[500BB] Thought process breakdown — AA vs flop check-raise (flopped quads)

My thought process:

Hero (CO): 28/21 | 3B 14.8 | 4B 18.3 | hands: 8.5k
Villain (HJ): 32/30 | 3B 19 | 4B 0 | 67 hands
Effective stack: ~410BB

Preflop:
HJ opens to 1063, Hero 3-bets to 2913 with A♠A♣, HJ calls.
(In hindsight, 3-bet sizing is too small — should’ve gone 8–9BB instead of 5.7BB this deep.)

Flop (6828): 4♠6♥6♠
HJ checks, Hero bets 1935, HJ raises to 7120, Hero calls.

Turn (21068): 8♠
HJ bets 5267, Hero calls.

River (31602): 3♠
HJ jams 25628, Hero calls.

Showdown:
Villain shows 6♣6♦, Hero shows A♠A♣ — villain wins with quads.

My thoughts:
This hand really exposed a flaw in my thought process. I put him on KK or another premium, but realistically, those hands would have 4-bet preflop, not flat-called.
The flop check-raise confused me — what is he ever doing that with? I don’t see 77–TT raising here; those hands should just call.
I’m also blocking the nut flush and straight draws (A♠ and A♣), so hands like KQs♠♠ are reduced, maybe appearing 25–50% of the time at best.
There aren’t many straight draws that make sense either — this line just looks so nut-heavy in hindsight.
By the turn and river, it’s clear I was talking myself into a call without enough reason.
Looking back, this spot feels like a massive range-reading failure. I just didn’t think clearly about what bluffs he could realistically have — because there basically aren’t any.

What are your thoughts?

Hand history below.

NL Holdem 0+0 (500BB)
SB ($13685) [VPIP: 58.1% | PFR: 45.2% | AGG: 11.5% | Hands: 31]
BB ($29487) [VPIP: 18% | PFR: 16% | AGG: 50% | Hands: 50]
UTG ($20099) [VPIP: 30.8% | PFR: 17.9% | AGG: 8.7% | Hands: 39]
HJ ($40928) [VPIP: 31.8% | PFR: 30.3% | AGG: 45.2% | Flop Agg: 72.7% | Turn Agg: 71.4% | River Agg: 25% | 3Bet: 19.2% | 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 67]
HERO ($52803) [VPIP: 28.2% | PFR: 20.8% | AGG: 33.4% | Flop Agg: 49.2% | Turn Agg: 46.4% | River Agg: 48.4% | 3Bet: 14.8% | Fold to 3Bet: 49% | 4Bet: 18.3% | Hands: 8551]
BTN ($15335) [VPIP: 18.3% | PFR: 14.1% | AGG: 25% | Hands: 73]

Dealt to Hero: A♠ A♣

UTG Folds, HJ Raises To $1063, HERO Raises To $2913, BTN Folds, SB Folds, BB Folds, HJ Calls $1850

Hero SPR on Flop: [5.57 effective]
Flop ($6828): 4♠ 6♥ 6♠
HJ Checks, HERO Bets $1935 (Rem. Stack: $47955), HJ Raises To $7120 (Rem. Stack: $30895), HERO Calls $5185 (Rem. Stack: $42770)

Turn ($21068): 4♠ 6♥ 6♠ 8♠
HJ Bets $5267 (Rem. Stack: $25628), HERO Calls $5267 (Rem. Stack: $37503)

River ($31602): 4♠ 6♥ 6♠ 8♠ 3♠
HJ Bets $25628 (allin), HERO Calls $25628 (Rem. Stack: $11875)

When it comes to 3bets consider how much your villain would pay to set mine you - and that would be a price where they can collect at least 10x from your remaining stack. In this case they could call up to 3720.

I think it was just well played by the villain. It looks like maybe a spade draw that gets there on the river, and that's what he was hoping you had.

Piece of advice for aces or any other premium hand. If it feels like the action is heating up too quickly for your liking, it's okay to let it go and just wait for a better hand. Especially when you are so deep in the tournament. It's okay to believe that your aces are no good and fold.

Feels like I'm never good here..

