This worked out this particular occasion but I feel very uncomfortable knowing what to do facing a 3bet when 200bb deep. In this case it worked out but I had a good hand. I would value insights on sizings and range construction at $2/5 live. I mostly play $1/3 which is more shallow but it was a very good game last evening at the $2/5 where I thought I was probably average skill wise. I also only bought in for $500 when most others buy in for $1000. I feel more comfortable playing 100-150bb.

HAND
8-handed $2/5
Hero Lowjack AsAc
Effective stack $1000

Pre-flop: Hero opens $15, BTN flats, SB 3-bets $115

** Context: Villain generally plays at me pretty aggressively. I’ve played against him at $1/3. I felted him earlier when I rivered a 4-liner straight with my A5s where I was pre-flop 3-bettor. He is stuck this evening and has taken a few extended breaks from the table. He seems to like his hand he looked at his cards and immediately reached for chips to 3-bet me. **

Action continued: I thought for a bit and I was trying to determine how much was left in his stack so that my 4-bet sizing ensured we would play for stacks if he 5-bet me or we are getting it in on the flop if he called. I 4-bet to $500. He called quickly

Flop AhKs6s

Villain jams remaining $500.


I was not thinking about my range or anything like that in real time. I was just trying to calculate how to get this guy to stack off against me. The question is if this is a mistake in the big picture. I made an exploitative sizing. I think in a default scenario I 2.25x his 3-bet. But his sizing was pretty huge in my opinion. I had aces and I played them as aces and literally no other hand.

wat

WTF is this. Looks like AA vs KK or AK and you just cooler a guy

A 3bb open - a 3bb call - and a 23bb 3b you can probably do anything

calling, or 4b are fine with 4b being the prefer'd line to 46bb.

You essentially jammed as you made it 100bb which honestly makes no sense but what ever, if he calls he calls. I would of folded everything - except KK or AA, but i would of never 3b so big. Heck, I even fold KK a lot in live poker because people are so unbalanced and always have AA.

So I take your question to be, how do I k own how much to 4bet to, especially if I am very deep?

First off, on your hand, your sizing is too big. Generally if the SPR is less than one after your 4bet is called, you should have just jammed. There are some exceptions though, but here the SPR is way too low. You're in position so you don't need to 4bet very large. 2.2x is what I would go here, maybe add 15 for the preflop caller, 250-275 seems reasonable.

This is how I think about it when playing very deep:

When you are very deep, you generally want to have a 4bet size that gives your opponent the option to 5bet to 2x with the SPR being greater than 1. This allows you to have bluffs. It allows villain to have 5bet bluffs. If you are 4betting more than 1/3 your stack (IE making the SPR less than 1), you are making it look you only have AA, maybe KK.

Very deep, out of position, if you you can 4bet to 4x and villain can still 5bet 2x and the SPR will be greater than 1 or around 1, then your 4bet size should be around 4x. If you can go 4.5x or 5x OOP and still get 5bet to 2x, with SPR less than 1, then you might consider going larger than 4x. In position very deep, I would think more about 2.5x to 3x as my baseline size rather than 4x.

At shallower depths, if you 4bet OOP to about 2.7x and a 2x 5bet makes the SPR less than 1, then you should either jam or 4bet to 2.7x. If you are a little shallower you might even go 2.2x OOP if a 2x 5bet will make SPR less than 1. In position shallower, depending on how shallow, 1.9x to 2.2x is more the baseline sizing. Yes, 1.9x is basically a min click, but when you open from EP and get 3bet to a large size from the BB, you are supposed to have an extremely tight 4bet range. I personally like 2.2x or jamming though.

Examples at 2/5:

Out of position 100bb :

Effective stack 500. You raise to 15, in position raises to 50. You aren't deep enough to 4bet and have v 5bet less than all in. If you go 2.7x that would about 135. If V calls, then pot would be 277 and stack would be 365, so spr of about 1.3. You can also jam, which is an attractive option with hands like KK sometimes and AKo when you are up against villains who will 3bet you light. With AA you mainly want to 4bet less than all in.

In position 100bb deep:

Effective stack 500. You raise to 15, out of position raises to to 70. Here I would go 2.2x, so about 150. SPR will be about 1.1 if villain calls. You can go even smaller like 1.9x to 2.1x or you can jam as well.

200 deep out of position:

Effective stack 1,000. You raise to 15, in position raises to 50. If you were to raise it 4x, that would be 200, and if v 5bet to 400, then the SPR would be less than 1. So I would think more about going 3x to 150, so villain could 5bet to 300 and the SPR would still be less than 1. If you were deeper, like 1,500, then 175 or 200 would be good.

200 deep in position:

Effective stack 1,000. You raise to 15, out of position raises to 70. I think 2.2x would be good here, about 150, which still gives villain a chance to 5bet to 300.

One last thought. Sometimes you have to adjust for things like iso raises, cold callers, and very large 3bets. Like in the case of your hand, villain 3bet to a stupid large size, so you can't really say well, it's 200bb so I am going to go 4x, because 4x makes that SPR less than 1 if called.

