2/5 MGM National Harbor

Villain on the button is good, 30ish Asian dude. I've played 5/10 with him before and he plays fast, aggressively and is probably the best player at the table. Sitting on $1300, hero covers.

I don't know what he thinks of me, but this session, I've been snug.

Hero opens MP A3 to $20
Villain, BU, 3-bets to $85
Hero 4's to $215

Just a note here - 4 bets in this game are very rare and almost always mean a premium hand.

There are a bunch of reasons I 4-bet here:

- This good villain can fold a pretty good 3 betting hand to this raise
- I have an Ace blocker
- I'm balancing my 4 bet range
- There's a non-zero percentage that I'm ahead

All of the poker junk aside, he calls and I'm now out of position against the best player at the table with a non-premium hand in a pot that is getting bloated.

$430 pot.

Flop 278

I continuation bet $150. i'm probably button clicking now, but I'm definitely not checking and calling. I probably should just check/fold. Regardless, I bet, because I'm "supposed to have it". He call's after some deliberation.

Pot $730 - Turn 4

I was ready to give up, but now I've picked up some equity and he's got to fold his over card, weaker pair type hands now to a nice bet. $400, call. Sh*t, he's almost always got a big pair that's not aces.

A river. Easy game, I shove for value against what I'm certain is QQ or KK.

I go bigger pre if we gonna make this play OOP and deep I don’t mind it tho

Hand selection is fine but you need to go bigger pre OOP at this stack depth. I would go 300-340.

I would just give up on this flop without the BDFD. It’s much better for his range, there aren’t many turn cards that improve yours, and even when you hit the A on the turn you’ll be in a tough spot.

Turn is spew as the 4 does nothing for your range and improves his. Sizing makes no sense, as you’re leaving $535 in a $1500+ pot.

River just check and hope to get to showdown. Because of the weird turn sizing you’re giving him a cheap price when you shove but your range is so heavily weighted towards Ax that I doubt you get called by worse often.

$250 pre.

This hand starts 265bb deep.

You can put the fear of God in him this deep with a 4 bet barrel off line.

Flop is close. Not having the bdfd is bad. But I'll bluff anyway. No matter how good the player, everyone's afraid of stacking off these many bb. You can definitely get away with overbluffs imo.

Do you have to MP open/4! bluff/triple barrel these hands to do well in these games? I mean, is this where a lot of the money comes from? I play the MGMNH 2/5 a lot and this line isn't exactly in my wheelhouse.

Absolutely not.

These kind of hands are not where the money comes from at 2/5 at MGM.

Note a huge fan of light 4b the best player on the table when he's OTB deep. I can respect the heart/thought process on 4betting and wanting to give him some pain though.

I would make it larger pre, he's shouldn't be folding to this size too often 250bb deep.

Probably just give up on the flop.

When I'm going ape I'd rather have the AK, AQ, type stuff that blocks premiums and sucks out better.

Best player at a $2/$5 table means he has mastered good tight aggressive play and can value bet really well against fish.

Calling down with correct combos in a deep stacked 4 bet pot is above the pay grade of most good $2/$5 players. Indeed if they were so good, why aren't they playing higher stakes?

Dude plays the 5/10 regularly.

He left the table once his name got called for the 5/10.

Can some one explain how the 4 improves the villains range after a 4! pot pre? I’m not sure I follow this logic or range as the only things it really helps is 44 and 56 which I don’t see continuing past the flop bet anyway.

If you take a strategy where you 4b AA, KK, AKs and Axs, I think you have to be pretty strict what "x" is, because it's already 8 "bluff" combos and I think more is too many.

I guess you could do all A3s or all clubbed versions of A2-A5, but A5 is the most common choice because it gives you a whopping 1% extra equity, which doesn't sound enormous but if A5s came wrapped in a $10 bill it'd be that much more valuable in the big pots.

For that reason I think pre is too loose, although it makes sense to overbluff pre if you think he'll overfold (a good surmise perhaps if the player is sensitive to the majority of 4b ranges in these games).

I think when you have a disciplined preflop range strategy, you can feel so much better blasting off with whiffed A5s because you know it's a necessary part of your bluff range and you'll have it less than you will AA/KK.

I’ll clarify that it improves a tiny part of villains range as I’d expect him to call 56s every time pre, given stack depth and 4b sizing. 56 is never folding the flop to a 1/3 pot cbet.

That k you for taking the time to elaborate