I play nl10 zoom 6max.
The regs tend to be pretty nitty. Rarely will I see one of the tighter regs get all in preflop with less than KK. Some of them seem to auto stack off AK, QQ+ but most of them don't. The tight regs don't 5bet jam light, but they do often 3bet/fold.

My question is..

Is it OK to 4bet/fold AK as a bluff OOP at these stakes?
I know I'm way ahead of their 3betting range, but I'm dominated by their 5betting all in range. And I don't like calling OOP, just doesn't seem like a good option.

Example:

PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Villain (BTN): $11.42
SB: $10.00
BB: $11.07
UTG: $11.34
MP: $4.40
Hero (CO): $12.94

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has K A

fold, fold, Hero raises to $0.30, BTN raises to $0.90, fold, fold, Hero raises to $2.30, fold

Would it be terrible to fold if villain shoved?
I don't think he's adjusting his 3betting/5betting ranges to the CO/BTN dynamic. I don't think he ever expects me to 4bet bluff.

It's not a bluff in the sense that I expect him to fold a better hand. But he will be folding hands that have equity against me and hands that will be able to bluff me post flop if I call.


Of course I still get all in with fish and some of the more aggro regs. But vs. Unknown taggs/regs with full stacks, I'd be surprised if it wasn't -EV in these games.


Am I just plain wrong about people's 5bet jamming ranges? I would argue no. Since I've played over 100k hands at nl10 6max zoom..

Either 4bet get it in or flat the 3bet if you don't want to play for stacks.

Sure you can 4bet fold but if you we're going to do that why wouldn't you just do that with a weaker hand instead?

Agree if your going to 4 bet you have to get it in why would you turn ak into a bluff your better off taking 108s into a bluff. Just call his 3 bet your way ahead of his range and don't fold to his cb on flop.

Do you think flatting 3bets OOP is profitable?
I always have difficulties playing in 3bet pots OOP, so now I just always 4bet or fold unless it's a tiny 3bet. Won't it be easy for our opponent to put us on a range? Like TT-QQ, AK, AQs.

One of the reasons for 4betting AK is because of it's blockers. But I suppose it could be done with hands like AQ, KQ. I don't think I want to be 4betting random junk because I will get called fairly often. So I want to have something that plays OK post.

Flatting 3bets OOP with a hand with solid equity is fine. The difficulty is knowing how to play the flop properly. You can't just simply fold when you don't hit. A lot of times you may be required to at least float a street based on villain's predicted range and that can be difficult for a lot of players who are used to playing with made hands. Situations can change based on board texture or draw potential as well.

When you hold AKs, one of the top 4 hands in the game, you are limiting your potential if you just wanna make it into a bluff.

Like I said in my OP, it's not really a bluff in the sense that I expect him to fold a better hand. Basically, I'm bluffing out his positional advantage. I think he'll be able to play really well against me if I just call (or maybe it's that I won't be able to play well against him, I have trouble playing OOP in general).

I can't imagine flat calling being very +EV in my example, CO vs BTN, if I'm just playing fit or fold. It might be slightly +EV but I would think that I would make more money by 4betting and getting him to fold if he's only 5betting KK+ There's only 3 combos for each KK and AA. As opposed to 6 each if I had T8s

If that's your problem then you might as well fold to the 3bet. "bluffing out his positional advantage" makes no sense when you have a hand with higher equity over his range.

"fit or fold" play will only get you so far. You're going to have to learn to play postflop properly if you want to maximize profit in these spots.

I agree with OP that calling a 3bet oop with 100BB deep is not a good play. Our range would be way too unbalanced, since we would 4bet KK+ and fold almost all other hands.

If a villain tend to 3bet light, but only 5bet KK+, hes is very exploitable, and you have to start 4bet/folding every single hand in these spots. As soon as villain realizes this, his 5bet-range will widen, so that you can put AK and QQ into your 4bet/calling-range again.

The other possibility against these villains is to call their 3bet with a lot of hands including AA and KK, but this often leaves you in a 3betpot oop which isnt the juciest spot on earth.

Its good to have AK,QQ,JJ in the 4betting range because these people sometimes coldcall 4bets and having a premium hand when they flat sure helps.

Fold to a 3-bet rather than 4b/fold, really? That makes zero sense. It's obvious that 4-betting in this spot with blockers is profitable (AK has the best blockers) so 4-bet/folding AK is also profitable. And if villain only 5-bets KK+, we have to fold to a 5-bet. I'm not going to argue which is more profitable, calling or 4-betting but what I want to say is that 4-bet folding is totally fine. This is obviously only if villain 5-bets only with a range that crushes us, which I'm not convinced is true, so I'm talking purely theoretically here.