Pre-flop:
I agree with the idea that the 3-bet could be bigger... especially being so deep, but I don't think it's a mistake, we're in position with monsters.
The bigger 3-bet could also help us limit his response range, since with a mini-raise he has an incentive to go with a wider range of hands.


Flop:
A standard continuation bet... The villain's response is really interesting (especially having quads).

I would also tend to put the villain on hands like overpairs, but not the highest ones, which would still lose to our aces, because I think they would 4-bet us pre-flop.
We also can't rule out 22-TT, with some hands in the middle of the board, using a blocker maybe to get a fold? I'm not sure if hands like this should just call.

Note: We blocked the nutflush.

Honestly? I wouldn't want to just call here. But... We're still in position and can reassess on the next street.


Turn:
Well... This card would now complete possible flushes the villain might have drawn (I'm not sure if he should check/draw with high flush draws or with the low hands that connected to the flop).

Also, some complete some unassuming straights... There aren't many 57o in the villain's range, I believe, except for the suited ones, but again, the villain's range must be wide since we're so deep and with such a small pre-flop raise size.

He leads with 1/4 of the pot... And calling here, I believe we'll be very committed in the pot.

Anyway, his bet size is inviting.
We have some chance to improve our hand, but we also still beat 55, 77, 99, TT.
We have a difficult decision, maybe a call, but I don't think folding is out of the question here.

River:

Well, now we've completed the nut flush, which would make us beat all of the villain's flushes (except straight flushes), however we're still losing to the villain's higher-value hands.

Another tough decision, since we've come this far.

Again, I think without more information about the villain's tendency, can we divide the decision here between call and fold?


---------------------------------------------------------
These are just my thoughts... This is a really unusual situation. I think the villain played interestingly, precisely thinking about the fraction of the stack/pot to get an all-in with an extremely strong hand... But this was only possible because you also had a hand to match.

I'd like to know how (and why) solvers would proceed here, especially considering stack size, which tends to drastically alter how one plays and reacts.

First of all this hand is not 400BB deep but only around 80BB deep, which is of course much more normal for a tournament hand.

Preflop
I agree, the 3-bet sizing could be a bit larger, but its not like, the small sizing is a huge blunder. It seems like, you are being a little results oriented here, because the opponent happened to have a small pair and flop a set on you.

Flop
Standard 3-bet and standard call. The board is paired, so he could have trips, but there are not to many realistic combos of 6X, he can have after opening from HJ. There is only 1 A6s and 2 76s, and everything else is a very loose open from HJ, not to mention call of your 3-bet. Of course he could also have a flopped boat, but there is only 1 combo of 66 and 3 combos of 44, so there is just not very many hands, that beat you here. And he could also be raising a flushdraw or a worse overpair than yours. Its not unusual at all to see someone raising a hand like TT on this kind of board "for protection", even though they theoretically should just call.

Turn
You now lose to a flush, but you also have the nut flushdraw, and his sizing is very small. So another very easy call.

River
Now he jam, which is a little bit strange, because this card really change the nuts. He is clearly not jamming trips for value with 4 cards to a flush, so he either has a boat, a worse flush than yours, or he is bluffing. But once again there are just not that many boats, he can have. If he raise 88 on the flop, then he also raise 99-QQ, and if those hands have a spade, maybe he jam the river not knowing, what else to do, or overvaluing his hand. Or he slowplayed KK with the K of spades preflop. Or he was bluffing the flop with nothing, picked up a spadedraw on the turn and rivered a flush. So this is once again a snap call, and its not even really a decision.

Results
I dont think, you did anything wrong in this hand other than maybe a slight sizing mistake preflop. The hand is just a cooler, and the real mistake is to worry about coolers and outcomes. Yes it sucks to get your aces cracked and lose 80BB, but this is just part of the game and will happen from time to time. If he had showed you KK or KQ with the K of spades, you would most likely not have worried one second about this hand.

tiscoatthedisco said:

Feels like I'm never good here..

Click to expand...

It's definitely a cooler but you are going to have to find that out, whether someone would play it this way with KK or Kx with the K of spades. Personally I don't see much 3bets on a paired flop from overpairs or flush draws, unless they hold an ace for the flush. Likelihood of trips is low because fewer combos of A6 exist.

puzzlefish said:

It's definitely a cooler but you are going to have to find that out, whether someone would play it this way with KK or Kx with the K of spades. Personally I don't see much 3bets on a paired flop from overpairs or flush draws, unless they hold an ace for the flush. Likelihood of trips is low because fewer combos of A6 exist.

