3b'ing strong hands IP

Had a long discussion in IRC about the merits of 3betting a hand as strong as AQo IP vs. calling. Actual hand that started the discussion doesn't really matter. Basically villain raised to 3.5 BB from MP, Hero 3b's on the button with AQo to 10.5 bb. I went through a long equity calculation to try and justify my play:

Overall villian is a bad reg that runs 22/14, and from this particular position his PFR is 16%. He folds 74% of the time to 3bets, 4bets 4.23% and calls the other 22%. With blockers to AA, QQ, and AK, plus him being OOP, he will likely fold more often, and 4bet less, but for simplicity lets keep those numbers. We are folding to his 4bet, so the EV of the hand if it ends preflop is: .74 * 5bb - .0423* 10.5bb = 3.7 - .44415 = + 3.25585 BB.

Now, the other 22% of his hands are .22*.16 = .0352. Top 3.5% of hands with our blockers is a range of 77+, AQs+, AKo. Now, he would likely 4bet some of those, so maybe we throw in 66 and take out KK. Anyways, against this range, clearly we are not often real happy stacking off postflop. However, we can make most of these hands fold with a cbet. This particular villian has a fold to cbet of 55%, which is probably a low estimate for a 3bet pot. With all the PPs in his preflop calling range, he is likely going to c/f a much larger % of the time.

So, for arguments sake, lets bump up his fold to cbet to 70%. After his call and minus rake the pot is ~ 21.5BB. If we cbet 12BB, .7*22.5 = 15.05 BB but we put in 10.5 preflop so we net 4.55. Assuming we lose that 12BB everytime we get called/raised, we lose .3*(12+10.5) = -6.75BB (not realistic, we should obvi win some percent of the time), the overall EV of our preflop and flop play is:

3.25585+[.22(4.55-6.75)] = +2.7BB. In my database, I currently only have 2 hands that are over +2.5BB or higher per hand on the button, AA and KK.

The play becomes way more profitable if say 10% of the time we get called and win. The EV of this scenario is 3.25585+[.22(4.55+.3*(.9*-22.5+.1*22)] = +3.065 BB. There are also factors like being able to double barrell successfully but that should marginally affect the EV because it doesn't come up too often.

In conclusion, 3b'ing strong hands like AQo is profitable, but we already knew that. The question to answer is whether it is better to flat. Calculating the EV of flatting is very difficult, but I find it hard to believe that it is greater than the EV of 3betting. I now have a headache.

Also, I feel like this concept extends to other strong hands. A 3b range of QQ+, AJs+, KJs+, AQo, KQo is 5.6% of hands. Villain can't really adjust well with our nut hands still in our range, and we get a lot of value with hands like AJs, KQs, KQo that we might not be able to get by flat calling. The calculations for those other 'strong' hands are very similar to the ones for AQo.

i 3b bluff with AQ/AK/Axs/KQ alot, and its always vs strong ranges where i cant make a call pf, folding is simply 0 ev but binging it up would show a profit.. Like vs UTG vs a nitty 13/10, a normal 16/12 for example

Nice post, interesting to re-do it with cbet size of 10 or 11 and also considering that you aren't necessarily going to cbet all the time and you'll win at showdown or generate turn/river folds some of the time that you don't c-bet.

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Originally Posted by PapalRage

In conclusion, 3b'ing strong hands like AQo is profitable, but we already knew that. The question to answer is whether it is better to flat. Calculating the EV of flatting is very difficult, but I find it hard to believe that it is greater than the EV of 3betting.

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I guess it's like the irc convo - 3-betting here is fine so long as we don't do anything too stupid post-flop. I mean, your first calculation (ignoring cbets) shows this very clearly. 3-betting is better than calling cos AQ without the initiative just gets messy a lot of the time, and it's great in image terms too.

I read the first part of your post but didn't read all the equity calculation stuff. I think the answer to the the question of whether or not to 3b AQ depends on the answer to the question of whether it is for value or for a bluff.

If we can 3b AQ for value then I don't see any reason not to. However, if our 3b with AQ becomes a bluff because villains range for continuing (be it 4-betting or calling) is so strong then why would you want to waste the value of a hand as strong as AQ by bluffing with it. In that case I would much rather just call with it and expect this to be much more +EV.

So in your example villain has PFR of 16 and based on his stats seems to be a decent player. You say that "He folds 74% of the time to 3bets, 4bets 4.23% and calls the other 22%." This is true over all positions PF, but I would expect that he is calling 3-bets less from oop, meaning he's either going to 4-bet or fold a lot of the time. He's not 4b much and when he does I think we have to fold without other reads/dynamics given his strong range. I'm not exactly sure what he would call PF but I guess it might be with hands like AJs, TT, so a range that has ok equity against us.

Summarizing all of this, imo we're turning a good hand into a bluff by 3b/folding to 4b and folding out most of his hands that we dominate. The hands he does call PF prob have decent equity against us.

Disclaimer: I play 25NL and all of my reasoning could be completely wrong

We expect to 3b/fold a very small % of the time because of our blockers. With no crazy dynamic, most 100nl regs will 4b KK+ here and thats it. The times this happens is not an argument to call instead, because we are likely to lose a fair amount to those hands when the flop comes Q high.

