200nl 6max: TT vs squeeze

I'm 23/20, possibly more aggressive. Squeezer is 17/16 over 2.3k hands with a pretty big %9 3bet and %56 fold to 4bet. Monkey in the middle is a 53/11 fish. This just seems like perfect squeezing territory to me; our line with TT?

poker stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Hero (CO): $203 (101.5 bb)
BTN: $246.10 (123.1 bb)
SB: $202.65 (101.3 bb)
BB: $200 (100 bb)
UTG: $335.55 (167.8 bb)
MP: $221.70 (110.9 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is CO with T T
2 folds, Hero raises to $7, BTN folds, SB calls $6, BB raises to $24, Hero ...

i dont play this limit but imo :

u cant fold preflop so here it's a 4 bet or a call, but i think u dont have some value to 4bet( dont think he calls with 77-88-99 and u cant call a shove from him) so you are in position, call.

4bet could be good if you know he cans fold JJ and QQ

What's our ATS and over how many hands is the 9% 3 bet and 54% 4 bet fold based (obv not the 2.3k I mean like 9/100 instances for the 3 bet, etc)? Also, what's his AF like? Are we expecting the obvious cbet if we call in position?

I can't imagine this is a fold in such an obvious squeeze spot. I recognize that he can very well be squeezing with ATC in this situation, so 4 betting is really just folding out the hands we already beat and very rarely getting called. Then there is also the possibility of him 5 betting, at which point we are probably going to be priced in to call, which he should realize if he's a thinking reg so he's probably only going to be doing this with hands that we are at best a coinflip with.

I think I call here and see if the fish comes along. The extra dead money from the fish will be worth more in the long run, I think, than trying to take this pot down now with a 4 bet. Plus, we have position on the reg, so let's try and use that to our advantage.

Given read, 4 bet to about $67 (2.5 x the 3 bet raise) and probably fold to a jam.

4bet just seems way too spewy if you're going to fold if he shoves, which you would almost have to. A simple call puts you right in position for a villain continuation bet on just about any flop, so that way you will be getting paid out from the lower pairs and Ax on a low flop, and of course there's always the chance you flop the set. The monkey is a non-issue at this point since I'd hope he'd at least have the judgment to fold to the 3bet.

I don't think the fish is a non-issue. If we call he'll most likely tag behind with most of the hands he flats my original raise with, and that means my equity is even lower. We'll see at least one overcard (...checks little chart...) %70 of the time on the flop, none of which I'm comfortable with. Maybe it's just because I'm a pussy, but I think flatting makes our decisions way harder. 4-betting with the intention of either folding or stacking isn't going to be much less +EV if at all, and it's a ton easier.

Results don't matter, and no I didn't.

The thing I dont like about 4betting here is that if our plan is to fold to a 5bet shove, we would be better off holding 27o where we know our equity is minimal anyways. Against a top 9% 3betting range were about 50/50 here with 1010. He continues here against 4bets 44% of the time so he will continue with about his top 4percent of hands or so which we are about a 1.5 to 1 dog against, assumming he is not 5bet bluffing. If we 4bet to as little as $60 and he shoves were getting about 2 to 1 to call. I'm not sure what I would do here tbh, but 4bet/fold would probably not be one of my top choices, unless I knew that if he shoves here its always JJ+/AK. I'd probably lean towards calling the 3bet or 4bet/calling I think.

ChuckTs said:

I don't think the fish is a non-issue. If we call he'll most likely tag behind with most of the hands he flats my original raise with, and that means my equity is even lower. We'll see at least one overcard (...checks little chart...) %70 of the time on the flop, none of which I'm comfortable with. Maybe it's just because I'm a pussy, but I think flatting makes our decisions way harder. 4-betting with the intention of either folding or stacking isn't going to be much less +EV if at all, and it's a ton easier.

Click to expand...

Yes Chuck, but our edge post flop against the fish, and considering that we are in position makes flatting the way to go here for me. Its something that has really been getting to me lately, a lot of players are starting to treat holdem as a two card poker game. Ok 4 betting/folding/stacking, will cost the exact same as flatting pre, and either fold out AK type hands on a safe flop or float against AK type hands with one over on the flop. I just dont get why you are so agaisnt playing this hand out ?

tenbob said:

Yes Chuck, but our edge post flop against the fish

Click to expand...

