3-bet/4-bet question

[couriermike]

Villain is 31/24/3 over 85 hands,
opening 36% from the CO, 5 of 14,
folds to 3-bet 33%, 1 of 3,
4-bets 33%, 1 of 3.

Is the 3-bet OK? Do you continue to the 4-bet? What if we had AK?

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($31.53)
BB ($25.68)
UTG ($13.92)
MP ($35.21)
CO ($25)
Button ($32.02)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, A
2 folds, CO bets $0.75, 1 fold, Hero raises to $2.50, 1 fold, CO raises to $6, Hero ?

[Viscaro]

Fold, sample size is waaaay to small to extrapolate his 4bet range to be wide.
I'm a fan of flatting AQ from the blinds to lp openers, it keeps in all the dominated junk they open with.
Don't be mislead by how close AQo is to AKo, theres a 10% equity difference between them vs JJ+ AKo AKs. AK I sometimes flat sometimes 3bet depending on my blind position, villain and my own image. Vs this CO I'd 3bet/shove AK.

[kmind]

Just muck it now. 3betting or flatting is fine. With AKs I'd probably just ship it. I'd have to do some maths.

[daven]

hero folds
nh

[Carroters]

A 10% equity difference is fairly important in these situations since it usually makes one hand +EV after FE and pot odds are thought about and one -EV.

Flatting here is fine vs this guy. 3 bet/folding here if he likes to 4 bet bluff at all frequently is going to be a big mistake, but this isn't super likely. Meh whatever, it's really close preflop. If he was 2/3 calls and 1 fold or 2/3 calls and 1 4-bet I'd snap 3 bet/fold.

Think I'd flat here a good amount.

[Carroters]

One stat that's more relevant than you'd think here is his 3 bet%. It's pretty likely someone who doesn't like to 3 bet bluff much also doesnt like to 4 bet bluff much in common situations, so I'd be more inclined to be happy 3 bet folding due to this and hate a 3 bet/jam more as a result of this.

[thelorax]

His 4b sample size is too small to shove here imo.
3 betting is cool if you plan to fold to a 4b.
Flatting pre is also fine.

[Johnny Cashout]

definitely fold to 4b

[caddie444]

Preflop can go either way, with 3B'ing probably slightly better. Until you have reads that he 4B's light, this is an easy fold.

[philly and the phanatics]

nice posts carrots

[grnydrowave2]

The way I understand it, you should be 3-betting a polarized range if you think the opponent is likely to either 4-bet or fold, and he won't call very often. The sample size here doesn't give us a clear idea, but villain does appear to be this type of opponent.

The top part of your polarized range should be strictly for value. So if you want to include AQo in it, you should be willing to 5-bet/shove if he 4-bets. Otherwise, your 3-bet is a bluff and you might as well be doing it with 93o.

If your hand is not good enough to 5-bet/shove, but still playable against villain's open, then flat call.

Now think about the range of hands that are not good enough to flat call. The very top of this range should be 3-bet as bluffs. If Q9s is the weakest hand you are willing to flat with, then 3-bet Q8s. Add as many hands as you feel you can get away with, but start from the top down.

If you think the opponent has more of a tendency to call 3-bets, then your range should be depolarized. Just 3-bet strong hands for value and don't include any bluffs.

All this is stuff I have only learned recently, so if I got anything wrong, feel free to correct me.

[kmind]

Looks good grny

[thelorax]

The top part of your polarized range should be strictly for value. So if you want to include AQo in it, you should be willing to 5-bet/shove if he 4-bets. Otherwise, your 3-bet is a bluff and you might as well be doing it with 93o.

It seems like the number of times he flats our 3b is substantial enough, and contains a wide enough range, to make 3bing for Value in this spot +EV even though we may fold to a 4b.
thoughts?

[kfaess]

The way I understand it, you should be 3-betting a polarized range if you think the opponent is likely to either 4-bet or fold, and he won't call very often. The sample size here doesn't give us a clear idea, but villain does appear to be this type of opponent.

The top part of your polarized range should be strictly for value. So if you want to include AQo in it, you should be willing to 5-bet/shove if he 4-bets. Otherwise, your 3-bet is a bluff and you might as well be doing it with 93o.

