Introduction:

In preparation for this COTW, I played 32,501 hands At NL $50, NL $25 and NL $10. I played Rush and standard FR tables, all on FTP.

I didn't see any big discrepancies between how Rush and regular tables played, so I won't draw any further distinctions between them in this article.

For the purpose of this COTW, a resteal is any reraise 3 bet or 4 bet made for the purpose of bluffing or semi-bluffing a player off of his previous raise, or any reraise 3 bet or 4 bet made for value that serves to balance bluff and semi-bluff reraises made in similar circumstances.

Overview:

Restealing is an advanced play. You are building a potentially stack-off-sized pot with marginal hands. For this reason, the primary determining factor in your 3 restealing strategy should be your post flop skill edge relative to the field and the player you are attempting to resteal from. In general, if you are a losing player, you should not really be restealing, and you should confine yourself to 3 betting mainly for value.

In specific, if you are contemplating a resteal from a player you think has a skill edge against you, think twice. Everything else being equal, I prefer to have a positional advantage when I resteal from a better player. The reason is the distribution of the 4 advantages of poker:

Position: I want it
Skill: He has it
Hand strength: He has it
Initiative: I'm taking it.

When I try to resteal against a better player when he has a positional advantage, say, his button against my BB, he has the two most important advantages—skill and position. If I'm bluffing, he has the hand strength edge, too, leaving me only with initiative (that he may very well re-seize by 4 betting). This is a very dangerous, clearly -EV spot to put yourself in. the only justification for doing it is that you think he will normally fold, rendering his advantages moot. If there is any reasonable chance you will see a flop in this situation, limit the frequency with which you volunteer to build a big pot against a better player holding a better hand while in position against you. Phrased that way, it makes sense, huh?

Should I be Restealing?

If you have a positive win rate, but you're not much above break even, then you should be very cautious and conservative in your approach to restealing. The exception to this statement is that if your win rate is on the low side because your blind losses exceed a combined total of -.6bb/orbit (in HEM take your SB loss rate + BB loss rate and divide sum by 100; in PT3, take the losses listed as “ptbb/hand” and double them and sum them), and you currently don't 3 bet much 9say, less than 3% from the blinds). I this case, your win rate is likely low partly because you are not restealing enough.

Why Resteal?:

There are two main reasons to resteal:

To increase your win rate by using hands you would otherwise fold to make a small, high variance profit.

To increase the profitability of your value 3 bets by making it harder for your opponent to put you on a hand (this is a pretty theory, but I don't think it works out at the micros).

There is an additional reason:

e-peen waving and bragging rights, so all the cool cats in SSFR will think you're hot **** just like them.

A Restealer's Guide to the Micros:

These three levels play very differently from one another. Using NL $50 as the benchmark, NL $25 is significantly more exploitable for a restealer. NL $10 is even more exploitable, but in a completely different way.

In general, NL $10 players should essentially ignore posts from NL $25 and NL $50 that deal with 3 betting. You have to 3, 4 and 5 bet at NL $10 in completely different ways than you have to resteal at $25 and $50.

This is a crucial point that I cannot overemphasize. If you apply advice from NL $25 or $50 to your 3 betting strategy to NL $10, you will get slaughtered. Conversely, if you take your 3 betting game from NL $10 to NL $25 without making significant adjustments, you'll run into serious problems.

The strategy I employed:

In restealing, I looked to bluff players that had a high fold to 3 bet (>70%). I looked to semi-bluff players that were relatively likely to call (fold to 3 bet >60% and <70%), and I went for thin value 3 bets against players who were likely to call (fold to 3 bet <60%). Because my sample was small and the player pools at $10 and $25 are huge, and pretty damn big at $50, too, I usually didn't have a reliable sample for villain stats. In those cases, I erred on the side of not restealing. I used as a proxy VPIP/PFR; the more solid the player looked, the more likely I was to use polarized value/semi-bluffing range; the nitty players I restole with a polarized range of value and bluffs, and anybody with passive tendencies as measured by the VPIP/PFR gap (gaps greater than 4 are increasingly passive) got hit with the merged light value range.

