2/5 at Borgata. Hero's first hand at table.

V - WM around 30 yo. Unknown to H. Has headphones in and gives of the vibe of being a reg. Has a huge stack ($2000+) in a $500 max game.
H - 37 yo WM. Just sat down and bought in for max of $500. Shouldn't give off any reggy image (came from craps table, in a nice shirt after dinner, no backpack/headphones, etc.)

One raiser in CO to $20. H OTB with KK 3-bets to $60. V in BB 4-bets to $130. Folds back around to H.

What's your action here? Obviously never folding so this is a raise or call spot. If raising, how big or just shove? In game I was torn between flatting and shoving. Flatting is OK given position, shoving can't be a mistake either, but may cause V to range me pretty much entirely on AA and maybe KK, since he's being 5-bet pre by an unknown.

Shove. Against a range of TT+ and AK we should happily GII here. Especially given the late position raise and 3 bet.

I think all in. In general you're ahead, if he's got AA you're gonna lose your money anyway. Otherwise you're a favorite.

On top of that; it's your first hand, you're reading him as a reg and think you're giving a "gambler" vibe, he probably has a decent hand but he may be trying to bully you out of the pot.


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Am I getting calls from TT, JJ, AK or maybe even QQ? Agreed I'm happy to get it in v. the range above, and that's not a crazy range for V to 4-bet (though TT and maybe JJ are a bit light for a 4-bet) but it is pretty loose for calling a 5-bet/shove.

He is calling off with that range. I play a lot of 2/5 at Borg and the worst thing you can do is call or min 4bet and the board comes A x x and villain pots or shoves OTF and we have a tough decision.

Results -

Not happy with this one, as I just flat the 4-bet. Concern was I could let him get away from worse hands (if I knew he'd call I'd have shoved). Flop comes AQx, which is terrible for me, he leads for like $150. I fold he shows QQ. Think he'd have called a shove pre-flop.

Results-wise, not really sure what there's to be unhappy about... You saved money this time, and are likely to gii most times when you're a 90%+ favorite.

Fair enough, what I meant was that I think I could have gotten it in with him pre as a big favorite, and didn't because I flatted his 4-bet. I certainly lost a lot less money based on the way the cards came out post, though from my perspective flop is an easy fold.

Yeah and you could've gotten it in post as a bigger favorite, had it not been for the crappy flop.

I think it's close. Live players don't usually cold 4bet without KK-AA. The reggy headphone image, though, somewhat widens the range, especially after a CO open and BTN 3bet. Still, I expect TT-JJ to usually be near the bottom of his range, and I don't expect to see TT-JJ all that often, and AK less often due to small sizing. If you 5bet/shove $370 more, I do think some regs will let go of TT-JJ... I'd tend towards wanting to 5bet here, but I don't think it's a huge mistake to flat.

As an added aside: Because of these types of dynamics, and the fact that nobody else does it, I've started cold 4-betting kinda wide (sometimes as a pure bluff with random junk) to anybody who seems to be 3betting lighter than AK/QQ++ - not often, maybe I'll do this once or twice a session at an active 3betting table.

You want to find the play that does best against his entire range. If you think (and I tend to agree with you) that it's possible for him to 4b/f stuff like TT/JJ/AK but shove flops like 724r when you flat the 4b and he continues to have the preflop lead, then flatting does much better against a ton of combos in his range.

5b ship: He continues with QQ+. We gii as an 82/18 favorite against 6 combos QQ, find ourselves an 82/18 dog against 6 combos AA, and chop on non 4 flush boards against the other KK. Pretty EV neutral.

Flat the 4b: He now has TT+, AK in his range. Playing in position, we can fold on flops that are obviously better for his range than ours, saving us $370. We also gain an extra $370 from TT/JJ/AK if he decides to c-bet ship on stuff like 724r. There are 28 combos of TT/JJ/AK, so this is pretty significant.

The two drawbacks I see to flatting compared to 5b shipping are that we will sometimes lose out on value against QQ when the flop comes Axx or Kxx, and that if we end up playing a lot with the guy and want to have a 5b bluff range we need to have KK in our value side to balance things out. The latter point is of course irrelevant if we don't have a desire to start 5b bluffing in position.

Overall I think the positives outweigh the drawbacks and flatting the 4b is a very reasonable play.