So I looked up the ranges for blind vs blind at 50NL rake vs 500NL rake. Assuming this is really a BVB spot if button straddle means SB acts first and SB/BB both folded.

Again, whether you 4bet KQs or not is entirely based on rake. If you 4bet KQs at 50NL rake, BB calls 25% of the time, folds 60% of the time, all in 5% of the time, 5bet not all in 10% of the time. At NL500 rake, BB calls 39% of the time, 5bet jams 7% of time, folds 54% of the time.

Whenever you get 5bet, KQs is a fold. But at higher rake, BB plays 5bet or fold strats more, and at lower rake, they have more calls. At lower rake, you are 4betting KQo more because you have better fold equity and need less postflop playability. Also, when you are getting 5bet more often and know you have to fold, you would rather fold a hand like KQo that had less playability postflop when calling a 3bet than KQs which has much better playability. KQs is a better 4bet candidate when your 4bet is getting called more often at lower rake for the same reason - better postflop playability.

Basically, the more likely you are to see a flop, the better playability you want your range to have.

But a lot of this is assuming your opponent is going to be making the right response to your 4bet strategy taking rake into consideration. The more your opponent continues with a call, the more you would want KQs in your 4bet range, and the less sticky he is, the more you want KQo type hands.

You're right, I should have chosen better language in my post. What I meant to say is that calling and playing OOP is likely to be extremely difficult vs a skilled opponent. It should still be +EV but can become negative EV as we will be prone to making significant mistakes.


I didn't mean to suggest that we would have a strictly linear range, we should still be 4 bet bluffing with hands like AJo/KQ etc as well as AA/KK/AK. When I said we should call here w/AA or KK I didn't mean 100% of the time

I get that villain is supposed to be 3 betting hands like K8/T4ss but the question becomes, what's the best way to fight against it? If I'm going to be OOP for this hand, I want hands that I can play easily, I don't want to get into a position where I have K high and have to check/fold or check/call against a villain capable of putting pressure on me. If his range has too many bluffs in it, I want to punish that range by making him fold PF and picking up the substantial dead money b/c it will be difficult to play oop. Hands like T9 or A8 have significant equity against our hand so getting them to fold PF is +EV. In position I can get behind flatting a wider range b/c we can use our position as and advantage post flop to punish his light 3 betting but OOP things get very tricky which is why I prefer flatting with AA/KK OOP and letting him barrel.

No worries dude, I appreciate the back and forth, this is where the learning happens. I'm happy to hear the other side of the argument to find out where I'm going wrong

I feel like were all splitting hairs over preflop here.

Yes call sometimes, 4bet sometimes as long as you dont fold the difference in ev shouldn’t be that big.

Was there a consensus for turn play? i feel like flatting is best, i dont mind jamming as a semi bluff either and since we are staked, maybe the high variance route is better?

kqss is super easy to play even oop and you need top pairs on broadway boards because those are going to be the boards you face pressure on. tbh i think people way overdo it bvb on those types of boards bc they think they have a linear range similar to blinds vs buttons but the range composition is radically different. but really imagine a world where you're 4betting all of your broadway cards. you're dead on any board thats like ten or higher. also kq is really easy. flop a k / q / bdfd / gutter and continue in the hand lol

tbh very much doubt this guy is 3betting the right hands and hes probably going to peel the 4b more than he should as a result so i think 4bing is fine but you're going to print just calling a 3b with this type of hand and you need them in your range. bvb is interesting when you're shallower too bc you're usually 4bing to a smaller size because ip is supposed to be polarized (i suspect that isnt happening here which leads to imbalances in ip's range as a result). i have no real evidence to suggest hes showing up with the wrong hands but the bb 3bets are not at all intuitive if you don't study and very easy to miss

I mean he is 3betting with J8 here, right? I think he's probably pretty polar. The real question is, does he peel the 4bet with J8 too?

Yeh you're right but there's way more value combos. Either way jamming isn't good here and really serves no purpose other than not having to think on the river.