As for his calling range having decent equity, thats fine. But, most of his range is very difficult to play and we can force him to make many fundamental theory of poker mistakes by folding hands like 77-JJ on boards where we miss and he doesn't flop a set.

In my database, I have 5.7k hands where I flatted a raise pre. Not a huge sample but excluding hands that i've called with less than 4 times, AA, KK and A9s are the only hands that make more BB/hand than what I calculated above. A9s is skewed by winning two huge hands but o well, the point remains. Anybody have a lot more FR hands to analyze with data to the contrary?

I also should have definitely noted that this is something I do almost exclusively against the opens of regs.

Nice post.. I definitely prefer to 3-bet the non made hands in my range more often and flat the others.. 88-JJ.

Why wasn't this posted in the recent 3b thread in the BC?

with nothing to really base this on except for millions of hands of experience I typically only 3b AQ on the button vs fish

are regs really folding 70%+ of their UTG range to a 3bet?

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Originally Posted by Miffed22001

are regs really folding 70%+ of their UTG range to a 3bet?

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I don't think I ever mentioned UTG, but some regs really do fold that much. One in particular has folded to 33/35 3bets of his UTG open, but then again he is the 2nd biggest loser in my db and I 3bet him a lot.

@Deanglow, can you explain some of your reasons behind flatting vs. regs?

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Originally Posted by Miffed22001

are regs really folding 70%+ of their UTG range to a 3bet?

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really doesn't sound that unreasonable at 50nl/100nl since a load of the nitty regs will be 3betting KK+/AK only.

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Originally Posted by PapalRage

I don't think I ever mentioned UTG, but some regs really do fold that much. One in particular has folded to 33/35 3bets of his UTG open, but then again he is the 2nd biggest loser in my db and I 3bet him a lot.

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stop it will ya!

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Originally Posted by PapalRage

Overall villian is a bad reg that runs 22/14, and from this particular position his PFR is 16%. He folds 74% of the time to 3bets, 4bets 4.23% and calls the other 22%. With blockers to AA, QQ, and AK, plus him being OOP, he will likely fold more often, and 4bet less, but for simplicity lets keep those numbers. We are folding to his 4bet, so the EV of the hand if it ends preflop is: .74 * 5bb - .0423* 10.5bb = 3.7 - .44415 = + 3.25585 BB.

Now, the other 22% of his hands are .22*.16 = .0352. Top 3.5% of hands with our blockers is a range of 77+, AQs+, AKo. Now, he would likely 4bet some of those, so maybe we throw in 66 and take out KK. Anyways, against this range, clearly we are not often real happy stacking off postflop. However, we can make most of these hands fold with a cbet. This particular villian has a fold to cbet of 55%, which is probably a low estimate for a 3bet pot. With all the PPs in his preflop calling range, he is likely going to c/f a much larger % of the time.

So, for arguments sake, lets bump up his fold to cbet to 70%. After his call and minus rake the pot is ~ 21.5BB. If we cbet 12BB, .7*22.5 = 15.05 BB but we put in 10.5 preflop so we net 4.55. Assuming we lose that 12BB everytime we get called/raised, we lose .3*(12+10.5) = -6.75BB (not realistic, we should obvi win some percent of the time), the overall EV of our preflop and flop play is:

3.25585+[.22(4.55-6.75)] = +2.7BB. In my database, I currently only have 2 hands that are over +2.5BB or higher per hand on the button, AA and KK.

The play becomes way more profitable if say 10% of the time we get called and win. The EV of this scenario is 3.25585+[.22(4.55+.3*(.9*-22.5+.1*22)] = +3.065 BB. There are also factors like being able to double barrell successfully but that should marginally affect the EV because it doesn't come up too often.

In conclusion, 3b'ing strong hands like AQo is profitable, but we already knew that. The question to answer is whether it is better to flat. Calculating the EV of flatting is very difficult, but I find it hard to believe that it is greater than the EV of 3betting. I now have a headache.

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outside of the blockers we have to AA,AK,and QQ (which is important but there are plentyof hands with blockers (ie kq has blockers for kk ak and qq), you dont even mention Ace queen through all of that maths. What you did was prove that 3betting and cbetting any two cards can be profitable against someone who is folding such a high percentage of the time. dont just read muzzards post on fold equity and 3betting, actually study it and all the numbers and everything. But i thought that was the very reason we CALL aq, and 3b other random junk that has blockers because due to FE or w/e it is that you just showed with your maths, it is goign to be profitable with random cards, so for our good hands we can get value without bluffing like we are essentially doing in your example.

tl;;dr cliff notes- you can have 72off suit and do all the calculations you just did and come to the same conclusion

i suck so maybe im wrong about what i just said and someone better can enlighten me

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Originally Posted by Miffed22001

are regs really folding 70%+ of their UTG range to a 3bet?

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If so that's insane. Just 4-bet a shit ton UTG vs a 3-bet. And generally they'll fold because LOL you've got Aces.

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Originally Posted by StarGrinder

If so that's insane. Just 4-bet a shit ton UTG vs a 3-bet. And generally they'll go all in because LOL they've got Aces.

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fyp

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Originally Posted by badgers

fyp

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I laughed, however there is players i 4b /f AK instead of just folding right there. They are not very common at 100nl tho =p