Restealing in General:

You are screwing up forevermore when you talk about your “3 betting range.” You should not have “a 3 betting range.” If you must simplify, you should talk about “which of my three different 3 betting ranges should I employ against this particular player?” But even that is a generalization; you should be able to tailor a 3 betting range to each player on the fly using the strategy guidelines that I just described above.

Look for the guys who are playing a fairly wide range (Tag/Lag VPIP/PFR) and opening from middle position. Against these guys, you don't really care what their fold to 3 bet stat is; it will just dictate the range of hands you 3 bet. If it's high, tend toward polarized value/bluffs (weighted to bluffs); if it is low, go for polarized value/semi-bluffs (weighted more or less evenly) and if it is really low go for merged light value.

Especially at NL $10, where they are everywhere, look for all of those 9/8 guys opening from MP1 or MP2, have a blocker to the top of their range, and 3 bet/fold liberally with a range that is very polarized value/semi-bluffs with blockers (Axs, Kxs). These guys almost always have high fold to 3 bets, so go for a range that is weighted toward air—I wouldn't even always 3 bet KK against a guy who is a 9/8 with an 85% fold to 3 bet!

Look for TAGs and LAGs with wide stealing ranges and high fold to 3 bets who are opening first in from the cut off, and abuse the crap out of them from the button. Anything that you can't call with that can flop decently is a good 3 betting hand against these guys.

From this point on, I will talk in more detail about how to adjust the general precepts of restealing that I outlined above to each of the 3 highest micro levels-- NL $10, $25 and $50. If you are playing lower than NL $10, you should employ a modified version of the NL $10 strategy I outline—modified to reduce the overall number of light 3 bets you make, so that your range to 3 bet is always weighted toward the top 2% hands (AA, KK, QQ and AK that you will sometimes be 3 betting for value).

Beginning the Tour—NL $10 (“A-B-C—as EZ as 1-2-3”)

If I had to say one thing about NL $10, it would be: the average player does not recognize most situations in which he can profitably open the pot for a raise. This is a fancy way of saying that, on average, NL $10 players have a pronounced tendency to see only fat value. If you put them in a situation where their value apparently shrinks up from fat to thin, they will not know how to handle it, and will make big mistakes.

Phrased differently, your average 9/8 NL $10 nit is very comfortable raising 99 from MP2 and c-betting any flop to collect dead money. But when you 3 bet him, he is clueless on the best way to react. Sometimes you'll see him react by calling, sometimes he'll ship, sometimes he'll fold. It depends on the player, but it doesn't really depend on your image a lot. If he 9/8's strategy is to fold 99 from MP2 when facing a 3 bet, he'll fold it regardless of whether your 3 bet stat is 2% or 8%.

The basic fact about NL $10 is this—most players have a game, and they stick to it. They won't vary their game to adjust to another player.

For the sake of comparison, here are my restealing stats from NL $200:

3 bets from the blinds: 5%
3 bets from the button: 4%
4 Bets from late position: 8%

Here are my restealing stats from NL $10:

3 bet from the blinds: 6%
3 bet from the button: 3%
4 bet from LP: 10%

Here are some stats that describe how my opponents reacted:

When I 3 bet:

9% of my 3 bets faced a 4 bet.

45% were called. That breaks down among my 3 bet stealing positions as:

20% of my 3 bets from the button were called.
40% of my 3 bets from the cut off were called.
45% of my 3 bets from the BB were called.
55% of my 3 bets from the SB were called.

Thus, my 3 bet success rate was only 46%.

What I have concluded is that my button and SB are both affected somewhat by variance here. In preparing this article, I have assumed that the weighted average of my LP and blind 3 bets that got called is probably more accurate than the position specific stats, so that an LP 3 bet gets called maybe 28-30% of the time and a 3 bet from the blinds gets called maybe 49% of the time.

When my 3 bet was called and we saw a flop, I c-bet 78% of the time and I got a fold 48% of the time. When I c-bet an ace or king high flop, my success rate went up to 70%. It's important to note that my sample size of ace or king high flops was really small so this stat is not necessarily carved in stone. However, it is only a little higher than my c-bet success rates on ace and king high flops at the stakes where I have a big sample (61% at NL $50, for example).


Lessons Learned about NL $10:

Lesson number 1 is this: preflop, you have very little fold equity. Literally most (54%) of my 3 bets were either 4 bet or called.