"bluffing out his positioal advantage" doesn't really make much sense but "folding their share of equity" makes a lot of sense. It's a part of gaining value to make hands fold that have equity against you. This rings true especially in preflop play.

Never said I would be folding to a 3bet here but my point was that if you have no confidence in your OOP post flop play and have no plan in situations where you miss you're just burning money so why flat?

Why 4bet fold the 4th best hand in the game when you can 4bet/fold with many others? Why can I not just flat and have higher equity over his 3betting range anyway?

Either call the 3bet, or 4 bet/call a shove. Even if 4bet/folding is better than 4bet/calling, it's still bad because you waste your hand, because you can make money preflop by calling the 3 bet.

you're just not 4bet bluffing enough assuming villain is actually 3betting light.

I'm not really asking how to construct my 4bet range (although, there's been a couple really helpful posts ITT about how I can exploit villains with with super tight 5betting ranges) .

I'm asking what should I do with AK in this spot, and if 4bet folding a valid option.
It seems like people would rather call OOP than 4bet/fold.
I was under the impression that calling 3bets OOP was really bad.. I guess now I realize that it's okay to do if you're not playing fit or fold post-flop.

So, I didn't really see calling as an option. I just thought I could
a) fold to his 3bet
b) 4bet/call it off (which, I'm not so sure about, I think I'm way behind villain's range at that point)
or
c) 4bet/fold (seemed like the only +EV option to me..)

good 4bet sizing btw

calling a 3bet OOP and playing postflop is better than 4bet/folding a value hand.

Calling a 3bet OOP is perfectly fine in some cases. Most players tend to call way too much, with too wide of a range, and play fit or fold postflop though.

anything regarding folding pre is bad

it's terrible
just call the 3bet if you think he'll have a very tight 5bet range

As said before, im not a friend of calling the 3bet oop. It isnt the AK hand that makes my stomach ache, its all the other hands we have to call the 3bet oop to balance our range.

So to all who advocate calling the 3bet: with what other hands do you want to play this way to balance your range? AT+? suited connectors? PP?
Every time you miss you are playing a guessing game oop in a big pot. While this may work with AK, its hard to realize an edge with the other hands in your range.

Overall, it may be true that [call 3bet with AK] > [4bet/fold with AK] in a vacuum.
But as soon as we balance our calling range, its [4bet/fold with whole range] > [call 3bet with whole range]

You can't fold vs. a 100bb stack. You'll need 38.5% equity to call a shove, and against a range of QQ+, AK:

MP2 38.82% 18.15% 20.68% AKo
MP3 61.18% 40.50% 20.68% QQ+, AKs, AKo

Equity Win Tie
MP2 41.90% 22.62% 19.28% AKs
MP3 58.10% 38.81% 19.28% QQ+, AKs, AKo

If you're a little deeper, sure, you can fold to a shove. But in those situations, I think it would be better to call the 3bet anyhow.

I'm never that convinced about how tight some people's 5bet range is - how is he playing QQ or AKs against your 4 bet? Is he really folding? (In which case 4bet bluff more!) Does he want to call the 4bet and play fit/fold? (seems to be reverse owning himself)

If you have enough hands to determine that V's 5b range is ONLY KK+, you certainly have enough to figure out his flopCBet/double barrel tendencies ... and how to exploit this info on various boards.

if you know how to play out of position you can call 3bets.

but be prepared that you will have to c/f a ton on Flops with this structure:

985

with AK: aka AKo hands

you wont see 5 cards, which sucks, because you still have two overs, but cant really continue on such Flops.

and if villain has A Q for example, you are folding the better hand.


990 games 0.065 secs 15,230 games/sec

Board: 9c 8c 5s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 19.495% 17.37% 02.12% 172 21.00 { AcQd }
Hand 1: 80.505% 78.38% 02.12% 776 21.00 { AdKs }

Do you have any articles or strategy posts about this? I m really curious, because I always thought its terrible and I think its really hard to play a big pot oop without initiative tbh.
I can see cases when you deep where its unavoidable or when people have terrible 3betting sizes, but otherwise I dont think I have ever called a 3bet oop for said reasons.
And honestly I cant see that being a good strategy on small/mid stakes, but hey I m here to learn and will admit I m wrong when I read about it :P