$10 NLHE 6-max: Is it standard to 5bet shove KQo in a 126bb deep blind war?

10NL 6-max zoom on pokerstars. Villain is unknown.

Villain (SB) has $12.63
Hero (BB) has $14.55

Hero is dealt Kc Qh
Villain posts $0.05
Hero posts $0.10
4 folds
Villain raises to $0.30
Hero raises to $1.00
Villain raises to $2.60
Hero raises to $14.55 and is ALL-IN
Villain calls

$24.12 in pot
Flop, Turn and River:
6d 3d Jd 8h 7c

Villain shows As Tc (Ace high)
Villain wins pot $24.12

BOOM Hand Replayer

Was this all standard play and just a cooler, or did I do something wrong here?

nope, don't think it is even standard heads up

I hate KQ shoving

If you think of flat out equities, King high doesn't fair very well. Think about a tournament in which a short stack shoved into you. Would you risk a ton to opt-in to an all-in with KQ? Most likely not. Any ace is ahead of KQ, even ace-rag.

Dont like getting it in with KQo PF........ At all......

You are IP with a fairly strong hand. Why not just call and see a cheap flop? His 4 bet screams of strength. Why did you shove there?

Matthew Southall said:

Was this all standard play and just a cooler, or did I do something wrong here?

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You way overplayed KQ-o. The initial 3! looks good. (Although I would tend to just take the BB discount and see what the flop brings against a total unknown.) After all, you're up against a random hand, and you could be facing a steal attempt. After the vill comes over the top again, even a call would be questionable here. Banging it all in is just lighting money on fire. What worse is he willing to commit an additional 2.60 here that you could beat? You'd have to know your vill is a total maniac before you add another cent to that pot, and you don't know this vill at all.

KQ, especially suited, is a big "fooler" hand. It looks a lot better than it really is. Unless you flop a boat or a straight, you have just enough to make a 2nd best hand. It can dominate a lot of other hands, but needs to be played cautiously.

You know you're something special and you look like you're the best

Her name is RIO and she dances on the sand..

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Well take a look at the hand which called my 5bet shove... Ace Ten offsuit... surely the way he played (4betting ATo out of position, then calling a 5bet shove with 100bb still behind) was significantly worse than the way I played.

I would never call a 5bet shove with KQo, but it takes a much stronger hand to call a shove than it does to be the aggressor and shove yourself, and I figured that KQo was strong enough to do that, especially given how it blocks out most combos of QQ/KK/KQ/AQ/AK.

You guys need to understand that this was a steal spot and he could've been 4betting any old junk. I figured that a 5bet shove would fold out most of his range and that fold equity alone would make it worthwhile.

Matthew Southall said:

Well take a look at the hand which called my 5bet shove... Ace Ten offsuit... surely the way he played (4betting ATo out of position, then calling a 5bet shove with 100bb still behind) was significantly worse than the way I played.

I would never call a 5bet shove with KQo, but it takes a much stronger hand to call a shove than it does to be the aggressor and shove yourself, and I figured that KQo was strong enough to do that, especially given how it blocks out most combos of QQ/KK/KQ/AQ/AK.

You guys need to understand that this was a steal spot and he could've been 4betting any old junk. I figured that a 5bet shove would fold out most of his range and that fold equity alone would make it worthwhile.

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If you were so sure your play was correct, why ask people?

IMHO, it was played very bad.

Hi mattew, i think you can open your 5bet range in blind wars and btn vs blinds war significantly if you have a history of at least 750h+ where you can tell that the villian 4bets bluff too much. If he do that, you can 3bet him with hands you are going to follow up with a 5bet shove, as pocket pairs , broadways with significant blockers as KQ, AQ and obviously all your value hands of TT+AKo+

Do you have access to an equity calculator?

http://www.acepokersolutions.com/poker-calculator/

I literally spit my drink reading the HH.

Yes, you block some hands that have kings and queens. The intention then was to fold out the hands you were beating then I take it. Or..

Simple answer. NOOO.

DunningKruger said:

I literally spit my drink reading the HH.

Yes, you block some hands that have kings and queens. The intention then was to fold out the hands you were beating then I take it. Or..

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This made me spit out my drink........ And some went in my nose...

what the hell are you doing ahahah lol

DunningKruger said:

I literally spit my drink reading the HH.

Yes, you block some hands that have kings and queens. The intention then was to fold out the hands you were beating then I take it. Or..

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Do you really think that I'm beating Ax hands and medium pocket pairs with KQ? No. Those hands are a slight favourite against me, but I want them to fold. This was more of a 5bet bluff than a 5bet for value. I thought that that would be obvious, but apparently not.

Mitchel Cornodelli said:

what the hell are you doing ahahah lol

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So what's your plan of attack then? You ever played a game higher than 2NL where stealing and restealing actually exists?

If you're constantly folding hands like KQ in steal spots, then good luck beating the micros. The villain showed up with ATo here. I bet you would've folded AJ to his 4bet and allowed yourself to get bluffed off the best hand.

Do you even play 6-max or are you just a full ring nit?

Very bad play.

Villain knows you are loose and so AT is good for showdown.

By the looks, KQ seems a strong hand, but actually its not.

Do you really need a 5 bet bluff shove range to beat 10NL on stars?

Also we are IP against villain so why not flat and play post?

Matthew Southall said:

Do you really think that I'm beating Ax hands and medium pocket pairs with KQ? No. Those hands are a slight favourite against me, but I want them to fold. This was more of a 5bet bluff than a 5bet for value. I thought that that would be obvious, but apparently not.