Click to expand...

All this might be true, but I would also argue, that a full house does not always raise the flop. People often slowplay boats (or quads), because they dont need to protect against anything. This time the opponent went for the fastplay, which I dont mind in a 3-bet pot, since he can get value from overpairs and flushdraws.

But if we get into this discussion of "this and that would not have raised the flop", then we have to include the flopped boats (and quads) in that discussion as well, because the general population most certainly does not raise boats on the flop 100% of the time. We can argue, if its 40%, 60% or 80%, but its definitely not 100%.

If we put the opponent on only flopped boats, when he check-raise the flop, its like getting 4-bet preflop, when we have KK, and argue that our opponent would only 4-bet AA. Maybe there are some extreme nits, who literally have a 4-betting range of only AA and KK (which we block), but that is certainly not normal and should not be our assumption, even if we did actually run into AA this time.

fundiver199 said:

All this might be true, but I would also argue, that a full house does not always raise the flop. People often slowplay boats (or quads), because they dont need to protect against anything. This time the opponent went for the fastplay, which I dont mind in a 3-bet pot, since he can get value from overpairs and flushdraws.

But if we get into this discussion of "this and that would not have raised the flop", then we have to include the flopped boats (and quads) in that discussion as well, because the general population most certainly does not raise boats on the flop 100% of the time. We can argue, if its 40%, 60% or 80%, but its definitely not 100%.

If we put the opponent on only flopped boats, when he check-raise the flop, its like getting 4-bet preflop, when we have KK, and argue that our opponent would only 4-bet AA. Maybe there are some extreme nits, who literally have a 4-betting range of only AA and KK (which we block), but that is certainly not normal and should not be our assumption, even if we did actually run into AA this time.

Click to expand...

This part is interesting, because slow playing quads seems silly. Nobody is going to expect someone to have them, just like nobody is going to expect trips or a set on the board. It's extremely unlikely. What would be expected based on pre-flop is overpairs and overcards.

Yes, quads don't need protection but at the same time I think they do need to build the pot if their villain (our hero in this review) isn't providing the action with a small flop bet after a pre-flop 3bet. I think this is the tell for the whole hand. The small flop bet screams overcards that missed but will likely keep going, like AK and AQ. Then once they are hooked, there's a juicy flush draw on the turn so they can let off on the betting and just keep reeling them in and hope they hit their flush on the river. And lucky for them, that's exactly what happened.

puzzlefish said:

Yes, quads don't need protection but at the same time I think they do need to build the pot if their villain (our hero in this review) isn't providing the action with a small flop bet after a pre-flop 3bet. I think this is the tell for the whole hand. The small flop bet screams overcards that missed but will likely keep going, like AK and AQ. Then once they are hooked, there's a juicy flush draw on the turn so they can let off on the betting and just keep reeling them in and hope they hit their flush on the river. And lucky for them, that's exactly what happened.

Click to expand...

Yeah I dont mind the way, the Villain played his hand. In a 3-bet pot there are lots of overpairs, that are not going to fold to a check-raise on the flop, and maybe he even get AK type of hands to continue. But I also dont think, OP did anything wrong. If we only loose to flopped boats here, then there are 1 combo of 66, 3 combos of 44 and 2 combos of 64s, if he is really wide preflop. So 4 or at most 6 combos. Which mean, this is at least as much of a cooler as running KK into AA preflop.

Recognizing these spots and reviewing your thought process is exactly how you plug leaks and improve. Your post-hand breakdown is actually spot on.

You hit the nail on the head regarding the preflop sizing. Playing ~400BB deep completely changes the dynamic. A standard 3-bet size gives the Villain phenomenal implied odds to set-mine with small to medium pocket pairs. Bumping it up to 8-10BB is definitely the way to go here to deny equity and define ranges better.

