Tightening up with the leg up for sure, but I had some sort of monster in the big blind and beat the now Button out of a massive pot.

Thanks for this

I personally will fold up to 55.

Start 4 betting 66+ especially if cap is 4.

In regards to hot and cold equity and GTO, I'm sure its +EV to call 33+ or call all ranges HERO plays as a kill in SB.

HOWEVER

I personally am too bad of a player to be able to balance having a cold call range in SB on the kill

OR
To Cold Call 3 bets in SB with all hands being played as a kill in SB.

In turn for 33, it would be fold > 4 bet for me but clearly 4 bet is lightning money on fire as many have noted.

Lord with the four bet. If not for value, why? Is 66 really a four bet for value out of position?

Ninefingershuffle, you noted MP who is reasonable raised, then a

"Tilty Button 3 bet"

If a Tilty Button already is tilted, villains I am familiar with will go above and beyond to either bluff raise light post flop with air/bad draws/bad pairs, or call down light as low as Qhi+.

With that said, I generally put ranges of even tilted players with a conservative range of hands but when HERO has direct position on

"Tilty Button who HERO has direct position on"

unless, Tilty button seat changes, you can create havoc for Tilty button on later hands if you start 4 betting light and create game dynamics between tilty button where you can gain multiple bets.

Within this one hand, yes 4 betting 66 may be -EV in terms of hot and cold equity.

However, I argue making tilty button your ATM in the game on later hands with an X% of light 4 betting as SB on kill CAN be profitable.

By X% I would say maybe 5% of time or under depending on play history / meta / game dynamics between HERO and Tilty Button.

That's just how I play and as noted earlier, I play bad and its probably fancy play syndrome.

UTG....very loose. Limps a lot and open raises a lot. I have seen him limp with AK once but I don't know if he always does or was just being tricky. I haven't seen him limp other big hands. He could have any suited, any Ace, Any smaller Broadway etc. He is very agro post flop with draws over cards as well as made hands. He gets to showdown a lot and likes to play sheriff.

CO....Laggy pre flop but tends to take a more passive approach post. He is more likely to underplay a hand than overplay. He is very stubborn and will get to the river a lot but not necessarily showdown.

BB is a tight reg.

UTG open limps, CO raises....folded to me in the SB

What do you do with 66's? QJo?

66: 3 bet from SB

QJo: Fold

3 bet 66.

QJo is close. I’d probably 3 bet it, but calling is fine too.

I agree 66's is a 3 bet.......Are we drawing the line anywhere with pairs? I could see maybe 3 betting 55's as well. I usually just muck 44's or worse.

I usually just call QJo...This is bottom of my range. Are you calling much worse? I'd consider 3 betting QJo against a different line up. These guy's are too sticky post.

55-22 can call. I don’t like to fold hands that may be best right now while getting a decent price.

QTo I’d call and Q9o I’d fold. QJo is fine to call, but I’d 3 bet it in some situations. QTs I’d 3 bet.

Thanks!

Thanks for this.

We can agree to disagree on call with QJo

BUT

Per expert friend who used to prop 5/10 LHE - 10/20 LHE 6 tabling advocated balance doesn't really apply when playing Live vs Loose Passive / LAG fish.

In turn, from a real life 20/40 experience I can agree cold calling with QJo or QTo is correct.


HOWEVER

3BB/100 crusher from 20/40 advocates 3 bet or fold with QJo here so I'd lean toward Fold > 3bet > Call because I play bad

If I were the BTN or had position on the PFR’er, I’d play raise or fold. I like to face the blinds/limper with two bets and increase the likelihood that I’ll have ultimate position post flop. The situation described above is different in two ways,

1. We’re in the SB and therefor are getting a better price.

2. We’re in the SB and therefor must play the entire hand with the worst position.

It’s mainly because of these two factors that I employ all three options of fold, call, and raise pre flop.

I agree that balance isn’t really something one should spend much time worrying about once the pot has gone off 4+ ways. But being balanced doesn’t necessarily mean we play “raise or fold” or that in order to be balanced we should make our decisions binary. On the contrary, true balance uses a mixed strategy where we employ each option at a certain frequency.

5 handed 20/40

The player to my left is loose, cold calls a fair amount, 3 bets seem to be strong hands. He is sticky and tricky post flop.

The button is a strong Lag/Tag.

Blinds are tight.

I am UTG.....What would you do with these hands? T8s, K8s, QTo, 55's, A5s

I'd raise A5s, 55, and K8s.

In the hijack, against unknowns I would open with all of those except QTo.

Against a villain in the cutoff as describe, I would tighten up, with a bias towards value (e.g. pairs and bigger aces). I would fold all of these except possibly 55.

F, R, F, F, R

Move seats.

Fold

I haven't read all 82 pages, but I haven't seen a lot of posts about defending the big blind. In the 4/8 game I play I'm very rarely in a situation where I'm in the BB, someone open-raised, and there are 0 or 1 callers.

When I'm in a very likely multiway pot situation, I tend to call with hands that play well multiway, 3-bet preemies and fold everything else.

In a 4/8 game, I don't like defending my BB heads-up or even 3-way because the relative rake is so high it basically cancels out the advantage of only having to put in one small bet. Also, few villains are positionally aware with their raises - their raising range is essentially the same between UTG and the button.

"The Intelligent poker player" does a good job of discussing what to think about when defending the big blind heads up, as does HEPFAP, but I'm sure those discussions apply more to stakes where the rake is a much lower percentage of the pot.

Getting to the point: I guess my only real question is, is big-blind defense something to really worry about in a 4/8 game where most pots are going off multiway? (P.S. if I'm ever in a 4/8 game where I'm frequently seeing 2- and 3-way pots on the flop I'm racking the hell up).

Yes I argue BB defense is critical in HU pots or 3 way pots.

Even if rake is that bad at 4/8, then consider moving up stakes if possible.

Even at 3/6 online as a prop, BB defense was critical. Not s fair comparison since this was when I used to prop online and get 100% rakeback 3/6+ LHE like 10 years ago.

No ladder to move up where he plays. Live low limit is much different than online.

I think you're right to play very tight when defending the BB hu or even 3 way in a high rake environment. Also right to look for a different game if it's happening often. You're probably doing everything right.

Even without rakeback, online rake was usually only 3% with a max of $3. Much different than live rake of 10% up to at least $5 + probably $2 jackpot.

Correct, 4/8 is the only limit game I've ever seen run there.

I think there's actually a $3 drop, and they take half the small blind for the BBJ, and there's a $1 tip expected, so if I defend the BB against a single raiser, I'm calling $4 to win $9 instead of $14. And I'm OOP. Pretty sick.

Would you say these are all standard folds? This is a 9 handed 4/8 game during a high hand promotiom where many players like to see the flop.

Hand 1: Cutoff with KTo. 4 limpers.

Hand 2: Button with Jh5h. 4 limpers.

Hand 3: Highjack with 78o. 3 limpers.

I'd play hand 1.

Hand 1) overlimp

Hand 2) fold...Do you guy's call with 6 limpers?

Hand 3) Fold..Do you guy's call JTo?