$2 NLHE 6-max: Cold 4bet w/ AKo

teh_colonel_saigon · Jun 12, 2020

I'd like to know a little about 4betting cold... sometimes you look down at some good cards but the people before you are getting all uppity....!

As far as I know, 4 betting cold should mostly be done for value, unless you are coming over a 3bet steal.

AKo should still qualify. In this hand, I gave myself a price to call an all-in, but his flatting is very strong! I spazzed out once I looked at SPR, but check/folding is the best as if he has a pair he isn't going away, and his other unpaired hands will check it to showdown most of the time.

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (SB): 108.5 BB
BB: 92.5 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 103 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 167.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A:heart: K:club:

UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, BTN raises to 15 BB, Hero raises to 45 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 30 BB

Flop: (94 BB, 2 players) 7:spade: 2:spade: 2:diamond:
Hero bets 63.5 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 63.5 BB

teh_colonel_saigon · Jun 12, 2020

Here's another similar hand. This one is over a serial 3better, however.

Sizing?

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 74 BB
CO: 103 BB
BTN: 76.5 BB
SB: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A:heart: K:club:

fold, MP raises to 2 BB, CO raises to 7.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 23 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 33 BB

Mercurius · Jun 12, 2020

I think the sizing is too big, albeit better in the second example. 4bets are typically 2x the 3bet rather than 3x.

Another rule of thumb is that if your raise commits more than 1/3 of your stack you may as well shove due to post flop SPR (which led to you shoving a missed flop in example 1 with limited outs if he has pockets)

Example 1 should have been a shove/fold decision preflop based on view of V: how loose they 3bet and likelihood they call (as I don’t love getting called for 100BB with AKo)

The second one is still too big a 3bet for me as you’re at v low SPR if you see a flop and likely end up stacking off with nothing if your cbet is called. That said given V is seen as wide 3bettor it’s fair to just size up and blow him out of the water here (plus you’re still in decent shape if called) - problem is here that you have the original opener to come in behind you so you may see action from the player you aren’t trying to attack, in which case you’re probably in a bad spot.

Mercurius · Jun 12, 2020

When I say shove /fold for the first example, I mean in the context of you wanting to raise it.

I’d typically just flat call in position here, albeit I’m starting to reassess whether I play too passive and I need to mix in more raise / fold type approaches in these spots rather than coming along and hoping I hit TPTK

teh_colonel_saigon · Jun 12, 2020

Mercurius said:
I think the sizing is too big, albeit better in the second example. 4bets are typically 2x the 3bet rather than 3x.

Another rule of thumb is that if your raise commits more than 1/3 of your stack you may as well shove due to post flop SPR (which led to you shoving a missed flop in example 1 with limited outs if he has pockets)

Example 1 should have been a shove/fold decision preflop based on view of V: how loose they 3bet and likelihood they call (as I don’t love getting called for 100BB with AKo)

The second one is still too big a 3bet for me as you’re at v low SPR if you see a flop and likely end up stacking off with nothing if your cbet is called. That said given V is seen as wide 3bettor it’s fair to just size up and blow him out of the water here (plus you’re still in decent shape if called) - problem is here that you have the original opener to come in behind you so you may see action from the player you aren’t trying to attack, in which case you’re probably in a bad spot.

Thanks for your reply!

Ex 1 you suggest shoving 100bb over 15 there? With AKo? And then with QQ-AA what do we do? It certainly would be more comfortable to play that way.

Thanks for the info about sizing. I think the Grinder manual says 2.2x IP and 2.5 OOP for 4bets, but I wasn't sure for cold 4bets where you are coming over 2 people.

Aballinamion · Jun 12, 2020

teh_colonel_saigon said:
I'd like to know a little about 4betting cold... sometimes you look down at some good cards but the people before you are getting all uppity....!

As far as I know, 4 betting cold should mostly be done for value, unless you are coming over a 3bet steal.

AKo should still qualify. In this hand, I gave myself a price to call an all-in, but his flatting is very strong! I spazzed out once I looked at SPR, but check/folding is the best as if he has a pair he isn't going away, and his other unpaired hands will check it to showdown most of the time.

