We dont know anything about villain here and the villain doesnt know anything about us. So then we are using a population read of the typical player at 25NL for them and they are doing the same for us. Is it common at 25NL for a button open to be 3 bet light or somewhat light from the SB? I would think yes although I dont play 25NL so I think villain enough of the time has Ax that beats the 3 bet bluffs (A2 through A5 for example) and also could have the 88-1010 hands that beat those same bluffs. Im not saying they have those hands that often but we block AA and KK and all other pairs that are not really low pairs (as we are closer to even with those) we are 47/53 ish flipping with so we dont need villain all that often to have A10 or so here.
I really dont like calling even though villain is probably committed at 48 BBs out the effective 100 making the SPR on the flop .5 because there is a chance they slowdown or get out of the hand with JJ or QQ here when the flop has A or K and especially an Ace. Plus are we just folding every time we miss the flop? That is an expensive call pre fold flop spot. Therefore, to me this is a jam or fold spot and I think its probably fairly close either way in doing the math but I think considering we already have 12 BBs in and there is maybe some small amount of fold equity (1-2% of the time maybe?) and we are flipping a huge % of the time its perfectly fine to jam over and get this in off of 100 BBs.
Your assumptions are correct, button should be opening wide and I would be 3 betting wide from SB, playing a 3bet or fold strategy. His 3x sizing is large but many regs use this size so it doesnt mean too much.
My 4x 3bet is also fairly standard, can't agree with the below that 16-17 is normal. I rarely see 3bets that large.
It is a tricky spot.
Why did you make it to 12 bb?
The pot was 4.5 bb after his raise so 16 or 17 bb would be the "normal" 3 bet imo.
Perhaps he shoved back this big 4 bet because your 12 bb 3-bet looked a bit weak.
So the standard 4bet size would be to something like 25-28bbs. I.e. a size where he can have bluffs that fold to a 5bet shove. When he makes it 48bb it's clear he is almost never folding. Not much point calling and playing with a 0.5 spr oop, so it really is a case of shove or fold.
Then it's trying to work out what his range is and whether we have enough equity. I really havent seen this type of sizing very often so it is tough to range. The problem is we only just have the equity v QQ and lower pairs, we are in bad shape v KK and crushed by AA. So it's really how often he could have unpaired hands like AQ that we are in good shape against.
Framed another way is the 4x 4bet a sign of strength or sign that he wants a fold. Its certainly a sign he is a fish!
When opponents play unbalanced there’s no problem to do the same and play exploitatively: in spots like this I think we are jamming 99% of times, if it happens that villain had AA, nice hand!
I don’t think this guy is a regular using such a sizing where you could easily fold AQ, AJ, JJ-, etc
As long as I know you play NLHE 25 for a long time. So if this player is a newcomer most likely it is a recreational.
If I have no stats on someone it's true they are more likely to be a fish, but as this was on PS and I dont play there much now, I didnt automatically assume they were a fish (until the 4x 4bet)
