hi

i do not make calling range on preflop against 3bettor when i didn't voluntarily put money in the pot. i rather make a 4bet (cold 4bet) with my hand or fold

the problem is when I got JJ,TT type of hands

for example, let's say MP opened 3bb, BU raised to 9bb, and i'm on the BB

I think it's too thin to make a 4bet with JJ, but I feel awkward to fold them too. so i mix it, actually :/

I always consider cold calling, but if I call with those hands, my range gets too narrow. it's very easy to read my hand, so my opponents would never make a mistake.

should i make cold calling range on preflop?
or is it better to just use cold-4bet/folding strategy?

thank you

I prefer to not have a narrow capped range vs a narrow uncapped range so I use a 4bet/fold strategy. To make a cold calling range work, you would have to pepper in some combos of AA-KK so that villain can't play perfectly against you.

Another option would be to never 4bet, which is something I haven't considered until now. I'm sure there are merits and drawbacks of this strategy. I would be keen to see what people have to say about this idea.

Multiway it some times just works out that you are ****ed. There is nothing you can do about it. Especially oop you should just fold TT or JJ there- and yes you do get bluffed sometimes (much better to 4bet A5s instead of JJ as a bluff). It's possible that you can have a cold calling range, but it's 0ev or close to it and folding is just easier. It comes and goes- if you 4bet preflop the UTG raiser can never flat either. Just a fact of multiway poker.

The good news is that button 3bet vs early position raises don't happen very often.

This spot is usually going to be a fold unless your opponents are fairly loose. If the original bettor is a passive fish you could consider calling with less risk of getting 4-bet.

vs that type of action pre flop it is almost always a fold with jj-1010, there are some exceptions (read on villains, stack sizes etc) but it's almost always a fold. As was mentioned to cold call these hand here, we need to also do the same with AA and KK to be balanced, the problem is that in the blinds it's really hard to cold call those hand with multyway action before us and with us being OOP. It is an interesting topic though as it is these types of hands that we have a hard time folding and I see it time and time again (myself included) where I GII with big stacks just to be dominated by a monster hand. I think I will try to explore the cold calling option with these hands (along with AA-KK) because on the flip side if we do get to see a cheapish flop our implied odds when we do hit are tremendous.

I've not done analysis like this in a long time, so I may well be wrong, but here are my thoughts.

If I'm reading your post correctly, a MP player open raises, the button 3bets to approx 9bb, and you're asking should you flat with JJ or TT.

Usually I'd say "no." Just fold. But, if BOTH players have 150BB AND they both play badly after the flop, I would consider a call here from the BB. Yes, it unbalances your play. I'd make the call knowing that. This would be purely exploitive in nature. With stacks that deep and poor play post flop, you have some pretty significant implied odds. There are plenty of run outs that you still have to muck even if you hit trips, but, there are a lot that you can get stacks in healthily. So, default to folding, but consider an exploitive call if conditions are right.

If anyone thinks I'm way out of line, I want to hear why because I'm still learning too.

Thanks guys.

^^ nope not out of line and I would say that I would do it with much less than 150bbs but I mostly play MTTs. Again we would also need to flat in these spots with aa and kk so that we are somewhat balanced though. Vs good regs I would probably not get out of line here by calling but vs lags or fish where we have an edge post flop I think it's ok

Overall it's not a +ev play, the circumstances have to be right

@onehandatatime
Calling with AA on the BB seems like a huge mistake to me. I would rather 4-bet AA-KK and fold JJ-TT than flat AA-KK some of the time to call with JJ-TT. The balance isn't really worth it. You take away significant EV from AA-KK to get marginal EV from JJ-TT.

Also, you can't cold 4-bet bluff as much.

hence why I said it's not a +ev play and it's really hard to cold call those hand with multyway action before us and with us being OOP

I see, misread your post.

onehandatatime,
The part that I figured people would think was out of line is my assertion that we don't actually have to balance our range here. We are taking a decidedly exploitive line based on deficiencies in opponents play. So, if we start to add AA and KK into our flat range (which, in a vacuum doesn't really even exist) we start to really dilute our strategy. So my thought here is that we are basically set mining with a high-mid pair. If we don't hit or flop a ridiculous draw (o/e straight flush or something) then we're done. Yes this can be counter exploited. But since we close the action we aren't going to face a big back raise or anything. Yeah, we could get punished on the flop, but only if our premise that these opponents are weak is wrong, at which point we have much bigger problems than how to proceed with an unimproved JJ oop. Am I approaching this wrong? Thanks. (I've really missed discussion like this.)

@ I_lose

I see your point about us not having to balance our range in these spots, but I don't see how we can dilute our strategy by adding in AA or KK to our flatting range here? (unless our strategy is to be purely exploitative/ubalanced?) In that case then yes we wouldn't do it, however with that being said I don't think in MTT play I've ever seen someone flat AA or KK with that kind of action before them. And I agree we would have some problems playing this hand (JJ) OOP as the flop isn't likely to improve our hand, although as mentioned the implied odds are great if we do hit and if we are super deep it might not be all that bad to flat. The problem with 4 betting I think is that we still don't know what MP is going to do after the 3 bet from the BTN. I actually faced a similar hand in a $109 bounty builder not long ago where I had 10 10 OTB and 3 bet a MP raise pre just to have the BB 4 bet me, MP called and I called, it wasn't pretty But it was a bounty builder.

yeah yeah, for sure. I'd say early in a tournament when ICM isn't really an issue and stacks are deep, ok. In cash, I'd say if both players are deep (I said 150BB before, but maybe 125 would be fine too) and we close the action, cool.

When I say it would dilute our strategy, I mean:
I'm assuming we are basing our play on an attempt to be close to GTO. So, there doesn't seem to me to ever be a spot where flatting AA or KK is right, at least in this scenario. So, if we say "ok, in this particular spot, I'll flat with JJ or TT because the situation looks really good, otherwise I fold" then it is an exception to the rule. By adding these premium hands to a place where we have an opportunity to extract a lot of value by raising, then we are moving ourselves very far from optimal just to try to balance a range that only exists to exploit a specific situation.

When I ask if I'm missing something or if I'm off I don't mean it in a patronizing or snarky way. I am terrified that I have these notions of poker and I'm way off. So, I truly want to understand things better. (I'm also terrified that people will misinterpret my words as being something they aren't.)

-Nate

I didn't see it like this at all man, it's a good discussion we're having.