I've recently spent a bit of time studying 3bet and 4bet strategies to improve my cash play. Initially this served me well, however I've recently had a pretty brutal downswing due to the number of pots getting all-in by the turn in 4 bet pots, where I've hit fairly strong but they always seem to have the nuts.

How are people typically approaching these situations? What hand strength are you typically looking for to get the chips in pre river?

I find the issue is, in a 4bet pot playing 100BB stacks, the pot at the flop is typically over half the effective stack (1.5BB from blinds, 3BB from open raise, 10BB from 3bet and 20 from 3bet, so with 1 caller the pot at flop is c.45BB vs effective stack of 80BB). Hitting the flop and c-betting (1/3 pot) has the pot > effective stack by river resulting in the chips going in.

Typical example would be 3betting with AQs and getting a 4bet from the button or the blinds. I call and hit TPTK or top 2 pair on a wet flop, they cbet I call. They shove the turn and have trips or straight.

Do I just need to get away from hands like TPTK and 2 pair vs the shove? I get that I should as it's destroying my winrate, but I find the SPR dynamic makes it extremely difficult to get away from....

I would say AQs is not always a call if your playing. low limits you want to be playing very straight forward (trying to get it in with AA KK AK ) QQ is ok if your not in any of the early positions (UTG or HJ or facing HJ )

also in 3b pots you dont always want to be calling it off with top 2 pair if you face a 3b because players are too straight forward post Flop with value hands for example you call a 3b EP V HJ the board comes AKQ you have AQ its not a great board meaning they can have AK AA KK QQ they can have JJ and tens but not always looking to get it in be more careful on broadway flops it can be a big leak to be calling all three streets down when you call a 3b with TP

in 4b pots you kind of have no choice with AK when you flop top 2 because the spr is already so low assuming 100bb eff. pre
one other note worth mentioning you can sometimes call wider if you know the player is a fish and 3b shoves 100bb because they will be shoving with A crappy range
I would recommend hands like AJs AQs/o JJ+ if you've seen them do it before with hands like JTs/o QJs/o 77-TT's or worst You can start calling KQs/o TT too


hope this helps