if villain isn’t a player I’d expect to be seeing a lot and playing against a lot I don’t mind alternatives to seeing a flop, but for multiple reasons including meta game ones I still like flatting here even with SPR as low as it is for reasons of exploiting the fact that even decent players misunderstand how ranges properly collapse as a % and not simply trend towards a minute set of value only hands + a bluff or two.

I think you end up getting too many folds here whereas the likelihood of stacking opponent for remaining chips increases on the flop. I’m saying: we’re stacking off, we’re just allowing them to not simply brush it off as value heavy and keep more dominated hands in play in THEIR range.

Example: KQs hypothetically could be a likely 4 bet given squeeze dynamics but alas will fold pre to a shove.

I’m sure everyone can add more hands to this.

Is it optimal play? No but our opponent is likely not playing optimally (see 4bet size for evidence by example)


As far as nightmare to play - with KK and a SPR of one on the flop it’s not horrible to play at all - it’s pretty much put the money in but give opponent more reason to call.

If villain is better than you (or me) I’d be more inclined to shove. Or if I thought villain would realize how my range here should force their approach towards indifference and let them run into the top of our range.

In other words - the egregious errors a semi decent player will commit is over folding PF whereas flatting allows us to still shove (or in some extremely rare cases not shove) - were basically calling pre with plan to stack off pretty much always while keeping our opponents worst hands in there but supplying an increase possibility of them calling it off.

In the event they spike a lower set - we weren’t avoiding that anyway if we shove pre etc - this isn’t harder for us it’s harder for them

ok so just lookin at this some more because I'm neurotic - I'm going to argue against my above points with the following -->

hypothesis: shoving pre will get called wider than my assumptions and reasons above for NOT shoving pre flop

Because 1 player is all-in, the PF shove may look like an attempt to resteal a pot with dead money from a shorter stacked recreational player between two more seasoned opponents.

That said, in a "steal" situation how often do we continue to attempt to "steal" with a slightly wider range when facing a 4bet? In a more simple standard situation, our range that responds to a 4bet by either folding calling or shoving/raising again if deep enough would be determined by multiple factors such as

1) The combos that make up the fold call or raise to 4bet would vary based off our perception of opponents 4bet range with regard to both their position as well as our undrstanding of their perception of our 3bet range given our position (eg. our SB 3bet range will differ from our BB 3bet range, therefor a 4bet from a villain theoretically would be different whether the 3bet was from the SB or the BB

2) mathematical determination given 4bet size, opponent stack size, etc - however this could be considered a sub category of 1) as our ranges would be predefined up until we have enough data/reason to believe we need to adjust to opponent.

A sub point on adjustment: in no way do i think playing purely GTO is going to take maney, the f do (i had an account on here a long ****ing time ago shoutout to anyone who gets this) vs opponents not playing optimally that a hybrid strategy that is based off fundamental GTO play with exceptions intended to better exploit the mistakes of our opponents/extract more value

These two points seem sufficient enough to bring in the idea that exploitive adjustments are based off educated estimates and assessments of our opponents mistakes and not purely driven by data or math.

Shoving Pre is what this hand in our range for this situation would do in this spot. Therefore, as a pure optimal theoretical response - yeah shoving pre is clearly a thumbs up sick read and not a mistake. However, as stated in the hypothesis above - our opponent is aware of our ranges and aware of our strategy and so will respond to minimize their losses and acts with indifference given the math / solution directed response.

So OP and anyone else in the thread: i think its worth asking yourself in spots like this - how sharp is my opponent? Do they have just ENOUGH knowledge to be decent but not enough to where a dunning-kreuger effect clouds their decisions?

If all I have is the player description and the stakes played, im going to assume villain is not a secret GTO crusher moon lighting as a just above bottom stakes grinder for lolz. That said, I dont KNOW what mistakes this individual makes, i'm not familiar with them beyond a few sentences. but I AM FAMILIAR with the mistakes villains of this ilk can and do make from a gen pop POV.

Which is why im making this poorly executed reductio ad absurdem argument via the statement at the beginning of this post (yeah, i was lying up there when i said i wanted to argue with my prior posts. surprise i DIDNT. i wanted to AGREE EVEN MORE with them - sorry :/ ) and simply repeating my earlier point (but with more words, and maybe a different angle of approach with regard to attempting to sway you, dear reader, to the manner and form I am viewing this situation from.

So really: what mistakes is opponent more likely to make? Fold weak hands preflop you have crushed or call it off with a weaker TP that would be within the slightly wider 4bet range they present us with now?

I don't mind flatting the 4B pre, if we're deep enough to find a fold post. But we're not really that deep here, going to the flop with less than 1 SPR.

I don't mind flatting the 4B pre, if we're confident V's range is wider than QQ+/AKs, AND we're confident V is going to continue barreling on most run-outs. I think V could be wider here, but I don't know how confident we can be that he's going to barrel off with a lot of worse hands in a 4B pot.

I don't like flatting the 4B pre with the CO limp-calling our 3B, and still left to act behind us, with a remaining stack depth that's less than V's 4B size.

V's 4B'ing range may be wider pre, when the CO limp-calls our 3B, but V shouldn't be that wide when he c-bets 1/3 pot into two opponents, enough to put the CO all-in.

The CO limp-double-flatting is worrisome. Why do I feel like he's sandbagging something big here, when he calls off $400 pre, leaving only $375 behind?

V's line feels A LOT like strong value here, when he jams into a $50 side pot. CO doesn't seem to be too concerned calling off half his stack pre, and the rest on the flop, which concerns me. We're losing to AA, QQ and AQ on the flop, as well as 66/55/65, if either of these guys is that wide pre. It's also a two-tone flop, apparently, so CO could have some flush draws, and V could be here with A4s that turned a wheel.

Yeah, maybe we can flat call and plan to stack off a little at a time post-flop, but we're gonna want to lay down in traffic if we lose to any hand that would have folded to a pre-flop 5B jam.

Oh **** I thought it was a dry side pot - lemme revisit this and I apologize for ****ing that up

I would assume the co limping 6 then cold calling 100 would make button want to iso him more. It’s 233bb so getting in kings is iffy but I prefer that over seeing a flop with an ace or a queen and incorrectly folding. 5b pre and accept our fate.