Post-flop, the check-raise on a paired 4♠6♥6♠ board in a 3-bet pot should definitely set off alarm bells. As you correctly noted, your A♠ is a massive negative blocker here. You are blocking his most logical semi-bluffs (nut flush draws). When he continues to barrel on the turn and jams the river, his range is incredibly polarized and heavily weighted towards value (6x, 44). It's a brutal cooler, but finding the discipline to fold an overpair when the board texture and action scream extreme strength is crucial, especially when playing deep-stacked. Great self-review

fa1920 said:

You hit the nail on the head regarding the preflop sizing. Playing ~400BB deep completely changes the dynamic.

Click to expand...

Yes but we are not 400BB deep here. We are only 80BB deep, which is completely normal stack size for early in an MTT or for that matter a cash game. The headline and post is wrong. You can see the actual stack size from the hand history.

fa1920 said:

It's a brutal cooler, but finding the discipline to fold an overpair when the board texture and action scream extreme strength is crucial, especially when playing deep-stacked. Great self-review

Click to expand...

Folding at any point in this hand would be a huge mistake in the long run and ruin your winrate. The most important thing in poker is to not be results oriented and stare yourself blind on the outcome of a single hand.

First of all — great breakdown. The fact that you’re questioning your range logic instead of just blaming a cooler is already a big step forward.

Preflop​

I agree your 3-bet sizing is too small for 400BB+ effective. At this depth, 8–9BB is much better. The smaller sizing keeps his entire playable range in — including pocket pairs — and deep stacks massively increase the EV of set-mining hands. You basically gave 66 a great price to realize equity.
Against a 32/30 with 19% 3B over 67 hands, flatting medium pairs IP vs small 3-bet is totally reasonable.

---

Flop: 4♠ 6♥ 6♠​

This is the key decision point.
When he check-raises this board in a 3-bet pot, what value does he realistically have?

• 66 (1 combo)
• Maybe 44 (unlikely but possible)
• Occasionally slowplayed AA/KK (but very rare given positions)
• That’s basically it.

Now ask: what bluffs does he have?
On this texture, there really aren’t many:

• 77–TT should almost always just call.
• Overcards with spades (KQs♠, AQs♠) exist, but your A♠ blocks a big portion.
• Straight draws are almost nonexistent.

So when you remove natural bluffs and remove overplayed medium pairs, his range becomes extremely value-heavy.
This is the critical realization:
Deep stacks dramatically

harshu said:

I agree your 3-bet sizing is too small for 400BB+ effective.

Click to expand...

Once again this hand is not 400BB deep, just because it says so in the title and original post. Its 80BB deep. Read the hand history. The rest of the analysis does not even matter, when you are starting with a false assumption about stack depth. Folding AA postflop would be pretty normal 400BB deep but not 80BB deep against a single opponent in a 3-bet pot, unless its like the worst possible runout. In this hand we could consider a river fold on a brick, because then we also lose to flushes and trips. But we can not fold on a card, that improves us to the nut flush.

fundiver199 said:

Yes but we are not 400BB deep here. We are only 80BB deep, which is completely normal stack size for early in an MTT or for that matter a cash game. The headline and post is wrong. You can see the actual stack size from the hand history.

Folding at any point in this hand would be a huge mistake in the long run and ruin your winrate. The most important thing in poker is to not be results oriented and stare yourself blind on the outcome of a single hand.

Click to expand...

Good catch, fundiver199. I completely glossed over the raw chip counts in the hand history and just took the OP's 'Effective stack: ~410BB' note at the top of the post at face value.

You are absolutely right. The difference between 400BB and 80BB completely changes the geometry of the hand.

My previous comment about finding a disciplined fold was operating strictly under the assumption that we were actually playing ultra-deep. At 400BB, stacking off with a single pair facing a check-raise and a triple-barrel line is usually a massive leak, as ranges become incredibly polarized to the pure nuts.

However, at the actual ~80BB depth, the situation is drastically different. The SPR on the flop is much lower, and the villain's stack-off range naturally widens. They can definitely be overvaluing worse overpairs with a spade or just spazzing out. I completely agree with your breakdown: folding an overpair with the nut flush blocker at this stack depth is way too nitty and would torch your win rate in the long run. It is just a standard cooler and a mandatory call.

Definitely a good reminder to always double-check the raw HH data instead of relying on the poster's summary

fa1920 said:

At 400BB, stacking off with a single pair facing a check-raise and a triple-barrel line is usually a massive leak, as ranges become incredibly polarized to the pure nuts.

