I was playing in a 30/60 LHE game recently and it brought up a few interesting spots. The game was LAG pre-flop with 3-4+ players usually seeing the flop. Betting pre-flop was aggressive with every hand raised and 3-bet+ happening regularly. The game has a 4-bet cap unless heads-up. Game was 9 handed.

I was on the button and the betting before me was UTG+1 raise, MP flat, HJ 3-bet, CO flat. ISO raises were not really effective in this game and generally if someone already had money involved they would call any additional amount to see the flop. If I 4-bet we would go to the flop with 5+ players a majority of the time.

I don't really have a flatting range in this situation and would 4-bet all hands I decide to continue with. What range of hands would you continue with? With our immediate and implied odds it appears to be a good situation to 4-bet with a fairly wide range, but would like to see what others think.

Ranges will help a lot here, IMO.

Also is 4 a cap where you play?

Yes, 4-Bet cap in the game unless it is heads up.

With two players raising and two flatting before me I would imagine the overall ranges as pretty wide. Any broadways, 55+, suited hands. The other players appear to be regulars in the game and have been playing very aggressive for the few hours I was there. Post-flop play is what you would expect, if anyone catches a piece they see it through to the river for multiple bets.

It feels like a situation where hands like AJo, KJo, or QTo go down in value because they could be dominated, whereas suited connectors and other hands that require good odds to play go up in value. Basically a $120 shot to smash the flop and win a potential 1K to 1.5K pot. I think there is a fine line between spew and good play here which is why I am inquiring about other's thoughts on a 4-bet range for this scenario.

You noted the hands that go up in value (suited connectors, pairs) and which go down in these types of games. I'd have a 4b range consisting of QQ+ (as UI high pairs go down in value), all suited connecting broadways, and AKo in this game, but I'd also cc some hands - and not worry about splitting my range, because based on your description of the game, opponents won't be able to take advantage. Normally hands like 109ss would be folded, but I'd prob cap it bc it not only plays well MW, but is also well-disguised compared to what people think of as typical capping range

i haven't done the sims here, but notice that in your assumptions here you're only getting about 10:1 ($1200ish:120) for the conditional probability of a) smashing the flop, b) hitting your draw when you do smash the flop draw wish, and c) your hand being good at the end.

in these types of games, the thing i don't see mentioned here is how high that initial cost is to get in. sure, the pot at the end can be huge, but paying 4 bets with like JTs may not be worth it. again, i could be wrong here, but that's a lot to pay for a drawing hand that will rarely win by pairing up 5+handed for 4 bets. AA/KK/QQ/JJ/TT/AK/AKs/AQs/AJs/KQs and maybe QJs are the hands that you want to take into battle here. and you should be prepared to toss the big pairs against significant action OR get to showdown as cheaply as possible. that said, in big pots, people do sometimes do insane things to try to win them so you can't just fold an overpair to significant action, but sometimes you have to, depending on the people/action etc.

if the game was 1-2 bets pf and then people go nuts post flop, that's totally different. but i actually agree with the old school general advice given by david/mason in HPFAPs: play strong hands that can end up giving implied odds (big card hands that can withstand a ton of action) and play pretty damn tight. but also we wary of offsuit big cards. really only AK here imo though again, i could be wrong depending on what sims say. the logic is that with so much money in the pot, and so many players drawing to everything and anything, an offsuit aq will almost never win unimproved w/ top pair, for example. without the added value of a nut flush draw, it's pretty much not worth playing. i mean i'm definitely folding AJo here and definitely capping AKo, so AQo can go either way.

If I am convinced the pot is going to go 5 handed, I am not only playing JTs on the button, I'm playing 65s on the button.

Do some stoves. These hands actually go up in value when you have a 3-bettor and a capper and a 5-way pot, because those ranges just barely intersect with us at all and we are trying to hit flushes and straights.

Actually, the much tougher question isn't suited connectors (which you should basically play in position in this situation) but small pocket pairs, which only deliver value if you are going to get enough post-flop action to give you 10 to 1 or so implied odds. So if you are putting in 4sb, the ultimate pot needs to be 40sb when you hit your set (and maybe even a bit larger, because the pot will be so big you will be forced to tear one off on the flop too).

Generally speaking, the more zany a game is, the more hands you can play profitably. There's games and players where you can pry 99 out of my cold, dead hands preflop, and other games and players where I'd fold it to a single raise.

