Wow, no, just no.

We are not going to waste our observations from 3 orbits of the table and just throw them away here. What Would Edward Say if we did that?

This is just bad advice. Given that our earlier 3 bet was from the SB AND the fact that nobody has been 3 betting, V has NO reason to believe that his 6 dolla raise will be reraised. I just don't think there is anyway in the world he opens that range this small.

Or to put it another way, if we are going to throw out our reads and play as if we just sat down and know nobody, then let's "assume it is just what it is", a weak, pot building open at a limpy table that indicates a range heavy in SCs and small PPs. When he plays back at her with his min but not quite min 4 bet, let's "assume it is just what it is", a guy playing back at the only player who has 3 bet him (and who happens to be a woman).

Occam's Razor. The explanation above is FAR more likely than V deciding to open his premium hand to $6 in early position at this table where "Nobody has been 3 betting so far", just knowing that this one time, somebody will 3 bet him, allowing him to get full value for his AA.

Fold pre flop.

Nothing after 3 rounds is clear, and will rely more on your basic defaults.

My facts are...

1-We are 200bb deep and routinely avg players play more "guarded" when they have a large stack (unless they built up to winner tilt chip size)

2- Its a 1-2 game where raising/3betting is overall a very strong range no matter how betting line went pre.

3- V opens to 6 routinely so far so that is his standard no matter the hand it would seem.

4-You have no evidence so far that he can spew off with 99 or AK (which most avg 1-2 player flat AK here), but you certainly can figure that he will 3
bet QQ KK AA literally every time.



I am NOT stating that this is super clear and V has AA, and we fold and we are always right. What I am saying is, all the facts so far spell a very strong range which on avg. we are behind here. This is for a 200bb stack and if you are right--you are only slightly ahead, but if wrong you are crushed.

I dont like it and would choose to step aside. Play this hand 100 times and imagine the results. What he shows with here is basically irrelevent.

Its grey and its close. I choose when dealing with 1-2 players who "normally" do not do anything other than straight up ABC play, to take the conservative line, only because they usually are strong when making these 3 bets. Usually.

Because we don't know much about Villain, except what we've seen. I don't mind just flatting his 4bet nor folding to his 4bet as well. If Villain's a good player, he's knows that the dynamics of the table has changed with you.

His 4bet does look like a min raise, but it's also the perfect size bet to your stack.

If i'm calling his 4bet, then i'm basically looking for a set or maybe calling a small flop c-bet IP and C/F OP. All else, i would have to chalk one up for Villain. If he bluffed us, so be it. Let him try it again.

I like the 5bet pre not quite min but a little more. This will force your opponent to play honestly through the rest of the hand, sometimes hes up to something here and we will sniff it out, and sometimes he has it and we may lose one Cbet but nothing more.

Why I like it is the metagame, no one will play back at you when you confidently 5 bet fold

What are your opinions on the rest of the session if we 3 bet fold to a min bet? Are we going to play like a nit the rest of the session and get run over? I'm aggressive, but I like playing strong when we in a questionable situation.

(Harrington likes implied odds at 25:1 because were not sure if were actually going to get him to stack off, 10:1 seems too thin to set mine imo even tough were going to hit 1 in 8)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, people need to read the whole OP.

This is absolutely NOT his "standard no matter what hand".

[QUOTE=Buster65;42796888]I've said it before, and I'll say it again, people need to read the whole OP.





I fully understand the villain raised his normal raise. There is nothing to learn there. He 4 bet our hero. That is what is important. Why are you dwelling on the $6 raise?

I understand the OP says he "thinks" villain doesnt have a big hand due to his $6 sizing as always. I think his 4 bet speaks louder than his opening size. And there is nothing wrong with flatting and reading him closely post as well. 5 betting would be horrible IMO.

His range is a bit up for grabs at this point with all sorts of speculation flying around. I just feel that giving credit to 1-2 players putting big bets in the pot as a default until i know better is the best route. I dont strain so hard to call as most do. Calling overall too much is a main obstacle for most players. If a random 1-2 player 4 bets in early position smallish with quite a few villains behind him, is he more likely to be FOS or rock solid? I will choose the latter until i know more.

And again, I am not stating OMG he has us smoked, we have to fold here implicitly. For gods sake, we have only been here 3 rounds. Im saying I lean conservatively to 1-2 players 4 bets early on with no reads.

At least we agree on this point.

[QUOTE=Buster65;42791719]Wow, no, just no.

We are not going to waste our observations from 3 orbits of the table and just throw them away here. What Would Edward Say if we did that?

This is just bad advice. Given that our earlier 3 bet was from the SB AND the fact that nobody has been 3 betting, V has NO reason to believe that his 6 dolla raise will be reraised. I just don't think there is anyway in the world he opens that range this small.

Or to put it another way, if we are going to throw out our reads and play as if we just sat down and know nobody, then let's "assume it is just what it is", a weak, pot building open at a limpy table that indicates a range heavy in SCs and small PPs. When he plays back at her with his min but not quite min 4 bet, let's "assume it is just what it is", a guy playing back at the only player who has 3 bet him (and who happens to be a woman).





