Aballinamion
Sleeping with the Dark Lady of the Sith
Loyaler
Example:
2 NLHE, 6- Max
Pot: 1.5 blinds
UTG folds; MP folds; CO folds; Player is dealt AhAc BTN (198 BB ES) Raise First to 2.5x, SB (199 BB ES) XY 3bets 3.4x, BB folds, (...?)
Okay, hi there CC community. I would appreciate your kindness and opinion on this hand.
What is interesting here is to observe ranges. In this case BTN has AA, but what happens most frequently here, is that the BTN is opening a wide range varying from 15% to 70% depending on some wild players who opens absolutely any two cards from the BTN! (We see these guys at the micros)
The leveling war is what interest the most here: SB deduces automatically that the Button has a propensity to have a large range, and a great part of this range will not sustain preflop pressure, so it is a good ideia to 3-bet also with a wide, but a good range (for the times we get called and 4-bets).
Sometimes, we make a lot of mistakes from the SB, when we decide to 3-bet a player who opens very wide from the button, when we have AA, KK, AK, because this BTN player could fold, thus leaving our value hand for a next situation. I am not saying that we should call very much with the top of our range from the SB. But we can sometimes. It is good, okay that 90% of times we are going to be 3-betting and 4-betting AA, KK and AK, but sometimes it can be more profitable just to call.
But, sometimes, it is a great ideia to capitalize and change the way we play the hands, so our opponents will find more hard to play against us: if we flat AA, KK, AK for example we can play in several manners. We can call and we can 3-bet, balancing our range and making the decision making harder for our opponents (when we call we never have AA, KK and AK on our range, so we are going to be more bluffed in certain spots).
Although that at the micros, if we 3-bet/4-bet 100% it is capable of being a correct line.
What if we call from the SB with QQ+ and AK?
A) Open a door for the BB to squeeze (good for us!) or call (not so good, but also not the end of the world)
B) Open a door for the BTN try to bluff us out of the pot with a very wide range postflop (good for us). Sometimes we are gonna be beat and we must leave our A's behind (not good for us). This is more valid for when we are deep stacked, such as the hand described above, where both BTN and SB have nearly 200 BB Effective Stack.
C) The leveling war becomes nasty when we 3-bet steal from SB versus BTN and we have to face a 4-bet. Now, we cannot continue with the same range that 3-bet steal. We must evaluate again our situation because calling with a wide range is a way of burning chips and 5-betting/Shoving also, because we know that at the micros there aren't too many 4-bet lights, even from the BTN.
And even if BTN is 4-betting light we are going to flip with a very decent range: A5s-A2s, all the suited aces for some players, KJs, KQs, QJs. Only the very, very, very, very weak players at the micros are shoving preflop hands such AJ, AT, A9, KQ, etc, very rare to see it.
Following the hand:
So, SB with XY makes a 3.5x 3-bet versus 2.5x raise from the BTN, okay? Now, the player in the Button is deep stacked and has the nuts! What is the best move? Bluff the nuts versus SB stealing range? Yes, this is exactly what the player in the BTN decides to do: BTN 4-bets to 2.9x versus SB!!!! Either he is a God itself and knows that right now SB is not bluffing at all and has something such as JJ+ AQ+ which are hands that could call 4bet/5-bet shove (awesome for us!) but are hands that should be doing it very sadly, and 5-bet is risking a lot or the BTN player is turning the only preflop nuts into a bluff.
SB is going to fold more than call 4-bets in situations like this.
Maybe the BTN player have information that the SB doesn't 3-bet too much, having a polarized range for value, so it was a good ideia to 4-bet the nuts to not only get paid, but be re-raised by QQ+ and AK. (Wonderful!). But we should have a really juicy piece of information!
Again both calling and 4-betting here are fine lines, however we must be pretty sure of our opponent. I believe calling versus SB 3-bet is a little bit better, because allow SB to bluff us in multiple streets with its very strong 3-bet value heavy range. (neat?)
We are deep stacked and if the situation gets really, really nasty we can fold! Yes, we know that SB's range is totally capped for value and SB doesn't bluff postflop very much, so if something ludicrous as SB betting pot in a normal flop, and shoving turn, I could only fold here, unless, of course, I'd had improved my aces to something real better, which I don't believe it is gonna happen very often.