This is a significant problem for restealing at NL $10. When you are on the air part of your range, you're usually going to get called. This means that your preflop stealing strategy will show a loss, and you will have to make your profit post flop. This is especially true when you are 3 betting from the blinds; the stealer is going to call you about half the time, and you're going to have to play a pot.

The good news is the field displayed a significant tendency to play fit or fold on ace and king high flops. In general, I would be c-betting all of my air all of the time on these flops. When there is not an ace or a king on the flop, my c-bet success went down to 0% in a small sample, so be very careful c-betting air on low flops.

Bear in mind that I am speaking in generalities. In general, you should be reluctant to c-bet air in 3 bet pots on a low flop; however, use villain stats as the primary determinant. If you have a low flop but the villain's fold to c-bet stat is pretty high, say, in the 50s, you can probably go ahead and fire.

Lesson number 2: I got the sense (I can't back this up with stats) that NL $10 players who had called a 3 bet were more sensitive to bet size than guys playing higher. That is to say, on comparable board textures, they were significantly more likely to call a small ½ pot c-bet than they were to call a bigger c-bet. Thus, at $10, I don't think I would make a habit of making small c-bets with air. The exception to this would be on ace and king high flops; the flop texture gives you so much fold equity that you can get away with half pot c-bets.

Lesson number 3: In general, you should be making more 3 bets from the button than you make from the blinds. The reason for this is you have a lot more fold equity (and it'll be easier for you to profit post flop in position). Don't go crazy here and start 3 betting UTG raisers at the same frequency you are 3 betting button steals right now. Go for the low hanging fruit. OTB, 3 bet a lot against cut off opens from TAGs and Lags with wide stealing ranges. 3 bet bluff the 9/8 guys with hands that have a blocker tot he top of their range.

Lesson number 4: When you 3 bet a stealer from the blinds, you should have a range that is either a value hand or a semi-bluffing hand. Because you are going to be called so often, you should have a hand that does well against the stealer's calling range.

Obviously, as I said above, you will actually tailor which range to use to the villain who is actually stealing. That said, you will usually be facing a stealer who calls a lot, and that means you will usually need a semi-bluffing hand that can flop decently.

Lesson number 5: Don't assume that because you will usually be called or 4 bet, that people are calling you with trash. That's not the case at all. The primary reason your resteal 3 bet will usually be called or 4 bet is because people at $10 are not stealing enough.

Here is what I mean: At $200, the average person steals, lets say, 35% of the time, and calls a 3 bet 20% of the time. If we assume that he is 4 betting for value with top 2% hands, he is 4 betting for value with 1/17th of his stealing range (4%-ish), and calling with hands from the 91%ile to 98%ile of all starting hands. At $10, though, the average player is only stealing about 20%, so if he 4 bets the top 2% hands, he is value 4 betting 10% of his stealing range. When he calls you with 45% of his stealing range, he is calling you with hands from the 98th%ile down to about the 90%ile—basically the exact same hands as the guy at $200 is calling with.

Yet another caveat: That is another generalization; different players call with different hands, and at the extremes at NL $10, you'll find people willing to gambool with just about any two cards, and who won't ever call, and you will find more players playing closer to the extremes. But, on average, NL $10 players are basically calling with the same pretty strong hands that folks at $200 are calling with. The reduction in your restealing FE comes mainly from the strength of the average stealing range, not mainly from a willingness to call with weaker hands.

Lesson number 6: the CLEAR implication of lesson 7 is that, in general, 3 betting less from the blinds at NL $10 than at higher stakes is 100% the correct adjustment. Focus your efforts on the players who you can go for light value against (these are the loose passive fish occupying the extreme I just mentioned, that will call with a wider range), and against the people who have the widest stealing ranges and highest fold to 3 bet stats. Don't give the 12/10 guys with a 20% stealing range a pass, though; just make sure that when you occasionally 3 bet them on a bluff, that it is a semi-bluff with a hand that can out flop them some.

Lesson number 7: NEVER cannibalize your calling range to bluff or semi-bluff. I will beat you ruthlessly and call you fish if I catch you 3 betting a hand against anybody that, under the circumstances, you can play profitably by calling his raise. The idea here is not to move profits from the calling column to the 3 betting column; it is to make additional profit by 3 betting hands you would otherwise have to fold.

