Hand 1:
Hand 2:
Hand 3:

So this obviously won't happen all that often (although these three hands are all from the same session..), but I should still have a better idea of what to do - as the initial raiser facing a 3bet I almost always 4bet to 22bb (+ the sum cold call vs a squeeze), and I'm not sure how much to change that when 4betting cold. So, questions:

Roughly what should a standard cold 4bet size be?

22bb after open raising gives the 3bettor meh odds to flat, lets me fold fairly cheaply with my bluffs, and pretty much denies the ability to 5b/f. Does the extra dead money in the pot here change the importance of those goals?

How much do things change when the 3b is a squeeze, or when a short stack is involved?

vs those large 3bets you should be 4betting pretty small, spr will be tiny anyway if he flats and you wanna leave him illusion of fold equity (or possibility for yourself to bluff sometimes). Hand 1 35bb, hand 2 31-32bb, hand 3 35bb. Also, there can be an argument made for flatting in each of those spots, but most players would agree that playing those spots with raise/fold strategy is better.

So still roughly 2.25-2.5x the 3bet size?

You mentioned bluffing - I think I 4bet here with exclusively KK+ and fold the rest, which I realise is probably awful. AK seems like a good bluff for the usual blockers+equity reasons, and maybe QQ can be raised for value vs a squeeze? The problem I have is that if I 4bet to 30-35bb and face a shove, I'll be priced in to call with most hands anyway.

At 100bb effective, I just press the POT button and then never fold at any point in the hand. A lot of people go with smaller 4-bets (making it 24bb or whatever). I think it's a possibly a mistake to do that. When I'm 4-betting, I want max value with KK+ and max fold equity with my Ax bluffs. Pot is the bet-sizing choice of champions.

You would make it +/- 50 BB in those three hands? First hand, the raise would be to 52 BB with 48 BB behind.

In a word, yes. How are you going to exploit it?



If you only go with a 1/2 pot raise, I don't think you can profitably include any bluffs in your range, so you only have KK+. By potting it, hands like AKo, A5s and A4s become slightly profitable. If you half pot it, AKo probably loses money, because it can't profitably call a 5-bet jam by BTN (who should always have KK+/AKs if he jams). The smaller size could also induce all three players to flat. AKo is going to play pretty terribly OOP and multiway against QQ/JJ/TT/AK/AQs.

you mean press the POT button as 4bet sizing?

how about 3bet sizing? also press the POT button?

let's say UTG open, hero BTN AA, press the POT button?

What I usually do is press the POT button in SB/BB when 3bet.

When im in position, I just go for 3x. In theory is that right? 3bet smaller in position "3x" and 3bet larger OOP "POT"

I think a lot of people still do that thing of making smaller sizes when in position. I just pot it. I don't want the original raiser to have better than 2:1 odds.
A huge amount of your EV comes from denying equity. i.e. Making people fold.

What does Snowie do, out of curiosity? (I've never used it, so maybe it doesn't mention sizing at all.)

I'm not sure what you mean by the question.
Generally, it provides pseudo GTO ranges and bet-sizes for playing against strong/balanced opponents.
Specifically in that spot, it makes a pot-sized 4-bet, as per the screen grab. In the bottom right hand corner it has "1 pot" highlighted in green, indicating the bet-size that it thinks maximises the EV of the SB's strategy. It uses that size with all the hands it continues with [QQ+/AK at 100% frequency and AQs/A5s/A4s at low frequency, if I remember correctly]. If I chose 1/2 pot instead, it says only KK+/AKs are playable/profitable, and QQ/AKo etc would do better by folding).

Yeah, sorry, that was very vaguely worded - I meant "What bet size does Snowie use/recommend". I see now that looking more closely at the screenshot would have answered. Derp.

The idea of potting every 3+bet is interesting, mostly because it goes against all the advice I can ever remember seeing. I suppose I probably react to huge bets pre by overfolding, though, so there might be something to it.