Hi guys, fyi 16nl

I've been having a bunch of issues getting my AK/QQ/KK in against nothing but AA when facing a 4-bet. I've made the reasonable assumption that 4-bets should be treated as nothing but the nuts.

In the BB with KK, BU opens to 3x and SB 3-bets to 3.5x. I 4-bet and villain shoves for approx 160bbs. I hum and haw and eventually fold. I'm completely readless on villain and going purely based on population tendencies. Was this at all a reasonable play or have I overnitted here and potentially missed a ton of value?

Originally Posted by Jordansimo

Hi guys, fyi 16nl

I've been having a bunch of issues getting my AK/QQ/KK in against nothing but AA when facing a 4-bet. I've made the reasonable assumption that 4-bets should be treated as nothing but the nuts.

In the BB with KK, BU opens to 3x and SB 3-bets to 3.5x. I 4-bet and villain shoves for approx 160bbs. I hum and haw and eventually fold. I'm completely readless on villain and going purely based on population tendencies. Was this at all a reasonable play or have I overnitted here and potentially missed a ton of value?

Hello there Jordansimo, thank you for your great question!
I agree with you, at the micros, almost all the regulars don't have a 4-bet range for bluff.
When you go for 25 NLHE you will find one or another regular 4-betting for bluff for as lower the stakes, less bluffs we find on their 4-bet ranges.
When we are deep stacked we don't need to be spewying chips on the table, I would have folded KK here too, since players at the micros are mostly black and white types, using heavy value polarized ranges for 4-bet/5-bet.
If in 4-bet pots we only find AA when we are holding AQ, AK, KK and QQ, in 5-bet pots, deep stacked it seems a lot like pocket aces.
But it doesn't matter BTN could've been shoving here with 22 for example, but if we do call, deep stacked and BTN hits a set, we are not gonna like it.
On the other side, regulars fold to much to 4-bet at the micros, so this is why we do most of times:
WE almost never 4-bet AA, KK and QQ, we are almost always calling 3-bet or calling 4-bet.
We almost always 4-bet for bluff with A2s-A5s, that blocks most of aces combinations Villain's could have to 5-bet us, such as AA and AK and if they call we are good and when they shove depending on the case we must go, for balancing our preflop range, otherwise, we are playing like the black and white regulars of the field, only 4-betting/5-betting AA and AKs and never getting paid.
We want to get paid when we do 4-bet/5-bet, not get folds.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

This could be a fold if we have a decent sample on villain and we know that they 4bet less than 3% of hands.
Readless and in a BU vs blinds situation where the 3bet steals are more often, we can't really be folding the top of our range.
Maybe AKs is a fold but I would always stack off KK and happily accept getting coolered in that situation.

It's a coin flip for me. You have to have a complete read on the player to be able to fold that hand. If you only have a small sample size of what the player has done, we have to call with our monster hands.

I would pay this spot on nl16

Readless this is indeed to nitty. The times, you can fold KK preflop, is, if you have a solid HUD-sample, and the player going all in is clearly a huge nit. Someone how have only 3-bet like 1-2% over tousinds of hands. Or it could be a situation, where the action is in early position at a full ring table. Like you open UTG, UTG+1 3-bets, and now UTG+2 cold 4-bets. Then folding can be ok, unless UTG+2 is a known LAG or maniac.

But when the open comes from BTN, you are going to be looking at a wider range here, because your 4-bet is not representing that much strenght. BTN is supposed to be stealing wide, and SB is supposed to be restealing wide as well, which mean you can also repop it light with a 4-bet. So I would totally expect an unknown villain to always be getting it in here with at least AK and QQ. And then you can simply not fold KK. If he has the aces this time, just sucks to be you.

with a stack depth of 100 BB, it would certainly be 100 percent all in. well, with a stack depth of 160 BB, it's hard to say. you need to know your opponent well. but there is no big mistake in the fact that you reset the KK.

You avoided the risk. This is a very big bet. If your hand is better at the moment, it does not mean that you will win on the river.

I don't know if this is the right play and I don't want to give you a bad advice. But if I can tell you about myself, I never fold kings preflop and it has been one of the most profitable part of my overall poker stategy.
I don't want to make any assumptions, your fold maybe good, I wouldn't know, but it is strange I think.
...If you have an elaborate analisys on many examples that proove folding kk that deep in low stakes cash games is profitable, please share.

gl gl gl

Originally Posted by Aballinamion

Hello there Jordansimo, thank you for your great question!
I agree with you, at the micros, almost all the regulars don't have a 4-bet range for bluff.
When you go for 25 NLHE you will find one or another regular 4-betting for bluff for as lower the stakes, less bluffs we find on their 4-bet ranges.
When we are deep stacked we don't need to be spewying chips on the table, I would have folded KK here too, since players at the micros are mostly black and white types, using heavy value polarized ranges for 4-bet/5-bet.
If in 4-bet pots we only find AA when we are holding AQ, AK, KK and QQ, in 5-bet pots, deep stacked it seems a lot like pocket aces.
But it doesn't matter BTN could've been shoving here with 22 for example, but if we do call, deep stacked and BTN hits a set, we are not gonna like it.
On the other side, regulars fold to much to 4-bet at the micros, so this is why we do most of times:
WE almost never 4-bet AA, KK and QQ, we are almost always calling 3-bet or calling 4-bet.
We almost always 4-bet for bluff with A2s-A5s, that blocks most of aces combinations Villain's could have to 5-bet us, such as AA and AK and if they call we are good and when they shove depending on the case we must go, for balancing our preflop range, otherwise, we are playing like the black and white regulars of the field, only 4-betting/5-betting AA and AKs and never getting paid.
We want to get paid when we do 4-bet/5-bet, not get folds.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

good breakdown. i seem to always run into AA with my KK-JJ. it's a tough break when you're already on a downswing.

I cannot say if you played well or badly, because it depends on the other player, if he is very tight or nit for sure he was a good fold, if he was not then it was possibly a flip

I feel that you made the right decision. Without any info on the other player and their massive raise at this point your have to assume their holding AA’s.