I dunno why there's so many people ITT who think he's gonna 4 bet those medium strength hands like 88-JJ, AK, AQs instead of flatting. Why would he not be 4 betting polarized? Those hands flat 1000000% of the time imo. Only hand that might not is AK but with our stack sizes, probably flats that too.

Because the flipside of that would be that he flatted an EP raise of less than 4x in a 1/3 cash game with KK/AA when that's a bad idea like 99% of the time. You can't apply logic on one end and not the other.

Was there a player in late position with a high squeeze percentage? You? Someone else? That can make a difference here.

When do you not think a V has the nuts?

Your posts never have any sort of backing to them. It's always, well I've seen this, this is the nuts, fold.

Also no, if there's ever a spot to flat AA or KK preflop it is not in EP after an EP raise. That is actually one of the worst spots to flat AA or KK.

I don't know why some of you think that players never adjust at all. Maybe it's just the games you play, idk, but yesterday I got 3 bet by a tight player holding 77. If you have an aggressive image it's just a matter of time before someone thinks "he can't ALWAYS have it" and make a move with a hand when they think they're ahead.

Couple thoughts already touched on:

It's easy to 'over value' your own image because it's exactly that. Your own image of yourself. It's not necessarily what the villains image of you is. Unless you are showing down big bluffs, 100% vpiping and taking crazy post flop lines, large raise sizings, etc, we are almost always going to be over thinking our own image vs what our average low stakes opponents are thinking. Sure, a few 3bets preflop might raise an eyebrow or two, but in general, it's not going to just create auto-spew 4bets. It's probably more likely it creates more of a trapping style, and we will run into premium hands almost always in these 4 bet pots.

Basing assumptions on a player because they opened the button with XX is probably too wide of an assumption. Although that exact hand isn't in my button open range always, it certainly can be with the right situation. Basing our player profile on one hand alone is always too big of an assumption, and when it's a button steal scenario, even moreso.

Verbal tell is so LOL honest and strong from the average opponent at these stakes.

Back raises, no matter how "wtf" they may appear to be, are so nutted in these games. Unless it's a villain we have lots of show down info on who is a whale/spew bot, it's a very small non zero amount of the time they aren't.

The bigger our stack is over 100bbs, the more we are going to want to be facing spew vs nutted ranges.

Just some thoughts.

OK but still how often do you see someone who isn't a whale 4 bet TT at 1/3?

After reading more of this thread I am increasingly thinking AA/KK are likely because:
1) a 4 bet at low stakes is simply usually AA/KK and maybe very occasionally AK, but not 88-TT
2) the verbal tell is usually strength trying to provoke Hero
3) simply, people do sometimes flat with AA/KK to the left of a raise with players still to act
4) I agree we are likely just leveling ourselves into playing on, over-thinking the importance of our supposed loose image

This precise spot happened to me recently, I had KK, Villain had AA. I know just because this happened once, it doesn’t prove it’s true here, but there you go. Would be interesting to hear from others on actual examples of this spot to get bigger sample size!

Can't help it, but the hubris itf really gets to me.

"Those hands always flat 1000000% because of some specious logic I just came up with. QED."

The people telling you 88-JJ, AK are in his range are saying that because they have seen backraises with those hands many times.

I think villain doesent have the nutz simply when they doesent take lines or gives off tells that correlates to a nutted range.

Villains at LLSNL and particulary 1/2 and 1/3 is extremely unbalanced. When they make huge aggressive plays like shipping the river, check-raising turn,blasting off for 600 BB postflop, back raising pre,4 betting pre++ its just a huge indicator that they have a nutted hand. Alot of the hands posted on 2+2 contains hero losing his stack with a big second best hand, when villain in the hand have made the writing on the wall with one of these aggressive lines and i strongly suspect hero is beat- so its not very strange that alot of my posts suggests folding a strong hand, but often the second best hand. Huge part of winning livepoker at small stakes these days as people slowly get better at not stackoff off light anymore, is able to lose less on big pots where big hand crash into another big hand, as mentioned by several other posters recently on the forum.

