First of all, why are you playing scared money when it's not even yours? If anything you should care less, but mostly it shouldn't matter. Your stakers best interest is you playing optimally, so just don't be a nit.

About the hand I don't understand how you could've butchered it, trivial call all the way imo. Pre is a pretty clear call, this is the textbook hand of the calling range, not really strong to 4b for value, but way too strong to fold/bluff. Against very aggressive guys I can see 4b for value being ok, but it's so horrible to get jammed on that I'd just call pure. And otf and turn folding is out of the question and raising mainly just isolates you vs hands that are ahead (exactly what ended up happening). You should've called turn and the interesting decision would've been on the river.

If you’re not 4 betting KQs…… what are you 4betting besides QQ+ and AK???


You saying he butchered the hand and then saying this is never a 4bet pre because you don’t want to get jammed on…..while also saying he’s playing scared money…..is kinda ironic.

Textbook calling range??? It’s absolutely not.

So, instead of being jammed, we flat and he gets 3 streets of value from AA, KK, QQ, and AQ……..


“Don’t be a nit”

“why are you playing scared money”

“Don’t 4bet KQs because getting jammed on is horrible”

Wtf……

KQs isn't really a 4bet from this position. It is good enough to pure call. From earlier positions it is more of a call or 4bet bluff. But from CO, you can be mixing call/4bet with KTs, and mixing fold/raise with lower suited kings. Also mixing 4bet/fold with KQo, AJo, some KJo even.

Is he peeling 4bets with trash too? Then maybe there is an argument to go more linear and include KQs. But if the goal is to fold out his trashy hands with equity, wouldn't our 4bets with hands like K9s, A5s, KQo, be better?

Solved for 200bb by Nick Petrangelo. Green is 4 bet yellow is call.

100bb is a call. Playing deeper is a 4bet.

Wow never would’ve thought KQs is a pure 4b co Vs btn

This is why I’m constantly imploring people to at least study theory and then decide from there.


What we feel is “intuitive” often isn’t.


It’s fine to decide to deviate when we decide for whatever reason. But when we don’t know what baseline is and how stack depth changes it, then we are just guessing.


We also make the mistake of using solves that are readily available but aren’t the same parameters as our situation. For example, GTO wizard 100bb solve will have KQs as a call and using smaller KXs for 4bets.

The only thing I dont understand is why so much debate with the 4bet or call pre flop. I find it better to exploit my game postflop than trying to shut him up preflop. I know we are OOP and if he has AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ we are dominated... but he can also be 3betting with a wide range of hand that we can punish after

We aim to make correct moves on every street that we can.

And you are vastly underestimating your ability to exploit OOP post flop.

We are almost always better off to take a pot down PreFlop OOP than playing OOP post.

We also don’t need to force anything. You will find yourself IP against this V or one like him many, many times over the long run. Use those times to play more post flop.

We’ve all had those times when we make a loose or speculative play we normally won’t make. For one reason or another. We loose an unnecessary pot. 5min later we stack someone with a monster and wish we just waited.

Purposely playing OOP in a spot that we mostly or never should, unless against a very, very bad player (and even then sometimes) is a huge leak.

Dont agree with that statement. We are playing a cash game, not a tournament. And literally folding/4 betting every hand just because we dont want to play OOP is not playing poker. If we just to make all our decisions preflop then lets move to the tournaments forum

You completely missed my point. OP specifically stated he's playing scared money, and I pointed out it's a bad idea. I'm not psychologically 'scared' of getting jammed on, I think it would be a strategic disaster, so I respectfully disagree with Mr. Petrangelo. Let me elaborate.

I don't have solved ranges for these BTN straddle spots, but I pretty much only play this garbage structure nowadays, so I have studied it quite a bit both in game and away from the tables. It's very similar to the normal SB v BB spots, but a little tighter. Exactly how much tighter it is depends on how big the straddle is compared to the blinds. So in theory BTN should 3b a fairly wide polar range, where the bluffs come from the bottom of the calling range, very unintuitive sort of trash hands like T4s, 98o, A2o etc.

I played around 500 hours this year, the vast majority in this structure and I've not seen a single one of these 3b bluffs. I usually play the highest stakes my casino has, so it's not even 1/2, but to be fair it's a small and weak room, there are maybe 3 competent regs, the rest are of the nitty ABC type. So there's a chance this guy can find bluffs, but I'd expect him to miss at least some of them. Afaik regs at online midstakes under3b from the BB, and that's a 10x harder and more technical game than a 5/10 private game, where you bumhunt a dentist and a pothead pizza delivery guy who inherited from his rich uncle.

