Live game. I just moved to the table from a must move and this is my first hand. Half the table is roaming around, so it's only 5-handed. Villain plays a lot on the internet (he told me) and in the past sessions he's played very aggressively. He's not scared to put chips in the middle at all.

Eff stacks 15K

Hijack folds. I raise in CO to 200 with JJ. Btn and sb both fold. He raises from the bb to 800. I call.

Flop: KT5. He bets 1200. I call.
Turn: 3. He bets 2400. I call.
River: T. He bets 4800.

I'd fold to that double barrel a decent amount. As played river looks like a fold, as it's about the worst card for him to bluff on as the flush hit, Tx hit, and a king isn't folding now.

I'm sorry. This was a 25/50 game. My oteher hands were 10/20 so I just put it in the title

I was gonna say a 10x bet looked a little strong foor openers.

I would fold to the second barrel as well and as played definitely fold the river. Your hand is really only a bluff catcher at that point.

Seems ok if you folded the river.

yeah i'm torn between folding the turn or the river. it's tough without reads.

is he capable of folding AA or AK to a river shove? Seems like a bluff is plausible if he can hero fold.

I thought about shoving but it would only be like 5200 more and we don't have the Jh meh I dunno

where was this (and your 10-20 hands) played, bellagio? who was your opponent?

i 4 bet pre. you can really only slowplay or setmine jj pre if you have a really good idea what your opponent is in with. here you have no idea and are probably way ahead w/ a hand that wont like a lot of boards and has induced action...yuk

Limons on this one. When thinking about the prospective outlook of playing 3 streets with a likely unimproved JJ hand against an aggressive internet pro in a shorthanded game, it does not thrill me. Get him out of his comfort zone by putting immediate pressure on his hand and stack.

Preflop this deep is standard. To those advocating 4betting, you're reasoning seems to be to do so to avoid having to play postflop and make decisions and "take it down right there." Well, that's essentially hoping to fold out all his hands, which I'd rather do with a 4bet bluff than with JJ. Also, what's the plan if he 5bets 300bb deep? I'd want to puke on the spot. And if he just calls the 4bet, then we still have to play postflop. Calling a 3bet IP with JJ 300bb deep is by far an away the most standard play.

Flop call is obviously standard.

Turn is probably a fold unless he's superspewy aggro, but calling can't be terrible. Folding is likely standard though.

River if he's a solid thinking player I think shove>fold>call.

River if he's a spewtard I think call>fold>shove.

Also, on the river, many players are not capable of value-betting that river with one pair type hands.

i 4 bet because im likely ahead, have position and would like to keep initiative. i actually didnt see any posts saying take it down right there. i do see someone saying fold out to aggression after slowplaying the hand. i like those opponents.

what do you do when he 5bets? What do you do when he cold calls our 4bet and the flop comes 247r?

And having position is more of a reason to call and play postflop.

You need a sick aggro dynamic to be happy getting 300bb in preflop with JJ. I play like a maniac live and I wouldn't be thrilled about it without sick history.

I think this hand is fine as played and pretty standard until the river. Then we are opponent and read dependent.

But I think it's equally important to figure out what this aggressive villain thinks of us. Our line on that board looks exactly like a middling one-pair hand, so our image at the table is going to play a lot into my thoughts here. Have we made any hero calls or big laydowns lately?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19...v-elky-365715/

My reasoning to 4bet has nothing to do with having to make tough decisions postflop. It has to do with it being a good decision preflop. We likely have the best hand and we are just putting money into the pot and pressure on our opponent. The fact that JJ will likely face a difficult board (overcards falling ~50% of the time as well as coordinated boards that don't fit your hand another handful%) along with a difficult decision as our opponent is good and thus likely to keep us guessing, I thought turning the tides on him would be best here.

You ask what to do to a 5bet...well live a 5bet is usually a pretty rare bet to see and when one is made it usually is KK/AA. If the case is that your opponent regularly 5bets with a wide range (and to do that he has to get into a ton of 4bet situations first) then obviously I would say that calling the 3bet is more than fine and play poker (or that getting it in with JJ 300bb deep is fine as well if his range is truly wide).

But the fact that many, including you, are advocating flatting his 3bet shows me that it can be difficult to reach 4bet status preflop live....better yet 5bet territory. This makes me think 5betting has a very small range of powerhouses and creativity, and if you get to the point of having to make a decision on a 5bet then hopefully you have already taken all this into account and thus your inquiry of "what to do vs a 5bet" will have a bit more clarity for you.