If your hand is not good enough to 5-bet/shove, but still playable against villain's open, then flat call.

Now think about the range of hands that are not good enough to flat call. The very top of this range should be 3-bet as bluffs. If Q9s is the weakest hand you are willing to flat with, then 3-bet Q8s. Add as many hands as you feel you can get away with, but start from the top down.

If you think the opponent has more of a tendency to call 3-bets, then your range should be depolarized. Just 3-bet strong hands for value and don't include any bluffs.

All this is stuff I have only learned recently, so if I got anything wrong, feel free to correct me.

Nice post man, seems really solid.

Correct me if I got this wrong, but I think it needs to be emphasized that the strategy you outlined applies to someone who is primarily only 4bing or folding (such as a decent and somewhat conservative reg who is oop vs your 3b). In other words, I think it can be ok to 3b AQ and fold to a 4b when you're facing someone who is going to call lots of 3bs and 4b occasionally (mostly for value) because you get a lot of value when he flats your 3b.

[grnydrowave2]

It seems like the number of times he flats our 3b is substantial enough, and contains a wide enough range, to make 3bing for Value in this spot +EV even though we may fold to a 4b.
thoughts?

If that is the case and he is calling 3-bets a substantial amount, then yes, depolarizing is the better play and AQo should be 3-bet for value. That means he'll be 4-betting very rarely, and when he does it means we ran into the top of his range and should fold.

Nice post man, seems really solid.

Correct me if I got this wrong, but I think it needs to be emphasized that the strategy you outlined applies to someone who is primarily only 4bing or folding (such as a decent and somewhat conservative reg who is oop vs your 3b). In other words, I think it can be ok to 3b AQ and fold to a 4b when you're facing someone who is going to call lots of 3bs and 4b occasionally (mostly for value) because you get a lot of value when he flats your 3b.

More or less, but I would change it to "someone who is mostly 4-betting or folding". If the opponent will sometimes call 3-bets, but not terribly often, then I still think it's correct to polarize. That's why we take the hand-strength of the bottom of our polarized range into consideration, rather than 3-bet bluffing random hands. Not many people will do one thing or the other 100% of the time. We base the decision of polarize vs. depolarize on what the opponent is doing most frequently.

As you said (and as I repeated above), it is correct (imo) to depolarize against opponent who is mostly calling 3-bets rather than 4-betting. On the occassion that you do get 4-bet, you can fold the bottom of your 3-bet range and the play is still +EV overall.

[surviva316]

i'm gonna go a little against the grain here and say that we shouldn't have a very polarized range against this player.

let me start off with a seemingly irrelevant point and work my way from there (lol). when we're facing an open from a reg with a wide range OOP 100bb's deep, it is pretty much always more +eV to 3b a marginally broadway (like KJo, or even KQo), then it is to flat it (it would take villain 4b'ing an absurd amount, like 40%, or for villain to be SUPER spewy and stack off with like TPNK in single raised pots for this to not be the case). taking down the dead money is just that valuable in relation to the very minimal eV of flatting these meh hands OOP.

that being said, the standard against most regs in this spot is to flat these hands. this is because it is better for our whole range. it allows us to 3b more J7s type stuff that we cannot call profitably but could semi-bluff with if it weren't for the fact that our 3b is like 20% because we're 3b'ing every broadway+ lol. so against a villain where 3b bluffing OOP with Q8s type stuff is profitable, we should generally flat with KJo type stuff if that is also profitable so that we can play the widest range of hands +eV as possible.

so what if we're playing a certain villain where 3b'ing J7s/Q8s/66 is NEVER profitable (never's a helluva a word in poker, but i'm speaking semi-hypothetically)? well then we shouldn't 3b it. and if we're not 3b'ing those hands, then there's no need to make the less eV play of flatting KJo for the sake of keeping our 3b %age believable and balanced.

i'd argue that this type of player is the type that i would not be getting in pissing matches with a light range. i, then, would be 3b/shoving QQ-AA for value, flatting like all of my suited broadways, 87s+, etc, and 3b'ing KJo/KQo type hands as semi-bluffs with blockers that play ok against his continuing range (AJ+ and 99-JJ and, to a lesser degree 22-66, i'll get to).

