$2 NLHE 6-max: Whale 5bets me OOP from the BB, what to do with KK?

[playthosekings]

pokerstars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 4 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

playthosekings (UTG): $3.93 (197 bb)
never1oose (BU): $1.47 (74 bb)
Snukeris147 (SB): $2.55 (128 bb)
ermissik (BB): $2.87 (144 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero (playthosekings) is UTG with K♠ K♦
playthosekings (UTG) raises to $0.06, 2 players fold, ermissik (BB) 3-bets to $0.19, playthosekings (UTG) 4-bets to $0.32, ermissik (BB) 5-bets to $0.87, playthosekings (UTG) 6-bets to $3.93 (all-in), ermissik (BB) calls $2 (all-in)

Over a sample of 24 hands his VPIP was 33% and PR 4%. With this level of aggression from an otherwise very passive player I was wondering if I just flat call or fold to this 5 bet.

 

[fundiver199]

Your 4-bet was to small. And with these stack sizes in a short handed game, the money just has to go in preflop, when you have KK. He put in a third of his stack already, so he is never folding to a jam, and seeing a flop will not bring you any advantages. And even if he does fold, that is cool as well, since you just won a third of his stack with no risk. If he has AA, its just a cooler, and you are not folding postflop anyway, so seeing a flop will not help you get away.

 

[moulan7]

Yeah I completely agree, your 4bet is way too small, you can't make assumptions about him because the sample size of the hands is far too small and of course you can't fold KK on a random. (can you ever fold KK pre? >.>)
If he has AA you 'll say 'I knew it' and gg xD

 

[AIexander K]

With the same success you can play a squeeze

 

[fast_frog]

That's not a whale, that's a passive fish. I'd just call the 3bet to be honest, but if you 4bet you have to fold vs these types, 5bet is like always AA I think.

 

[c0rnBr34d]

Yeah i don't think you can find a fold with KK four handed for 144 BB effective. 4 bet is indeed small but in this case it doesn't change the action. Also agree this is not a whale after only 24 hands and a super tight 4% PFR. If his PFR is 4% what is his 3 bet range? 2%? So then what's his 5 bet range. Debatable whether KK makes the cut but as I mentioned earlier, short handed with only 24 hands of history and only 144 BB effective the money goes in. Sucks to run into AA here but it happens from time to time.

 

[Aballinamion]

5-bet range at the micros?

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 4 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

playthosekings (UTG): $3.93 (197 bb)
never1oose (BU): $1.47 (74 bb)
Snukeris147 (SB): $2.55 (128 bb)
ermissik (BB): $2.87 (144 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero (playthosekings) is UTG with K♠ K♦
playthosekings (UTG) raises to $0.06, 2 players fold, ermissik (BB) 3-bets to $0.19, playthosekings (UTG) 4-bets to $0.32, ermissik (BB) 5-bets to $0.87, playthosekings (UTG) 6-bets to $3.93 (all-in), ermissik (BB) calls $2 (all-in)

Over a sample of 24 hands his VPIP was 33% and PR 4%. With this level of aggression from an otherwise very passive player I was wondering if I just flat call or fold to this 5 bet.

Hi there playthosekings, welcome to the CardsChat community and thank you for posting your hand.
The vast majority of the population at the micros don't have a 5-bet bluffing range, I dare to say 95% of players: when they 5-bet you will find only and only KK+ and AK. The best case scenario you will find AKo or AKs and you will "flip" with it.
Remember that BB has better odds for calling your raises from early position. When BB 3-bets you, most of times it is demonstranting a lot of strength.
Consider that both Hero UTG and Villain of BB are deep stacked. The fact that the player in the BB has more chips make us believe that the call is better with the great part of its range to trap UTG's strong opening range.
When I am in position and the player in the BB 3-bets versus my EP's opening range, I will CALL more often than 4-bet. I will 4-bet 50% of times and call 50% of times. Versus a whale is a 100% call in position. Whales don't know how to bluff.
All the players of the micros are polarized preflop FOR VALUE. They barely have a decent 3-bet range! We see many players who 3-bet only 3%, 5% preflop in a sample of more than 2 thousand hands! If the 3-bet range is so small can we picture a 4-bet range?
And a 5-bet range is preposterous!
To balance our range we must be 4-betting and calling preflop in the same way preflop. Specially when we are deep stacked, we don't want to go all-in preflop many times deep stacked even when we have AA preflop.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

