Now that I'm able to go to the casino I've started to try out 2/5, with the intention of only playing during primetime, and playing primarily 1/2, until very conservatively rolled for 2/5.

With that being said, I knew 3 betting would be more of a thing, but I noticed I don't feel as comfortable in these spots because it's not much of a thing at 1/2. Unfortunately the "primetime" Friday night hours were not so great this Friday and I was in games with almost all regs. Could you please help with these spots?

1. $1.3k effective. We likely have a loose end of TAG image. Villain literally has not played one hand in the hour we've been at the table, but is very clearly a reg and is sitting on $5kish.

OTTH

We raise J T $25 OTB over tight passive HJ limp and villain in BB 3 bets to $100. Hero?

2. $600 effective. Hero is new to the table and villain is complete unknown.

OTTH

Hero opens 8 7 $20 OTB and villain 3 bets $75 from SB. Hero?

3. $700 effective. Hero probably has a TAG image. Villain appears to be a TAG reg.

OTTH

Villain straddles OTB $10, tight passive limps BB, hero raises $45 from HJ with Q J, villain stares hero down for about 30 seconds then makes it $140. Hero?

Honestly all three hands are completely terrible folds in theory and you’ll be massively overfolding or in a more aggro game pool, but vs these players (H1/H3 tight regs and H2 complete unknkwn) it’s an extremely miniscule mistake at worst to fold. Usually it’s probably right to fold. Also they are sizing their 3b fairly “large” you can get away with folding more of your range, well at least H1/H2.

Vs a 3x reraise i defend a lot wider IP and in general. Against regs you should expand your 4b range though esp IP, they play very poorly against that. Hands that you think are great for flatting in 3b pots can be decent 4b candidates and regs def dont defend properly pre and post vs wide 4! ranges. Not necessarily entirely their fault either or a flaw in their strat. I personally like having a wider 4! range that isnt just KK+, AK (i used to play like a huge nit.... LOL), ymmv. Also regs are gonna respect your game more and not mess around with you as much if they know you’re gonna put them to the test with a lot of 4 bets, instead of just “cawl” when they 3b you unless you have KK+. Any reg who does this is a target for me to 3b all day IP

h1: assuming HJ folded, you can call IP comfortably getting 13-1.

H2: I would limp this but I know you don’t have a limping range. But this hand plays great multi-way IP and at 600 eff I’d rather limp it and let V raise rather than bloat the pot in this spot. As played you have to fold because 8-1 isn’t enough.

H3: also a fold for me oop at these odds. IP I would Call.

In general, your style of not limping is powerful at lower stakes but is going to be an issue at 2/5 unless you’re able to top up to the max (I assume 1k) each time you get below against regulars.

All of these are folds.

H1: Villain appears at least reasonably tight and he raised you out of the blinds. Your not really getting the odds to fish for a good flop with JTs. Getting better then 15-1 and with position you could call with a better read on villain.

H2: Hand is too weak to play for those odds. Also note that you won't see a lot of bluff or light raises from the blinds. Yes there is more 3 betting in general but raises from the blinds are still generally strong.

H3: Trivial fold. If villain's bluffing range is wide enough you could shove here sometimes but without a strong read that is just bad.

You will probably need to open fewer drawing hands at 2/5 then you did at 1/2. At 1/2 you can open a lot of hands and still expect to only get raised by ranges under 10%. 2/5 players are more likely to notice your opening range and are 3 betting a bit more in general.

If V1 is reasonably tight doesn't that make JTs an even better call? A lot of the profitability of JTs comes from generating fold equity when we flop a draw. Among all hand, JTs is the best suited connector: it flops the highest quality draws, and it doesn't suffer from RIO in the same way as a hand like KQs. Assuming Villain is capable of folding an overpair, I would consider a call here getting 13-1 IO.

Agreed that H2 and H3 are folds. If we had topped up to $1k, I could see a call, especially with H2, but I think we just aren't deep enough here.

And that is the problem, hero doesn't know yet. Without some idea of how to play this post flop most of the time I would want better odds.

And honestly even with a good read villain would have to be bad before I'm calling with these marginal odds. I'm only considering it because it's $75 to call the raise. If hero started with exactly $1300 and there is exactly $127 in the pot hero is getting a bit over 18-1. Against a competent villain I want 20-1 with position and more if I'm OOP.

Everybody knows that about JTs. You end up getting less FE on the 983 flop because everybody suspects JT. Often 87 gets more FE because on a 963 flop villains are worried about sets more then draws.

^ Yeah exactly, and you’re less likely to get paid when you flop trips or two pair.... they know you’ll have JJ/1010/J10s on a JTx board or whatever this deep. I’d rather have something like 65s-87s here this deep

I would be tempted to 4b H1 but if he hasn’t played a hand in an hour not the best idea, and also if he had a hand like 22-99 and possibly 1010 seems more likely he’d just flat to keep the fish along. So his range is pretty polarized (JJ+, AQo+, some bluffs/maybe 3 1010) and that’s quite diff from reg on reg BB vs btn

I ain't folding none of these. Let's go!

That’s the spirit!

Interesting variation in responses. I thought we like our 4 bet bluffs to have relevant blockers, so wouldn't suited wheel A's be the best 4 bet bluff candidates? What are your favorite hands to 4 bet bluff?

Folding to any of these seemed extremely nitty, but flatting also made me feel like I was put in a horrible position post.

