He's playing every hand l/c and then x/folding the flops? Now he is leading and there is an A on board? I think you are beat here.

Here's one from the other night.

I come back to the table in time to play the BB after taking a 5-minute break.

I have KK. A few limpers and I make it $22. EP limper decides to call. V is a middle-aged African American who has run hot and built up a significant stack.

We are about $390 effective.

Flop 992 with two spades.

I bet $30. He calls.

Turn 2. I check. He bets $75. Do we fold now?

River 4h. I check. He bets $90. Do we fold now?

he's saying WE have those hands in our range to call with....

yeah, i agree with fold. sucks to have QQ, but V saved you some money donking out. he probably has Ax and wants to see where he's at. congrats to him that you don't have an A this hand.

what % of time do you think you GII against a non Ax hand?

i would need legit proof that V is a big enough donkey to GII with a naked draw before i start going nuts here. most 1/3 Vs you're just going to light 100 bucks on fire because they'll sigh call with every Ax even though "i know i'm beat but i just cant fold...."

flop pot is 44ish? i probably bet 20, not 30. keep his range wider.

AP turn: don't fold

AP river: don't fold. might raise since Ax, PP 33-88 will call down here some % of the time, putting you on AK

Pot was about $50ish, maybe $52 before rake due to limpers.

This was at Sugarshack for what's it worth.

fair enough. 30 probably gets called by a lot of stuff. granted, in general, it will be very V dependent. i want to bet an amount that gets called by 66 or JT, etc... getting those hands to fold is a disaster imo

I get it now. Sorry, ChrisV, I was pretty tired when I read that last night.

Ace and Jack were the diamonds.

I folded pretty quickly, esp with BTN yet to act. I think A-Rag is just a huge part of their ranges here. Wanted to check, though, as that half pot donk leaving about $30 behind weirded me out.

This would be my thinking as well.

GsighfoldingG

Results: Hero sigh-folds. BTN folds quickly. Tilty says something like "I had an ace. I was just afraid you had a bigger one. Whew.".

Yeah. At LLSNL I find it's often best not to try to figure out what my opponents are thinking. I remember someone on here posted once, imagine explaining the hand to your mom and ask her what she thinks they have. Here it's like "so the flop came Axx and they bet, what do they have?". Your mom: "Probably an ace?".

It's good to check that against a theoretical perspective, so here there's no way this guy can exploit us by betting, cause like I said earlier, we have way too many very strong hands here. So while it's possible calling QQ/KK is better than folding, depending on the tendencies of the player, at least we can be assured that we're not getting exploited.

ahh the saccharinehouse for fear of outing myself thats my stomping ground too.

im never folding, probably ch/calling whole way. Is this 1/2 or 1/3? At 1/2 im not betting less vs most players who ranges are inelastic and will call with the same cards no matter the sizing relative to the pot.

FWIW at 1/3+ there's still a ton of players who will call the same range regardless of bet sizing - these kinds of notes are always important for me to try to pick up on. The guys who like to call absurd bets to bink turns and rivers w/o the implied odds type folks.

Whats up guys- Doug Polk here, and today were gonna talk about 4 bet ranges! No just kidding with the introduction

However, i am indeed looking for some input on creating a proper 4 bet range against an aggro reg in my playerpool. He is playing a very balanced/GTO ish kind of game (online 6 max background), wich means he has wider ranges than most LLSNL opponents- for example when 3 bet squeezing.

In squeeze spots in position his 3 bet range is as wide as A9 suited/A10 off, as well as stuff as J-9 suited or 10-8 suited.

So i have been twisting my head on how to adjust in the most appropriate way to these tendencies. Both when i am OOP and in position.

So asuming the standard 100 BB stacksize- how wide will you guys go with the 4 bets/ or 4 bet jams if the situation calls for it when you put the guy on his wide squeeze 3 bet range?

As a basic start out range, i am at least firing back with 99+ and AQ/AK, but i am debating if i should go even wider and including stuff like KJ suited and KQ off.

4 balling him more seems like a decent adjustment but it might be even better to widen your flatting range in position to put him in lots of tough spots postflop.

Yeah, i like that adjustment as well- especially with hands that flops well in low SPR pots like KQ suited. But if he is behind me and i am OOP you stand behind that firing back with more 4 bets at him is the correct adjustment?

I mean, it sucks to flat with AQ or AJ suited for example and then having to fold when i whiff flop 2 out of 3 times and he is C betting any board.

If we flat, could we just jam his cbets down his throat even if we whiff (often have the best hand anyways if he's 3betting/cbetting wide, otherwise will put pairs to a horrific decision and suckout a decent amount of the time if he manages a call)?

Gjustspitballin',I'mnotreallysureG

I mean, i am on board with the jam over his wide C-bets if we flop somewhat decent equity like a flushdraw or open ended straightdraw for example. Thats a good adjustment as far as i am concerned. Not sure if i like starting to jam on him when we whiff completely, cause its gonna be hard to know wich boards he hit or didnt hit-and its a concern that i will open up my game and stackoffrange too much. You have to be careful so you dont try to fight fire with fire, wich is a mistake i see alot of players make: spewing to him in absurd amounts.

My thoughts is we have a preflopedge to push against this guy, due to his extremely wide 3 bet squeeze range. If he 3 bets J9 suited or 10-8 suited type of hands, and i have like AQ off or KQ, its an amazing result to force him to fold his hand equity preflop when i am OOP taking down like 20-30 BB uncontested without seing a flop.

