I was thinking of 5 betting and putting ranges in equilab and seeing the incentives our opponent faces to call with various hands.

But I realized I'm not even sure what the goal of an optimal 5 betting range is. To make V indifferent to calling with TT? JJ? AQs? To make 4 bet bluffs 0 ev (which doesn't really make 100% sense if we also have a flatting range)?

Anyone have any insight?

It has nothing to do with those things. It's about winning huge pots with strong hands.

That's too vague to be useful

It's the correct answer to the title of the thread:
Winning lots of money with strong hands is always the objective of betting or reraising.

Thus range construction is a product of (opponent's 4 bet range) and (how much money is behind)

Figure out which hands you should 5 bet(considering that calling the 4 bet might be quite profitable as well) depending on the expected 4 bet range(the number 1 variable).

This is your 5 bet range's most powerful asset: the ability to put in big bets with a ton of realizable equity. This is where the money is won in reraise wars.

There is a group of hands that *should* be a profitable 5 bet in the described situation, but these hands should probably be folded facing the 4 bet due to high opponent calling frequencies(most players don't plan to fold once they 4 bet). This group of hands is comprised of the middle of your 3 bet range(the marginal stuff vs a pot sized 4 bet).

If I find a player that can fold to a 5 bet? I would 5 bet these hands in order of preference and frequency:

A5s
KQs
QJs
A4s

but that's about it; going overboard here can have bad consequences.

I play 10nl ACR and many of the regs have 12-15% 4 bets, so that's why I am looking into optimal 5 bet strategy

I jam TT+,AK against a reg's or aggro player's 4 bet by default, flatting JTs, KJs, AJs

Below you can see my ranges for 3 betting and vs. 4 bets, 3 betting 16.29% vs a btn open and defending 42%. I'd like to get that up to 45-47% though and I'm wondering what the better option is: 5 betting hands like A5s/A4s (which you mentioned) or AJo, presumably at a mixed frequency (to avoid "going overboard") rather than pure 5 bets as bluffs, or just expanding my flatting range slightly with a few more pocket pairs. KQs or QJs work well as flats so I wouldn't use those.

I like those ranges for 10nl.

Alright so I guess you think the 5 bet range is perfect then. I'll add 88 and some 77 for my flats

I am interested in a good high level 5 bet strat though not just for my stakes

One big question I haven't seen answered (but maybe it's implied by the question) do you ever play deep enough to have a 5bet range?

If so the next question is do opponents 4bet you enough to have a 4bet fold range? Or more specifically are their hands in their 4bet range they are willing to fold.

If they do then your 5 bet "bluff" range should be trying to target blocking villain's calling range and not blocking villain's folding range.

In that regard I would think something like KQo would work better than A5s, obviously all dependent on how villain constructs their 4bet range.

To answer the questions in each of your paragraphs:

1. 100bb deep, so yes, but 5 bet is all in always

2. Yes, most of the regs in my pool are very active 4 bettors (10-15% when 3 bet).

I think logically, using blocker reasoning, AJo probably has the best combination of fold equity (blocks JJ) as a 5 bet and equity when called in a sb vs btn scenario

But kind of the whole point of my post is asking if I should have these sorts of "bluffs" along with my 5 bet range pictured above in the image in my post above, and if so how many combos?

What makes you think AK isn't a bluff in a 5bet range? What are you getting called by when you 5 bet? Presumably JJ+ based on your thoughts about AJ. Is that all?

10-15% isn't much. It should probably be higher.

Well yeah AK is kind of a bluff, but how do we know that's enough?

Some tighter opponents fold JJ, some call TT

I don't want to talk about exploitative strategy though

There's no theory that's going to tell you with perfect accuracy why you 5bet or even why you 5bet certain hands and not others.

The closest we can get is simulators, but if you could ask the simulator why it was 5betting a hand it would simply respond "because it's profitable to do so" and why it's not 5 betting another hand it would say "because it's not profitable".

No one knows exactly what your 5bet range should look like.

Sorry to be a little more helpful you could do something like this since the 5 bet is all in.

Take your opponent's 4 bet range.

Assume you're going to 5 bet but haven't picked a hand yet.

The EV equation for the 5 bet of your random hand is:

F*(P) + (1-F)*(E*2*(P+B) - B)

Where

F = opponents fold frequency
P = Pot before 5 bet
B = 5 bet size
E = your equity when called

So now you can take your opponent's 4 bet range and use combinations to estimate the likelihood your opponent folds and use and equity calculator vs the calling range to determine your equity when called.

So let's say villain's 4bet range is AQs+, AKo, TT+ just as an example.

Then that is 4 + 16 + 5*6 = 50 combinations.

Let's say you want 5bet jam AJo and you know villain will call AKs, JJ+.

So first we account for out blockers in villain's 4 bet range. We block 3 combos of AA, 3 combos of JJ, 4 combos of AK, and 1 combo of AQs. This is 11 combos so villain's 4 bet combinations drops to 50-11 = 39.

Originally, villain was calling a jam with 6*4 + 4 = 28 combinations. That means villain was folding 50-28 = 22 combos.

Accounting for blockers villain will be continuing with 2*3+2*6+3 = 21 combos.

That means villain folds 39-21 = 18 combos. We can count these directly as well: 6 + 9 + 3 = 18.

So now all we have to do is determine bet sizes. Let's say villain is otb and you are sb and you know bb is going to fold. Villain opens 2 bb, you 3 bet to 8bb, button 4bets to 24bb, then you jam for 76bb.

Our equation becomes:

(18/39)*(24+8) + (21/39)*(.21*(200)-76) =

14.77 + -18.31 = -3.54

So this is clearly a -EV play vs this opponent (assuming my math is all correct). You can also account for rake in your equation like this:

F*(P-R1) + (1-F)*(E*(2*(P+B)-R2) - B)

Where R1 is rake paid when villain folds and R2 is rake paid when villain calls. You could also account for it by makeing R some fraction of the pot so that instead of P in your equation you would have like .95*P.

Caveat this calculation will vary quite a bit based on what you choose as your initial conditions so don't take this as a perfect solution but it should give you a rough idea of when to 5 bet bluff and with what combinations.

imo the goal of a 5bet range is to win the money thats in the pot.
then again, thats the reason for a 4bet range, a 3bet range, and after all an open range. The math then will be that there is an attacker and a defender. The defender will defend a % of the total hands such that the attacker cannot profit taking the next aggressive action with any 2 cards. Once we figure out the % of hands the defender needs to defend with, we can begin to construct our 5bet range. this 5bet range will be composed of value hands and bluffs, and enough bluffs so that the defender cannot gain EV by folding the weakest hand in his defense % range.

The goal of the 5 bet is to protect your 3 bet.

The goal of any future action is to protect the money you have invested in previous actions.

You should work backwards. Dont start with a 3 bet range and figure out what's your 5 bet range. (Assuming not flatting of 4 bets ..but some hands can actually call the 4 bet)

Figure out which hands you want to stack off with..and work backwards to figure out a 3 bet range.

16.59% 3 bet from sb vs btn is a bit too aggressive. It forces you to 5 bet shove very wide or continue with ma y marginal hands against a 4 bet. It could be okay as an exploit against a btn that opens too much and does t 4bet enough.