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (SB): 108.5 BB
BB: 92.5 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 103 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 167.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♥ K♣

UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, BTN raises to 15 BB, Hero raises to 45 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 30 BB

Flop: (94 BB, 2 players) 7♠ 2♠ 2♦
Hero bets 63.5 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 63.5 BB

AKo is a fine combo but when we do find ourselves in situations like this we keep wondering how strong it really is.

What happens here is very strange. When UTG open raises and BTN 3-bets usually are the best hands, because if we consider the fact that UTG could be opening raise with 15% range, the great part of this range will never fold to a 3-bet and some small part of this range is going to 4-bet.

However, BTN chooses the same old polarization, that we have seen at the micros and mid stakes, on-line, a hundred of times: we can bet almost always that BTN is never polarizing its 3-bet range with non-sense hands, but with heavy value, premium hands only. Of course, there are tilted and mental breakdown players, but I believe if this was the case you would have told us.

So, according to the logic of the hand, UTG 3x, BTN 3-bets to + 5x and then Hero, sitting OOP, elects to Cold 4-bet to another 3x:

To me the math here is very simple: once you put much more than 30% of your stack at the table, it is much better to be going all-in preflop and if BTN or UTG have KK+ good for them we are still (poorly) drawing.
But when we put nearly 42% of our stack preflop, do we have any plans of folding to any kind of flop?

Again, we were all-in already preflop, you should not give recreational players the chance to hit something or much worse, to call your 4-bet preflop and fold on the flop to some convenient situations, for example, when the flops contains Qx, Kx and Ax: when we do go all-in here we don't give Villain the opportunity to play close to godlike and fold on the flop.

Another hand that proves me a lot that players are not looking to ranges, but they are playing totally "faced-up", as the community classifies these types of mechanical behaviors.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

Aballinamion · Jun 12, 2020

teh_colonel_saigon said:
Here's another similar hand. This one is over a serial 3better, however.

Sizing?

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 74 BB
CO: 103 BB
BTN: 76.5 BB
SB: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♥ K♣

fold, MP raises to 2 BB, CO raises to 7.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 23 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 33 BB

As Mercurius said, your sizing for 4-bets are too big. It doesn't matter if Villain is Tom Dwan (Aggro Donkey) or Daniel Negreany (Loose Passive), our sizings are not based on our adversaries but on our profile in the long run:
You can never 4-bet that sizing using hands like 99, TT and JJ or broadways such as AT, AJ and AQ.
Summarizing: this is not profitable in the long run, period.
We are 4-betting with all of our range sizings that varies from 2x to 2.5x at maximum. We use larger 4-bet sizings when we are with more than 150 blinds deep and also Villain, so our odds are better. But going for 3x seems a blunder and we can't use this sizing with, for instance, A5s-A2s, KQs, KJs, etc.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

Dkerridge14 · Jun 12, 2020

teh_colonel_saigon said:
Here's another similar hand. This one is over a serial 3better, however.

Sizing?

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 74 BB
CO: 103 BB
BTN: 76.5 BB
SB: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A:heart: K:club:

fold, MP raises to 2 BB, CO raises to 7.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 23 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 33 BB

1st example

From an UTG raise and a BTN reraise I’m not too sure how much I’d like AKo here. What really are we hoping for when we 4Bet? Flip at best when called. I prefer a flat and throwing away if we don’t hit because of position. Even so, it’s going to be hard to extract value out of villain as we are OOP.

Dkerridge14 · Jun 12, 2020

teh_colonel_saigon said:
Here's another similar hand. This one is over a serial 3better, however.

Sizing?

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 74 BB
CO: 103 BB
BTN: 76.5 BB
SB: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A:heart: K:club:

fold, MP raises to 2 BB, CO raises to 7.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 23 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 33 BB

Sorry about quoting wrong one haha

The second hand I think is more suitable. The sizing is not off with you being BB I believe you could even go larger off fish. I mean it wouldn’t be a rough assumption to make considering the villain as you say is serial 3Betting so attempting to isolate isn’t all a bad idea

Mercurius · Jun 12, 2020

teh_colonel_saigon said:
Thanks for your reply!

Ex 1 you suggest shoving 100bb over 15 there? With AKo? And then with QQ-AA what do we do? It certainly would be more comfortable to play that way.

Thanks for the info about sizing. I think the Grinder manual says 2.2x IP and 2.5 OOP for 4bets, but I wasn't sure for cold 4bets where you are coming over 2 people.

