Are there players that don´t play with a 4betting range 6max 100BB deep?
Saying you only call/fold to 3b. You don´t 4bet.

-You can use your postflop edge
-It has less varience
-you save yourself from stupid preflop wars, 4bet bluffs and weak 3bet calling ranges and tilting flips you always seem to lose

What is the downside to it that is not covered by an upside?

Serious question. I really don´t understand it.

You should 4bet AA because you want to build a pot with the nuts. That means you should also bet with other hands because if you only 4bet AA you are exploitable. So it begins.

EDIT

What I'm saying is that value betting is a core principle of making money. You need to build a pot with the nuts. If you don't re-raise with AA, you can't stack off pre against people who will GII with other premium hands that they will fold on unfavourable boards in 3bet pots.

KK will usually GII pre, QQ/AK often will and weaker hands will also GII depending on position and other dynamics. If you skip your pre-flop GII with the nuts vs. these hands, that's a big part of your winrate gone. AA makes ~60bb EV when we GII 100bb deep vs. premiums. That's a vital part of our win rate.

I link this theard. If you read it and are interested and more knowledgeable than I am let me know you want to dicuss.
https://www.runitonce.com/nlhe/playi...betting-range/

If u think u can flat call a 3! Oop and outplay your opponent post flop u are likely over estimating your skill advantage.

Imo it’s critical to 4! Premiums both so that u get value and to deny your opponents equity and ability to out maneuver u post flop with position and initiative.

Granted I’ve never called a 3! Oop with AA or KK (Or ever QQ/AK) these hands just play so much better before the flop when they’re the nuts than wait to see a flop and get confused with too deep of an SPR to love stacking off

I agree with all of this and I feel like it just makes it very hard to play post flop. Let's say you have AA and the board comes up QJT. What are you going to do against cbets? Since you didn't 4bet, Villain's range is wide enough to cause you trouble.

What will you do against a big bet? Fold your over AA and potentially allow KK to get away? Get it in to get stacked by AK, QQ JJ and TT? Even QT and K9s can be 3bet profitably in some spots. This is an extreme example but I hope you understand what I am saying. Instead of getting value from KK, you now have to fold or get stacked

You allow so many hands to see a flop, that you never really know where you're at with your top hands. Also hands which you normally crush, will get an opportunity to get away instead of paying you off, hands like AK. It'll continue on flops with some draws. But on most of them they'll eventually shutdown around the turn denying you your equity.

So now instead of getting 100BB from AA vs AK, 92% of the time. You get maybe 40BB like 40% of the time. Only when they hit something worthy of paying you off.

To answer your question, yes you can do it. But whether you'll be profitable doing it, is another question. I think not.

Also this, if you were able to consistently outplay your opponents in tough spots like this, you wouldn't be asking this question here. In the Beginners section of the site.

I play mostly NL25, Nl50 and NL100.
And people 3B a ton especially BTN vs CO and SB vs BTN.
Especially BTN vs CO is very annoying.

Calling in these spots is asking for trouble because you´ll never have it.


What you said with AK vs AA is one extrem example.
You can make the exact argument if he 3b AQ and you flat KK and board comes Q 3 2. Now instead of making him fold and winning 8BB from him through your 4b you can win a huge pot or even stack him.

When you have nut + equity advantage post flop it becomes quiet easy. Also players are just terribly bad at my stakes so yeah, if i study a bit which I will do I guess I will have a huge edge.

(I already finance myself (student) basically through poker

Also if you flat vs SB/BB you are IP.

Next point: you lose some ev in AK vs AA spots, but same goes the oter way around. You'll save money not stacking off.
+You generally make more vs their weaker 3b range.

yeah and then villain folds every time.

All your points can be used the exact other way around.

Then you 4bet-bluff a lot and steal his money. What's the issue there? I'd love to play against opponents that fold to every 4bet. Would be the easiest money in the world

This is nonsense. To break even villain has to fold around 60-65%. Close to 2/3 times.
Imagine playing in a big pool or an anonymous pool (rio) and you don´t even know villain´s 3b frequencies.

GL mate with your 4b bluffs.


You play poker to win money right? Do you believe you have an edge in your 4b/3b game? Pretty hard especially in nitty pools.
Postflop everyone in my pools is terrible. Just obvious as hell and easy to play against.

I was merely commenting on your post that said the villain would fold every time to a 4-bet.

The key is to mix it up so you're not predictable, by 4 betting AA, KK, AK etc. for value, you then mix in a couple of bluffs. So if they think you only raise premium hands and fold to much, you can steal some of their 3 bets. If they call, then there's a good chance you have a premium hand and have them beat anyway.
Your play should also change depending on how many opponent are in play.


Personally I have no real problem with having a no 4bet policy as long as your consistent with it, as you stay hard to read. I just wouldn't do it as I think you're missing an opportunity to raise the pot when you have a premium hand (Your opponent should be calling a 4 bet with a good proportion of the hands they're willing to 3bet with in the first place).
I could be wrong on this, but it seems to be what most others on this thread are saying?

For the record, I play mainly micro-stakes, so don't 4 bet bluff very much/at all, as I find people will call too light.