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Sigh. You 5bet King high in an attempt to bluff out exactly the kind of hand you lambasted him for 4betting in the first place. 4betting AT is bad yet 5betting KQ is standard. No, I'm not about to take anything for granted when it comes to understanding the thought process of the player getting stacked in this hand.

Whether it was because villain is a substantially better player than you are or he was simply lucky enough to end up against someone who happens to use such an... interesting approach to finding out if he is beat or not, you made the wrong play in either instance. You misjudged his calling range and he owned you pretty good. I'd advise you not to 5bet bluff unknowns at 10NL because if they truly are unknown (you can profile an opponent much more quickly HU than with 6max or FR play) then you lack a reason to do so. You can't just assume their stacking range is so disproportionately out of whack with what they're 4betting, and if you were trying to balance a relatively tight array of value hands to get it in with then there are obviously better hands to pluck from your 3bet range for that purpose than KQo.

Winning at uNL poker comes down to 3 things; knowing your opponents tendencies, understanding how to exploit said tendencies, and math. In this beauty of a HH you misstepped in all 3 regards - provably so in at least 2 of them. If you take a moment to contrive a set of ranges for your opponent neither of which includes AT of course because of how bad that would be, there's a good chance you'll realize just how "standard" your play with KQ really was.

This is standard if villain is 4-betting about 50% of his hands. I'm guessing he was not.

Why not just call pre and play a great hand in position? Villain is unlikely to call a 3-bet OOP with a hand worse than KQ, so there's little value in the 3-bet.

c9h13no3 said:

This is standard if villain is 4-betting about 50% of his hands. I'm guessing he was not.

Why not just call pre and play a great hand in position? Villain is unlikely to call a 3-bet OOP with a hand worse than KQ, so there's little value in the 3-bet.

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Yes and even if he was 4betting a ridiculous amount of hands, calling in position can easily be better than the 5bet regardless since it doesn't mean villain can't play pretty close to perfect versus the big shove. To think for some reason "he could've been 4betting any old junk" and stick everything in to find out because that's a "steal spot" yet his range or his hand is still stronger than ours because it's "obvious" we're bluffing to make his Ax and mid pair hands fold (as if it's common for people to 4bet/fold those hands) is a spectacular lapse in logic. Or, it's genius and everyone else is completely wrong lol. Either way, sure ain't standard, which answers the OP's question.

this 4-bet is very low , for me , some players like play TT-JJ , AQs

shoove is mega overplay

Matthew Southall said:

Was this all standard play and just a cooler, or did I do something wrong here?

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These "questions" above have been discussed.

But OP argues with any critique of his play.

@OP: why in the world ask "or did I do something wrong here" when you are going to resent, belittle and disregard EVERY comment about what you did wrong?

Sounds like you were fishing for compliments in a dried up pond........

fletchdad said:

@OP: why in the world ask "or did I do something wrong here" when you are going to resent, belittle and disregard EVERY comment about what you did wrong?

Sounds like you were fishing for compliments in a dried up pond........

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The only comments which I belittled were the stupid ones that didn't contribute anything intellectual and were merely laughing/mocking the way I played.

For all the people who properly analysed this hand: thank you. I read all of your comments and I am currently doing some off-table study on this, trying to build up some 3bet/4bet/5bet ranges for blind wars.

I was defending the way I played because everyone needs a devil's advocate. I need to hear how people respond to my ideas so that I can properly understand the alternatives. If I simply just take everything everyone says for granted, then I'll never understand why things are the way they are. That's why I ask a lot of questions and disagree with a lot of statements: so that I can see how their arguments hold up.

Matthew Southall said:

The villain showed up with ATo here. I bet you would've folded AJ to his 4bet and allowed yourself to get bluffed off the best hand.

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Just because villain showed up with ATo this time does not mean he will be showing up with hands like that all the time.

Folding AJ to his 4-bet is the correct play here so don't know why you are saying he would prob fold like it is incorrect.

In your opening post you say Villain is unknown. So you have to ask yourself here what reason have I to believe this guy is 4-bet bluffing ?

How many hands do you have on villain ? Have you seen 3-bet/4-bet bluff before ? Do you believe villain 4-bets more as a bluff than for value ?

I understand that blind vs blind situations can get really aggro as you move up in stakes and people tend to forget more about making the correct play, let their ego get in the way and concentrate more on getting one over on villain.

You are not alone here mate, I have been there myself and have done stupid things desperately trying to win the pot and I am sure others have as well.

But the main thing in this thread what should answer your question for you is that Villain is unknown. So taking that fact in to matter it is really spewy to 5-bet shove KQ here.

I personally don't mind the 3-bet here, but anything but folding to the 4-bet here is the wrong play here imo until you get more history with villain and get a proper feel for how he plays.

Was this the first time you 3-bet him ? And the first time he 4-bet you ?

The only standard 5-bet shoving is really KK/AA vs unknowns, maybe AK once you get into 100NL+. I personally don't like jamming in AK preflop against unknowns and in general. But I will do it if there's a lot of dead money in the pot, and if I can't really flat a 3-bet due to awkward stack sizes or because of a large squeeze.

Don't mind the 3-bet pre. Good blockers and decent equity when called. People don't 4-bet enough in general, so we aren't going to get blown off our hand that often. Folding to the 4-bet is standard; anything else is pure spew unless you have a HUD/good reads. If he's the type to 4-bet light, 5-betting (not 5-bet shoving) KQo 130bb deep is alright. Fwiw your 4-bet/5-bet ranges in blind vs blind and blind vs BTN should not be that much wider than it is in any other positional battle. People are not making as many moves as you think they are, especially readless. People use blind vs blind and blind vs BTN way too often as an excuse to make spewy preflop wars and spewy calldowns postflop.