Well if somebody is curious, here is the hand. Ideas, thoughts, please
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
2 NLHE, 6- Max
Pot: 1.5 blinds
UTG folds; MP folds; CO folds; Player is dealt AhAc BTN (198 BB ES) Raise First to 2.5x, SB (199 BB ES) XY 3bets 3.4x, BB folds, (...?)
Okay, hi there CC community. I would appreciate your kindness and opinion on this hand.
What is interesting here is to observe ranges. In this case BTN has AA, but what happens most frequently here, is that the BTN is opening a wide range varying from 15% to 70% depending on some wild players who opens absolutely any two cards from the BTN! (We see these guys at the micros)
The leveling war is what interest the most here: SB deduces automatically that the Button has a propensity to have a large range, and a great part of this range will not sustain preflop pressure, so it is a good ideia to 3-bet also with a wide, but a good range (for the times we get called and 4-bets).
Sometimes, we make a lot of mistakes from the SB, when we decide to 3-bet a player who opens very wide from the button, when we have AA, KK, AK, because this BTN player could fold, thus leaving our value hand for a next situation. I am not saying that we should call very much with the top of our range from the SB. But we can sometimes. It is good, okay that 90% of times we are going to be 3-betting and 4-betting AA, KK and AK, but sometimes it can be more profitable just to call.
But, sometimes, it is a great ideia to capitalize and change the way we play the hands, so our opponents will find more hard to play against us: if we flat AA, KK, AK for example we can play in several manners. We can call and we can 3-bet, balancing our range and making the decision making harder for our opponents (when we call we never have AA, KK and AK on our range, so we are going to be more bluffed in certain spots).
Although that at the micros, if we 3-bet/4-bet 100% it is capable of being a correct line.
What if we call from the SB with QQ+ and AK?
A) Open a door for the BB to squeeze (good for us!) or call (not so good, but also not the end of the world)
B) Open a door for the BTN try to bluff us out of the pot with a very wide range postflop (good for us). Sometimes we are gonna be beat and we must leave our A's behind (not good for us). This is more valid for when we are deep stacked, such as the hand described above, where both BTN and SB have nearly 200 BB Effective Stack.
C) The leveling war becomes nasty when we 3-bet steal from SB versus BTN and we have to face a 4-bet. Now, we cannot continue with the same range that 3-bet steal. We must evaluate again our situation because calling with a wide range is a way of burning chips and 5-betting/Shoving also, because we know that at the micros there aren't too many 4-bet lights, even from the BTN.
And even if BTN is 4-betting light we are going to flip with a very decent range: A5s-A2s, all the suited aces for some players, KJs, KQs, QJs. Only the very, very, very, very weak players at the micros are shoving preflop hands such AJ, AT, A9, KQ, etc, very rare to see it.
Following the hand:
So, SB with XY makes a 3.5x 3-bet versus 2.5x raise from the BTN, okay? Now, the player in the Button is deep stacked and has the nuts! What is the best move? Bluff the nuts versus SB stealing range? Yes, this is exactly what the player in the BTN decides to do: BTN 4-bets to 2.9x versus SB!!!! Either he is a God itself and knows that right now SB is not bluffing at all and has something such as JJ+ AQ+ which are hands that could call 4bet/5-bet shove (awesome for us!) but are hands that should be doing it very sadly, and 5-bet is risking a lot or the BTN player is turning the only preflop nuts into a bluff.
SB is going to fold more than call 4-bets in situations like this.
Maybe the BTN player have information that the SB doesn't 3-bet too much, having a polarized range for value, so it was a good ideia to 4-bet the nuts to not only get paid, but be re-raised by QQ+ and AK. (Wonderful!). But we should have a really juicy piece of information!
Again both calling and 4-betting here are fine lines, however we must be pretty sure of our opponent. I believe calling versus SB 3-bet is a little bit better, because allow SB to bluff us in multiple streets with its very strong 3-bet value heavy range. (neat?)
We are deep stacked and if the situation gets really, really nasty we can fold! Yes, we know that SB's range is totally capped for value and SB doesn't bluff postflop very much, so if something ludicrous as SB betting pot in a normal flop, and shoving turn, I could only fold here, unless, of course, I'd had improved my aces to something real better, which I don't believe it is gonna happen very often.
Well if somebody is curious, here is the hand. Ideas, thoughts, please
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