Click to expand...

True although it should be added, that in this hand we dont have a single pair on the river, when we face the only big bet. So this is not stacking off with pocket aces, its stacking off with the nut flush on a paired board.

fundiver199 said:

True although it should be added, that in this hand we dont have a single pair on the river, when we face the only big bet. So this is not stacking off with pocket aces, its stacking off with the nut flush on a paired board.

Click to expand...

Spot on correction, fundiver199. I completely blanked on the fourth spade dropping on the river when I typed 'single pair' in my previous reply (I was convinced that it was a heart). You are absolutely right that Hero holds the nut flush when facing the jam.

That being said, if we look back at the hypothetical 400BB deep framework I was evaluating, the underlying theoretical problem actually remains exactly the same.

Facing a flop check-raise, a turn barrel, and a massive river jam for 400 big blinds on a paired board, the relative strength of the nut flush drops significantly. It is effectively reduced to a pure bluff-catcher. Competent deep-stack regulars are almost never value-jamming a worse flush into a paired board for that many blinds. Their stacking-off range in that specific node becomes exclusively polarized to full houses and quads.

So functionally, stacking off with the nut flush at that extreme depth is just as much of a leak as stacking off with an overpair, because we are only ever beating pure bluffs.

But exactly as we already established, at the actual ~80BB depth the OP was playing, that deep-stack polarization simply does not exist. The SPR is low enough that villains will happily stack off with worse flushes or overvalue their hands, making the nut flush an unexploitable snap-call and a standard cooler

fa1920 said:

Facing a flop check-raise, a turn barrel, and a massive river jam for 400 big blinds on a paired board, the relative strength of the nut flush drops significantly.

Click to expand...

This is true, but its also related to bet sizes. With stacks of 400BB effective either the flop and turn sizes would have needed to be much larger, or the river jam would be for around 5X the size of the pot rather than less than pot. So we would be getting far worse pot odds, and the opponent would be getting a far worse risk/reward on his bluffs.

And this is why, in that situation we could and should fold much more. Maybe then we only give action with the pure nuts (66) and second nuts (88). But for less than pot we are getting better than 2:1. So we only need to find 1 combo, we beat, for each 2 combos, we lose to. And we can definitely not rule out, that the opponent might either be bluffing or perhaps more commonly jamming a worse flush for value hoping to get called by worse.

fundiver199 said:

This is true, but its also related to bet sizes. With stacks of 400BB effective either the flop and turn sizes would have needed to be much larger, or the river jam would be for around 5X the size of the pot rather than less than pot. So we would be getting far worse pot odds, and the opponent would be getting a far worse risk/reward on his bluffs.

And this is why, in that situation we could and should fold much more. Maybe then we only give action with the pure nuts (66) and second nuts (88). But for less than pot we are getting better than 2:1. So we only need to find 1 combo, we beat, for each 2 combos, we lose to. And we can definitely not rule out, that the opponent might either be bluffing or perhaps more commonly jamming a worse flush for value hoping to get called by worse.

Click to expand...

You hit the exact core of the issue: pot geometry and how stack depth dictates the required bet sizing.

As you rightly pointed out, to mathematically get 400BB in by the river, the game tree requires either massive flop/turn bloat or an astronomical overbet jam at the end. Facing a 5x pot overbet, our pot odds are destroyed, our Minimum Defense Frequency (MDF) plummets, and the villain's optimal bluffing frequency drops significantly due to their terrible risk/reward ratio. In that specific node, folding a bluff-catcher—even the nut flush on a paired board—becomes the standard theoretical play, continuing only with the pure nuts (66, 88) just as you mapped out.

But bringing it back to the reality of the OP's ~80BB hand, your math perfectly illustrates why it is a mandatory call. Facing a sub-pot jam (25.6k into a 31.6k pot) and getting better than 2:1 odds, our required equity threshold (~31%) is low enough that folding the nut flush is completely out of the question. The villain only needs a few combos of worse flushes value-owning themselves or random spazz bluffs to make calling highly profitable.

Great discussion. It is always a pleasure to break down how raw stack depth and pot odds completely shift theoretical continuing ranges with someone who understands the underlying math