What i dont like with flatting him as much OOP is that it keeps him in the driver seat. He gets to see the flop with his wide 3 bets consisting of speculative suited hands, and potenially outflop us or flop huge equity.

Flatting him with the top of my range like QQ+ and AK (suited) to milk him for C-bets/double barrells postflop, and then 4 balling strong but more vulnerable hands like 1010 or AQ also sounds like a solid adjustment to me.

I'd throw A2-A5 sooted in my 4! Range before KQ off. When we get 5!, we're gonna be smoked with KQo, we'll still have descent equity (i.e. 30%) against everything but AA with the small suited Aces

Do you have any idea of his 5! Range? Online, I started inverting my 4! Range vs a few specific Vs because they're just folding so much to my 4! But I can fold to a 5! And keep their range wide when I have uber value

Thanks for the input with small suited aces Johnny, some food for thoughts.

Regarding his 5 bet range its extremely tight. He usually backs off if he get played back at, either folding pre or flatting most of his range.

I would say that his 5 bet range/shove range is exactly KK/AA and AK. In some cases you can include QQ also.

real quickly: it doesnt suck to flat the AQ vs the described ranges youre likely up against.

It sucks to flat AQ vs normal recreational raisers. Very TAGy 3betters etc etc.

Against someone with a little more gamble, you should feel confident w/ the AQ flat etc etc. I think this is where playing HU has helped me the most is feeling comfortable with air and simply playing a range vs range where those are super stupid wide but collapse quickly post flop.

You basically want to start 4betting with your value hands and then the hands that just too weak to flat (ie. not AQ) but something like Axs, some low PPs. This might not be theoretically correct but I do like to just pick a suit or two and take a few low SCs like 45/56s vs an opponent like that so I can still connect with middling boards etc.

Jamming/vs 4betting would be determined by your stack size so with 100BBs I think you can utilize a mixed strategy. THey may be the kind of player who thinks "you never 4bet jam AA here" and will call wider. I absolutely do not advocate 100% of the time jamming AA but figure out some way to toss some 4bet jams in there and balance it out. You only need to do that for a small amount of time before you adjust back to a normal 4bet or flat 3bet strategy as well.

1/3 NL, 10 handed

All 5 tables in the room are going and all 5 tables suck. BBJ is huge, so wait list is long, and tables are reg-filled with everyone hunkered down for the long haul and not doing anything crazy in order to make their BBJ chasing BR last.

Hero ($280). For the first time ever I've recently been implementing a shorter BI strategy due to the fact I feel I no longer have a postflop advantage at these tables. I'm up a bit thanks to limp/shoving short (not showing my AKs) plus a huge preflop raise / 2xPSB shove against the only real mark with AQ on JT9cc flop (he called with a 7x, lolz, and left the game after the hand). I also raised the Button after many limpers / gii with JJ preflop for 50bbs + dead money (against QQ). So against some of the lesser knowns I might have a bit of a gambooley / aggro / put money in the pot image at this point, but I'm pretty sure the main villain in this hand knows me a lot better than that (and likely sees me as the nit I am).

Villain (BB, covers): 60ish asian male. His business has something to do with hotel development, and he often stays in our casino on business. Kills his off time by spending it all at the poker table in his suit. Likely a winner overall. Not very aggressive and not bluffy as far as I can tell, mostly making his money by making good laydowns / not overplaying. We've played enough hours that he should see me as nittish.

Hero limps 99 UTG, we see a flop 7ways. Obviously 7ways is lol (a raise will also typically go quite mulitway), but make no mistake: there is likely only a couple people in the hand that are idiots.

962r. Villain checks. I donk $10 into $20 and just hope for best. Nit UTG+1 flats (his range is likely TT+/66/22 and *maybe* 87s so I'm getting fairly excited, I'll likely lose his 9x hands on the turn). Idiot calls. Villain calls.

7r. Villain checks. I $35 into $50, really just hoping to not scare away Nit (who has a solid read on my nit image). Nit calls. Idiot folds. Villain check/raises to $120.

I can't make the exploitable fold yet, can I? I call hoping to bring along Nit but he folds.

3r river. Villain shoves my remaining $150 into $325. He's never bluffing, and my hand is likely quite face up to him (I have a set, it's pretty obvious, no?). I'm not sure if he plays 22 like this against both me and the nit. 66, maybe but maybe not? 77 is a pretty loose call on the flop, but getting 5:1 and closing the action maybe he does? He's never overplaying a BB special two pair.

Obviously someone is "coolered" here (or is it a cooler?). My thinking at one time is that these spots didn't really matter all that much cuz probably close / we's got top set < 100bbs / tables typically good enough otherwise to ignore what happens in these spots / etc. Nowadays I kinda think these hands are the lone difference between winning and losing, and I don't think I'm getting enough of them correct.

GcluelessNLnoobG

What? 2 river, so we have top boat here? I am guessing you wrote the river wrong GG cause i cant think of a decision with toppest boat here only losing to quads.

They're not. Far from it.

Call.

Ha, my bad. 3r river (board is not paired).

I'm a super nit but I haven't quite reached folding top boat on a regular basis... yet.

GcluelessHHnoobG

I thought so

I recognize the feeling, and i think were up against a straight here (8-10) a decent portion of the time when the turn gets bombed after the world saw the flop.

Its not a big enough concern that i lay this down for under 100 BB though,and its certainly not the difference between winning and losing in 2017 games. We should be up against a smaller set or an ocassionally overplayed 2 pair hand often enough that we have to call it off on this runout.