 

[c0rnBr34d]

But we have AK crushed, that's not a flip we are like a 70/30 favorite, if we have AK in V's range this is a fist pump get it in hand. We also chop against KK most of the time. So we are only really worried about one hand. If we had a couple hundred hands worth of data and the PFR was still 4% I could see playing this a bit slower but still stacking off on some run outs. I can think of 24 hand stretches where at one out of my 4 tables online my PFR is anemic. It's just not enough hands to make an exploitative adjustment of this magnitude in my opinion. We also don't know how active the rest of the table is (specifically Hero). If there are other active raisers at a 4 handed table V may not have had that many opportunities to open.

Against a range of exactly AA, AK, KK we have 47% equity. And again we are 4 handed so ranges should be wider (even if they really aren't), plus we don't really have reads yet with only 24 hands. If V raises next hand his PFR doubles from 4 to 8%. If his equilibrium PFR is closer to 10% then I would expect AK and KK to be going to war here.

 

[fast_frog]

That's never AK guys, if anything AK would shove or call. That's wishful thinking on your parts that loses a lot of EV.

 

[fundiver199]

If V raises next hand his PFR doubles from 4 to 8%.

Actually he raised this hand, so his PFR is now already 8%, which will show on our HUD in the next hand. And I completely agree. 24 hands is just not enough information to make huge adjustments like folding the second nuts. If you just never fold KK preflop, that is hardly going to be an issue, because most of your opponents dont either.

And the rare times, you can find a fold, is not a situation like this. The last time, I folded KK preflop, was when I got 4-bet by someone with a 1% 3-bet over a sample of 2.000 or 3.000 hands. Then its fair to stop up and think about, what this person is realistically 4-betting with, because we have the data to support it. And if you are not getting odds to setmine, you can just let him have it.

But 24 hands is not data, and just in general I will also not give the same amount of respect to a fish as a tight regular. Sure I think, this 5-bet deserves quite a bit of respect. But there is more randomness to, what a fish does, than what a tight robotic regular does. One moment a fish limp into the pot with AK, and the next moment he mini-raise J9s for no apparent reason. Its not always logical or linear, so we can not narrow him down to just one particular hand, we lose to.

 

[c0rnBr34d]

That's never AK guys, if anything AK would shove or call. That's wishful thinking on your parts that loses a lot of EV.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Facing a 6 cent raise with $2.87 effective no one is shoving or calling with AK. Facing a 32 cent 4 bet with $2.68 effective many players wont have a 5 bet range and will call. If they do have a 5 bet range it's kind of terrible to 5 bet rip an 8.4x overbet. I actually like Vs 5 bet sizing. The interesting paradox here in my opinion is that people tend to start flatting with KK+, AK after 3 bets, maybe 4 tops. The people who continue raising are more likely to have wider ranges in my experience. Obviously in this case he had the goods but I have personally 5 bet ripped AK and gotten snapped off by AK before so I don't think it's fair at all to say that an unknown V with 24 hands of history can't have AK or KK here, either of which we are fine with.

 

[EarnDAStack]

Yeah I completely agree, your 4bet is way too small, you can't make assumptions about him because the sample size of the hands is far too small and of course you can't fold KK on a random. (can you ever fold KK pre? >.>)
If he has AA you 'll say 'I knew it' and gg xD

I disagree, 33/4 over 24 hand gets a whale tag all day. It wouldn’t ever make me fold KK preflop tho. Fish flat

 

[GWU73]

Shove was fine. I tend to 4bet shove

 

[0815am]

As said 4B needs to be 2.2x - otherwise he gets good odds to call.

Secondly, I am not sure that it’s + EV to get in KK pre in micro with 100 BB let alone 150-200 BB. But that might just be me running bad recently facing AA every single time i get it in with KK unabsichtlich a scenario.