I also found that people don't go thin enough for value in general. It's very comfortable to just flat 66-99, QTs, etc. People are also somewhat unaware positionally in general, they loosen up less than they should in late positions. So what ends up happening is when the BTN straddle 3bets it's actually a lot scarier than it should be.

I suspect the range you brought expects villain to have all these trash hands that fold, and a bunch of worse to call, like all suited broadways, suited aces (ok that's not worse equitywise, but still we're in decent shape), suited connectors, medium pairs, while I think AA and maybe even KK traps a bit, so we don't get blown off our equity that often.

Now this is a completely baseless assumption in my experience, without reads I wouldn't expect KQs to get called by worse all that often. OP even hinted he expects some light 5bets, which would be really bad for our hand. I don't want to 4b because I think it's too thin for value and too good to bluff. I also expect to get shoved on more often than at equilibrium, because his 3b range is stronger than it should be to begin with and people undervalue position in postflop play, so they fastplay pre more than they should.

About what I'd 4b, against a decent amount of people I'd literally only 4b premiums, because they 3b so tight from this position that bluffing is suicide. Against this guy, who I expect to be better, I'd go TT+ AQ+ for value and bluff hands that are too weak to call and don't really mind getting shoved on, while having solid blockers to the continuing range, like the worse Axs, K5s-K8s, A9o etc.

Being concerned about flatting and paying off premiums when hitting a pair is extremely backwards logic. We call down because it's a +EV call all the way. If it's not because they always have it then fold, otherwise we're making money from their bluffs/worse value hands. What you suggest here is the exact logic recs use when donking into the field with second pair to 'find out where they're at'. Ok you find it out, but get called by better and fold out worse in the process.

hmmm

I play full time in Eastern Euro shithole, it's not exactly Macau nosebleeds, something like deep 5/10 or 5/10/20, occasionally bigger with whale present but it's pretty rare nowadays because of the economic crisis. Stacks are 2-3kish at prime hours, which is not much but many people don't even make a thousand here monthly. Not a level to brag about but it's true lol. Any useful contribution?

There's no chance you'll GII as a favorite - he'll either snap you off where you're a significant dog or he'll snap fold. In spots like these where you don't beat even one hand in someone's value range and have cards to improve/bluff, calling is the only play.

River can go a lot of ways - we make a flush, a 1 card straight comes, the other flush draw hits, etc. I think I probably fold on a blank - this isn't a texture that will get tripled a lot, so I don't expect a lot of bluffs on the river. I think though for any 1 card straight/other flush hits/our flush hits I'm probably firing away a lot of times.

I will say I think Hero came into the hand with some bad meta game in his head thinking villain is going to bluff all these runouts and is playing differently because he's staked. Textures matter a lot - not a good game to play in with this mindset.

You're playing OOP against the biggest winner in the room 380BB/150straddles deep. Not sure how much we can really "punish" him. The more likely outcome is that we're making mistakes postflop.

Speaking of mistakes, I misread the HH and thought hero had KQo. KQs should be a standard 4bet?

FWIW, I don't think we can use a CO vs. BU solve here unless BU 3bets the same range against CO with SB/BB left to act as he does if he's last to act preflop after SB/BB already folded. Intuitively I would say this spot is much closer to SB vs. BB 150bb deep than CO vs. BU.

First off we're probably both looking at the wrong ranges now that I think about it if button straddle made SB first to act, because it really is blind vs blind at that point. But for the sake of discussion, I'll go on talking about the CO vs BU ranges.

Second, I was looking at GTO Wizard NL50 rake, which is 5% capped at 4bb, where it is more of a call. NL500 GTO where rakke is 5% capped at 0.6bb, GTO Wizard puts KQs as more of a 4bet at 200 bb deep. Also at the even higher rake of GG NL50 which is 5% 8BB cap that GTO Wizard has solved, it is more of a call. I figured because it is a home game there would be pretty heavy rake, at least that is the way home games where I live are.

I would have thought higher rake would mean looser 4bet to take it down pre though. I guess because in theory BU 3bet range is stronger when take is lower.

Third, I don't know if it makes a ton of sense to look at standard charts for 4bets because the raise size is 4x. At a 4x open and 3.5x 3bet, SPR is 4.9. The solves I have looked at for 200BB usually have much smaller open sizes and the 4bet is usually massive, 4x, and meant to have a ton of fold equity. If open raise was 2.5x, 3bet was 8.5x, SPR is 10.4. If CO 4bets to 34 (like in GTO Wizard and some other solves I have seen), then SPR will be 2.4. This gives BU a 5bet jam and 5bet non-jam raise size and it gives CO some 4bet, fold to a non-all in 5bet (KQs would be there).

