Villain is playing 18/16/6% 3-bet over 187 hands. MP is playing 40/0/6.7, Button was a tag, 22/20/3.5AF. My stats were 24/21/5% 3-bet at the time. Is this just mega ez stack off spot?

BTN: $446.50
Hero[SB]: $538.00
BB: $584.27
UTG: $443
MP: $388.50
CO: $439.83

SB posts BB $2.00, BB posts BB $4.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $6.00) Hero has Q Q

UTG raises to $14.00, MP calls $14.00, Button calls $14.00, Hero raises to $52, UTG raises to $110, fold, fold, hero goes all in

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I think you can find a fold mainly because of the sizing, among all the rest of the context of course.

A few assumptions:

-This is never a bluff obviously, it's 100% a value hand.

-I find it very hard to believe that he'd 4b so small with JJ or AK, I've never seen anyone with his stats balance these min-4bets IP, forget about OOP (emphasis on "with his stats").

-Since he's never ever folding, you need 45% equity to stack off and vs a range of QQ+ and AK you only have 40% equity, and I think that putting AK in there is actually quite optimistic given the sizing.


The other thing is that if he has your stats (guy with his stats at those stakes 99.9% has a HUD), he knows you're doing this with a big hand.

5% 3b is very low, you're not squeezing an UTG open and 2 callers with J8s here and he knows that.


I think in these spots it's very important to be aware of your own stats for that specific reason.
He knows you have a hand and you should know that he knows, so when he Min-4b you, he's not doing it with TT and honestly probably not with AK either.


Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to get ripped a new one for this, but given his stats, your stats (and the fact that he likely knows them) and his sizing, I think it's actually a pretty easy laydown, even though it's hard to make in practice, but if I'm playing well I'm laying QQ down in that spot without losing much sleep over it.

if we give him the other QQ, KK+, and AK the question is how many bluffs does he need to make this a profitable stack off.

after he 4bets there is $110+52+14+14+2 = $182 in the pot.

you shove for $391 total ($333 more than his raise). when this happens there are two outcomes, he folds or he calls.

we have 40% equity against the above range, so his call results in:

.40(182+391+333) - 391 = -28.60 so we lose $28.60 on avg when he calls.

if he folds we win $182.

so how often do we need him to fold for a shove to be +EV?

28.60 = 182*FE

so FE = .157 or 15.7%. so we need him to fold 16% of the time for this to be marginally +EV.

there is 1 combo of QQ, 6 combos of KK, 6 combos of AA, 16 combos of AKo, and 4 combos of AKs. a total of 33 combos of value hands. So the total range of value + bluff hands needs to equal to X and...

33/x = .84 so x= 39.2 bluff combos will be x-33 = 6.2

so he needs about 7 combos of bluffs for this to be a profitable shove. If you think he does this with 7 combos of AJ/AT/KQ etc then shove.

a more interesting question would be how profitable the 3bet is vs flatting. Are we going to either get it in pf in a +EV spot or get enough folds or postflop value as a 3bet that this outweighs calling in this spot.

my guess is the 3bet is much more profitable. but that it should be larger.

not really sure why utg cant be light in this spot- this is obv looks like a squeeze spot for us, and I can see utg making a click4bet trying to get us off of our squeeze hand.

also we have less than 200 hands on the villain.

18/16, sample obviously small, I guess that means you haven't played much against each other, which imo makes this closer to a fold. I'm stacking every other guy there if they backraise, but I think I can fold against what seems like a tight reg 110bb deep, especially that sizing.

maybe missing something, but why are you squeezing if folding to 4bet?

Because we don't mind action from the other 66% of the field involved (including a fish). This time we were just unlucky in that the nittiest of them decided to make the strongest playback possible.

that's like saying why are you raising for value if villain could have a better hand? not saying that I like a 3bet/fold plan, but we can certainly create a hypothetical situation where 3betting and folding is the best play.

shouldnt you be squeezing a lot on button with fish in middle? shouldnt utg be 4bet bluffing here sometimes knowing that? we know nothing about his 4bet tendencies. just that he's been playing tight oop vs fish which is probably a good idea.

in my experience that sizing is weaker then a normal 4bet.

Just curious about this because I hear it all the time "3b/Folding AK is retarded" etc...and other variations on that theme.

You 3b for value because you're ahead of his UTG opening range and he likely has a calling range and so do the 2 callers.

3b'g also narrows his range, if he 4b (especially to that size), you know you're very likely to be crushed and can get away from your hand. (Remember context, villain's stats, position, hero's stats, etc...)


For ex, consider: CO opens, you have KK on the BTN. You know that he will only 4b you with AA, call OOP with 22-KK, JT+ and fold the rest.

What's your best play?

Obviously your best play is 3b/fold. This is a less extreme scenario but it's very similar, still some people will say "if you're 3b/folding QQ, why raise in the first place?"

There are plenty of situations in which raise/folding strong hands makes a lot of sense.
Raise/folding QQ in that spot doesn't mean you're "turning QQ into a bluff, it's retarded lol lmfao". You raise for value vs the majority of his range and when he turns up with KK/AA, you get away from your hand.

Just because you initially raised a hand for value doesn't mean you have to go broke with it when you get 4b, or that you shouldn't raise initially if you're ever going to fold to the strongest part of his range.

But we know hero's stat of 5% 3b and villain very likely knows that stat. 5% 3b is very tight, is villain going to assume that hero suddely pulled a crazy squeeze-bluff with his uber-tight 3b% and decide to turn AQo into a bluff?

I mean with these stats, villain isn't even opening AJ UTG.

In my experience that's true in BTN vs CO/blinds and BvB situations, not from a tight UTG opener who just got squeezed by a tight 3bettor.

i need to move to 2-4 and start 4betting every hand. i'd be rich.

it's helpful to relay some basic assessment based on personal experience, but they aren't going to be as valuable as OPs own data and knowledge of the player. In the end he's going to have the most available data and he'll simply have to make assumptions based on that data.

I took the time to do the math (it was a nice refresher) and it's just a question as to whether or not OP thinks villain has the necessary bluffing frequency. If he doesn't know our own experiences have only limited application when trying to make assumptions about villains range and frequencies.

186 hands is not enough to go on. in this case, situational info trumps your hud info.