4bet shove with Queens, AK suited... or dare I say Jacks?!

Ok over the last few days I have learned what a pre-flop 3bet is... basically just a re-raise. I didnt realize that the blinds counted as the first bet!

This led to some relief as I thought I was never actually 3betting pre-flop and was going to investigate some kind or strategy to put this right.

Fortunately I have long since been re-raising pre-flop and will do so in the average situation with around 12 hands ranging from KTs up the ranks to AKs and with pocket Tens up to pocket Queens depending on where I am from mid to late position.

I would imagine that the average apponant would generally tend to 3bet with the following holdings:

AKo
TT
KJs
AJs
KQs
AQs
JJ
AKs
QQ

Obviously KK and AA are possibilities and I think that most people would look to get at least half, if not all their stack in before the flop.

Now this, after a recent badly played hand with Queens led me to ponder the value of a 4bet shove, combining a re-re-raise preflop with a good slab of fold equity, simultaneously building a healthy table image of "don't $%*& with me!"

I plugged the above range of 9 hands with KK and AA into pokerstove and put then up against QQ, AKs and JJ, results as follows:

QQ 55.7% to win
AKs 50.8% to win
JJ 46.5% to win

Well the first two hands look promissing and I thought at first that JJ was a no-go but then I figured that if I raise 4bb and villain 3bets me with a 14bb bet there could be near to 20bb already invested in the pot so I wouldn't need a 50% chance to win to make the 4bet shove with JJ profitable. Then when you factor in fold equity and the fact that players at 2NL/4NL could even be 3betting with far inferior hands like AQo, KQo or AJo...

What do you guys think? Does my theory make sense?

If not, what range of hands do you think the average player with an average stack in an average situation would re-raise/3bet with?

Looking forward to your thoughts and critisisms!

Frank.

EDIT:

Okay someone just 3betted me with A9s....whats that like a top 20 hand?! I had AKs and shoved, he called! He was a 71.2% dog. He lost.

When deciding on your 3betting range you shouldn't just pick the biggest hands, you should be considering whether you have more value calling or raising. A hand like AJ dominates a lot of hands that people will open raise with, but you're rarely going to have the best kicker in a 3bet pot with AJ so you're turning it into a bluff if you 3bet.
Be careful 3betting KJ because anything that calls it dominates it so again 3betting turns it into a bluff, it's a really good hand to open raise but as soon as it's raised before KJ loses most of it's value because you will frequently be up against bigger K's and J's.

If you include hands like 67s in your 3bet range, then you're going to get better results. You're still getting some value when you have KJ, because you're sometimes calling behind and making money on those hands and then when you would be folding your 67s, you're making money with that too.
Calling behind with SCers is questionable at best, they're good hands because you can flop equity that lets you bluff multiple streets (i.e. a draw) but it's a lot more effective when you're the aggressor. Calling with them allows you to float and bluff, but your chances of winning the pot are a lot lower (less opportunities for villain to fold and your range is weaker) and we should be concerned with winning pots with them (many small pots, rather than a few big ones) because they are our bluff range.
Anyway, calling with SCers is nowhere near as good as raising with them.
So these are the sorts of hands you want in your 3bet range, hands that gain a lot of value by 3betting.

So a 3bet range I'd suggest would be more like:

45s-JTs
A2s-A5s
AJ+ (OOP these are 3bet or fold, in position I don't mind just calling sometimes)
99+
This is a range of about 10% but you'll sometimes fold the bluff hands (SCers, Axs), and if you're in the blinds and the BTN is stealing a lot then 3betting any two broadway as well is usually a good idea.

Also, AA/KK are in a standard 3bet range because you can't raise more just because you have AA/KK or it's going to stand out.


As for the numbers you came up with, it's really range dependent and ranges change a lot depending on player type and circumstances. Sometimes getting JJ/QQ/AK all in pre-flop is +EV, sometimes it's -EV. Keep in mind though that when 3betting/4betting your hand doesn't have to be ahead of their calling range, it just has to be close enough that the fold equity you've got makes up for it.

Dont 4-bet shove too much at microstakes, literally 4bet shove AA and KK.

What you will find is that people dont 3-bet enough and they 3bet a value range rather than a polarised range.

This means that when you do4-bet shove you will be against AA-QQ and AK very often.

You need your opponents to loosen their 3-bet range before you can widen your 4-bet range.