Dont attack me for this often being the case. I just accept the reality as it is, rather than trying to change it. This is from my experience of course, in my different games from the underground scene in Norway+ playing alot of hours in Las Vegas non WSOP time Other games may be different, its up to you to discover. One of my key takeaways through playing several thousands of hours on the livescene is that 95 percent of villains simply doesent 3 bet anything else than QQ+/AK,let alone backraise 4 bet wich is exclusively KK/AA. In any conditions. They just dont shift gears when it comes to preflop ranges regarding 3 and 4 betting.

Its 10 times more likely that this villain flatted the early pos raise with KK/AA thinking "now i am finally gonna trap that aggro asian donk behind me with this monster", than he is flatting with hands like 77-JJ and then deciding 4 betting those with a pot commitment raise to 145.

So instead of coming up with relative bs like "Petrucci always thinks villain have the nutz" come up with some concrete arguments towards one hand at the time, then i can respond properly to that. Look, its not a coincidence that i hit the bullseye in the vast majority of these threads before results is given (many times i am almost alone in the thread advocating a fold too, when the rest of the posters just says nah we are too high up in our range so we just have to stackoff, if he have it he have it move on): its because i see the writing on the wall in spots very similar to what ive seen countless times before. I quickly recognize patterns/ranges/conditions/stacksizes/population tendencies and correlates it to what OP is describing.

I am willing to bet confidently that OP closed his eyes,levelling himself thinking villain is playing back at him, and stacked off into villains KK/AA in this spot. You want to bet against it i suppose due to this post. And yeah: sure, once in a blue ****ing moon villain shows something stupid like 4-5 suited here and rubs it in heros face. That doesent change the reality that this line is nutted a scary percentage of the time.

Another fresh example from my uncapped 1/3 game yesterday on how reliable the verbal tell is before 3 or 4 betting.

I make it 4 BB UTG with QQ (had been very active in the 2 hours the game had been going for, getting lot of playable hands from all positions). Middle aged white guy on the button who i have never played with before asks dealer verbally when its on him " How much is it? 12?", then reraising me to 40.

At this point i seriously dont even want to play, because huge alarm bells is going off in my head. But the guy just have 50 BB aka 150 bucks in front of him, and i simply cant bring myself to fold QQ for that amount to an unknown (or any player even a huge nit for that matter). So i announce allin, guy snaps and tables KK of course.

First, it's very arguable whether this is one of the worst spots to flat AA/KK. It's not an incredible coup to take down $15 preflop and prevent someone in the world behind you from levelling themselves into getting $450 stacks preflop. I'll admit that at most tables I play at I would consider this play standard for me, but that's me. And there are easily worst spots to make this play (such as in LP after facing an EP raise and a bunch of calls).

And second, as I've already said earlier, all of that is moot. It doesn't matter whether it is a good play or not. All that matters is whether people do it. And people do it all the time, and I can't think of a more common place where flatting AA/KK is done (can you?).

If stacks were smaller, if our image was solidly wilder, if villain has shown some huge aggressive plays for big money, if there wasn't the verbal tell, etc., then we'd have a lot more to think about. Here, meh.

GimoG

Maybe he was sensationalizing that there’s not a worse spot to flat AA here but there’s very few spots that are worse. An EP raise from a non-loose player is the top of their range here. You should absolutely be going after that with KK/AA. There’s very few, if any, hands they should be folding to a 3b here.

Did you actually read what GG was saying? It is meaningless whether 2+2ers think this is a bad spot to flat KK/AA or not- all that really matters is the question "Is alot of villains in our playerpools actually doing this"? And the answer is clearly yes.

And even more so when there are aggro opponents on the table like OP sitting behind them left to act.

+1

I don’t think it’s a bad play to flat AA/KK to the immediate left of an UTG opener. Forego picking up ~$15 for chance to stack OP, as standard for GG.

