POTD #116 Monte Carlo Monday: Triton $100k and The Start of AK Week

Punt of the Day's Second Four Bet Pot

No two poker hands cause players more consternation than JJ and AK. When you have jacks the flop is always ace high, and when you have AK you never flop a pair. AK is derisively called a “drawing hand” or “Anna Kournikova” because it “looks good, but never wins.”¹. Over on Run It Once (sign up using code: POTD for 10% off), I did a deep dive into how I played JJ at some high stakes final tables. So for POTD, I am going to pick the yin to JJ’s yang, AK, and launch our first-ever theme week, that I’m going to creatively call Ace-King Week. I’ve picked a nice grab bag of hands: Some I punted preflop, some postflop. I’ve had hands played online, at EPTs, at Tritons; and hands played in early levels, at final tables, and everywhere in between. The week begins with two hands played with registration still open, one hand played nearing the bubble, one in the money, and one at the final table. My total record in these hands is 1-3-1. We’ve got it all covered during our inaugural AK week.

In previous editions of Monte Carlo Monday #101 and #106, I wrote about how when facing polar aggression, I responded with aggression that was a little too linear. Today, I am going to write about a hand where I was met with linear aggression and failed to respond with linear aggression, but first I will define some terms. When I describe aggression as linear, it means your hands that are aggressive are your best hands. Open-raising preflop is a good example; you will fold your worst hands and you will raise your best hands, and there will not be gaps in your range. You will not raise pocket twos and fold pocket threes. An example of polar aggression is your response facing a preflop open: If the cutoff opens, you will always three-bet AKs on the button, and you will sometimes three-bet A2s, but you will rarely three-bet ATs. What makes your aggression polar is that you are aggressive with your best suited ace and your worst suited ace, while flatting your medium-strength hands. The width between those poles can increase or decrease depending on the situation: If the CO opens and you were in the big blind, you’d three-bet K5o before A2s, and your range would be more polar than CO vs. BTN. Generally, the more polar your range, the larger you bet, and the more linear your range, the smaller you bet. Even preflop, a normal open size is around 1/3rd pot, and an in-position three-bet is usually around 2/3rds pot.

A common polar bluff in NLHE is four-bet shoving A5s; this works against a polar range that is doing things like three-bet/folding A6s or ATo, but it does not work vs a linear three-betting range that is three-bet/calling 88 and AJs. So how should you proceed vs. a more linear range like that? Read more to find out.

Triton Poker Monte-Carlo 2023 Event #6 $100k NLHE
(1.5k/3k/3k) (SB/BB/BBA). 56/63 Remain. Registration is Open. 200k Starting Stack

It folds to David Yan (261k) UTG7 who makes it 6.5k, it folds to Michael Soyza (209k) in the CO who calls, I (176k) make it 24k OTB with A♥️K♥️, it folds back to David who makes it 51k, Michael folds, I call.

Flop (116k) 7♣️7♦️5♥️: David bets 26k, I call

Turn (168k) 4♦️: David checks, I check

River (168k) 8♥️: David checks, I check. He shows A♦️K♦️ and we chop.