BTN Stealing

SB is a nit, running like 10/10 and folding to 100% of steals after 50ish hands. We have no post flop information on this villain.

BB is 22/16/12.8 after 100 or so hands with a fold to steal of 60%. Villain hasn't called in the BB yet, only seems to fold or 3bet. Villain doesn't do anything crazy post flop, cbets 70% in 3bet pots. We'll assume BB shoves/folds to a 4bet and never calls, we don't expect him to be stacking off light.

Hero (BTN): (100 bb)
SB: (122.5 bb)
BB: (100 bb)
UTG: (267 bb)
MP: (100 bb)
CO: (100 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with ??
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.06,

1 - What's your stealing range?

SB folds, BB raises to $0.18, Hero ?,

2 - How do you play your range in this spot?

The options are obviously folding, calling or 3betting, which we can split into value 3bets and 3bet bluffs. Some of these groups can be empty.

Without going into specifics, it seems to me a spot where we can of course profitably 4bet a range of value hands that we are happy to get it in with and bluffs that we 4bet/fold, but also profitably have a relatively large calling range since 70% cbet seems a bit high, we have position, and we're nearly 200bb deep.

also since BB is going to be 3betting us a lot, we want to tighten up our initial opening range as well.

edit: meh, even 100bb deep i think my point stands?

If he shoves to a 4-bet 200 deep he's really really horrible and your 4-bet bluffs are going to be enormously profitable.

Originally Posted by Carroters

If he shoves to a 4-bet 200 deep he's really really horrible and your 4-bet bluffs are going to be enormously profitable.

Woops, meant to edit that to 100bb. My bad.

Can a mod delete these last two posts.

lol @ asking for my post to be deleted

Have a go at constructing a strategy here, that's to say a standard range of calling hands and a standard range of 4 betting hands vs such a guy. Think about combos and resulting frequencies of each action and how it affects his 3-bet strategy.

Not to come off as nit picky, but this is a spot where it's quite silly to open for 3bbs. It's much easier to exploit SB by min opening and it's much harder for BB to exploit you when you min open.

Originally Posted by Carroters

Have a go at constructing a strategy here, that's to say a standard range of calling hands and a standard range of 4 betting hands vs such a guy. Think about combos and resulting frequencies of each action and how it affects his 3-bet strategy.

That's exactly what I'm going to do, just wanted to see other peoples thoughts.

Originally Posted by surviva316

Not to come off as nit picky, but this is a spot where it's quite silly to open for 3bbs. It's much easier to exploit SB by min opening and it's much harder for BB to exploit you when you min open.

I usually open 2.5bb from the button, there's no reason for me to have adjusted to more so it's a misclick. I not 100% sure I agree with minraising instead as I don't think villain will be exploiting me as I'm quite capable of adjusting, but care to go into more detail?

Also if I was finding his high 3bet a problem I think it'd be a better strategy to move table rather than to try and make adjustments I'm not really sure of at the table.

Here's the start of what I've got, just not sure if this is right.

Assumptions
1)SB always folds
2)BB 3bets/folds to an open
3)BB 5bets/folds to a 4bet
4)Villain 3bets 12.8% (is more than this in this spot so conservative)
5)Villain 5bet shoves 2.56% (QQ+ & AK)
6)Bets go like this, 2.5bb -> 9bb -> 30bb -> 100bb

So to start off with we open 2.5bb and villain folds 87.2% of the time.

As 2.5/4 = 62.5% this means that we can open ATC profitably and fold to a 3bet and profit.

When we 4bet, we make it 30bb. So 27.5/39.5 = 70%, so if villain is folding > 70% of his range we can 4bet ATC profitably.

2.56/12.8 = 20%, so villain is folding 80%.

So in this scenario although it's obviously not optimal does this mean that we can open 100% and then 4bet 100% and fold every time villain shoves and profit or have I really bollocked something up?

