This doesn't sound true at all. He plays a range like he just said.

In case I was unclear about the exploitable argument... my live poker game is insanely exploitable against the majority of my opponents, but the more I play against someone, and the more I respect their game, the less exploitable my play against them becomes.

someone plz elaborate, is ZJ implying that in 6max cash 166bb deep, you should never 4bet vs ZJ oop?

well i was just pointing out that the preflop bet size is the correct size with TT..you COULD bet this size with JJ+ but then you risk losing your man to a fold, if you bet this size with something like AK/KQs you are charging yourself a lot of chips to draw (exploitable) so if i had TT in this spot and decided to 3b this is the size i'd use and probably not with any other hand

and if i hit a set on this flop i'd bet the flop and turn the same amount and naturally if called i'd shove the river so if this hand were face up it'd be TT exactly...no other hand fits this bet sizing so well which is why i naturally thought he didn't have that hand

we know he's going to be balancing with other parts of his range and playing some drawing hands exactly like he'd play TT but if this was a random avg player i'd be thinking set of tens

so if we just took a look at all the hands that beat us the only one that has been played unexploitably to this point is TT so lets break this down as far as what is "correct" poker

QJs or other flush or straight combinations flat pre
AA/KK re-raises less for value
TT raises a little more to make the flop too expensive for drawing hands to continue post flop

Please stop posting in HSMTT.

WAT

lol ABSURDITY

HOLY HEAD ASPLOSION BATMAN

i am not that smart but i think you guys got levelled!

unfortunately not

unrealzeal is just spreading his own particular brand of nonsense from SSMTT to HSMTT

I'm proud of myself for only reading 2-3 sentences of that before scrolling down and learning that I didn't need to read anymore

I usually quit after reading the poster's name.

i got thru 6 words HAH beat you (for the first time in the history of anything)

I think you could make an argument for never 4betting if you were getting 3bet by the blinds, but as a general principle i think that's pretty bad when you're out of position especially with deep stacks.

it's not a matter of being afraid to be outplayed. him being out of position means he should expect to be outplayed in general. it's the nature of the game that the person in position has a postflop edge - and that will generally be true, unless the person out of position is significantly superior.

if you go in with the plan of never 4betting, it's an open invitation for people to 3bet small in position with a large number of hands. and even if you never fold, the equity deficit that they take on the money that went in preflop will be more than made up for in post flop edge (assuming equivalent skill levels).


by never 4betting, you're making a lot of hands profitable for them at your own expense.


and if you're the guy in position whose 3betting against an opener who will never 4bet, your 3bet range is so wide that the opener would for sure benefit by 4betting their entire range... the sizing of which will vary depending on how deep you are.

which isnt to say that you should 4bet your entire range.

just that if other people knew that your game plan was to never 4bet, it would create a set of circumstances where 4betting would be overwhelmingly profitable. so the 'optimal' response cannot possibly be to never 4bet.

ZJ is the mayneeee but I'm havin a hard time grasping the never 4 betting vs him being optimal theory.

This is the opposite of what is true.

As stack sizes approach infinity, your goal when playing out of position should be to keep the pot smaller, and vice versa when in position.

Having a 4 bet range oop 10,000 BB deep would be a theoretical disaster.

Situations are situational.

And in this situation he elects not to 4 bet...and still faces a sitation where stacks are shallow enough for it to go bet bet jam, like it did. Maybe if this is the Main Event or some other sick structure where they start you off 300BB deep....but 150 is wayy different esp when playing 6 handed.