UTG will have a premium hand and so might play on after UTG+1 raises, but if he’s a thinking player then he knows UTG+1 is super strong (as UTG+1 will be putting UTG on a premium hand.)

This logic would apply in the tight games I play in, your games might be different.

I didn't say it was the worst. The worst is in LP after an EP raise and multiple calls. The 2nd worst is in EP after an EP raise.

I don't see how one could argue that this is a good play, or even an acceptable one. What if he has KK and you flop a set? Do you realize what a disaster that is...where if you have a sufficiently aggressive image you can get most of the stacks in pre?

Petrucci, think what you want, stay confident whatever. Your strategy is a winning one, but it is not optimal imo. Using things like "well on these 2+2 threads hero is usually beat" is laughable, this board has an overabundance of cooler situations where hero just wants to know if he could have gotten away from it. The fact that you're right in a specific situation doesn't mean it's the right play. I don't look to hero fold my way to victory, the better strategy is to bluff your way to victory, but that's a larger topic.

If we give V a range of ONLY JJ, QQ, KK, AA, we have 40% vs that range and a shove will contribute roughly 44% of the money into the pot. We need for ONE worse hand to be in his range and it's a marginal loss in an uncommon spot. If he has JJ and 1010 that he just folds, it is also a profitable spot! If he folds AK it is an extremely profitable spot.

Putting 1/3 of my stack in to set mine...sounds +EV. Also he never has JJ or TT cause those hands flat all day. Always. The only real question here is whether he turns some of the hands he can't flat into bluffs such as 55 or A5s.

CallTheCheese, there is no "hubris". I'm playing 1/2 and 1/3. I'm not a great poker player. I think it's ironic that you use that term btw.

KK & flopping a set refers to the play of flatting AA after a $15 raise being an acceptable play. You flat looking to "trap" and the A high board comes & kills action.

The JJ/1010 comment you bolded refers to V action if we potentially jam QQ. He probably folds it & we take down 209 uncontested, which is a fine result.

Oh my bad misread it. Yeah it would be a silly mistake to flat the open without reads that someone behind is gonna squeeze. And I hardly think having 3 bet twice in the entire time that I've been there is hardly out of line. It's just more often than what most 1/3 players do cause they 3 bet only nutted. So it would probably raise an eyebrow or two like someone ITT put it, but probably not much more.

I still think villain never has a merged ranged and we are either ahead of bluffs or crushed by KK+ always. And I just realized, if he never has AK, a king high flop is the best flop where we don't bink a set cause that'll remove KK combos in addition to looking like a great flop for him to bluff cause of the "scare card". Doubt he ever has Kxs but can have plenty of Axs IF he's bluffing. A5s for example would be a great candidate to bluff as opposed to say K9s. A5s might just x/f on a 977 flop but say it's K77 he might think he has fold equity. So on a king high flop we can potential stack him if he bluffs but on an ace high flop we can fold. We aren't gonna get pushed off our equity TOO often then so flatting is better than shoving IMO.

I am clearly wasting my time on you, but it may be other posters or players that is able to listen and take into account what i am sharing so i will comment on couple of more aspects that youre rambling about.

Fact is that going broke could for sure be avoided in alot of the hands that get posted in this forum. And its not about herofolding. And its not about this forum being biased in way x or way y: this is about having knowledge about psychology, human behaviour,accurate profiling and correlate patterns you see over and over again into very accurate ranging+likely outcome.

Using this thread as an example to not go off topic too much (i could be choosing alot of other examples):Going broke here with QQ to a very very likely KK/AA is not a cooler. Its not even close to unavoidable. Its not a herofold to 3 bet/fold this against a 4 bet backraise. Its infact a standard easy exploitable fold in a low live stakes environment against extremely unbalanced villains. The faster people learn to accept these realities, the better off they would be. Wasting time to think that our opponents "should" be playing in such or such ways or looking for (lol backraise 4 bet bluffs in 1/3 games) is exactly that: waste of time. Accept the reality in these games as they are, and adjust properly and mercilessly. Thats the biggest edge anyone can get in these games.

