400NL - Preflop spot: facing cold 4-bet with AQs 145 bb's deep

[johnboy7541]

$2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players

CO: $472.00
BTN: $308.00
Hero (SB): $578.40
BB: $1469.07
UTG: $967.55

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with Q A
2 folds, BTN raises to $8, Hero raises to $32, BB raises to $88, 1 fold, Hero ???

When I played this hand there were about 5 tables of 400NL running on this site with pretty much the same players at each table. So there is a little bit of an aggressive dynamic between both me and button and me and BB.

BU is 23/18 reg. He opens very wide from button (60%) but then folds a lot to 3-bets so I have been 3-betting him relentlessly from the blinds. He has not started to play back at me.

BB runs at 39/29 and splashes around a little bit too much. But he is still a winner at mid-stakes over 100k hands on PTR. He loves to cold 4-bet, and I have him as cold 4-betting at 7% in my DB (very high compared to other regs). He has already cold 4-bet me once this session after I 3-bet and I 5-bet shoved and he snap-folded (100 bb stacks that time).

Given these positions and my 3-betting frequency vs. BU this is probably a great spot for him to pull another one of his cold 4-bet bluffs. But does BU's smaller stack size (77 bb's) make it less likely that he'll cold 4-bet bluff? Also I'm a little bit deeper here too (145 bb's) so shoving that much to win 28 bb's is a lot less appealing. I pretty much never call 4-bets with these types of hands although I see other regs do it sometimes. Does anyone think calling the 4-bet is ever okay?

If we were 100 bb's here it would be an easy ship it in for me. Shoving over 4-bets is so much fun. But here it's a little bit tougher since we're deeper. Best play?

[Bramsterdam]

Calling the 4bett is ok. I mean, you can't fold the top of your range every single time you get 4bet by the splashy guy, but your too deep to ship over his raise...

[climbs]

Originally Posted by Bramsterdam

Calling the 4bett is ok. I mean, you can't fold the top of your range every single time you get 4bet by the splashy guy, but your too deep to ship over his raise...

i'd rather 5bet/fold than flat.

[Nirwanda]

I think AQs is fine to flat here with these stacks. 5b/fold seems ridiculous.

[climbs]

Originally Posted by Nirwanda

I think AQs is fine to flat here with these stacks. 5b/fold seems ridiculous.

In position i'd probably flat but oop it's so hard to play, unless you nut the flop.

What's your flop plan? hopeing to spike an ace?

What if flop comes down, 9,2,2 rainbow? Check/fold?

[shootaa]

Five-bet folding isn't that ridiculous if his value range is KK+ and we are going to get owned post-flop every time. 100 big blinds effective, it's ridiculous.

If you're comfortable check-calling three streets this deep on a lot of board run outs, then calling is better. That said, it's a pretty rare case and it doesn't seem like this is the type of opponent where those actions are warranted.

Do you have any more information to post about his four-betting frequency? Are you posting a figure for all four-bets or talking about cold four-bets? What is your sample size of this type of four-bet? If it's under 50 (and even 50 is still very high variance), then it's really tough to give the figure in your analytic and much more valuable to focus on meta-game and his other statistics on which we have a larger and more accurate sample to try to extrapolate the most accurate four-betting frequency.

Villain should be four-bet folding here a lot given stack sizes and button min-raise and your description of button. I would be surprised if a shove was massively negative EV, if not +EV. Worst case scenario you're called, have OK equity, and get a decent chance to protect your three-betting range so you're able to continue to exploit the button's tendencies.

[NL_Knight]

based on villain 4bet/f or call imo

calling doesnt seem like a good option, u just get owned ofp these days...ppl keep betting with any two

[NxtWrldChamp]

jam>fold>flat given descriptions

[Jah Onion]

jamming 145bbs over a 22bb 4bet? is that wise?

[JasonOnStars]

Originally Posted by NL_Knight

based on villain 4bet/f or call imo

calling doesnt seem like a good option, u just get owned ofp these days...ppl keep betting with any two

[shootaa]

Originally Posted by Jah Onion

jamming 145bbs over a 22bb 4bet? is that wise?

The play can be a winning play. The play can also be terrible. Just seeing stack sizes and AQ isn't enough to make that decision, though.

It greatly depends on the person you're facing and because people have begun to realize just what type of folding equity the five-better will need in order to shove profitably with these stack sizes, they have started to four-bet with a frequency that aligns with what is closer to optimal and that makes it quite +EV to shove over the four-bet because nobody shoves over the four-bet. Because nobody bluff shoves here, these players take advantage of three-betters here by four-betting a ton.

The problem with five-betting small is that you either give an obviously competent player fantastic pot odds with which to continue or that you commit yourself when shoved on, so you might as well do the shoving yourself in hopes of maximizing folding equity, balancing with your bluffs (since you can't five-bet/call a bluff), and because you're basically committing yourself to make a five-bet of any size that has folding equity.

[F_Ivanovic]

shootaa, stop posting. Your advice is too good to be giving away!!

[ATOTHEC101]

If he made a more standard 4b size i.e. 74 or something I'd prefer a 5b, but as 5bing instead of jamming is going to be nigh on impossible to do with a balanced range with these sizings i.e. you'll always be jamming your bluffs I prefer flicking it in. That's the only reason I don't prefer a 5b, the other arguments i.e. he'll be getting great odds to flat us in position etc don't have much weight imo. If he does flat it's often going to be with a dominated range and it gives him the opportunity to jam over as a bluff (I'm 5b/calling)

[shootaa]

Originally Posted by ATOTHEC101

If he made a more standard 4b size i.e. 74 or something I'd prefer a 5b, but as 5bing instead of jamming is going to be nigh on impossible to do with a balanced range with these sizings i.e. you'll always be jamming your bluffs I prefer flicking it in. That's the only reason I don't prefer a 5b, the other arguments i.e. he'll be getting great odds to flat us in position etc don't have much weight imo. If he does flat it's often going to be with a dominated range and it gives him the opportunity to jam over as a bluff (I'm 5b/calling)

Deeper stacked, the size villain makes it pre-flop is more toward standard because smaller sizes would allow hands like small pocket pairs and other speculative stuff to flat. The problem with sizing like $74 and smaller is that you don't get your opponent outside of his comfort zone or force him to partially define his range.

Just re-raising to define your range with little folding equity isn't that great of any idea! Yes, people still fold sometimes, but with hands like K4s that wouldn't call anyway. The difference is that we avoid flatting, or at least force people to make a mistake by flatting a larger size. A lot of the results of the play are hidden because stacks get in so rarely with a flopped monster versus over-pair type of scenario, but that's not an argument for avoiding the sizing issue.

Also, the sizing villain used accomplishes all I mentioned without risking too much to put hero in a very difficult decision with a hand as strong as AQ, which is a pretty great ROI on a bluff for villain. If you imagine this same post with $74 as the four-betting size, everyone would just be saying it's a flat and moving on with life.

[Stefan1983]

Originally Posted by shootaa

If you imagine this same post with $74 as the four-betting size, everyone would just be saying it's a flat and moving on with life.

So your saying that that 3.5bb extra makes the difference between shoving 136bb extra or calling and playing a 40bb pot oop? I feel like the difference between a 40bb or 47bb pot preflop cannot be so big that it changes our plan this drastically