Originally Posted by eugmac

Without going into specifics, it seems to me a spot where we can of course profitably 4bet a range of value hands that we are happy to get it in with and bluffs that we 4bet/fold, but also profitably have a relatively large calling range since 70% cbet seems a bit high, we have position, and we're nearly 200bb deep.

also since BB is going to be 3betting us a lot, we want to tighten up our initial opening range as well.

edit: meh, even 100bb deep i think my point stands?

um? If villain is cbetting a tonne it means we can call tighter and be super happy about it not the other way around unless he has a really exploitable b/f frequency or b/c ,f etc.

But essentially what happens to most people is they make your assumption then get into spew wars(call wide because villain is wide but still end up folding/raising or calling too much) v said villain and no one is actually making money because you are both playing the exact same idiotic game where both players are playing super exploitable styles but not actually exploiting one another.

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

um? If villain is cbetting a tonne it means we can call tighter and be super happy about it not the other way around unless he has a really exploitable b/f frequency or b/c ,f etc.

But essentially what happens to most people is they make your assumption then get into spew wars(call wide because villain is wide but still end up folding/raising or calling too much) v said villain and no one is actually making money because you are both playing the exact same idiotic game where both players are playing super exploitable styles but not actually exploiting one another.

Er, right! We did this in IRC once already, or a very similar situation. Clearly need to do more digesting of the concept. Or thinking a little longer before posting more like.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

6)Bets go like this, 2.5bb -> 9bb -> 30bb -> 100bb

Whoa, more like 2.5 -> 8.5 -> 19-20bb.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

So in this scenario although it's obviously not optimal does this mean that we can open 100% and then 4bet 100% and fold every time villain shoves and profit or have I really bollocked something up?

You're yet to account for blockers. 4b'ing 87s, for example, might block enough of his 3b/fold range that it reduces his fold percentage significantly.

Other than that, though, yes it's possible for it to be profitable for us to 4b/fold napkins in a vacuum. We obviously can't just 4b/f 100%, though. This is why we choose an unexploitable range and adjust from there. If he has such a high 3b/f frequency, then you 1) increase your 4b %age to an exploitative but non-insane amount and 2) make that range very bluff heavy. Like if he's only 5b'ing QQ+/AK, then there's no point in 4b'ing anything other than KK+ for value. This gives you a lot of room for bluffing combos. You could be opening the button just 50%, and 4b any Ax you can't call with and any Kxs you can't call with, and we're talking about a manageable 20% 4b rate.

It's super exploitable, but it would take a long time for someone with just a 2.56% 5b range to notice that we're 4b/folding more than usual.

BTW, my last post should kinda answer your question about the advantage of min opening someone who resteals a lot OOP. Long story short, it makes the leverage of our 4b insanely strong.

Short story long: If you min-open, he has the option of either 1) making it 8.5bbs+ to go, which is giving him much worse odds on his bluffs or 2) making it 7-8bbs to go (more of the standard), which means we can make a small 4b that would make 5b shoving strategies very very difficult mathematically.

If we go 2bb -> 7bb -> 18bbs, then villain is getting less than 10:1 on implied odds and like 2.5:1 on pot odds OOP, so it's not like he can really call 22/65s or anything. If he wants to somehow 5b without shoving, he would have to give us 5:1+ immediate pot odds on a call IP, with close to 10:1-ish implied odds; anything bigger than that commits him to calling a shove.

If he wants to 5b shove (most will see this as their most obvious option), he'll have to risk 93bbs to win just 25.5bbs of dead money, so it needs to work way more than shoving 90bbs to win 33bbs of dead money (which is what the math would be for 3 -> 10 -> 22.5 -> shove). For whatever fuckin reason, I am really struggling to get the semi-bluff math right to figure out how often we would need to fold for villain to profitably shove a range of 22/AJo/KQs, so I'll just leave that to your imagination. Or to your own personal mathing.

I'd steal this 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q5s+, J7s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, A3o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T8o+, 98o
and call 3 with this: 66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo

So it's literally been years since I've done this. Like, I don't think I've done it since Black Friday. I was very pleasantly surprised to see how much my game has aligned with it just working from memory, but it would still be hugely appreciated if anyone gave their thoughts.

