$100 NLHE 6-max: AQ CO v BTN vs Aggro 3bettor

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 29/26/3.1

Notes: villian 3bets Q4s BVB
250 hands

15% 3bet, only 4.8% from BTN but sample size could be an issue as its 7% CO, 10%BB and 23% SB (lol)

Here I kind of want to flat, I know playing 3bet pots OOP is going to be tough but with AQ I can keep alot of his dominated hands in and get more value when hitting TP vs this reg where we know he 3bets weaker as bluffs.

Prima, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $61.66 (61.7 bb)
BB: $78.50 (78.5 bb)
UTG: $75.60 (75.6 bb)
MP: $87.69 (87.7 bb)
Hero (CO): $168.94 (168.9 bb)
BTN: $131.98 (132 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q A
2 folds, Hero raises to $3, BTN raises to $10, 2 folds, Hero ?

Ye I flat as he won't have a read on our flatting range.

Troubling thing with these spots is how narrow our range is going to be here. A good opponent could read us like a book. Knowing he 3bets a polarized range in position is a good plus and hopefully he won't have enough information or skill to narrow our range down to the tiny range we flat with here. Being a little deep helps as well, personally I'd be setmining here so at least our range isn't just AQ.

Defo nothing wrong with folding though. It's a spot I regulary get into and I'm fairly unsure of myself. His 3bet% is so high 4bet stacking may be acceptable if it weren't for us being a little deep. Honestly hate nothing you could do here.

I dont like calling, its one of them spots that really annoys me because if the guys aggro and 3bets a lot, he will be cbetting a lot, and he's gonna play a **** load better against our range than we play against his range if we're oop and 2/3 of the time we miss the flop. Oh and sometimes the flop is Axx and he crushes us with AK and we're deep. It just sucks being oop altogether here.

I would probs turn my hand into a bluff and fold to a 5bet before calling, we dont actually know how much he's 3betting IP yet, he might just 3bet a ton more in the blinds, but yeah its a fine assumption that he's 3betting light in these spots, we just dont know how much. I just dont see how you can play it +EV without some really good reads.

Actually i'd sooner call it when we're deep than call it when we're 100bb's, but still dont like it. Having suitedness would be better

Just 4bet him, so you know where you are, otherways A on the flop is gonna be difficult. Having notes on this player helps alot

I'm 4 betting here and folding to a 5-bet. Being OOP you want to show as much strength as possible preflop.

The safe decision is to fold, however with this guy I think I would 2.5x 4bet, fold to 5bet reraise, especialy an all in shove. If flat calls I would be careful. This should give you about a $50 pot and $100 ish stacks on the flop and an easy go/ no go commitment decision on the flop FOR YOUR OPPONENT (since he must put you on a very strong hand). I would c bet about $35 - $40 100% and call a shove only If I hit top pair. Otherwise I am shutting down after the flop. Getting past the 4bet should seriousely narrow his range. Shoving with air ( pre or post flop) will likely get you stacked unless you think he would go all in with substantially worse than AQ very often. Your pre flop action should make mid and small pairs unprofitable for the maniac since he has to call $15 more to win a max of about $125 and he is putting in 20% pre flop. Slightly more than 9:1 looks like good odds, but since you will win some pots even when he trips, and you will fold air if you get action on the flop. Also you will miss the flop 2/3 of the time, so almost 2/3 of the time he sets you will get out for just the c bet. Only big pairs and Ak are really scary for you.
That is similar to how I would play AA, or KK except I am always ready to get all in pre flop. With KK, the flop would ned to be played with a little more caution but Im still not folding often.

It's close. This type of 3-betting breakdown was very common among stars/FT regs at NL25 pre BF. I sort of want to fold to exploit him; we can fold against his LOLstrong range OTB and flat IP vs. his ridiculous SB range.

4-betting is going to be ridiculously bad.

4betting is just turning our hand into a bluff as he is never 5bet jamming light, it is not going to be hard play an A on the flop lol

baudib1 said:

This type of 3-betting breakdown was very common among stars/FT regs at NL25 pre BF.

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What does this mean?

look at how his numbers differ from position JB (low BTN, ridic high blinds)

anyway to further the hand, this looks standard right? i c/r kinda small which is deffo a mistake but it also looks kinda weak and bluffy

Prima, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $61.66 (61.7 bb)
BB: $78.50 (78.5 bb)
UTG: $75.60 (75.6 bb)
MP: $87.69 (87.7 bb)
Hero (CO): $168.94 (168.9 bb)
BTN: $131.98 (132 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q A
2 folds, Hero raises to $3, BTN raises to $10, 2 folds, Hero calls $7

Flop: ($22) T Q 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $12, Hero raises to $26,

Jurn8 said:

look at how his numbers differ from position JB (low BTN, ridic high blinds)

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Ah got it, Baudibs post makes sense now.
Is this a bad way to play?
Is it easy for you to exploit someone who has like 10% 3b in SB by flatting a bit wider and playing IP?

jbbb said:

Ah got it, Baudibs post makes sense now.
Is this a bad way to play?
Is it easy for you to exploit someone who has like 10% 3b in SB by flatting a bit wider and playing IP?