100bbs deep I'd agree that playing KQ is easy but when we're 150bbs deep flopping TP or a FD isn't so straight forward b/c the SPR is larger so you can't just c/r and go with it. Just look at how the hand played out, we flopped top pair and still don't like it. Again, part of my rationale for wanting to 4 bet more than call is the stack size which makes playing OOP more of a disadvantage. I'm trying to minimize this as much as possible so I would lean more towards 4 betting than calling.

I agree that we should have some protection on broadway type boards and I'd rather call a 3 bet oop with AK/AQs than KQs b/c those hands dominate more of our opponents range and we really don't want to get 5 bet with those hands. There's also a lot more showdown value with A high vs K high which is worth something. Add in a few combos of AA-KK along with JJ/TT and some QQ and I think we've got protection on broadway type boards.

Not sure but are we really 55 posts in before someone raises this extremely relevant point when we're discussing how to respond to villain's 3bet? Kind of weird if people are saying "this is always a call" or "this is always a 4bet" without considering what villain's actual, not theoretical, range is.

My question is, is this J8 sooted or not? I assume yes but it makes a massive difference if he's 3betting J8o. J8s is already quite spicy implying we should do more calling or 4betting than a published range. J8o is just maniac territory.

I mean, in blind vs blind, he should be mixing 3bet with J8o. Actually, he might not be as polar as GTO ranges would be because GTO ranges are not what live poker players are used to in BvB. But he's definitely not one of those types that is 3betting AQ, JJ+.

I dont remember if they where suited or no. Once I saw the straight I was just thinking "F*k my life " hahahaha

Im playing right now with him and ive just asked him the question if he is calling a 4bet to 1k. He says he is instantly folding because he had J8o. I think that sums up the preflop debate

OK sweet so he was just blatantly stealing with 3bets. Say you fold ~70% OOP from CO because your range is wide and you are nitting it up to some extent, then he can hit you with any two cards, fold most of it to a 4bet and only continue if he hits and he is absolutely printing money from you. I guess he may tighten up now you had this talk but KQs is way too strong to not 4 bet a guy who is including J8o in his 3bet range.

Grunch:

definitely dont shove. We rep nothing as a 7s cant have improved us. With that said there is a serious consideration to 4bet preflop here . The CO vs BTN dynamic is just too rife with abuse to be flatting OOP and he should never be 5betting not even AA, since he can just call and hope we have KK and blast off on a 722 flop. Our hand will be much more playable on various textures than anything he flats a 4bet with.


As played....

I really disagree with your range assessment due to how wide I predict he'll be 3betting the BTN with. I find his betsizing to be rather poor, regardless I think he can have literally all flush draws, some wonky straight draws kind of like yours and the occasional TP+. Since we're ahead of most of that I elect to just call and basically x/f river. If you hit either of your draws or make trips then check-jam.

If villain adjusts to the straddle properly, hero has to defend like he would from SB vs. BB 3bets.

The button straddle forces SB/BB to play way tighter than they would in a regular 4-handed game. Especially since we have a 2.5x straddle. So if every hand plays 4-handed with that BU straddle, we have a bunch of CO vs. BU spots.

If SB wants to play a hand in that setting, even if he makes it $100 preflop that would mean if BB/CO fold, BU is getting 1.8:1 on a call.

This is essentially a BVB confrontation. As a previous poster has said:

If villain is sticky vs 4bets, then 4betting a linear range makes sense.

If he's 3betting wide or is doing so with a polar range the bottom half of which will fold to a 4bet, then 4betting a polar range as well makes sense.

KQs has more postflop playability than AJo or KQo. If you 're going to see flops, you prefer having KQs rather than AJo or KQo. So you adjust accordingly.

This is really good feedback

After the analysis of this hand, I realised I was 4betting to tight, even when deep stacked, so KQ has become a pure 4bet in my play against decent players (not against rocks or overly tight players). Could have avoided a lot of trouble in this hand

The analysis in the second paragraph is not correct because this isn’t simply a RIO spot due to our massive redraw. In theory depending on Villain’s tendencies we can call turn and fold river unimproved if we think our profit from improving on the river will outweigh what we lose by folding the best hand when we don’t improve.