BTN Open [2bb]: 59.8%: 22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q2s+,J2s+,T3s+,95s+,85s+,75s+,64s+,5 4s,A2o+,K3o+,Q5o+,J7o+,T7o+,97o+,87o (I just went with PokerStove here because whatever, this range isn't going to be static anyway.)

BB Defend: 24.5%: 77+/22-66 (50% of the time)/ATo+/KJo+/QJo+/54s+/75s+/T7s+/J7s+/Q7s+/K5s+/Axs [1]; He flats with several of these, but 3bs to 7bbs with 16.4% of Any Two Cards: 99+/66-22/AT+/KJo+/KQs/K7s-K2s/Q8s-Q7s/J8s-J7s/T7s/97s-T8s/54s-65s [2]

BTN Continue against 3b: 36.8% of opening range (22% of ATC): 77+/KJo+/KTs+/T8s+/76s+/Axs/A3o+; we flat whatever we don't 4b. We 4b to 18bbs with 20.1% of opening range (12.5% of ATC): 99+/AQ+/AJs/A3o-A9o [3]

BB Continue against 4b [assuming for now that he never calls, and shoves for 100bb]: 56.9% of 3b range (9.3% of ATC): 99+/AJ+/KQ/ATs+/22-66

BTN Call 5b shove: 43.3% of 4b'ing range (5.4% of ATC): 99+/AQ+/AJs

[1] Since SB is a nit and it's expected that BB defends more in general, this number will actually be quite a bit higher. If we assume that the nit in the SB folds to a steal 83% of the time, then BB actually needs to defend 31.2% to keep the blinds from being exploited.

[2] ATo and KJo are tweener hands. They are the only hands here listed that will be raised for value(ish), yet we intend to fold them to a 4b. It's been demonstrated by database after database that pretty much everyone (ranging from expert to novice) make fatter profits in a vacuum with these hands by 3b/f'ing them in ATS spots, and going through the math, it actually, interestingly enough, makes our range more balanced.

[3] If we do 2.5 → 8.5 → 22, let's say, then you would have to remove A4o from your 4b/f'ing range because villain is getting better odds and so can exploit you if you fold 57% of the time. This affects your continue against 3b range because now you have 12 more combos you need to add to your calling range to avoid being exploited by a mere resteal. Alternatively, you can add 88 to your 4b/call range to balance it out, though that puts you 0.1% over (I like to go slightly under to give myself a little leeway for when I think that there's some extenuating circumstance that makes me want to 4b/f some other crap hand). This is why I say making it smaller makes it harder to exploit us because it makes us so that we don't have to go for super slim value or flat more hands than we feel totally comfortable doing.

The biggest surprise for me going through this exercise was that it looks like we could get away with opening 60%, even with someone 3b'ing 16.4% from the blinds? I worked backwards from the hands we could comfortably call a 5b with (getting 58% equity against villain's shoving range) with the biggest variable being how many hands we could get away with flatting villain's 3b with. Assuming we can tread water by flatting wtih KJo (dominating a ton of villain's restealing range), KTs, T8s and 76s, then we won't be folding exploitably wide even with that hunka hunka 60% ATS.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

3 folds, Hero raises to $0.05 or $0.04

or to $0.08 with your nut hands - no need to balance it bro

Originally Posted by ImSavy

BB is 22/16/12.8 after 100 or so hands with a fold to steal of 60%. Villain hasn't called in the BB yet, only seems to fold or 3bet. Villain doesn't do anything crazy post flop, cbets 70% in 3bet pots. We'll assume BB shoves/folds to a 4bet and never calls, we don't expect him to be stacking off light.

i probably stick to 3betting a nut-linear range here after 100 hands cos that 12.8 can easily be artificially high cos sample size etc - obviously this can change if i've actually seen some hands (i.e. hole cards) that he's doing various things with