V1 ($375) UTG+2 - 30 year old pro. Very solid LAG. Opens around 30% from early position and plays very well post flop. Hero has thousands of hands with V over the last couple years as we are both every day players at a local game. He has plenty of r/f pre in his range from every position.

V2 ($550) CO- Around 60 years old. Plays in our local game once every couple weeks. He has a blatant sizing tell on preflop 3b. He will always double the size of a raise with AA and KK regardless of how many opponents are involved. For instance, UTG raises to 10, two players call, V2 3b to 20 with KK. 100% reliable tell. I've paid close attention to this for months. I've never seen him make that sizing with any other hands.

Hero ($165) BTN- mid 20s full time player. I generally play TAG/LAG depending on table dynamics. This particular night, I had been fairly active early but have been card dead for the last two hours or so and haven't had any opportunities to make plays.

The hand: 9 handed

Two folds, V1 raises to $10, two folds, V2 3b to $25, Hero looks down at 54 and moves all in, blinds both fold, V1 folds, V2 thinks for about 8-10 seconds and calls.

I decided to take this line strictly because of the sizing of V2's 3b and my image over the last two hours. I'd seen two flops in two hours and b/f both times to c/r from tight opponents. I also don't 4b frequently in this game as the opportunities don't arise often, so my range should appear incredibly strong. I still pretty certain I have enough fold equity here to shove profitably.


Thoughts?

Your sizing tell is only really pertinent here if you think think he has a 3b/fold range. Do you think he will fold AK or QQ? If not, then you're just handing him money.

With these stack sizes I would say he's probably never folding and this is a spew.

I would add though that Ax and Kx suited would be good hands to do this with. Card removal, and suited-ness work in your favor, and because of your bet sizing tell you can count on one of your cards being live.

call the 3bet. no reason to believe a 3bet fold range exists.
are you able to stack up to more than $165 before this hand btw? what's the max BI?

I've got V's 3b range for this sizing as TT-QQ, AQs+, AK and that he'll fold everything but AK and QQ. Obv excluding AA and KK from this range as per sizing tells. He may even fold AK some % of the time.

Cold call the 3b with 54ss and $140 behind? If we get heads up, we have a spr of 2.3-1. If V1 also calls, then we have a spr of 1.9-1. We simply don't flop well enough to do this. Then there's the opportunity for V1 to squeeze, and believe me, he's capable of squeezing in this spot.

The max BI is $300. I elected to wait before adding on as my opponents make such monumental post flop errors that my shorter stack is still valuable without me reaching back in my pocket.

Ax and Kx suited are also in my 4bet bluffing range

yep my bad, sry. misread. thought you'd called the $10, then had $15 to call. as for your cold 4bet jam with reads, it's an interesting spot, but you'll be read for precisely AK a little too often and called by every opponent pair, which is horrible for your actual holding. the only hands you may fold out here are AQ- and that's too small a part of his 3bet range, considering that his 3b/c range has you so crushed.

The over shove in this sort of situation doesn't work often enough to be very profitable in general. Villains will consistently convince themselves you have exactly the sort of hand you did or that you have JJ- and trying to force everybody to fold rather then see a flop. How good this is vs this specific villain varies widely. Does he have any bluff 3 bets in his range at all? Does he actually pay attention to your image? Does he fold after 3 betting? What sort of history is there between the two of you in raised pots?

If you did want to bluff here something like $70 is probably best. That is a significant raise while still looking like you want a call and plan to move in on flop.

It's cool and all that you know he doesn't have the nuts here. That doesn't mean he's folding.

fold pre

Question 1: No bluffs in his 3b range that I've seen, and I've paid close attention to him over several months.

Question 2: He pays enough attention to notice I'm folding more than usual. He, in general, respects my game. He has initiated many conversations with me away from the table in the past, trying to discuss strategy. He's asked my opinion about myriad situations and I engage him politely, though I'm intentionally vague. Any way, he and I had been having a small-talk convo on the side during the game and he asked me if I'd been folding because I was card dead. So yeah, he's at least somewhat aware.

Question 3 and 4: I've seen him 3b fold a few times in the last 18 months. 3 of those times, he showed his hand when he folded. They were JJ, AKo, and AQs respectively. Situationally, though, his folds in those spots were pretty clear cut. He 3b folded JJ to a nitty 50 something lady when she jammed like $300 over his $30 3b. The AK he 3b folded was OOP against a fairly tight player who cold 4b to $100 over V2's $35 3b with $150 behind. And the AQs hand, he 3b a loose opener and folded when I cold 4b (with AA) and got flat called by the original raiser (I was all in on a 774r flop that hand, so V2 saw my AA). So that's some relevant history.

As for your idea to 4b to $70, I gave it a half-second of thought in the moment, but I didn't genuinely consider it. In the moment, I wanted purely to maximize my fold equity. If we are going to leverage in this spot, are we just shipping 100% of flops assuming V2 checks to us? It seems like an interesting idea.