And how do you play your 3b calling range then? That is btw the big part here.

Try it and post results

So you limp 100% of hands and print money. What’s the question here?

This forum is called “Beginners Questions” and not “I make a statement disguised as a question and tell everyone how wrong they are when they have a different opinion”. If you don’t have beginners questions, post in the appropriate forum instead.

Just to illustrate how stupid blank statements like “never 4bet” are: you open the SB with AA and BB makes it 50BB. What’s the benefit of calling over getting it in against somebody who obviously won’t fold getting 3:1 on a call?

It really depends on a lot of different factors: How many players are still in? What reads do I have on them? What's my table image? What are stack sizes? Am I in position?

Generally I'd check most/all of my range to the preflop aggressor and let him make the first move, then go from there, but really there are too many factors that would effect decisions.


At micro stakes I usually play more fit or fold, but may float a small c-bet, and see what comes on the turn.

I'm still a beginner (hence being on this forum) but trying to learn as much as possible.

Just to illustrate how stupid blank statements like “never 4bet” are: you open the SB with AA and BB makes it 50BB. What’s the benefit of calling over getting it in against somebody who obviously won’t fold getting 3:1 on a call?
Great example. Exactly the point that was made in this discussion.

So you limp 100% of hands and print money. What’s the question here?
Again sadly a stupid point since you can easily take it to the other extrem as well. Badly played here buddy. Missed the point completely. F+ , the + for trying to be creative/funny.

This forum is called “Beginners Questions” and not “I make a statement disguised as a question and tell everyone how wrong they are when they have a different opinion”. If you don’t have beginners questions, post in the appropriate forum instead.
So you hold dicsussions without having an original statement? Sick stuff!

Yeaht thats the problem. See if you are CO and you call a 3B vs the BTN your range is quite weak. Now add the fact that you don´t know Button 3B tendencies and your whole postflop game basically becomes a guessing game and you hope he does not tripple barrel on most boards. You also hope he is unbalanced, has sizing/timing tells etc.
Just very hard to play.

Never 4 betting doesn't remove any of that uncertainty though? Sure you have stronger hands in your range, but given that you don't know the BTN's tendencies, he probably doesn't know yours either, so he won't know you never 4 bet, and will still assume you're weaker.

Now when you do have a strong hand it means you can trap him as he's not expecting it, but he's still going to be just as likely to barrel you unless you show a sign of strength.

Yeah but it is very easy to overfold if your range is weak.
It sucks if villain can f.ex. bet half pot and you are in trouble finding good continus to not make it auto profit for him betting any two cards. You feel me? If he is betting half pot we have to continue with more than 66% of our range, don't we?
And its not cool playing the guessing game vs unknown so I'd rather have a stronger range.

I guess the issue there then is constructing your 3bet calling range so that it's strong enough to be able to continue to a half pot c-bet 66% of the time, or a pot sized bet 50% of the time etc. I think you only get into trouble when you call 3bets too light, because then as you say, you have to fold too often to c-bets.

But you also have to defend a certain amount vs 3B and then on every single street. It's so hard to do and we are no computers with balls to call down what are ridiculous hands by todays human standards.

There are a ton of boards where trippel barreling is printing money in lower limits, especially vs reggish players.
Just play for stacks in these spots and they will (rightfully) overfold because population aint bluffing.

If you're in position vs a 3-bet (by someone in the blinds), then it's actually beneficial to only have a narrow 4-bet range, and a wider flatting range. In UTG v BB 3-bet, for example, I would routinely flat KK. I would not flat AA though. It has a much higher EV as a 4-bet. The former (KK) does not block many of villain's bluffs (with hands like ATs, A5s) so it can get value by calling the 3-bet and picking off a c-bet bluff. If you 4-bet KK, then villain folds his bluffs (so there's no value for you), and just stacks off KK+/AKs and you get it in bad.
AA by contrast, does block Ax bluffs, which means villain is more likely to have KK/QQ when he 3-bets, so you should 4-bet for value and get stacks in with 80%+ equity.
Since you should always be 4-betting AA for value, but it's only 6 combos, you should only 4b bluff with about half a dozen combos of Ax hands (that block AA/AK, ofc) for balance. KK/QQ can (sometimes) go into your flatting range to help "protect" your weaker flats, and enable you to call down on boards like Jxx/Txx. (i.e. You don't fold the best overpairs in 3-bet pots, and having these overpairs in your range prevents villain from triple-barreling all the time).
In a BTN vs SB battle by contrast, villain in the SB should be willing to stack off JJ (or TT or even AQ), so in that case KK/QQ are clear 4-bets for value. In BBvUTG/MP though, he's not stacking off worse than KK/AK (unless he's an idiot), so your 4-bet range should be much stronger and more polarized (e.g. AA, A5s-A4s).

The idea of having no 4-bet range at all is just stupid though. It would be as peculiar as having no 3-betting range or no pre-flop raising range, or no c-betting range. Some hands (particularly the nuts) need to build the pot, and by having the nuts in your raising range, you also get the opportunity to bluff profitably with hands that would otherwise have to fold.