MB is right in that you don't have to worry about bisecting your range between caps and cold calls when pots are going off 5 handed: Everyone is going to be playing wicked ABC and just checking to the dude who probably has the best hand, and raising him if they think they pulled ahead. If BB is loose, it could certainly be defensible to call 3 cold with any pocket pair on the button facing the aforementioned action.

but there's a problem with that logic as well:

1. flushes and straights aren't guaranteed to be good. there can be higher flushes out there w/ so many people in the pot, sets are more likely as are 2 pair, which means you're cry calling an action filled flop on the river if the board pairs and will sometimes lose, and you can lose to flushes if you hit the straight, higher straights, or boats. the conditional probability of actually taking down the pot with 65s might go up since cards aren't shared, but it also goes down as well with more people liking their hands in the pots.

2. the raw equity doesn't take into account the cost of losing or drawing and missing. that's expensive as hell in these kinda games. you can't just look at raw equity here.

3. small pairs should be tossed imo. it's almost surely not playable with 5 players b/c if you do hit your set, you still have to win a sizeable pot and, as you mentioned, you sometimes have to peel due to pot size even for 2 bets on the flop. depending on where the pfr came from, you may not be in good relative position even if you're in the best absolute position. this hurts a LOT in those situations b/c either you'll be forced to toss a potentially huge pot winning hand, or you'll be tied on one bet at a time.

as a result of the aggression levels and the cost you'll have to pay, even if a stove says that, say, 65s goes up in value, it would have to be offering a sizeable overlay of the 17%ish breakeven equity to be worth it.

I think you're missing something in your analyses, which is that we aren't facing normal raise and 3-bet ranges.
In an extremely aggressive game as described, you're going to get a lot of open QTo, 3-bet A8o situations, where folding AJo is going to be a minor-to-major mistake.

In a game like this, with position, I'd probably cap 99+, 87s+, QTs, KJs, ATs, AQo+, and AJo depending on more specific reads against the raiser and 3-bettor in the specific hand.

yea, just as i thought. i just did a 6 handed pot w/ various combinations of the following ranges:

UTG+1 15.57% 14.77% 0.80% 33+, A5s+, KJs+, QTs+, JTs, AJo+, KTo+, QTo+
UTG+2 20.08% 19.10% 0.98% 88+, ATs+, KJs+, AJo+
MP1 15.29% 14.30% 0.99% 44+, AKs, KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, A8o+, KJo+
MP2 15.22% 14.24% 0.98% 44+, AKs, KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, A8o+, KJo+
MP3 15.72% 14.80% 0.92% 55+, AKs, KQs, QJs, A8o+, KJo
CO 18.13% 17.51% 0.61% 65s

I changed the tightness and looseness a bit here and there. I did 5 people with the tighter range, a mix of people as is listed here, all the way to 5 people with the looser range. It's 12%ish played for a 3bet with the initial raiser coming in with 17% of his hands UTG+1. So, uh, that's loose as sh*t lol

and in no simulation was this hand running away with things. As expected:

1. 65s does 4% points better than T9s (18.5%ish vs. 14.5%)
2. Never does 65s get above 19%
3. if you give ALL FOUR people the 44+ (15.54% of hands) range and the original PFRer his 17% range, 65s goes down to 17.62%. so generally, looser ranges lead to 65s going down

Now, other stuff:

4. AJo comes in at 11-12%. So yea, def fold the hell outta that as i expected but as people were saying is wrong.

here's AJo w/ the 3bettor having a tighter range. it does go up to just under 12% if we expand that range:

UTG+1 17.47% 16.69% 0.77% 33+, A5s+, KJs+, QTs+, JTs, AJo+, KTo+, QTo+
UTG+2 17.57% 16.38% 1.19% 88+, A6s+, KJs+, QJs, JTs, A8o+
MP1 18.08% 17.24% 0.84% 44+, AKs, KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, A8o+, KJo+
MP2 18.10% 17.28% 0.81% 44+, AKs, KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, A8o+, KJo+
MP3 17.96% 17.03% 0.92% 55+, AKs, KQs, QJs, A8o+, KJo
CO 10.83% 9.23% 1.60% AJo

