This was a table full of regs with 1 other player limping 80% of hands. I played a couple times with some of them but not the ones involved in the hand. We were 7 handed

CO (young kid, very new to live poker but played online) opens to $11 with about $400 behind. I had stacked him earlier calling his 3! LP jam while he was uber short stacked with AJs and won when I flopped a jack. He's been playing pretty straight forward but maybe even a bit on the passive side after that hand when faced with aggression. He had also been 3! off of a few EP raises he made, and a couple times by the BTN.

BTN popped it to $35 with $140 behind. He's done this bunch from LP showing down hands like J2s and small pocket pairs after squeezing from LP. He just lost a hand that chopped his stack in half when the loose-passive player called him down with bottom pair.

I look down at T♠︎T♦︎ ($425) in the SB. I really didn't like the idea of flatting and having CO see an opportunity to 4! or calling and forcing me to play TT out of position multiway. I thought that this was an opportunity to squeeze and play the short stack heads-up.

BTN is a thinking player. He and another reg at the table were talking shop for the time they were at my table. After seeing a few of his bluffs get called by the station I had a feeling there's a strong chance he was still polarizing his 3! range here, even if he is only 60BB deep: JJ+, 65s, 76s, T9s, Q9s+, K7s-KTs, A2s-A6s, ATo+ and KQo. Maybe a little tighter than that since he was a little short.

TT was going to be bottom of my range for a 4! OOP but wanted to isolate and play him heads-up for his stack. I also didn't want to flat and let CO 4! to squeeze one of us out. I was debating between a raise and fold.

What do you guys think? Is 60BB small enough where the BTN raise is no longer polarized and I need to tighten up my 4! range even more against that stack size? Maybe JJ+, AKo, KQs and AKs?

4! to 85.

If v1 5-bets, fold. If v1 folds, call off against V2. If v1 flats and v2 shoves, you can reopen betting and shove to iso.

That was essentially the plan but with a slightly larger 4! since I was OOP. I really hated TT OOP three ways. Since it was bottom of range I was only calling off against the BTN. I made it $110 though since I was OOP and there was one in between us. OOP I like a 3-3.5x 4! and maybe a little larger if I feel like the CO is going to flat a smaller 4!.

You think TT is OK in this configuration? How wide are you going?

The problem with 4 betting larger in this spot is that it makes a button shove a short raise and you can’t reraise. That being said, a CO flat of your 4! isn’t terribly likely.

Although raise sizing should be larger out of position in general, cold 4-bets are different. They inherently show a lot of strength and a small 4bet will have significant fold equity against the original raiser (which is the only player you care about folding). If the button was as deep as you, you would size up a bit.

Gotcha. That's a good point about the cold 4! but this table had so many people 4- to 5-way hands where there was a raise and a LP 3! that I felt like sizing up was necessary, even if it was a cold 4!. You're right about my opponents though, a small 4! probably would have done the same thing as a larger 4!, especially if the CO was paying attention.

Cold 4-bets are quite rare. The original raiser will usually only continue with JJ+/AK. Sometimes QQ+

You can almost view your 4! as a bluff against CO and a value bet against button given descriptions.

Gotcha and that’s what I was thinking. TT is a bluff and slight value against BTN’s range. Good to know that if it happens again I don’t necessarily need to make it that big.

It’s not a pure bluff in the sense that we are making CO fold better pairs (except occasionally JJ). But denying equity to a bunch of coin flip hands like AQ/AJ/KQ/KJ etc is valuable. He will also fold some dominated underpairs but that’s the trade off vs playing against them OOP when we will see overcards on most flops.

If I 4! to $85 he's got $95 more to 5! shove with. If I have 38% equity against QQ+, AQs, AK, I need only about 25% to call off, correct? So this is a call against his shove in both scenarios.

Yes. My initial reply said we are calling off against short button. Folding to 5! from CO as his range would have us crushed.

Yea I just wanted to make sure my math was right. I don’t have range calculations at my finger tips so these are the kind of exercises I need to do to do regularly to make sure I’m doing it right live.

Appreciate the feedback.

That’s ok. Sometimes players on tilt who 3! with J2s and small pairs, also get big hands lol

Yup. I only have a few hundred hours live but hundreds of thousands of hands played online up to 200NL. The math side of things are what make a tough pill easier to swallow.

I might flat call.

If 1/2/3 is filled with regs, get another game.

There were so many regs just moving tables that even if I had asked for a seat change it wasn’t going to help much. The wait was long. That’s what happens when you show up to play from 2-7pm lol

It sucks, but I think it's just a fold pre. We're not deep enough with either V to call and set-mine, and our hand is too in-between to raise for value or as a bluff.

No value in showing that you’re willing to gamble if in a game with regs who know each other and the dealers? V and I were going back and forth as the cards were rolled out about how each card helped the other. He said that he thought for sure I was only doing it with an ace or king. I had been card dead since he sat so he saw me as a nit.

We. Are. Not. Deep. Enough.

We don't play for other players' or the dealers' respect. We play for MONEY.

V's starting stack is 1/3 the size or our stack. If we had $800 and he had $100, and we want to f**k around and give him action with TT, sure, let's gamble. We can torch 1/8 of our stack and still have most or all of the table covered.

I'd rather not show the table that I'm going to 4B a hand as weak as TT in a spot as ill-advised as this one. You double this wingnut up, you'll have $285, he'll have $280, and the internet kid won't feel the need to be quite as timid. That's assuming he doesn't 5B jam over your 4B.

Our hand is not strong enough to raise for value, and we're not deep enough to set mine. If we raise, we'd be turning our hand into a bluff, in a spot where our opponent's continue range is going to have our balls in a vice.

Nobody will know we made a disciplined fold if we just muck our hand. They'll all know we made a dumb play if we raise or call and get to showdown.

OP stated that the button has 3-bet J2s and small pairs. We are crushing his range and are raising for value.

Yeah, he 3B with some garbage, and his stack got chopped in half.

So...it was DOUBLE the size. Now it's HALF the size.

What part of "we're not deep enough" doesn't make sense to you guys?

Did we forget about the CO, the original raiser, who has $400 in his stack, and position on us? Didn't OP tell us this kid has been getting steam-rolled by the BTN in previous hands? Is it impossible this kid might be tired of the BTN's shlt, and he might have picked up a hand he's hoping someone will 3B?

We're going to FOUR BET a pair of tens here, for VALUE, against a passive opener who's been getting pushed around all night, and a short-stacked 3B'er???

What's our planned 4B size here, over the $35 3B? It seems pointless to 4B less than the $140 the BTN has in front of him. Despite what you apparently think, a small 4B at 1/2/3 doesn't look stronger, especially not from the blinds. It looks fishy AF, and is likely to induce the CO to 5B jam on us, forcing us to fold.

A 4B of any size here is just torching money, unless they both fold, which doesn't seem likely, unless we put the BTN all in by going to $140. Best case, they both fold. Possibly, BTN snaps us off and we double him up. Worst case, the CO jams, the BTN calls, and we...fold? Call and pray we spike a T?

But, hey, we're here to gamble. So good luck with the 4B. Let us know how it works out.