Hi, not been on this site for years so not sure how to import the hand history.

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/424H0L9E1

Hopefully that works!

Last 150 of 5000.
27BB. 10/20k blinds. UTG+1 opens 2x. I raise to 7.5x. He shuvs. I call.

Can I fold to the shuv? Or did I **** up before that?

Been away from the tables for a while so appreciate any help

Could flat pre, but once you 3-bet you cannot fold to the 4-bet all in from the original raiser.

Thanks man. Yeah I should have probably flat pre. Just seemed a bit weird to do that.
The guy had only just moved to the table so no prior info. Next time ey 🤔

Didn't mean to imply that you should be flatting a lot. I think you should usually 3-bet get it in, unless the raiser is tight.

Looks fine

People don't seem to be disciplined enough to overfold to the extent they should vs the population of 3b-not-all-ins 25bb deep from LJ.

Most players in your spot rep QQ+, some AKo, a tiny bit of AQo, some AQs-AKs, and some TT-JJ. That's about it.

So it seems OK in a lot of universes but if 4bettor is perceptive and good he may only have QQ+, AK when he ships it and in that case you can fold. And even then QQ,AKo are pretty iffy vs the pop of 3bettors.

You can definitely get away in many universes, though.

In fact if the 4bettor is making the (generally correct) risky assumption about just how tight and strong and underbluffed your 3bs are then JJ are pretty severly -EV fscing his 4b

Unless we know Villain is opening wide EP 8 handed I tend to flat here pre-flop. The reason I prefer to flat is that Villain will almost certainly 4-bet shove with AK/AQs/QQ+ but won't with 88-TT mostly (I believe Villain will fold 66-99 a lot because set mining is useless once we 3-bet).

So I believe we have about 40% equity here (maybe slightly less) when Villain shoves. Which means that we should call. But I don't think we should be putting ourselves in this position in the first place.

What are people’s thoughts on the 7.5x 3b sizing over the 2x open?

I don't like it, because it makes it look like you have what you have. It looks like you aren't folding to a 4!, but you don't mind if he folds. So it looks like AK/JJ or something like that.

I also prefer flat.

You can't 3bet fold 27 bbs here. perfectly fine. You have 27 bbs. Maybe you can flat if you have a hud and its the nittiest player ever and you have a big sample of hands on them but this is super unlikely. 3betting is fine here. I think flatting would be kinda lolbad here. Just a cooler.

Ultimately I’m stacking off here. JJ too high up in our range to fold for me. However, it’s not unfoldable. I would have liked a 3b to 5.5 or so bb’s though. Against certain V’s and with certain table dynamics there are lots of times I can fold this and not feel bad about it, or flat it and play the hand.

Some good advice in here; to add it's important to have intention, if you choose to 3b, you should be doing so because you believe your hand is good enough to get it in, if you are uncomfortable with that, then you should flat pre instead (as a few people mentioned).

However, in said spot, flatting would result in a number of really tough spots post-flop, so I'm also in agreement with a couple others here, that just 3-bet/getting it in pre-flop is the best option in this spot.

Back to the original point, just have intent with your actions. If you can't stand up to the pressure of a 4bet with JJ, then it's likely not a 3b in the first place.

The "Don't 3b if you aren't willing to stack off" mantra is silly

If he folds 90%+ of the time to the 3b which is honestly a reasonable exploit for a perceptive opener to make (just look at these responses ITT--a rando member of the pop showing up with JJ here is somewhat aberrational) then 3b/f is printing way beyond equilibrium.

I would definitely mix in a healthy amount of folds with AKo and QQ vs that 3b in game (TBH prob pure folding) and against a rando my data says (and these responses only serve to reinforce) that I'd almost always be correct that his 3b is tight enough and too-linear enough to where I am totally justified making the risky assumption necessary to make it correct to overfold that much.

You can 3!/fold as a bluff with hands not quite strong enough to call initially with. No need to turn JJ into a bluff.

It's not "turning JJ into a bluff" and even if you insist on classifying it like that for some reason then who cares if it's the sheer max-EV decision vs a segment of the population?


If one were capable of having the foresight to know OOP were overfolding in the manner I'd described then what's going on is 3b/f is owning him by exploitatively collecting the equity he's suboptimally, exploitably ceding to you on account of making an incorrect risky assumption about the width and compositon of the 3b range, and owning him via folding when he 4bs you bc he's run good enough to have KK+, AKs and whatever nonzero but nonpure amts of QQ,AKo he has.

Poker is not so dogmatic as you're implying with that statement

And even if you must take such a dogmatic and wrong approach like thinking binarily "this combo is 'value' and this is a 'bluff' (whatever that mean)" then JJ are a pretty terrible combo to stuff into that bucket. Think more AQs,AJs, trapping AA,KK pretty sexy.

