Inviting your thoughts before I taint the pool of responses with my own armchair analysis.
But yeah, my position is AQ can actually fold here. Fight me? 
At the very least I think it is closer than it looks.
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Nope canāt fold AQ in that spot, Mansoor played that perfect, incremental pot commitment was perfect setup, braidenthal was trapped, in a clash of the titans even if I lose this pot it wonāt affect my BR and no laydown is possible sort of scenario .
No fight here. You are looking at at 5.5x raise pre flop and a call in front of you. Considering who the players are, good fold IMO. Or were you talking about the initial raiser folding, lol?
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yes, I believe that is what he is inferring,
AQ is only beating A4, Q4 and bluffs here.
I think this is one of those spots where we can diverge pretty heavily from theory, as my contention is even a player as strong as @MansoorH has close to 0 bluffs in this spot. The board is SO dry!
It would be even more extreme if it was a 3bet pot, but even just single-raised I am happy to exclude almost all Q4 combos. Even A4 is probably only significantly represented by the suited combos. And AQ blocks both of those hands!
I am giving Mansoor a ton of 44 here. I think it is going to be 44, slowplayed AA, a little A4 suited and thatās about it. We donāt want to 4bet shove with AQ against that range, do we?
What are we beating???
well in that case, when mansoor reraises 5x the reraise after flop, can definitely lay it down. You have to be thinking he has trips there.
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exactly @_snowman. like I am NOT claiming I would find the fold in game lol. just that in retrospect, this is one of those spots where it just feels like a set, or a set, or a set, and sometimes maybe a set.
I see the range as AK down or pocket pair for Mansoor, 4 coming 4 to 5%, I think in braids mind it may have come up that Mansoor hit a set, but the odds are slim, so he puts him on Ax and itās on, there is a human factor being left out of equation as well, and braid also had outs, clouding judgment to fold.
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Whiffed pocket pairs?
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@napkin_holder in theory yes! In practice, no one here is doing this. At least, thatās my contention.
I think I play more large pure bluffs than almost anyone in this field, and even I will basically have no bluffs here.
@_Rain I find your analysis very convincing. I also think it was one of those spots where the guy with top 2 just thinks āI have top 2 against an aggressive opponentā and thatās that
Which is honestly probably a winning mindset overall
Well maybe, because along the same lines, breidenthal can have a lot of AA and QQ here, so is it really a call with 44? I wouldnāt actually give Mansoor any AA here, and I think breidenthalās line looks a lot like AA, but of course you would need a lot more behind to get anyone to fold a set.
I still like 4-bet jam way more than call, but agree you can just pitch AQ here. breidenthal has the worst ace, leaving only one combo of A4s, that I donāt think always plays this aggressively anyway, so Iām not even sure how much that matters. Itās basically only ever 44ās, and I think you just have to thank your opponent for letting you lose the minimum with top two.
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Here is a similar predicament albeit a very different config. I didnāt save the hand but I remember the action more or less. This was last night.
Effective stacks 80bb. EP standard open, Hero standard 3bet with AK. Villain (tight player, very few postflop bluffs) 4bets small, Hero calls.
Flop A K 3 (I donāt remember the rag card, but it was something mostly inconsequential like a 3). Hero checks, Villain bets 1/2 pot, Hero calls.
Turn T, no flush draw available. Hero checks, Villain bets 1/2 pot, Hero calls.
River brick, Hero checks, Villain all-in for about 2/3 pot, Hero calls.
Villain wins with AA.
ā
I considered folding turn as I expected Villain to slow down with a hand like AQ or QQ, and we are now losing to QJs in addition to AA and KK. But it seemed a bit crazy to fold already to such a mild size.
On the river I was like āfold, just fold dammit, you should fold. He isnāt continuing for his whole stack here with anything you beat.ā Then I called and lost.
I have been trending upwards since I started overfolding these spots again, which was standard for me at 20/40k and 50/100k but I thought might be less of a thing at 250/500k. Maybe against certain players thatās true, but there are still plenty of opponents who simply will not have any bluffs or gross overplays here, and if thatās the case, AK is a bit of a mirage as played.
This spot is a bit different because thereās only 1 combo of AA, 1 of KK and 4 of AK, so youāre way more likely to be chopping than losing. It doesnāt sound like villain ever has QJ here, so I like check-raising all in on the turn, just on the off chance that we get them off a chop. (Iāve seen some very tight players make that fold).
Honestly though, at 80bb, this should have just been a 5-bet jam pre.
Thatās definitely true in my experience. I actually think the higher stakes players bluff way less. Most of them are naturally tight, and more disciplined on early streets, so they just almost never get to the river with hands they want to bluff. I agree youāre basically never ahead with AK here, the only question is if you chop often enough.
Great point about filtering out the weak stuff on early streets so players simply donāt have many bluffs left by the river. I think Iāve lost a lot of chips by failing to recognize this sooner; I assume others are playing more like I am, but my range on turns/rivers actually seems to just be considerably wider than most of the fieldās.
I donāt know how much I like 5-bet jam pre in the spot in question because I donāt see much value in it. I believe this specific Villain will fold all worse hands and continue with JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AK. Not a good deal for the guy with AK. The only benefit is sometimes we might get a fold from JJ. I think the rest are never folding. QQ is going to sigh call off 80bb.
The value is mostly in being able to jam KK, which you really want to be able to do.
Thereās also still more value in just getting it in pre vs calling. If you are up against QQ or JJ itās going to be very hard to get stacks in when you hit otherwise, and youāre going to be folding out a lot of equity most of the times when you miss. The relatively few occasions where you save money against AA and KK arenāt enough to make up for the lost value/equity in all other cases.
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Depending on the situation we can argue for a call. But I agree with you, that is an easy fold.
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Here, probably call-Cash game, fold:)
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@bill8888 hahahaha I so feel you
Iāve seen plenty of players on Replay show up here with a hand like AJ or AK!
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