So, for example, small pocket pairs in the blinds when an aggro stealer is raising on a button steal are lousy calls (his stealing range is too wide and weak to pay off your sets), so it'd be a potential semi-bluff 3 bet. But we would never semi-bluff 3 bet 33 from the button against a 9/8 UTG opener, when we can make plenty of money set mining him.

Similarly, player A may have the capability to cold call A5s for a profit, whereas player B may not. In this case, player A should not 3 bet it, but player B sometimes should. You need to tailor your 3 betting range to your capabilities as well as your villain's tendencies.

Recommendation:

I haven't crunched any numbers on this, and subject to all of the caveats above regarding using the specific villain's stats as the primary determinant, I think a good 3 betting strategy at NL $10 would be something like:

UTG+1—MP2--1.5% value, .5% semi-bluffs with blockers
HJ-1.5% value, 1% semi-bluffs with blockers
CO-1.5% value, 2% semi-bluffs with blockers
BTN-5% total, 2% value, 3% bluffs and semi-bluffs
Blinds: 3%, maybe 4%, 2% value, 2% semi-bluffs

Don't aim for these stats. I'll say that again: don't aim for these stats. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you wind up with pretty much exactly these stats if you follow the advice I have given here to tailor your range to the tendency of the player from whom you are restealing.

4 Betting:

As I mentioned above, I 4 bet 10% from late position when I attempted a steal and was 3 bet either by the blinds or by the button if I was stealing from the cut off. Here is the further action for those hands:

Villain shoved: 23%
Villain called: 23%
Villain folded: 56%

These stats were in line with what happened at $25 and $50, too, and they are all in line with my NL $200 stats. The big difference is that people at $10 are not calling as many 4 bets as people playing higher.

Here are my stats from NL $200 for the sake of comparison when I 4 bet:

villain shoves: 17%
villain calls: 39%
villain folds: 44%

The implication of the surprisingly large number of flops we are seeing these days when we 4 bet other than for value is that we should usually have a semi-bluffing hand, not pure air. I didn't make this adjustment at the tables, as I didn't really realize that people across all stakes are calling as much as they are.

The hands in my stealing range, then, are going to have to be grouped into one of 4 groups:

hands I will call this villain's 3 bet with
hands I will 4 bet/fold
hands I will 4 bet/call
hands I will fold


The hands you 4 bet/fold can't be pure bluffs anymore, because people are calling a lot of 4 bets. You have to have something that will flop reasonably well every now and again.

I'm not sure which hands these would be against which players. We should have a discussion on this in this thread. As this was a revelation for me, I don't have any advice on it prepared.

Moving On Up: NL $25, the land of underadjusting regs

If I had to say one thing about NL $25, it would be this: The average raiser is good enough to know that he should be raising, but not quite good enough to know what to do when he gets 3 bet.

In my coaching sessions, I refer to this as a player's “preflop aggression having outrun his post flop skill.” But it is even more pervasive a leak than that. Here are a couple manifestations of it that basically define play at NL $25:

A player is stealing a wide range, but reacts in a completely static way to 3 bets from the blinds, almost completely independently of the stats of the players doing the 3 betting. He wants to be told “what hands he can call with.” Being told “what hands to call with against which players playing which stack sizes,” is TMI for most players at NL $25.

A player knows he is supposed to 3 bet from the blinds, but doesn't know why, doesn't know how to interpret stats correctly, and doesn't know how to play if you call or 4 bet. NL $25 players appear to be almost entirely fit or fold players post flop in 3 bet pots. This is especially true if you have the initiative against them.

To make the point in an extreme way: At $200, if I am OTB and I steal/4 bet a reg who 3 bets me from the blinds, that reg will almost always turbo ship or turbo fold. He almost always knows how he is going to react to a 4 bet before he puts in his 3 bet. At $25, the 3 bettor usually went to his time bank when I 4 bet him, indicating confusion; conversely, a turbo ship was a reliable tell that he had a premium hand.

Welcome to NL $25 (The land of underadjusting regs).