I see your point, Jloc. Here's where I disagree.

First, it's not simply the fact that it's live that differentiates the 4bet/5bet frequencies and ranges, but rather it's the deep stacks (obviously, yes, some live players will only 4bet or 5bet the nuts and in that case you just play accordingly). The villain in this hand was Elky, an online player.

Again, 300bb puts you in a super tough spot. 4betting simply because we have the best hand is poor poker. We have to think of how we can extract most overall value. Could I have gotten 300bb in pre against Elky? Sure, but even against a spewtard like him I'm not thrilled about it.

I also disagree that I should be calling if my opponent 5bets with a wide range. The wider villain's 5betting range, the more I should be widening my 4bet value range. But I don't think Elky 5bets this wide value and I don't think most people do.

I think calling the 3bet is good against someone this aggro because it allows me to control the pot size, play IP, and allows him to continue with his entire bluffing range.

This is the meat of the argument. So you need to calculate what you would theoratically win by taking the 4bet route and add the times you win there, the times you fold to a 5bet, the times you win on the flop if/when called, and the times that you win the hand on the turn/river.

You then need to do similar calculations for the times you call his 3bet and then play poker making educated decisions based on the board that develops and the caliber player you are up against.

Obviously this calculation is far too complex to put in algorithm form but I thought I'd verbalize it anyways. I will say, that the more respect I give my opponent (and I assume you regard Elky as a very tough player), the less decisions I would like to make with marginal holdings. This is because I will be prone to making more mistakes than I would vs an easier player or with a stronger/weaker hand.

Now I don't know the dynamic you and Elky have or created that day/overall and am not sure how the table was playing, i.e, were there many 4bet/5bets taking place?, so I guess I can't directly comment on whether or not 3betting or 4betting is superior in this spot. I for one probably 4bet less than most. But when faced against what I consider a tough opponent and I am holding vulnerable as I am here, I typically think immediate EV is worth more than any contrived EV I may forge from "playing poker" since the likely hood of me making a mistake heightens greatly.

All that said, I understand the argument for 3betting and playing poker and agree it has PLENTY of merit.

This is a very interesting question and discussion between you two. I want to clarify one thing though with respect to your arguing that this is a good spot to 4-bet with JJ:

Is that because you think your immediate EV is higher by 4-betting because a tough player's 3-bet range is generally wider or is it because you think you will lose less over the long run if by 4-betting you have less total decisions to make due to the pot size if villain continues (or a combination of both).

I guess what I am trying to determine is the EV value you are giving to JJ vs. his range and the EV value you give to "having to make fewer decisions and therefore less chance of making an error."

Thanks,

Shorn

Basically, my bottomline point is that with 300bb stacks 5-handed, players tend to have a wide 3betting range but a narrow 5betting range (and the 5betting range is often very polarzied). Those are spots where calling with a hand like JJ is by far and away the best play imo.

Also, with all due respect to jloc, I really do not like the htinking of 4betting "having to make fewer decisions and therefore less chance of making an error." This is a slippery slope that can lead to a lot of plays that sacrifice EV simply because it makes life easier.

fds, I in general agree with you more on this spot given the stack sizes and my experience with polarizing 5-bet ranges (generally, AA, KK and maybe AK). However, I greatly respect jloc's game and comments so I was trying to understand his thought process more. Most likely, the optimal play is somehwere in between the two since "always" doing one thing is clearly never correct. Add to that the fact that JJ is one of the hardest hands to play well (for me at least) and the more ideas I can get on it, the better.

I respect jloc a ton as well. I'm just trying to clarify my point because I think it was a little muddled and I think the first paragraph is the most succint way of putting it.

I think 4betting is pretty horrendous most of the time. However vs elky I would definately be 4 betting. Dude flats 4 bets with the most ******ed **** and never 5bets light. In my experience anyway.

yeah this is pretty much all young active guys who play live. they pretty much never fold once their teeth are in a hand pre but will stop raising pretty quick and "outplay you" post...lol.

This is a good point. Do you think it outweighs the value of letting him just barrel away? 4betting strengthens my range and keeps me with initiative, which may even deter a spewtard like Elky from going nuts when he whiffs (obv he's going to semibluff everytime he can, but that only happens so often).