So if a villain always opens to $6 every time, you find that fact to be congruent with making the statement that the Villain would never open raise a big hand for this amount? Seriously?

IF a V opens to $6 ALL the time

But OP already spoke to this point by saying she saw him open bigger, and show down big hands.

If you want to take this situation that the OP has laid out for us including reads, and turn it into a general blah, blah, blah, no one ever does this at 1/2 blah, blah, blah, 4 bet always means a big hand blah blah, blah, you are quite welcome to, but you don't need to answer Snowball's thread to do that, you could just make up your own thread. Since you are answering her thread, maybe you could stick to the information she gave us.

IF a V has a standard raise size, or varies their raises by position, I could possibly agree with you, BUT the only information that OP has given us is that she feels that V's small opens are potbuilders with weak hands because she has seen him open bigger on occasion AND show down bigger hands.

This is a situation where V's betting patterns are denying a big hand (a cornerstone of Miller's Playing The Player and How To Read Hands At No-Limit Hold'em). It's a simple concept, one I would hope you are familiar with.

I'm also not convinced that the 4 bet is good evidence of a big hand also. First, he opened to $6 again. Okay, maybe he is trying to trap the only player willing to 3 bet him, EXCEPT, she did only 3 bet him once before AND it was from the SB (indicating a pretty strong hand range). As a matter of fact, since this is a limpy passive table, he has NO reason to think his open will be raised AT ALL (probably why he was opening bigger with his bigger hands). I've laid out above why I think he could be playing back at us, so I won't go over it again.

So, in order to answer your comment (or question, maybe?), I seriously do think that this V would NOT open raise AA, KK, or AK this small. But, of course, the OP told me that.

Seriously.

Again, Im not making the case that the villain HAS to have the nuts here however, you feel solid comfortable taking a quick statement about the villain having raised a different amount and shown down a strong hand (even though OP saw villain for a whopping grand total of 3 rounds) and you favor leaning towards the villain spewing light here?

Ive seen players tell me that player A always limps medium pairs such as TT JJ in MP. Adamantly tell me this fact. Later I find out that the player had only played with villain for an hour and 2 hours alter the villain raises 99 in MP. All too often people make quick judgments about what others ranges are based on minuscule sample sizes. Im not discrediting the OPs thoughts, but putting them into the proper prospective due to 3 rounds of time in only.

I see clearly where your thoughts are, and Im NOT stating that it is way off logic at all. My opinion is that I would tend to give credit to 4 bets from a 1-2 player early on, since I have so little time in with the villain. Obviously your view is leaning towards not giving this credit. Which is fine. I see both sides and only choose the safer route since we do not know.

Keep in mind I agree we have the option to flat and do our best reading the villain postflop with sizing etc.

Fold

Results

Hey guys, been away for a few days so just read up on this.

Thanks for the discussion everyone. It seems that it comes back to the question "is he capable of opening QQ+/AK for $6 here?"

I didn't think so. I think he has played enough to know when to maximize his value, and like someone mentioned earlier, I don't think he will risk playing a premium hand out of position to 3-4 reg/nut peddlers and only capturing $6 from each caller preflop. I think he gave me credit for my first 3bet as he folded very quickly. If, on the other hand, he has already gave in to my 3bet a couple times already and we have been sitting in the session for few hours, then there would certainly be a strong implication that he was inducing a 3bet. Here though, I really believed he was 95/5 towards a speculative/weak hand versus a random QQ+ hand.

So given that he started the hand with not much, then whatever his 4bet is, it's certainly a spew and my hand is still way ahead. At that point I am going with the line to get the most $ out of him.

Some of you guys said call, and some said 5bet. I think there is validity to both. Calling with position is good, and we can get our stacks in on most boards to a c-bet. As to 5betting, I don't agree that he will never call with worse. If he's already in a spewy mode with the 4 bet, he is likely to call an almost min raise 5-bet because he has so much money in the pot already.

In the hand, as I haven't seen him being too aggressive post-flop (barreling with bluffs, strong cbetting, etc - although he could very well be capable of it), and might very well check-fold flop if he misses, I thought it was the best to take advantage of his spewy mood and make him check-fold flop for a bigger amount instead of $78.

I 5-bet to 185 with about $200 behind. I was trying to balance between giving him bad odds, but still small enough to induce a call. In retrospect, It might be a tad too much. When it got to him, he says "wow you really have a big hand there huh?", and folded. So, he was very likely to have been spewy 4betting.

I started the thread initially looking for input on raise sizing because I feel like I lost value and forced V to play perfectly despite him being spewy. In the end, I did not only managed to get that, but also a great discussion on preflop ranges and post flop play. Thanks again.

5bet to $185 looks way, way stronger than just shoving.

In all honesty, when was the last time you saw anyone in a live game continue with a less than QQ+ type hand facing a 5b? I'm pretty dead set that if you think he is being spewy, the way to get more chips in is to flat the 4b and let him lead into you OTF with his range still wide.

Fold