the hand.