well i still haven't even gotten to AQo lol. i think AQo (and to a lesser degree, AJo and even AK) are kind of in a limbo here because they can be very profitable hands to flat (especially against our more spewtacular brethren who stack off with TPGK in single raised pots 'cause it's lol ATS spot). flatting these hands with the intention of c/r'ing a ton of Q-high and A-high boards for value can be +eV enough to be comparable to the eV's we're getting by 3b'ing a player that we're not certain is calling with a super wide range, and we're not certain of his 4b bluffing frequency. and that's right, AK can be a good hand to flat here against a lot of players who don't have high 4b numbers but who spew endlessly postflop.

99-JJ also more or less fall into this limbo, but i feel much more comfortable playing them OOP in single-raised pots because 1) they flop the nuts sometimes 2) they flop overpairs about as frequently as AJ/AQ flop TP and 3) even when they "whiff," they're still frequently the best hand (and not a lot of people at this stake are gonna be barreling you a shittonne).

fwiw, my opening disclaimer should've been that all this stuff is fairly thin eV margins, and a lot of modern theory is based on just "proof is in the pudding" type conclusions as much as pure eV calcs and these situations can be completely different with the slightest change liek we're 120bb's deep (3b/shoving anything too light starts to become a very shitty prospect at that point). so a lot of these decisions (esp the limbo ones i pointed out) can be made preferable or less preferable based on your overall style and how that effects how you want to play your whole range, etc.

i'm gonna split the "what i would do here" part of the post into a different post.

[surviva316]

as for what I would do here, i'd prolly [3b/see what he does] in this spot. i tend to be a bit of an abusive 3b'er (much more IP than OOP, but it all looks the same on the stat sheet), so being able to protect my 3b'ing range by 3b/shoving in spots where it's 0eV+ is always very very nice when all else is equal. if image matters for anything, it also tends to manipulate player's ranges towards flatting more marginal (dominated) hands and 4b'ing more junky hands. i know we have seemingly little to go on to just start spewing stacks by shoving AQo, but he's a 31/24 who's shown some life in the face of 3b's and now he's 4b'ing a suspiciously PERFECT size, so i'm willing to bet he is capable of 4b bluffing.

since my post is already so epically long, i might as well include the eV calcs (i consider all of these pretty conservative estimates because ANY ounce of spazz he might have reduces the amount he needs to 4b for our shove to be profitable and he's only gonna 4b/call AK about 1/2 the time and flat it the other half of the time which reduces the amount of 4b bluffs he needs to balance the ratio and also increases our equity when we get it all in):

1) assuming he 4b/calls with TT/AK, we need him to fold about 40% of the time.

for those who wanna double check or just care to know for their own purposes, you figure it out by:

where x=the amount of times he folds:
eV= x*(Pot) + (1-x)*( Equity*(Pot + Raise) - 1-Equity*(Raise))

so if we want to see how big x has to be for our eV to be zero in this spot we:

0= x*(9.50) + (1-x)*(0.3*(32) - 0.7*(22.5))

which i believe comes out to be 41.4%

2) this might sound like he needs to fold a lot, and surely he isn't bluffing THAT much. well, it doesn't turn out to be that many combos. there are only 36 combos for value (and again, that's giving him TT and every combo of AK). 41% of 36 is 21 combos of bluffs he needs to have. Not only is that not a lot of combos, but a good way to think of it is in terms of how big his 4b %age would have to be over a large sample for him to have 21 combos of bluffs.

well, we're tracking him at opening 34% of his CO's, but that's a tiny sample, so let's give him 25% which i would say is pretty (conservative-ish/)standard for a positionally aware, looser reg. that's 600 possible hand combos ((50*48)*0.25). if he 4b's 57 combos (36+21), then he will have the necessary amount for his range to be "unbalanced" enough for us to shove AQo at 0eV+. that means he needs to have a 4b of 9.5% in COvsSB spots, which I personally think this particular villain is likely to have.

this is without taking rake into account, but again i think that how conservative my estimates are (namely including every combo of AK) more than makes up for this. i mean, again, we're pushing REALLY thin eV's, but making this play is good for protecting my range so that villains can't profitably make the adjustment of 4b'ing my frequent 3b's.

