Blind Defense: Calling

Its folded to the button who has a steal% of 40% or so and a fold to 3bet of say 90% over a good sample.Your sitting there with KQ or AQ knowing this guy aint gunna call you with worse.

Would you prefer to call despite being out of position against a wide range you cannot narrow down?
Or fold despite your hand being much stronger than his wide range?

In what cases (if any) do you opt for cold calling a steal from the blinds?

Curious... how could I consider folding KQ o AQ to a raise from BTN who in all likelihood is raising a pretty wide range?
I'm never folding (in typical situation) & more likely am 3-betting (also though.. 'it depends' on many variables.. ie. what kind of game is it for one?)

cash game 100BB stacks
and I've already mentioned 3betting is not an option as were under the assumption their fold to 3bet % is too high for it.

I'm almost always flatting there. If he calls a lot of 3-bets then 3-bet but in this situation flat is pretty standard.

I'm losin' ya here??... how could folding preflop be better than having them fold to a 3-bet? What's wrong with having them fold?
Isn't the fact that they're folding 90% of the time when 3-bet a good thing?.. doesn't this allow us to widen our 3-betting range and I really don't understand why we wouldn't take the oppurtunity to do so right here (surely he's gonna get fed up after awhile, while we exploit him and maybe when he does play back at us, it'll be when we're holding a monster).
I just can't see how folding preflop could be an option at all.. and.. why would we want to just 'call' here and play out of position?

We don't want to 3bet a hand like AQ because it's so far ahead of his range that the value of flatting and playing postflop is much greater than the value of 3betting and just picking up the dead money.

For instance if he raises Q5o, we both flop top pair, and we win lots of chips.

This doesn't happen every time, but the value of playing postflop (that is, 'coolering' him when we both flop pairs, getting to showdown sometimes when we miss, and buying the pot when he gives up or shows weakness) is going to be on average much better than the times we get the dead money preflop.

KQ is obviously weaker than AQ, but can be played similarly. It's just not as much of a disaster to 3bet since it doesn't win as often as AQ at showdown (or even A2/22/etc considering BTN's range) and isn't as strong postflop (though close).

So to answer Deco: in general the hands I'm flatting are the 'in-betweeners'. ie, the hands that clearly are ahead of the stealer's range, but that aren't quite good enough to 3bet.

There's also a huge consideration about player type and how often they're calling vs our 3bet preflop rather than 4betting/folding. We generally can call a hand like KQ if we don't expect him to call a 3bet against us with much worse, but if he's bad and is calling worse (and giving up well postflop) then we just go ahead and do it for value.

I can't tell you how cool and useful this simple short thread was for me, got me thinking a lot. Thank you all.

Thanks for the replies, answered me question well.

Against a wide stealer are we gunna add anything weaker than AJ, AQ, KQ?
How do we balance this as our range for calling in the blinds becomes very polarized (I probably don't need to balance this at my limit but I'm intrested to know none the less).

If you know that he is stealing so often you probably would raise to win the hand right now or make a move on the flop.
Or set a trap and hope to flop a pair or better...

through the teachings of blanks, i now flat jacks/queens more often than not when im in the blidns facing a raise from But/CO from players with high fold to 3bet, since on safe boards, you can often get 2/3 streets of value from them value betting what they think is the best hand, since your hand is so underrepped

I've never considered this. I think I'll give it a go meself.
I'd need a pretty good sample of a high fold to 3bet like, flatting QQ would feel wrong.

Is this JJ/QQ play standard?
Most of how I have learnt poker is via hand analysis forums which usually doesn't involve much preflop play.

Thanks for the thread. I can see the value of just calling here and even with bigger hands like QQ+ in order to get more on later streets. I've always just raised with those kind of holdings but I'll try to revise my play and see what happens.

Well it would only be 'wrong' if your opponent continued with enough worse hands preflop to a 3bet that it made 3betting higher EV than flatting.

It's extremely important to get your mind out of the realm of thinking in absolute or static hand values ("I have JJ, it's a big pair, I reraise!"/"I can't fold trips, it's a monster!"), and move to the realm of thinking in relative hand values ("my hands is a huge favourite over his range"/"I don't think if I 3bet I can get it in against his playback range, so I flat").

Relating to this specific spot, think about your opponent's opening range, what his range is for flatting a 3bet, what his range is for 4betting, and see where your hand fits in. Do you really want to 3bet QQ if he only continues with KK+? You'd need some really good reads to flat QQ in steal/resteal spot, but what's important is that you don't automatically 3bet a hand then get lost when he 4bets. Know what to do when your opponent 4bets, and know what to do on various flops when he calls.

Which also brings up the other possibility, which is 3betting with hands that you don't want to continue with because you know he'll only continue with KK+ or whatever. Someone like Deco gave in his opening example that folds to 90% of 3bets.

Exactly. This is the type of player we 3bet bluff a TON, but flat our big hands against and do stuff like ch-r flops or bet/3bet depending on his postflop tendencies.

I am amazed at the amount of information Chuck is willing to share. Grateful also, but still amazed!