People begin to polarise their 3-bet range when they realise that they need a stronger hand to call with than to 3-bet. Right now they see it the other way around, 3-bet all the stuff that plays well post-flop and call with the stuff that isnt as good as what they are 3-betting.

So you cant really start playing a 4-bet game until people are playing a proper 3-bet game.

4 betting has to work about 65% of the time to show a profit, so in order to play a 4bet game your opponent must be 3-betting a wide polarised range.

5bet shoving however, because of all the dead money in the pot only has to work 45% ish of the time so you can 5bet shove and show a profit with a hand that too weak to 4bet!

But all this hinges on your opponents 3betting to exploit weakness rather than 3betting because they hold a big hand.. which is not whats happening at microstakes.

A lot of this depends on reads and stats on opponents, which is why having PFR/3-bet stats on villains is good.

If someone who is 10/2 raises UTG, you shouldn't 3-bet them with any hand. If it is a 30/25 on the button who folds to 3-bets a lot, you should be 3-bet bluffing with a ton of hands and flatting your value range.

Basically what thepokerkid said. We don't want to just 3-bet top x hands we want to 3-bet hands that play well against a flatting range. So we have hands like monsters that obviously play well because they're way ahead but then we also want hands like low SCs that flop lots of draws/equity that we can semibluff with. Note that unless you are planning on getting them in preflop or villain will likely call a ton of 3-bets 3-betting TT-QQ is a pretty huge leak.

3-betting JJ/QQ is pretty standard for me, TT in some spots.

Just to be clear, considering 3betting is important here because 4betting is entirely dependent on the 3bet ranges. Once you figure out their 3bet range it's just a question of how much fold equity you have or how wide you expect them to call that determines your 4bet range.
Standard 3bet ranges depend a lot on the stakes and how aggressively the table is playing, but as a general rule most regs at any stakes have semi-decent 3bet ranges, only the lower the stakes are the more heavily it's weighted towards value. Keep in mind though that at 5nl and 10nl none of the regs believe a 4bet from another reg is ever anything but AA/KK and a lot of them will fold QQ/AK to you, so you do have fold equity.
Button mashing fish however do all sorts of crazy stuff, and you can flat call their 3bets really wide or have to fold everything but QQ+ or KK+, it depends on the player but it's normally plainly obvious which type they are. 4bet bluffing is rarely advisable against them and your 4bets for value vary as much as your 3bet calling range does but I'm rarely folding QQ+/AK to one of these guys and have no problems getting JJ all in against a 50/20 with a high 3bet % because it really doesn't matter if he calls too much or folds too much, he'll do one or the other excessively enough to make it a highly profitable shove.



OOP I 3bet these almost 100% of the time. Planning to fold 99-JJ to 4bets from tight players. Playing OOP I want a low SPR.

IP I 3bet them most of the time.
My reasons:
1: Range balancing. I don't think you can 3bet light very often without some showdown value in your range. AA/KK/QQ + A high isn't very much showdown value (including QQ and not JJ because that's where it stops being +EV to get it all in pre-flop vs an unknown, imo).
2: 99-JJ are rarely hands you can bet all the way to the river for value, so as long as you're only planning on shovelling the chips in over two streets (either after calling and seeing a safe flop, or 3betting pre-flop and expecting to give up if things get crazy) then I'd rather do it early in the hand.

umm you realize you're wasting those hands when you 3-bet them right? Range balancing is irrelevant unless to balance you want to mix in weak hands that rarely flop well and usually end up turning into bluffs with absolutely no equity against an opponent's continuing range. You can have a perfectly balanced 3-bet range that is polarized.

I mean not trying to be a dick or anything but 3-betting TT without the intention to shove over a 4-bet or against an opponent that isn't calling almost every 3-bet is just incredibly awful. It just shows an incredible lack of understanding as to why we 3-bet in the first place. You fold out most hands you crush and get yourself into a ton of bad spots where you're not sure if you're bluffing or vbetting and where if you're behind you're absolutely crushed but if you're ahead they likely have decent equity against you.

On the other hand these are hands that play incredibly well in single-raised pots especially assuming they are raising decently wide. 3-betting is just completely wasting that value and as I said 3-betting them is just a pretty big leak apart from a few specific situations.

It's a pretty wide blanket to be throwing over a vast array of situations.

3-betting QQ with the intention of stacking off pre or on undercard flops is as standard as it gets.