 

[c0rnBr34d]

As said 4B needs to be 2.2x - otherwise he gets good odds to call.

Secondly, I am not sure that it’s + EV to get in KK pre in micro with 100 BB let alone 150-200 BB. But that might just be me running bad recently facing AA every single time i get it in with KK unabsichtlich a scenario.

Effective stack is 144 BB. If we range an unknown with 24 hands as tight as KK+, AK with absolutely zero spaz we are still +EV given the 4 bet is already in. If we have better reads we can start to discuss alternatives IMO:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation
154,107,360 trials (Exhaustive)
KK 47.29% (67,479,612 wins, 10,804,572 ties)
AA,KK,AK 52.71% (75,823,176 wins, 10,804,572 ties)

 

[TheDude6622]

With microstakes and being in the pre-flop stages, we need to get our hand in when we have such a strong holding. If they have AA, then so be it. Not many times can we find a fold pre-flop with KK and for it being in micro, we have to go with it. If you just call instead of 4-betting, we can see a flop and if it has an A, we can possibly get away. If we aren't doing that, we have to shove instead of a small 4-bet sizing.

 

[fast_frog]

Alright. Can anyone find a hand history where a 5bet from a passive fish is something else than KK or AA? I bet a single one won't be found.

Also if we are calling 33/4 a whale then what is a fish? What is a 60-80 vpip guy?

 

[moulan7]

I disagree, 33/4 over 24 hand gets a whale tag all day. It wouldn’t ever make me fold KK preflop tho. Fish flat

For sure he's passive and makes a lot of calls pre, he can't even attract my attention, I don't have any standard thoughts about him yet.
Did he limp those hands and called a raise?
Maybe he had good hands when he did those calls that he was willing to raise but not 3bet with.
More info needed.
If for example he limped those hands, then ok. I even take notes on the first limp of an unkown player.
Many things can seem wrong in 24 hands. He called 6 or 7 hands and raised 1 or 2 on a table with 4 players.

 

[EarnDAStack]

For sure he's passive and makes a lot of calls pre, he can't even attract my attention, I don't have any standard thoughts about him yet.
Did he limp those hands and called a raise?
Maybe he had good hands when he did those calls that he was willing to raise but not 3bet with.
More info needed.
If for example he limped those hands, then ok. I even take notes on the first limp of an unkown player.
Many things can seem wrong in 24 hands. He called 6 or 7 hands and raised 1 or 2 on a table with 4 players.

No one is balancing their limping ranges at 2NL. 24 hands is enough to know if someone is a fish, the will have similar stats to 33/4

 

[moulan7]

No one is balancing their limping ranges at 2NL. 24 hands is enough to know if someone is a fish, the will have similar stats to 33/4

I 'm not implying anything, like that he's limping. Just saying that the sample is small.
I don't know.
24 hands 4 handed is 6 orbits. If he defends his bb every round and makes a raise from any other position he will have similar stats.
Is it impossible for his stats to change after more hands?
Anyway that's a different discussion, I get your point. I don't disagree, I'm just not sure yet about him. More info would have been welcome rather than just 2 stats in 24 hands.

 

[fundiver199]

Alright. Can anyone find a hand history where a 5bet from a passive fish is something else than KK or AA? I bet a single one won't be found. Also if we are calling 33/4 a whale then what is a fish? What is a 60-80 vpip guy?

The issue is, we dont have a real sample here. If we saw 33/4 over 500 hands, then we could start to make some conclusions, and we would also have usable 3-bet stats. But over 24 hands and 4-handed, anyone can end up as a 33/4. You pick up some decent hands to defend your blinds, you pick up a few setmines on BTN, when CO has already opened, you dont pick up much else, and suddenly your stats are 33/4. Sure I probably label this player "semi-loose passive" already, but its not uncommon, that I need to change my labels, when stats have converged more. And therefore I am not making huge assumptions and adjustments based on 24 hands.

 

[Casey55]

It’s micros he can have QQ sometimes too , shoving with KK never mistake here