Even if we're the best player in the world we don't really have an edge against a fish when we're out of position in a multi-way 3bet pot with the likelihood of a cbet bloating the pot further. Postflop edge relies on depth and we won't have any here.

belgo, we're in position

i flat and hope to keep the fish in. edge doesn't have to rely on too much depth if the fish will stack off post with all sorts of things he shouldn't

combuboom said:

belgo, we're in position

Click to expand...

absolute, yes. relative to cbet, no.

it's not that big of a deal. his weakness is probably going to be stacking off too light. it's not like we're going to make some elaborate play on him. if we're pretty sure the fish is going to call pre, we could, if we chose to, play our hand purely for set value and still have it be way +EV. but clearly we don't have to do that because the board will come all cards 9 and under another like 25% of the time, and some other times we'll hopefully be able to make a good decision with an overcard on board, and some other times the flop will check through and turn will brick. it's obviously more complicated than 4betting but i like it better

also 4betting is pretty awkward because if he recognizes the situation, he'll probably be shoving AK, but it's hard to say if he'll always be shoving it/how close to always. i don't know if it'd be a call or not really

If BB was me and I had AKo, I'm thanking my lucky gods I got a chance to shove preflop when the action's back to me.

I'm not convinced 4-betting is +EV. We'd need to play well vs. a 5-bet or a call for that to be true, and I'm not sure we know how vs. this player. On the other hand, he offered us very lucrative odds for taking a flop even if our only intention is to set-mine. While 4-betting might be +EV versus some opponents, set mining is profitable versus essentially all, so unless I have specific reason to believe 4-betting is better, I'm flatting preflop.

Oh, and addition: SB does lower our equity in the pot, but certainly not by enough to offset the extra money he's putting into it. Yeah, he'll have J7s some of the time and flop a jack and we'll lose, but a vast majority of the time he'll be dominated by either you or the BB and the cost of letting him in isn't that great. Not in comparison to the extra immediate $17 he's putting in, and the additional $200 in implied odds he takes with him.

F Paulsson said:

While 4-betting might be +EV versus some opponents, set mining is profitable versus essentially all, so unless I have specific reason to believe 4-betting is better, I'm flatting preflop.

Click to expand...

I agree that setmining is +ev here, so a fold is out of our options. But what do we do postflop when we don't hit?

If we call a c-bet on all flops where we have an overpair (or bet/fold these flops when checked to), check back all other flops where we are checked to and fold all flops with an overcard where we get bet into, I think we're doing pretty much what we can to maximize value postflop when we miss.

F Paulsson said:

If we call a c-bet on all flops where we have an overpair (or bet/fold these flops when checked to), check back all other flops where we are checked to and fold all flops with an overcard where we get bet into, I think we're doing pretty much what we can to maximize value postflop when we miss.

Click to expand...

We also should note that the squeezer isnt always c-betting, especially when the fish tags along. I'd expect only to see him bet the flop with the top of his range.

9% 3-bet puts him on what... 88+, AJ+, KQo and KTs+, right?

I'm happy enough to play postflop, but in this case I think the squeeze is the right play if we're going to have to give up on 70% of flops. Raise it to around the $70 mark.

In my mind, if we're flat calling here we're pretty much turning the hand into a set mine. My gut reaction is unless we expect to stack both villains when we hit, calling off 12BB on a set mine would only be very marginally +EV at best, even with the dead money in the pot.

Doing the math though, we flop a set one time in eight so it's (.875 * -$24) + (.125 * $224) = +$7

Compared to four-betting, where 56% of the time we win and I'm assuming the other 44% we have to fold to a jam... (.56 * $30) + (.44 * -$70) = -$14

We could complicate things further by thinking about the 30% of times when the flop comes undercards and we gain a pretty big chunk of equity in the pot, or the times when neither villain stacks off when we hit our set, but even without that, this isn't what my gut told me I'd see. Unless I've got it completely arse-about, it's saying playing this as a set mine is the profitable option. Thoughts?

OzExorcist said:

9% 3-bet puts him on what... 88+, AJ+, KQo and KTs+, right?

Click to expand...

no. if he's any good, 9% 3-bet means 4 or 5% legitimate hands and 3 or 4% of light 3bets that are mostly about position and could really be atc if the situation is good enough. For instance, FP 3bets from BB with suited connectors iirc (not because of what they are worth in a 3bet pot but because they happen at the right frequency he wants to achieve for light 3bets) .

BelgoSuisse said:

no. if he's any good, 9% 3-bet means 4 or 5% legitimate hands and 3 or 4% of light 3bets that are mostly about position and could really be atc if the situation is good enough. For instance, FP 3bets from BB with suited connectors iirc (not because of what they are worth in a 3bet pot but because they happen at the right frequency he wants to achieve for light 3bets) .

Click to expand...

OK - thanks, makes sense.

Doesn't really change the math I guess, though it could make our position a little more difficult in the instances where we flop an overpair and the villain hits a monster... FP's flop lines pretty effectively cover that eventuality though.

I don't see how we have that much of a positional advantage - the pot will be $72 and we'll have 176 behind. That leaves basically two bets.

I think we have to flat and try to play post flop. Most likely im calling minimum of 1 street on overcard flops. I think it just depends on 3b/4b history over 2.3k hands.