I mean yeah ofc it is better to have A5s here as a 4b than J10s but you cant pick your hands. J10s imo is somewhat neutral since you block JJ/1010 but you also block some of his bluffs.

I 4-bet quite wide nowadays (mostly just LP vs Blinds) and that’s a common trend i’m seeing with much better players now too in general. People don’t know how to properly defend vs 4b as they arent as comfortable. Im not vey comfortable defending 4! pots pre and post either lol. People are getting “more” comfortable vs 3bets so it isnt printing as much as it used to. I heard in the old days you could 3b at a very high freq and it’d just print since everyone folded.

Imagine yourself in the BB and you 3b here with 99+, AJo+, half KQo/KJo, A2s-A5s. How comfortable are you facing a 4-bet, and do you think you defend the optimal amount of hands to avoid IP auto profiting from 4b from pre alone? How comfortable are you playing postflop in a 4b pot? Do you know what hands you defend pre?

As for what hands i like, That’s a hard question to answer since it really depends on who you’re playing. If they’re tight i have a very low 4b bluff freq, and if i do 4b bluff it’s all based on blockers, ie AJo/AQo/A2s-A5s/KJs/KQo usually mixed and/or low frequency. Vs a non-nit, IP i like to 4b hands like A2s-A6s, AJo/AQo/KQo/KJs/QJs/Q10s/Kxs with these hands occasionally mixed (to avoid overbluffing and capping yourself on boards if you call pre). A very high stakes player i know does a similar strat and actually has an RNG for those where he has a low RNG for 4b those or medium RNG. Imo that type of strat is very difficult to play against. Should always take into consideration of what you think V’s range looks like first or guess. I wouldn’t 4b bluff at all vs complete unknowns who we have zero information on at a live table.

Yep, folding those is definitely nitty dont get me wrong. I don’t think it’s super wrong here to fold since overall TAG regs aren’t bluffing enough pre. But at the same token they also overfold pre to 4b so that’s why i like adding in more merged/bluffs into my 4b range rather than just

1) call
2) fold
3) then 4b KK+/AK only, which most regs do in a nutshell and which i think is a very bad strategy/suboptimal against another reg. Against your passive fish/drooler, completely fine.

When transitioning to $2/$5 NL, I tried to use the 15/25/35 IO as a guide. Over-folding will be part of the learning curve. You will eventually gain better info on opponent 3b ranges.

Additionally, try to avoid the trap of “they’re trying to push me around.” Most times they will have it, at least in my experience.

I think all 3 hands would be frustrating folds. 4b these particular hands at this stage is probably on the spewy side.

GL!

yeah i think people overadjust when they move up stakes and think they’re always being played back at. Think it’s important to slowly adjust or else you start spewing off stacks. Been there done that lol

I do agree 4-betting these hands specifically in these hands is quite spewy.

I call H1. We have deep stacks, position, and a hand that fares well against 3-bet ranges. However, you have to be willing to play a draw aggressively—I expect a reg with a deep stack is capable of folding an overpair to aggression, so you have to be ready to take the pot from him on favorable boards.

I wouldn't 4-bet any of these hands. They're all decent 3-bet candidates if you want to 3-bet wider, but 4-bets I personally prefer suited aces.

There is some very useful information in this thread. I will be more conscious of the 15/25/35 rule. I am very interested in exploring the RNG randomizing of 4 bet bluffs

1. insta-flat that deep... we are playing postflop with this guy all day that deep, you got 12.4-1 and position you can make his life miserable in this hand with any two cards.

2. We should flat here too, we are deep enough and have position. A fold is a bit too nitty but not awful since we would have like a 3.67 SPR after the call and a 4! would be wayyy too aggro. Given that it's going to be HU on the flop with position we could fold if the villain seems strong, but if they are weak we can play. I'm feel a call is better than a fold but it's close and depends how confident you are against this specific opponent and your own postflop play could warrant the fold.

3. Fold all day errday. If we flat here the SPR is way out of control on a drawing hand. villain's size and stack depth determined the fold. We shouldn't have raised so much Pre with this hand. Keep your open sizes the same regardless of straddles (I like $25 or 30 depending on the game). Limpers you can bump up one BB per limper or something like that, but your large size open made the corresponding 3! huge (even from a straddle). He wants you to make the error by making you think "how could he have a hand when he straddled"... He can, and likely does. Cut the crap and fold.

Welp, I ended up calling all 3 and thought in the moment that they had to be calls, and all three ended on super dry flop c bets. That made me think to post this to see if it was correct to call here, because if our range is too wide, we'll get crushed on c bets.

What are good 4 bet value to 4 bet bluff ratios in these scenarios?

IMO

H2 & H3: 0 4-bet bluffs. H2 he is completely unknown and if you took the averages of all complete unknown live players' 3b range, you really don't want to be 4b bluffing whether the guy is actually a crazy maniac or not. I mean if he looks like a grinder you could use like some mixed freq of AQo/AJs/KQs/KJs or w.e. H3 there's just no room for you to 4b bluff and fold, and you have a TAG 3-betting another TAG open.

H1: probably low frequencies of AJs/AQo/KQs/KJs/A2s-A6s.

These spots are a little diff in that V's here aren't going to call your 4b very wide as in 6-max, where 4-betting is more rampant esp reg v reg and thus have to defend very wide, so it's more important to have good blockers to their continue range here. Suitedness is always nice too and helps you from overbluffing.

but overall i dont think you want a super high ratio of bluffs:value in general in live unless you're playing regs who are aggro pre.

1. Call

2. Call

3. Fold


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