In theory getting in 150BBs 6 handed ~ getting in 100BBs 9 handed, no?

then why do you open for 3x in early position while 200bb's deep, when it's extremely likely that you'll get flatted or 3bet?

you're making the pot bigger than it has to be, when you could open limp.


the thing is - if skill levels are identical, when you're out of position you want to get as large a percentage of your stack in as you can in at an equity advantage preflop - to compensate for the fact that you're playing out of position. not to keep the pot small so you can outplay. the premise of optimality is that the person in position will be the one doing the outplaying.


and you arent dealing with even close to infinite stacks. you can get a substantial fraction of a 200bb stack in by 4betting in that spot. and if the openers range is significantly ahead of the 3bettors - which would by necessity be the case if an extremely good player believed that you never 4 bet here - it would become overwhelmingly profitable to 4bet.


if stacks were infinite, the optimal solution is... well, open tight and open big.


If makes no difference, as long as the number of players remaining to act behind the initial opener is the same.

Other than negligable card removal effects.

4b discussion, thought I'd get some insightful answer, but I still don't see it. obviously ZJ's game i respect very much, but i still think its wrong what he said. open to changing my mind though

1. first its 166bb deep, good cash players 200bb deep 4bet all the time pre vs each other, are you saying those 4bets are bad? also, are you saying 3betting LP openers from the blinds is bad?

2. about the 10k bb deep discussion, obviously being in position is a huge edge with 3 more streets to come... however, 4betting is wayyy necessary, to punish 3bets.

not 4betting ever would probably be significantly less than optimal, since it would allow people in position to completely and utterly **** on you, whereas when you 4bet you can get them to fold or play big pots where you have a strong range and they have a weak one.

now i know what you may be thinking, even if you have a strong range; and your opponent has a weak one that can still make the nuts (with random gutshots and the like), you are going to get crushed playing 3 inflated pots out of position with hands that can be turned into bluffcatchers. however holdem is somewhat unique in that you can still protect your range by having nut hands fairly often on whatever boards (read: not just bluff catchers.)

this is done by having a mixed strategy (with some hands, you sometimes 4bet, sometimes not) preflop when you 4bet, so when 10kbb deep, a really miniscule amount of the time you can still have a pocket pair, suited connector, etc. so when the board comes 887 or a ton of other boards, your opponent's bloodbath on you is kept in check since you can still have the nuts. In general, aside from 3flush boards where your opponent has the As, in holdem there aren't many "I don't have the nuts but I know you don't have it" spots, so as long as your range is constructed really well, your opponent can't just go balls out aggro on you in position correctly, if on most boards you can have the nuts some amount of the time.

again, compare it to a cash game where blinds never 3bet, you can then completely **** on them

I never said you shouldn't 4 bet 166 BB's deep 6 handed.

I'm not going to detail why I think a certain play is optimal or not against me specifically for obvious reasons.

lol oh.....ok

when zeejustin 3 bets you ppl, remember...NEVER 4 bet him, it isn't optimal. fold preflop or just call and lose the pot a huge % of the time to him. Those are your ONLY options. Anything else just isn't optimal.

i don't understand why people don't understand me, if this was face up poker zj has TT, sizing is everything...pf raise, drawing price on flop, isolation price on turn, shove river, all consistent with TT...what's difficult about that? how could that possibly not make any sense? I don't get it...online the bet sizing is all we have to read so why not read it to deterimine what hand(s) it represents?

ZeeJustin I'm not sure why are you saying that flatting your 3b's OOP every time is optimal vs you if you play well post flop. Seems you're doing something wrong if the only optimal way to exploit your 3b's is to flat them and never 4b. Playing bloated pots OOP vs someone who is very good and capable doesn't seem like the most optimal strategy all the time. Maybe if we have only the nuts pre then perhaps with your style the best strategy would be to flat. But if we want to open a lot/steal and play more pots with weaker players we can't be just flatting your 3b's with our whole range or folding. So yeah, I don't see how flatting the 3b's every time is going to be the best strategy long term, regardless of who it's against.

Agreed, I think you should be 4-betting some percentage of the time for the above reasons. Also, 4-betting should, in theory, make the original 3-bettor (ZJ) less likely to be mercilessly 3-betting you on future hands if he thinks you will be playing back at him preflop.