I don’t like it (cold shoving AKo) and I wouldn’t do it myself, but if you look at the line you took you essentially did that anyway (you were shoving any flop), but took the risk he caught something and called you off. In reality I’d flat call here, but per theory it’s a losing play as the early open and raise suggests you’re likely behind (or chopping) so you either shove and push them off the hand or fold and don’t lose your chips.

If you think about the shove it’s not a bad play - as you said, it looks pretty wild to shove 100BB over 15BB and so what can they now call with? Probably only AA/KK depending on your table image, and they have 25%less chance of holding those as you have one of each.

If they have AA you’re in trouble, but would have lost your stack with your line too, so no different outcome;
If they have KK you’re unhappy but still have some equity to draw out;
If they are weaker than KK you have decent equity (coin flip)

When you factor that in, plus the fold equity the shove gets against better hands (eg most pocket pairs or suited Ax he 3 bet with) then it’s probably the right play, assuming you don’t just decide to fold it.

Calling here is clearly ok, but likely not as profitable as you think as you’re up against strong hands and just hoping the flop hits you and not them. The optimal solution is raising, but you either go 2x to 30BB and hope you can push them off post flop (or you hit) or shove and pick up the 20-odd BBs of dead money.
I think for cold 4 bet you don’t need to size up, you look insanely strong by the fact the 3bettor is gonna be strong and you’re coming in over the top anyway

Mercurius · Jun 12, 2020

Taking the above further (my own thought experiment as I’ve been thinking about how I flat call too much so the raise-shove here is intriguing me)

If they’re 3betting tight at say TT+,AQ+ that’s 62 combos (30 pocket pairs, 16 AK, 16AQ). I think they can only call the shove with QQ+,AKs (22 combos or 1/3 of the time) - even if you say they go loose and call the JJ and the AQs they’re calling just under half the time.

So half the time you pick up the 20BB uncontested, half the time you have to catch up but almost always have decent equity unless they have AA/KK (and if you think they have that you should be playing the hand full stop!)

Doing quick maths in my head (test it with equilab) I think the push is EV neutral, and becomes EV positive the wider their open range gets. Against a weaker player the shove here would be very much +Ev as they have to fold to it a tonne or call down with worse hands than your AK.

teh_colonel_saigon · Jun 13, 2020

Thank you all for the input. Both hands here are from yesterday morning, and I ran into that situation at least twice more as the day went on (raise, 3bet, to us usually in the blinds with AK...)

I agree that just shoving over the 3-bet is +EV since we have massive fold equity, and it is certainly better than a 3x 4bet. But I'm not sold on it being the absolute best play. Maybe vs the UTG open, 3bet it would be an all-in or fold since ranges are so strong there (or should be).

I'm not too happy about a call either in most spots like that. we would call with hands like 99-JJ, so maybe we could fit it into that range.

But then what about our 4-bet cold range? Its just KK, AA (qq?)? Likely profitable at 2nl but what about after that?

Also, I looked at AQ in this same situation. I cut out some math but hopefully you can see my thinking.

Shoving AQ even over that 3bet sizing isn't profitable. (I'll show below- even with a wide BTN vs CO merged 3betting)
-----
Lets assume these are reasonable players- CO opens and BTN 3bets. I've yet to see a ploarized 3bet range at 2nl, so its merged for this guy.

CO open: 22+,A2s+,K9s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,98s,87s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo -A total of 257c
Open to 3bb

BTN 3bets: 99+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,AQo+,KQo -A total of 81c
Raise to 9bb

AQ has 34% equity vs both their ranges.

Let's say they would call the shove (100bb) with AA-QQ, AK - 24 remaining combos.
The odds that they both fold then are:

CO folds x BTN folds: 233 /257 x 57 /81 = 63%

We lose big time when they call as we only have 25% continuing equity, so we lose an Average of 75bb then... making the total play -EV by like 40bb.

--------
But a 4 bet bluff to 20bb over the 12bb 3! with AQ is also slightly losing, at least in this model. They flat now with TT+, AK. (Realistic?)
New fold equity: 47%
We fold to 5-bet all-in: 13% (AA, KK)
One + more V Call: 40% (TT-QQ, AK) -We have 33% equity vs this range ( I just did this assuming BTN alone calls)

It might be break even if we stuck to a 2x 4bet sizing, but I think it's a spot to avoid. I have about -1bb EV for the 20bb 4bet
------

I'm not too worried about 'balancing' our cold 4-bet spot, but I do want to find a way to play good hands when we are stuck between two strong ranges. Maybe you just have to get out of the way.