I completely agree with this sentence. And for those exact reasons, this is a shove.

I keep reading this is a super nutted line, ipso facto, fold. The last few times I've seen this call/re-raise move, it hasn't been. Two examples:

I had been raising a decent amount but not out of line or showing any bluffs. I have JJ, two limpers before me, I raise, folds around to the player on my direct right who re-raises big. I fold, he shows AJo, and says "I knew you didn't have anything".

Another time this happened against a tricky villain, I folded AJs feeling I had the best hand. Everyone folded so he didn't show. I played with him again a month later in an active game and he pulled it again, his line just didn't add up so I 4bet jammed AJo (a hand I'm typically happy to open fold), he folded and showed a 6.

So, yes, AA and KK are well within villain's range here. So are lots of other hands, like 99, AJs, and who knows what else. Some players will simply make ego plays, feeling they are tired of getting pushed around or feel they "know this guy doesn't have anything". There is enough of that in this villain's range to shove. We have the third best hand in poker, there is over $200 of dead money in the pot, and I'm not rolling over and assuming this guy has the straight-up nuts and would only do this with the straight-up nuts just because he pulled an odd move.

Those are examples where villain 3 bet. Although 3 bet ranges are still generally nutted at 1/3, they tend to be a little looser than 4 bet ranges and can sometimes include bluffs.

That's fair. The broader point is that villains can and do overlimp/re-raise or call/re-raise without the nuts, and many times do it without having the original plan to do so. They simply make an emotional decision, sometimes coupled with the realization that their re-raise is really tough to continue against without a monster hand and sometimes coupled with an "I don't want to fold this hand, but I also don't want to play it OOP when this guy is going to continue to put pressure on me whether he has it or not" thought process.

In this scenario, it's not unlikely that your image and 3bet along with the "not again" comment may have induced him to make a move.

It's definitely a tough spot to be in. Taking all factors into account, I'm going for it here.

An even broader point is that, in live low stakes games, some Villains can do totally inexplicable things. Anecdote and not theory, but, as Rod Serling might have said, "consider the signpost up ahead".

1/3 game nine handed Commerce Saturday afternoon. Initial buy-in is capped at $100, sucks but that's how it is there. My favorite Villain reg ($110), VPIP 50%+ and a post flop 90% calling range, is in the small blind. Hero ($140, I won a hand earlier) is in the cutoff. Everyone limps to me with QQ, and as I start to stack chips for a raise, Villain has hers already stacked. OK, I limp and so does everyone else, family pot nine ways so far but I KNOW she is raising.

Instead of the four reds that Villain initially stacked, she makes it "six". Everyone limps around to me, and I think to myself "WTF that is weird." MUST be a trap! So I make it nine. Limps back to Villain and she makes it 12. Yes, a four-bet to 12. Limped again around to me. "Ain't NOBODY in the entire poker world plays AA or KK like that", says Hero to himself. And I am ahead of the other jokers in this game with about $100 in there already.

I make it 80. Villain snaps. Everyone else gets out of the way - of her AA.

And THIS is why, irrationally or otherwise, to me a 4-bet is 99% AA or KK.

Even if it is only a total of $12.

In the Twilight Zone.

I had a similar hand where villain limped utg got a few callers someone raised to 12 in lp and I made it 40 in the sb with jacks. This utg guy shoved for 105 total. I tanked and he said he had it and he would show if I fold I folded and he flipped over 10s. I folded because I thought limp reraise always = KK or AA. I 100% agree with Keaton I think sometimes villains limped their medium pair just hoping to see a cheap and then they see a three bet and they just go ballistic and jam it up there because "9s or 10s is a good hand" and they don't want to fold but they don't want to play postflop and see an overcard flop. In my case he was an old guy and I guess he thought I was just squeezing with A5s or some ****.

Did we get result in this thread or have OP been forgetting about us?

I didn't know anyone asked. I flatted.

JT4 flop. With an SPR of 1 he shoved. I snap called. He snap reaches to turn his cards over. I know before the cards are even turned over.