we COULD make the same argument for flatting AQ as we did with flatting KJ, so that we can get away with 3b/shoving 33-66 (about the same number of combos) and play more hands profitably. this is silly though, because we can't profitably 3b 33-66 with as few reads as we have, even if the eventual shove might be 0eV. these hands don't play near as well for the not-so-infrequent times that villain flats as a hand like AQ that is gonna play well in those spots.

that is all

[surviva316]

forgot to mention that on top of protecting my light 3b'ing range, 3b'ing here (when all else is basically equal) allows us to gain reads on how he reacts to 3b's/how he plays in 3b pots. much better to gain those reads now with AQo when flatting=3b'ing than a) figuring out wtf to do against him with hands like J8s and 33 or b) waiting for us to be deal a nut hand and be in this exact situation.

[philly and the phanatics]

tl'dr

[Mr. Bucket]

Very nice post, but:

41% of 36 is 21

Which means he needs to have even less bluffs in his range.


Unless im just so stupid that i missed something

[surviva316]

tl'dr

i <3 philly

i have the shirt to prove it

[grnydrowave2]

let me start off with a seemingly irrelevant point and work my way from there (lol). when we're facing an open from a reg with a wide range OOP 100bb's deep, it is pretty much always more +eV to 3b a marginally broadway (like KJo, or even KQo), then it is to flat it (it would take villain 4b'ing an absurd amount, like 40%, or for villain to be SUPER spewy and stack off with like TPNK in single raised pots for this to not be the case). taking down the dead money is just that valuable in relation to the very minimal eV of flatting these meh hands OOP.

I think we have to know more about the opponent to make these kind of assessments. If, as you say, the opponent opens very wide and doesn't 4-bet a ton... we are still missing a crucial piece of information: how wide does he call 3-bets? If we assume that he calls quite often because of his VPIP/PFR (I don't think this is always the case fwiw), then 3-betting a depolarized range is correct for value. Our hand has good equity against his calling range so we want more money in the pot.

For some players, facing a 3-bet is a point of honesty. Sometimes even laggy players will only continue against 3-bets with a narrow range. How does 3-betting a hand like KQo make any sense against this type of player? Worse hands usually fold, and better hands usually 4-bet. You enable him to play his hand perfectly. Yes, there is value in collecting dead money, and 3-betting KQo is +EV for that reason alone; but it's suboptimal. The EV is the same whether you're doing it with KQo or 73s. It's similar to the KK on an A-high flop OOP situation. If the opponent is aggressive, but folds to c-bets often, then sure.. betting there is +EV. But it's clearly the inferior play.

I think you underestimate the value of flatting. Broadways aren't meh if the opponent is opening super wide and we are crushing his range; especially in position. There is tons of value to be had there. Why would you want to pass on a profitable situation like this by bluffing preflop when you can do that with any weak hand?

so what if we're playing a certain villain where 3b'ing J7s/Q8s/66 is NEVER profitable (never's a helluva a word in poker, but i'm speaking semi-hypothetically)? well then we shouldn't 3b it. and if we're not 3b'ing those hands, then there's no need to make the less eV play of flatting KJo for the sake of keeping our 3b %age believable and balanced.

i'd argue that this type of player is the type that i would not be getting in pissing matches with a light range. i, then, would be 3b/shoving QQ-AA for value, flatting like all of my suited broadways, 87s+, etc, and 3b'ing KJo/KQo type hands as semi-bluffs with blockers that play ok against his continuing range (AJ+ and 99-JJ and, to a lesser degree 22-66, i'll get to).

The first thing that comes to mind is an opponent that calls 3-bets too much. So yeah, depolarize fo' sho'.

I kind of just skimmed over the 2 huge posts. It's early for me. So if I touched on things that you already addressed, or missed the point entirely, forgive me.

[philly and the phanatics]

srsly when you 3bet KQo as a bluff you get him to fold all sorts of better like AQ/AJ/77-JJ if hes "continuing with a narrow range"

[celtic123]

grnydrowave2
surviva316

Thanks for putting so much time and thought into this . Very much appreciated .