I think it's a mistake to use these ranges given the actual bet sizes and SPR used. You're not going to be able to raise as large and get nearly as much fold equity. I think it would be better off to look at 100bb charts or something where the SPR is closer.

And also, OP can consider not making it 4x on the open raise if he wants to be playing with a really large 4bet size. But hey, if 4x raise size works for you because of the loose action, then go for it.

While KQs is very strong it's not really strong enough to be playing oop, deep against a really good opponent.

1)this villain can be 3 betting light with a hand that is ahead of yours but will fold to a 4 bet (Axs maybe AJo).
2) when you are ahead villain still has significant equity, usually 40% unless you share a card.
3) you will miss the flop about 2/3s of the time can will likely be check folding a lot so even when ahead you won't realize your equity
4) you're too deep to be happy about flopping TP or a FD and GII on most flops
5) Villain is very capable of maximizing his positional advantage and using pressure correctly post flop
6) While I'm sure you're a very good post flop player, being OOP really negates that advantage, add in the fact that he's described as a very good player as well and I don't think you have much if any skill advantage so it will difficult to exploit him post flop

I'm not saying this should be a 4 bet or fold situation but I would counter his light 3 bets in this situation by 4 betting more hands for value like KQ/AQ and flatting with hands like AA/KK to punish his light 4 betting. I would also open smaller

One more thing to point out about the flop/turn action. This is a super connected, wet flop so we should assume villain will have a pretty sizeable checking range so his bet should signify a pretty strong hand (TP, 2p, sets, strong draw, straights). From villain's POV, once you call, he should know this board hit you pretty hard b/c you're not continuing w/hands like 77/88 98dd or other marginal stuff. He should know you're not likely to be folding on the turn so this would be a very bad board for him to triple off with air. The turn 7s is another bad card for villain's range and a good card for yours. So even if villain doesn't know your exact hand he can't get too out of line when betting. Villain of course knows this b/c he's a good player and when checked to, he just continues to just bomb away. He really shouldn't have too many bluffs in his range on this node. Sure a solver would probably have solid balance but I would bet that IRL, most players don't balance here often enough. I think you can comfortably call the turn and fold the river UI if he bets when checked to

While I said in my last post that it's more likely for us to make mistakes postflop than to be able to punish villain, if we can't play a hand as strong as KQs profitably against him we have to leave the table.

It's 4 handed with a button straddle, that means we're HU OOP with him a decent amount of the time. It's not like a 9 handed table where you can easily avoid a single opponent if the rest of the table is bad enough.

the issue here is you have a made hand that has pretty good equity vs his bluffing range and im not sure he takes this line with the middle part of his value range that you're trying to fold ie AQ AA type stuff. one other consideration is if you're staked for the game and its unclear if you get to reload you probably shouldn't do this especially if you're not very certain about the situation.

also, mute the people that tell you that you can't call a 3b oop with KQss especially given positions. like man you can probably call preflop vs llinus and show a profit let alone some random in midstakes private game

QcTc9s7s

What do you beat exactly?

QJ - Beat
TJ, - Beat
J9 - Beat
KJ - Lose
J8 - Lose
QQ, - Lose
TT - Lose
99 - Lose
QT - Lose
9T - Lose

"I will not put almost 4k without the nuts"

Unless you're willing to do that, this game is too big for you. He's exploiting people because he has more money. Want to be good at poker? Have enough money that you don't care about the game in which you're playing. Picture playing Elon or Bezos. You buy in for $100k. They shove on a wet board. Which one of you feels any pressure? Which one of you is going to have a lesser retirement because they lose the hand?

Not true, he could have AKcc, AJcc, A9cc, or any other AcXc that he is bombing away with.

I don't think anyone is saying you can't call w/KQss just that a 4 bet is more +EV

"While KQs is very strong it's not really strong enough to be playing oop, deep against a really good opponent." you literally said this.

the 3bets here from villain are supposed to be like k8o and t4ss type hands. i dont really think 4bing a more linear range but flatting the top end of it makes sense as an adjustment either. im not trying to pick on you or anything i just disagree strongly w that post

open size seems ok to me since theres 35 dead. slightly worse odds for sb compared to normal bvb steal but it is what it is