P.S.- I think what I can start doing is leaning towards a call with AK, 4bet with KK,AA... but generally look to do so vs. 3 bets as a whole and include some polarized bluffs in as 4-bets vs a generic 3betting wide range.

bronson · Jun 13, 2020

great thread here... had to read it twice to follow but excellent advice. thanks.

Mercurius · Jun 13, 2020

teh_colonel_saigon said:
Thank you all for the input. Both hands here are from yesterday morning, and I ran into that situation at least twice more as the day went on (raise, 3bet, to us usually in the blinds with AK...)

I agree that just shoving over the 3-bet is +EV since we have massive fold equity, and it is certainly better than a 3x 4bet. But I'm not sold on it being the absolute best play. Maybe vs the UTG open, 3bet it would be an all-in or fold since ranges are so strong there (or should be).

I'm not too happy about a call either in most spots like that. we would call with hands like 99-JJ, so maybe we could fit it into that range.

But then what about our 4-bet cold range? Its just KK, AA (qq?)? Likely profitable at 2nl but what about after that?

Also, I looked at AQ in this same situation. I cut out some math but hopefully you can see my thinking.

Shoving AQ even over that 3bet sizing isn't profitable. (I'll show below- even with a wide BTN vs CO merged 3betting)
-----
Lets assume these are reasonable players- CO opens and BTN 3bets. I've yet to see a ploarized 3bet range at 2nl, so its merged for this guy.

CO open: 22+,A2s+,K9s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,98s,87s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo -A total of 257c
Open to 3bb

BTN 3bets: 99+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,AQo+,KQo -A total of 81c
Raise to 9bb

AQ has 34% equity vs both their ranges.

Let's say they would call the shove (100bb) with AA-QQ, AK - 24 remaining combos.
The odds that they both fold then are:

CO folds x BTN folds: 233 /257 x 57 /81 = 63%

We lose big time when they call as we only have 25% continuing equity, so we lose an Average of 75bb then... making the total play -EV by like 40bb.

--------
But a 4 bet bluff to 20bb over the 12bb 3! with AQ is also slightly losing, at least in this model. They flat now with TT+, AK. (Realistic?)
New fold equity: 47%
We fold to 5-bet all-in: 13% (AA, KK)
One + more V Call: 40% (TT-QQ, AK) -We have 33% equity vs this range ( I just did this assuming BTN alone calls)

It might be break even if we stuck to a 2x 4bet sizing, but I think it's a spot to avoid. I have about -1bb EV for the 20bb 4bet
------

I'm not too worried about 'balancing' our cold 4-bet spot, but I do want to find a way to play good hands when we are stuck between two strong ranges. Maybe you just have to get out of the way.

P.S.- I think what I can start doing is leaning towards a call with AK, 4bet with KK,AA... but generally look to do so vs. 3 bets as a whole and include some polarized bluffs in as 4-bets vs a generic 3betting wide range.

Haha - we’re going down the same train of thought which leads you to either shoving weak or getting out of the way.

I think there’s no harm in calling and seeing if you hit here - mathematically that’s probably not the GTO play but the other alternatives suck and if you’re really folding AQ on the button when are you playing??! There is a school of thought about waiting for the right spots though (ie playing the hands where you have initiative), however when was the last time you saw a pro muck AQ on the button- never, I think they’d def raise it up to see where they’re at and go from there.

It does go back to the bet sizing though - I think if the 4bet is 2x sizing (so 18BB-20BB) you can get out of the way if they 5bet/shove and have position on the flop to cbet bluff if you miss.

Remember - calculating the EV is one thing but that assumes minimal to no mistakes - villain will get tired of your 3/4betting and play a weak hand; they will call wider than they should etc. Plus it feeds into the overall game. Once you’ve 4bet them a couple of times and they’re getting frustrated they’ll end up shoving over you with AJs the time you do it holding AA/KK

It’s worth assessing the maths to make sure you aren’t making a very sub-optimal play (which I think calling often is), but there’s a tonne of factors and humans make mistakes, we just hope it’s villain and not us making them!

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$2 NLHE 6-max: Cold 4bet w/ AKo

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