5. AQo comes in at 14-15%, so still worth tossing imo due to reverse implied odds and the cost of playing in this kinda game, and
6. AKo is 16-17% so RIGHT AT all in equity ev. I'm not folding AKo though as it's way easier to play overall i'd say than 65s since you're almost never dominated and aren't in a position where you have to call 4 bets with an oesd or flush draw and miss, for example.
7. AKs jumps to 20%, so suitedness ofc adds a ton here (
8. 65OFFSUIT does 2-3% points better than AJ lol. It's about where AQo comes in. think about that one.
9. 22-66 come in at around 15%, so they underperform, but that gives them ALL FIVE cards. so i'm definitely folding them.
10. 77 and 88 are 16-17.5%ish so i'm folding them too. i think i'd have 99 as the bare minimum here and still just hope to hit a set. 99 is 19% whereas 88 is 17.51% so that makes a big difference as a cutoff hand imo.
11. even AJs underperforms coin flip all in EV at 15.25%. ATs is like 14.25% and then it dives off a cliff starting at A9s to 12% and less.

so generally, i stand by every statement i made in this thread. all in ev includes all 5 cards, doesn't include the cost of hitting a flop hard and missing the draw or hitting and losing, and since we're really not getting much overlay vs. the field equity wise, even though we're in great position, it's not worth having such a silly wide range where we have 65s in this type of a game. I'll go with my initial range with a slight adjustment:

99+,AKo,AJs+, and KQs (KJs was 16.5% and QJs falls to ~15.5%, so maybe i'll include KJs, but QJs and below do not do as well equity wise. now, in game time, i think i can probably play well enough to include the extra 12 hands (KJs, QJs, and JTs), but even that's borderline as we can see here and i should probably fold them as well leaving just the range at the beginning of this paragraph.

also, if you're playing QTs here for example, that has identical equity figures to 98s, and if you're playing 98s, all of a sudden you have a wider range than most of the other players who are playing now tighter than you are and ALL have better (>16%ish) equity vs. hands like those.

There's a lot I think you are getting wrong here, but I will confine it to two things at the moment:

1. 18 percent equity 6 ways in a 4 bet pot is a SIGNIFICANT edge. Notice that even UTG+2 in your scenario, with the super-strong range, only has 20 percent equity. We're collecting lots of Sklansky dollars from our opponents every time we get into this situation.

2. The button is extremely valuable. As jdr said, there's going to be far less post-flop deception in these big multi-way pots, because it doesn't work very often. So you are going to be getting a ton of information on every street about your hand and where it stands. Whereas other players are going to be acting without significant information about you.

I love anything with 18 percent equity on the button in a 6-way pot. That's basically printing money.

either i communicated my point/understanding badly, or you misinterpreted what i said. i'm not sure which lol, so i'll take the blame.

to restate:
- if we were playing a randomized game, and you told me that i had a 17% edge while everybody else had a 16.67% edge and one person had a 16.34% edge, i'd take that game all day, err day
- so technically, if you ONLY want to look at hot and cold equity, 17% and 18% are huge edges. i'm saying that is 100% the case
- BUT, we aren't just putting in $120 and taking out our equity. some hands will be extremely expensive to make, and as i mentioned numerous times, sometimes you'll spend a ton and miss, or a ton and be 2nd or 3rd best. yes, when you win, it's a huge pot, but how often are you taking down that 40+sb pot vs. how often are you putting in 5-6bbs and getting 0 back?
- the concept is virtually the same as determining whether you want to bet the river vs. a solid player. you can't just do it when you're good just over 50% of the time when called. sometimes you'll get kr'd so you have to account for that. just like you have to take into account game play in a 6 way aggressive pot.

edit: I forgot to mention your #2 thing. id did specifically address that. your relative position matters a lot. if it's raise, call call call 3bet and then you, that's way way worse than if it's raise 3bet call call call. point is, the bu doesn't guarantee you great relative position.

I think you over-worry about putting in money to make your hand. It's true that you will sometimes be putting in money on the flop with weak draws, such as gutshots and backdoors. But the vast majority of the time, you are going to be putting in money with at least 8 outs, and some of the time you are even going to be putting in money as a favorite against the field. Plus, your implied odds are significant when you hit your hand.

Also, you are going to be able to dump the hand a lot of the time when it's hopeless.

As for relative position, it's certainly an issue at first, but you are still going to get plenty of information as the hand goes on based on whether people raise or fold and whether the initial aggressor stops betting.

uphill, all those things you're listing apply to the other players at the table too

two (to six) wrongs don't make a right . i think it's a mistake to be 3betting w/ 55 or calling 3 cold with it in games like these, but that seems to be the consensus of what those other 5 people are doing in this hand lol. doesn't mean that we should be exposing ourselves to aggressive 2-4 bet flops and 1-3 bet turns with draws even including the implied odds.

bbb-> what's your range if you were the CO in my sims?

and law-> we just disagree about the impact those non-h/c equity factors have on the hands in question. i'll err on the side of being a bit too snug in games like those.