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A lot easier than calling oop yeah!

Baudib why do you think 4-betting is ridiculous? Saying 4 betting is ridiculous or whatever sounds pretty ridiculous! I personally dont want to play it oop against an aggro guy without any solid reads/plans, which i dont think we have. Therefore calling is out the window for me. I dont wanna fold every time he 3bets me, If he is folding to 4bets like 60-70% of time (which its very likely he is) we can 4bet AQo as a bluff, if we're not wanting to call this is probably one of the best 4bet bluff hands we have, A and Q blockers and instead of always folding (which is what i'd do most) We can actually make insta profit 4betting, and seeing a ton of folds (and most likely making him think twice about 3betting us light next orbit). When he does 5bet ship we're likely crushed anyways so we can fold.

4betting allows him to play perfectly, 5bet shipping for value and folding all bluffs. Why are you wanting to turn AQ into a bluff vs somebody we know 3bets weaker Qx. I would rather take the profit from hitting Axx or Qxx than getting his 10bb 3bet.

I've seen this type of player profile before, as I mentioned it was quite common when Americans played the big sites: people who 3-bet only a strong range OTB and 3-bet liberally from the blinds.

It's a pretty good strategy if villains are cbetting too much OOP and then giving up while he's OTB and 4-bet or folding when he 3-bets trash from the SB. The problem is it should become pretty noticeable pretty quickly.

In this spot I think we could best exploit him by not playing against his very strong range (we'll have less than 40% vs. top 4.8%) and make him think he can get away with his nonsense when he's OOP.

It looks like if we 4-bet him here he'll end up with a hand we don't want him to have like 2/3 of the time.

Think you're taking the stats given too literally baud. 4.8% on btn 7% co, and we've seen him 3bet Q5s or something before. These guys are most likely 3betting a very polarized range from the button, probably atleast 7% +. Hell you all call me a nit but i 3bet 8% from the button.

And why it might seem we're letting him play perfectly we're still exploiting him, i'd bet money that 90% of these players have a fold to 4bet of atleast 70% in these spots, so my argument is that we can fold a lot and then with the best hands we'd fold (AQo) we can 4bet bluff, which is actually exploiting him because he 3bet bluffs too much and folds to 4bets too much = +EV, whilst making a stand and not being pushed around a ton. It might also make him start 5bet shipping lighter which is also nice.

So i think you're right baud if he is only 4.8% from button but only 250 hands im sure this guy is going to be a lot higher than that which means that he will 5bet much less than the 2/3 of the time you said. (more likely 1/4 of the time)

I much prefer this approach because like the hand played out, you called and got stacked by AA. Thats gonna happen every time you hit a Q and he has monsters, atleast if we 4bet bluff this AQo (pretty bad hand oop anyways) we have most likely made a +EV move.

how is AQ a bad hand vs this opponent and how is it going to be hard to play on Qxx or Axx .

yeah the 4bet bluff maybe +EV but its not as +EV as playing AQ vs a villian who has a bunch of weaker Ax and Qx in his range.

Also I probs should mentioned it earlier a stat which Im using abit more is 3bet BTN when CO opens, which is 6% so it kinda fits in line with his wider 3betting range from blinds + CO

Yes the 3-bet may not be converged yet but as I said, 3-betting tight and flatting good hands OTB/3-betting trash from the blinds is a very common player profile.

Also I probs should mentioned it earlier a stat which Im using abit more is 3bet BTN when CO opens, which is 6% so it kinda fits in line with his wider 3betting range from blinds + CO

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This would make me lean toward flatting instead of folding.

we've seen him 3bet Q5s or something

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It was BvB, which is significantly different, but if he can be 3-betting Q5s do we really want to 4-bet him? We don't want to 4-bet against polarized ranges ever. If you think playing OOP sucks, you're right, but think about how much it sucks to play Q5 vs. AQ.

Okay well, i just think the most common type of aggro 3bettor is still 3betting more, quite a bit more than 6% in these spots. I think flatting is in theory good but unless you can play really well against an aggro guy oop with a meh hand then you can just exploit him folding to 4bets a lot and make a +EV move (i only 4bet here if he folds to enough 4bets so i'd check that stat).

I do this because i dont think im good enough to play aggro regs without reads oop and it still makes me money. Of course try it if you think you can make it more +EV than flatting, i just think your gonna get in a ton of crap spots. With only 250 hands on him im much more inclined to just fold pre anyways.

Flatting without a good plan/a good grasp on his 3betting range sounds stupid, if he's only 3betting 6% then calling seems really bad.

baudib1 said:

I sort of want to fold to exploit him;
4-betting is going to be ridiculously bad.