Well yeah, but he will absolutely fold a non-zero amount. Plus, when he does call, I will proudly table my hand and work on exploiting the new info I've given him. I also have okay-ish flopability with my hand.

I question the reliability of your tell and range and consider this more of a spazz than a "line" but hey who am I to judge.

Assuming V1 always folds and V2 calls with Big pairs (which ones doesn't change your equite very much) you will have something like 22% equity when called. There is very little dead money in the pot that you are risking your stack to win So you will need something like 75% fold equity.

If he has 12 combos of JJ and QQ he calls with.
He has 4 combos of AQs, 16 AK and 6 TT = 26 you have a little over 70% Fold Equity given your assumptions.

If he has 6 combos QQ he calls with.
He has 4 combos of AQs, 16 AK and 6 TT and 6 combos of JJ = 32 you have a little over 90% Fold Equity.

If his 3! range was the more usual 60 YO man it would be something like QQ+ and AK of which he would fold his AK and maybe half or so his QQ. Youd have something like 50%

This is 1/2 Your nitty image from folding for 2 hours pays little dividends... maybe the reg is paying attention but thats about it usually.

This is the most obvious fold pre in the world. You have an extremely weak hand, and no blockers to real hands.

Calling the 3-bet is very very horrible, but I guess people are suggesting that because it's far better than shoving.

This is not the way to exploit running bad.

Yes!

That's not what I'm doing. I'm exploiting his sizing tell, which I'm 100% sure indicates the range I described earlier. I never said I was running bad. In fact, I don't pay any attention to "run good" or "run bad". All that matters to me is my decision making process. I also never once said that I even considered calling the 3b. My hand strength is more or less irrelevant as my shove would be purely exploitative. The fact that my hand is a small suited connector only means that I require slightly less fold equity to show a profit from shoving.

And just so you know, calling is not better than shoving.

Thanks for the reply. The tell is solid. I've been monitoring it closely for well over a year. His 3b range is wider than that of your average older guy.

I bolded that specific range because that's pretty much what I assumed would be true, though his decisions will be somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes he may call with JJ, sometimes he may fold QQ. But I think that in general, he will fold everything that is not QQ or AKs.

WUHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

MUAHAHHAHAHAHAH!

I think this is a spot where results matter, meaning what did he call with?

You had a solid tell based on months of play, however what you don't know is what his overall 3 bet/fold range is, if he has one at all.

based on read and table dynamics I think you picked the wrong hand to make this play w/, Axs even Kxs would be much better, but even then you have to know he's capable of folding say JJ after he 3 bets a good amount of the time.

I think your thought process has merit but you picked the wrong spot to attack in.

(less important but if you play with these guys/this guy all the time, I'd much rather be able to say "Ace high" when the board bricks out and let him table the winner, than have to show down 5 high for 100bb's vs a middle aged man all in pre. Because from now on your going to have to make hands to beat this guy and that makes poker exponentially harder)

Clever... thanks for your contribution.

Given that he is paying some attention and has a fold button, I don't think your bluff is terrible. The problem is that if villain is never raising light or has any bluff 3 bets, then your likely to get called too often. You probably do have good FE when you shove, but because it is an over shove it is usually still -EV. Your risking $165 to win $38. You need villain to fold around 80% of the time just to break even.

The point of $70 is that it will often have more FE. The big over shove looks too much like you don't want a call. If villain is paying attention he probably knows you never have AA/KK when you over shove in this situation. That really cuts into your FE and you need a lot for this to be profitable.

If villain does call, you probably have to give up on flop if it isn't good. At that point you probably have little or no FE. If you have a read on villain you can bluff some flops but it's usually a bad idea. Knowing when to give up is often the hardest part of bluffing, don't fall into the trap of deciding to bluff a hand and then trying to force it no matter the situation.

I think you are overestimating your fold equity. Especially if you are relatively short stacked.

Also, if you have a 100% lock bet sizing tell on your opponent, and he is deep, it is criminal not to be at max buy in.

You have a pp, he min raises, so you know he has AA-KK, but you aren't deep enough to set mine and stack him?

That makes zero sense. Top off to $300.

As played, 3bet AI looks like spew.

I agree with pretty much everything you're saying.

Villain called with QQ. He told me immediately that he hated his spot because he thought I'd have AA, KK and AK pretty much every time. That, coupled with history against V is what leads me to believe TT-JJ, AQ+ all fold to me in this spot. He just woke up at the top of his range.

Unfortunately, I won the pot and had to show my hand. I clearly wanted to win this pot pre and decided to toy with something I don't often, which is 4b all in light.

Actually, although image is over rated, Showing down after ripping in a 4! With 45s should provide some memorable history. Might diminish future fold equity but should get hero plenty of action.

I'm still laughing at op referring to this as a line though... Strikes me as quite funny.

Please don't get hung up on one word that I used incorrectly during OP. I'd really like for this thread to not derail.

This was not a line. It was a play that I made based on some observations made over time and the dynamics of the table.