JJ/TT are hands that play well vs. a singe raiser...there are plenty of spots where squeezing with them has a lot of value with tremendous FE...in general people call too many 3-bets at most levels but getting hands like AJ/KQ to fold in these spots is not a bad result either, and you still get called plenty of times by smaller pp.

You've made enough sense that I'll seriously re-evaluate my range.

Thanks for the explanation.


The absence of hands that can beat ace high has been a problem for me before so I like having some hands with showdown value in my range, but I'll think a bit more about how the ranges play post-flop and see what I come up with.

Your 3-bet range doesn't include enough hands.

4-bet shove with QQ is good against most 3-betting hands. It only loses to 5-bet hands.



Get some deeper stacks imo. Bwahaha.

This is great info guys. Really learnt a lot from this and seems I have a lot more to learn about 3b/4b.

I always get confused when people talk about value ranges. So hands QQ+,AK+ aren't in our value range (in other words we aren't betting these just for value, we are looking to stack off with these?), but hands like suited connectors that fop well and smaller pocket pairs are as we are looking to extract value from villain, but no necessarily stack off (unless we make a big hand like a flush or full house etc)?

Obviously and against aggro opponents it's fine to do this with stuff like 99-JJ/AQ/other stuff that is ahead or has enough equity including our FE against villain's stacking range. I'm just saying if you are folding to a 4-bet that it is likely a leak. There are a few exceptions but generally as a standard play it is bad.

Please don't say stuff like they play well vs. a single raiser. We're playing against ranges. You may have a valid point I just don't think your statement says much and I certainly don't understand what you're trying to say. If you have someone who is calling a ton of 3-bets and also continuing with a wide range postflop whether they're good or just a dumb station then 3-bet/folding hands like TT/JJ can be fine.

The bottom line though is look at the standard line that almost always happens on like 90% of boards. Some guy opens you 3-bet he flats you cbet. Up to now your cards don't matter. You can have a napkin and a brick or you can have two red aces. Now when your cards start to matter is if he continues in some way. Whether it's raising or calling the flop cbet.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if people flat 3-bets with 33 or something looking to set mine, your cards don't really matter and you don't want to waste TT/JJ by getting yourself in a spot where unless you flop a set your hand may as well be a napkin and a brick. You can call with those hands and just 3-bet random A-rag/K-rag hands and have blockers and use a hand that's not good enough to flat with.

However if you are against someone who will call down light in 3-bet pots like he'll flat 55 and call bets on flops like 963 where he could still be good against AK and stuff then it's important to have hands that have equity in 3-bet pots.

Yes and as I mentioned above there are definitely spots to be 3-bet/folding hands like TT/JJ and I also classify stuff like AJ/AQ into that. But against most opponents you will find when they flat a 3-bet if they don't have A high beat they're folding to the cbet. So why have those hands in your 3-bet range just so you can beat hands that they will fold anyway? Sure once in blue moon they will flat 99 when you 3-bet JJ and the flop will come unders but even then how often are they stacking off? Do you really beat a flop raise range in that spot from most players you play against? If you're playing HU and against aggro regs then ignore most of the stuff I've said I'm talking about the standard micro/small-stakes 6max/FR games.

I think you misunderstand what value means. Our value range is the range of hands we are looking to get people to call/raise with worse. When we're talking about a 3-bet value range it typically means the hands we are comfortable getting all-in preflop. In most cases that's something like QQ+/AK but against more aggro opponents it can start to include 99-JJ/AQ and sometimes in EP situations in FR QQ/AK can even just be flats preflop and not in our value 3-bet range. Hands like suited connectors are actually in our bluff range because at least immediately we are looking to make better hands fold. We don't want them to call when we 3-bet SCs generally, it's just that our bluff range is made up of the hands that flop the best IF they call. So we 3-bet low SCs and stuff that are not good enough to call with hoping that they will fold, but knowing that if they do not fold we are ok because we can still flop a good amount of draws/big hands and use them to put pressure on our opponent.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me or if one of us is missing something. For one thing TT/JJ is part of our value range in our 3-betting arsenal or our calling arsenal.

But in your 2 scenarios:
1. If someone is calling 3-bets with 33 looking to set mine, we should have a huge value range and a huge bluffing range because he is going to fold 7/8 flops. Set-mining is a huge mistake in 3-bet pots and seemingly a huge number of regulars don't understand this.