Flatting JJ is really bad

you seem to be advocating for a fold with AKo and queens. against you, where your response is basically push/fold, it pretty much would be turning it into a bluff.

of course if you assume a 90% fold frequency then it's still better than flatting, as pretty much any two cards would be instantly profitable. but where does that number come from?


"If he folds 90%+ of the time to the 3b which is honestly a reasonable exploit for a perceptive opener to make (just look at these responses ITT--a rando member of the pop showing up with JJ here is somewhat aberrational) then 3b/f is printing way beyond equilibrium."


so what are the circumstances that would lead you to making this read (as the person who opened)? or anything close to it for that matter.

I would make that exploit the first time facing a 3b against virtually any human who 3bs me in that spot under the assumption that they, like the data says, are so tight and linear to where I feel perfectly comfortable making that read.

Don't let OP showing up with JJ here overinfluence your understanding of what most humans' 3b range is. Many are (correctly) 3b-shipping JJ pre and many are (incorrectly) flatting them. This combo is not close to being fully represented in their range, ditto for TT, ditto for AQo, ditto for AKo which almost always gets shipped (correctly).

I'll also add that people still have this weird notion of being "committed" and so do not fold enough facing a 4b even though that 4b range is being adjusted accordingly.

See for yourself how AKo,QQ stacks up vs a range of most QQ+ (you can even provision some traps to make this exploit work), some AKs (since people [incorrectly] ship this combo pre), and a small amt of 88-JJ, AKo, AQo, AJs-AQs (which is quite generous bc the latter really should never be 3b--if you really wanna talk about combos which "must see a flop" these are it, not JJ, which need all the protection they can get and do not block squeezing ranges and which makes JJ worse flats than AJs-AQs et al in every respect). AKo,QQ are losing vs that 3b strategy. Then see how AKo in particular stacks up when the 3bettor never folds. It starts losing even more.


The only exception would be someone I personally know as being good either because I know them IRL or I have history with them in this specific spot, or I know of them as being good, or I have some exceptional HUD stats over a meaningful sample that would indicate they know what they are doing.

If you do not 3b KQo, K9s, ATo et al here in some capacity then you are too tight and not polar enough, and if you have most KK+ as the 3bettor (not even all KK+, merely most KK+) and if you ever flat JJ then you will be exceptionally non-polar and exceptionally, exploitably strong making AKo a pretty big loser.

OOP not having AKo is pretty much a death sentence for JJ wanting to GII.

If I knew the 3bettor were really good I'd 4b something like 99/TT+, AQs+, AKo, some AQo, some KQs.

Would probably end up reluctantly shipping QQ assuming the 3bettor isnt folding worse pairs but even then QQ would not be printing by any means.

For sure folding AKo against a random human, though.

You are 3!/folding AKo and JJ with 27xBB in ep, and you think flatting with those hands is terrible?

It's actually effectively LJ vs MP (8 handed), not EP, and yeah flatting those is pretty terrible

I said I would fold AKo vs a random human's 3b, as for the 4b I also said

I'd stack off after having 3b (not FACING a 3b) against random human for this reason.

But if I have no history with the 4bettor--giving him plenty of incentive to view me as a too-tight and too-linear random human--and I think he's good enough to adjust accordingly (either through word of mouth or having seen their name atop leaderboards) I'd at least consider 3b/f. and I'd stack off AK before JJ due to blockers against KK+. And I'd print in that case due to him overfolding all the other stuff in his range.

Being good/ bad flats has less to do with what youre gonna do vs higher order bets and everything to do with sheer strength vs the open range (JJ, AK both way too stong vs an unfiltered MP-effective open range), blockers to those higher order bets or vs squeezes (AK is the nut blocker combo vs 4bets and JJ has crappy blockers), and/or need for protection (applies to both AK and JJ)

AA,KK would be way better flats due to needing virtually no protection

AJs a way better flat due to being sheerly weaker

And so on

Its much tougher to justify folding to the 4b than to the 3b because the data are murkier in 4b pots and player tendencies seem to indicate they 4b too wide and yoire getting an ok price to snap but 3b/f is miles and miles from being impossible to justify

If you would fold JJ/AKo against my ep 3!, I could 3! ATC against you.

Yes, and that would be the adjustment vs. Egg's strategy. But, I think what Eggs is saying is that his data shows the population overwhelming won't do so, and their 3! range is going to be very linear and very narrow.

This is quite obviously not a discussion about GTO, but about exploit vs. what the pop is doing in these situations.