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What and What? Firstly a fold is a mathematical error, our equity versus their range is certainly high enough for a call, and we may be able to even make a 100BB shove profitable ( I am pretty certain this is true and don't care to do the math, but I believe if they 3bet over 8% you could shove 100bbs... so its at least close)

4betting can be pretty solid after a dynamic is started with the opponent. I would usually prefer to 4bet something junkier with not a ton of history but this is actually not a bad hand to 4bet with in this spot, especially if you are rather certain he will shove AK and QQ+, because that means if he calls you almost certainly have live cards and the ability to bluff him off JJ TT AQ, and when he folds obviously that is fine. The only downside of 4betting is that it stops him from bluffing, which is a pretty big deal. Something you could do is call the 3bet and check call almost all flops and then bet the river, I see this as a viable line if your opponent is a 3bet cbet kinda guy but a huge loser if they are smart, adaptable, and capable of barrelling off big. Either way folding preflop has to be the worst option and I would probably call over 4bet but don't hate either. In games other than NLHE (2-7 NL single draw for example) it is actually very common to put in a 4bet for value then fold to a 5bet and this could be one of those rare spots where its okay to do it in NLHE.

You're 4-betting to get him to shove better hands? I don't get it.

I would 4-bet if we think his range is merged and he has a lot of hands like AQ, 88-JJ that have good equity but will fold. If he has a polarized range it makes no sense to 4-bet given we have no history of him 5-betting light.

easy fold, even tho he is an aggressive 3 better. if you 4bet you flush all worst hands, if you call and you outflop him most times you will extract one more cbet.

when you call what do you hope that he has that he will fold to a 4bet pre but will stack off on flop? AJ maybe, KQ? I don't think he is 3 betting that one. he either has something to stack off like JJ+ AK or a pure bluff that folds to a 4bet.

both calling and 4 betting make no sense. i kno it hurts when you know he is bluffing you so often, but it is not worthed yet to fight back like this with AQ oop.

folding here is losing -300 bb/100 hands. I'd bet any money 4betting this spot against 99% of regulars here is +EV in itself, fair enough we're folding out worse but we're making a stand, showing him we're not gonna be little bitches to his aggression and we're making money, not having to play oop. Who cares if we're folding out worse bla bla bla, being oop to an aggressive guy who still has lots of good value hands in his range is just going to get us owned unless we have a solid plan of how to play our hand post flop. Cause guaranteed you're gonna miss most flops and then be guessing whether or not to ch/shove or float oop in a 3bet pot... sounds shitty really. Im not against calling but only when we know how he plays post flop otherwise you're playing straight into this guys hands.

Its what i do to fish every day, they open in MP i 3bet like K5s on the button. Flop comes down they ch/fold their pretty broadways.

I'm leaning towards 4betting>calling>>folding. Sure calling keeps dominated hands in, but we can also value town ourselves on Q high boards vs QQ+ and A high boards vs AK.
4 criteria to consider, and should try to meet 3 (sometimes 2 if one really outweighs the other) before making our decision are:

Position- IP>OOP

Hand- Is our hand likely to be stronger than theirs?

Skill- Do we have a significant skill edge vs this opponent postflop?

Initiative- Do we have it?

In this case we are oop, without initiative, with a fairly strong hand, against a villain who we probably don't have a great skill edge over.

Just considering these, I think a 4bet>>call and call is marginally better than folding.

acky100 said:

folding here is losing -300 bb/100 hands. I'd bet any money 4betting this spot against 99% of regulars here is +EV in itself, fair enough we're folding out worse but we're making a stand, showing him we're not gonna be little bitches to his aggression and we're making money, not having to play oop. Who cares if we're folding out worse bla bla bla, being oop to an aggressive guy who still has lots of good value hands in his range is just going to get us owned unless we have a solid plan of how to play our hand post flop. Cause guaranteed you're gonna miss most flops and then be guessing whether or not to ch/shove or float oop in a 3bet pot... sounds shitty really. Im not against calling but only when we know how he plays post flop otherwise you're playing straight into this guys hands.

Its what i do to fish every day, they open in MP i 3bet like K5s on the button. Flop comes down they ch/fold their pretty broadways.

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This first part is incorrect, folding is 0 EV, while the net on the hand is -3BB, our open, we did not face the 3bet until after we opened. The money in the pot is no longer ours at this point, once we bet we were using the money as a tool to make more money ie we thought the open would be +EV. Now we must reevaluate what to do because we are faced with another decision, a possibility we knew could occur has now become the line the hand is taking (we now know we are facing the 3bet and are OOP). I agree that 4betting in itself is nearly +EV with any hand, and this hand is so strong I can't see it not being +EV here, and I can't see a call being -EV either. So the only question is is a raise better than a call and why and we really don't know so we should just try out whatever we think is best and see.