A similar thing happens when there are limpers with an iso raise. Let's say you are 1,000 Effective with two limpers to 5, and you iso raise to $30. Out of position 3bets you to $120. Now you should look at it more like if it was a 5/10 game where you raised to 30, only your range should be even tighter since your iso raise range and villain's 3bet over an iso range should be tighter. So I would default to 2.2x and go ~260. This won't allow villain to 5bet without the SPR going less than 1, but that's okay.

I would probably make it about 250 so it doesn't look like you are absolutely committed. It would probably be a mistake to flat the huge 3!. As played worked, but it should look extremely strong.

I mean I felt like I played it like I have AA and nothing else. I feel like I misplayed it huge but got lucky to get paid off. Hence making this thread.

Yes this was my question. This was the exact type of answer I was looking for! Thank you.

It had to be a cooler, but I never got a reveal. He seemed genuinely surprised when I snap called and rolled over my aces.

Better lucky than good because I think some people find a hero fold with KK with my play.

I would be heavily weighting my 4bet range towards big pairs and nut-making potential hands. AA, KK, AKs, AQs, A5s, etc; with the limper you can go slightly wider ie QQ and (maybe) JJ as well, while without the limper you could consider just calling 100%. Here the 3bet sizing is enormous but you still have stack depth to make a non-all-in 4bet, which I would do now.

Mlark's sizing suggestions are all solid, for all purpose use.

Without doing quite as many calculations, my default approach is to reduce the sizing multiple as the number of bets rises, and go slightly smaller IP, slightly larger OOP.

So, for example, if there's a $15 open, and a $45 3B, my 4B might be $115-$125 IP (2.5x-2.75x), and $125-$150 OOP (2.75x-3.3x), assuming we have enough stack depth to take these sizings and not create awkward SPR situations. I want to disincentivize opponents from calling me too wide when I'm OOP, and incentivize them to call too wide when I'm IP.

I'll make some further sizing adjustments based on stack depth, configuration, other players entering the pot, and live reads. Something I'll think about is whether I'm trying to get everyone to fold, or induce a jam when I plan to call, or if I'll need to fold to a 5B, and try to figure out if I should therefore go smaller or bigger.

Aside from those basic guidelines, what jumps out at me here is V's enormous 3B sizing. Facing a $15 open from HJ and a BTN call, my standard SB 3B might be $75, or at most $90.

When someone opens or 3Bs for an oddly large or oddly small sizing, it does make me wonder what that means, and how my sizing should adjust. I might raise bigger against a smaller sizing and raise smaller against a bigger sizing, to get the SPR into alignment with where we'd otherwise expect it to be.

His sizing could mean something here. Generally it means "I don't need to see a flop," which is often something like TT or JJ, but could also be QQ+ if V is tilted or stuck. In either case, he might want to just get stacks in, and I could see taking an exploitative line by raising larger with AA.

Otherwise, I probably would have gone a bit smaller, like $250-$275, to have enough stack depth remaining to allow V to jam and think we might still fold.

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I am going to pretend that I made so awesome exploitative read. In reality I had no idea what to do and I had a purple $500 chip in front of me for the first time in my life and said—- this looks right. I am so freaking lucky sometimes. I won that purple chip when someone 4-bet jammed into me when I had KK and it held.

Sometimes we make the "wrong" play and it works out anyway. Your 4B sizing was probably "wrong" in theory and often from an exploitative view, but could still be seen as logically defensible, depending on your reads and live tells.

Like, you know he's stuck, probably tilted, he may be looking for revenge against you specifically, it sounds like he gave away a timing tell with his 3B, and his sizing is more than likely also a tell.

But, what do we do with that info?

Maybe we can get away with >4x 4B'ing him for half our stack and he doesn't fold, and we either get the rest when he 5B jams pre, or we get the rest when he jams the A-high flop. Maybe he levels himself into thinking you always have AA/KK and he frustration-folds TT-QQ.

So, if we're playing at our best, in your spot, against this V, we should choose a bet sizing that is least likely to make him fold, and most likely to induce a raise, or at worst allows him to call with a wider but capped range. More often than not, a smaller, more "normal" 4B sizing is probably going to get fewer folds, and allows him to jam or flat call more.

If we think his $115 3B really should have been $75-$90, and our 4B might be around 2.2x-2.5x, give or take, well...our min-raise over his $115 3B over our $15 open would be $215, so $225-$275 seems like the right 4B size, and will still leave us enough behind for his 5B jam to have some theoretical fold equity.

If we think about the spot from his view, his only 5B size is a jam, so he's faced with a decision of folding to a small 4B, calling and playing OOP with a capped range, or jamming, risking $1000 to win less than $300. His tilt factor might push him towards wanting to gamble more.

Compare that to 4B'ing half our stack, effectively laying him 1:1 on a 5B jam. This sizing doesn't leverage his potential tilt nearly as much.