2. If someone is going to call down light with 55 on a 963 board, then we certainly want to 3-bet more with pairs and stop 3-bet bluffing them. I think the interesting consideration against this guy is whether or not we start to flat big broadways like KQs/AJs and 3-bet T9s because he'll call us down with 55 on a 9-high board. With JJ/TT we're playing for stacks against this guy.

In case you're wondering, I'm not 3-betting TT/JJ vs. strong ranges very often (I have a habit of not 3-betting an UTG raise with practically any hand, which may be a mistake) and yeah, when I do I'm calling a shove with JJ most of the time, TT not so much.

Yeah obviously set mining to 3-bets unless they 3-bet very small is a terrible play. My point was if they set mine and play fit or fold we need to punish them by having a large bluff range, not a large value range. If they are peeling a lot of flops/turns THEN we need hands that have some showdown value and should mix TT/JJ/AJ/AQ into our 3-bet range even if we plan to fold them to a 4-bet.

To clarify if the dealer forgets to deal me cards and you open 33 and I 3-bet and you flat and play fit or fold I can still show a profit in that situation. I don't need cards to show a profit, so why would I want to waste TT/JJ which you admit has value calling, in a spot where my cards don't matter? It just doesn't make any sense. The only value a hand like JJ or TT has in a 3-bet pot against someone flatting super-wide and playing fit or fold on the flop is the value in over-setting them which doesn't happen often at all. And the value of playing a single-raised pot with JJ/TT will far outweigh the small value we gain because once in awhile we will set over set an idiot in a 3-bet pot.

k, just for a simple clarification: are we not for putting more money in the pot when our hand has great equity vs. the range of hands that they will call with?

I'm arguing equity is irrelevant unless it is an all-in shove. There are many situations where if they have worse than your hand they will fold no matter what you have so you are turning it into a bluff. Meanwhile a lot of hands that are in his range and will put money in bad later in the hand may not put more money in the pot if you 3-bet. I'm saying look at your overall plan and how the entire hand will play out, not just the immediate decision using SHOWDOWN equity to determine which hands to 3-bet preflop.

So, do these odds apply to micros?? Seems I get owned 4-bet shoving with the craziest hands playing micros...

you can argue that your 4-bet shoving range in micros should be KK+, AK as a bluff in some spots.

^ people stack off WAY lighter than that in the micros.

AK as a bluff sometimes? AK is all-in pre pretty much every time, 95% I'd say at least.

AK has huge fold equity, plus at the micros people call with retarded hands. Very retarded, you lose way too much value keeping your 4-bet range to KK+ and sometimes AK. QQ is a defo, I've seen people call 4-bet shoves with 55 and A10, they're retards, let them be.

Odds are odds? You can't change math, it's pretty much set in stone....

An example I had last night.

I was on the button.
MP min-raised, I re-raised with JJ, SB went all-in, BB went all-in, MP called, I called.

MP: 67s
Me: JJ
SB: A2o
BB: A4s

Lolaments, my point couldn't have been proven any better, thank you.

This is 2NL, surely, 5NL at a real push.

This isn't happening at 10NL /25NL

The game was 6max 5NL at FTP.

I remember 10 and 20NL being like that a few years ago, when they were the minimum stakes at least where I played.

Sorry for the OT, great posts in here btw. Still trying to get my head around 3-betting and 4-betting, this will surely help

Over the last week or so beginning to play 10NL I have come to realise that not using a HUD was a HUGE mistake. I have finally got it set up and working.

It currently displays hands, VPIP, PFR, 3bet and Foldto3bet.

I have also started 3betting light with encouraging results and the content of this thread is beginning to make a lot of sence.

I feel its about time I started thinking about developing a good 4betting strategy as there are already many players I have several hundred hands on and are obviosly taking advantage of my tight careful image.

Can you guys give me an idea of how to take my apponants' pre-flop 3bet numbers and decide on a profitable 4betting range taking in to account stack sizes and pot odds etc?

I have been tinkering with pokerstove but when I select say a 6% range this isn't going to be the range that villain 3bets with is it? Surely he is 3betting with 6% of his opening range or is it 6% of his opening RAISING range?

I am a little confused but hopeful that it will be easy to figure out with your good help!

Thanks and regards again!

Frank.

See Move Beyond the Hand Chart: 3-bets & 4-bets preflop in No Limit Hold'em Cash Games