Here are my restealing stats from NL $25

3 bets from the blinds: 4%
3 bets from the button: 2.5%
4 bets from late position: 13%

And here are some stats on how villains reacted:

9% of my 3 bets faced a 4 bet

37% of my 3 bets were called. By position:

42% of my 3 bets from the button were called.
14% of my 3 bets from the CO were called.
57% of my 3 bets from the BB were called.
25% of my 3 bets from the small blind were called.

It looks like these stats are also affected by small sample variance, but they are not too far off from where I would expect them to be. I would expect people to call about 45% of 3 bets from the blinds (which is pretty much what the weighted average is for my two blind positions), and I would expect people to call about 35% or so of late position 3 bets, which again, is about what my weighted average is.

Here are the post flop stats in 3 bet pots:

I c-bet 66% of the time in 3 bet pots with a 35% success rate. I ran really bad in terms of getting decent flops to c-bet; I only flopped an ace or a king once (c-bet it and got a fold). So these stats are not terribly reliable; my success rate is too low as a result of not getting good flops to c-bet,and that also explains why my c-bet stat went from 78% at 410 to 66% at $25.

Here are my 4 betting stats:
When I 4 bet:

Villain shoved: 4%
Villain called: 61%
Villain folded: 35%

I suspect that these stats are being influenced by small sample variance. I didn't get shoved on as much as I should have, and I got called way more than I did at any other stake. That said, having played the hands, it did seem fairly clear that people at $25 were a bit more willing to call than players at any other stakes; in particular, I saw them calling OOP with AK fairly constantly.

Lessons learned:

Lesson 1: When you get to NL $25, you have noticeably more pre-flop fold equity when you 3 bet than you did at NL $10. the primary reason for this is that people are playing wider ranges. You see fewer players playing 9/8, and you see people stealing from LP with a wider range. Both of these facts force them to fold more often than the field at NL $10 has to fold.

Lesson 2: When you get to NL $25, you have noticeably more fold equity when you 3 bet than you do at NL $10. The secondary reason for this is because people are a bit more adept at playing position, and have a slightly more pronounced tendency to fold to 3 bets when they will be out of position relative to the 3 bettor. This appeared to be a slight tendency, and, in fact, I can't rule out the possibility that it is an artifact of sample size.

Lesson 3: As compared to NL $10, open up your 3 betting from the blinds. This was a very noticeable tendency—NL $25 players fold their LP steals to a 3 bet from the blinds significantly more than players at $10.

Lesson 4: When 4 betting, weight your range heavily toward value. To be honest, I got my butt kicked 4 betting anything other than a 3 bet from the blinds against a button steal. Rarely bluff or semi-bluff 4 bet except in the precise situation in which you were on a steal and got 3 bet by somebody with a high 3 bet stat from the blinds.

Lesson 5: Take basic notes on these guys who are making big mistakes. The note “calls 4 bets IP” is worth its weight in gold. I also identified several regs who did not seem to adjust to the fact that I was 3 betting them almost every opportunity. I also identified some regs who adjusted to being 3 bet by not stealing as much. These players are equally, but differently, exploitable. Take correct notes on them so you will know how to exploit various players.

NL $50—Go big or go home.

Don't get me wrong, this was not a common sight at NL $50; but where it existed, it was so prevalent that I became convinced that I could make a living just identifying a few regs and bum-hunting them.

Because what these few regs were doing was this: they were massively overadjusting.

If I had to say one thing about playing $50, it would be this: It is mostly like playing $25, except that, on occasion, you will run into a regular who makes huge mistakes by massively overadjusting. I'm talking about regs I found who were 3 betting from the blinds as much as 13-16%. I found one reg who, in a sample of multiple thousand hands, was restealing from the BB 21%.

These guys can get away with these absurd stats because people are underadjusting to them. I mean, seriously, if a guy is 3 betting the top 18% of hands from the blinds, my entire stealing range of 40% of hands has about 42% equity against his 3 betting range. I should literally 4 bet my entire stealing range against every 3 bet he makes (and pull my profit from his folds). (In fact, because these guys are 3 betting a polarized range, my equity is actually better than that).

So a lot of these regs are getting way out of line. If you can find them, come up with a plan to exploit them, and then stick to the plan until you recognize them readjusting.

Here were my stats from NL $50

3 bets from the blinds: 6%
3 bets from the button: 3%
4 bets from late position: 12%

And here are how the villains reacted:

When I 3 bet:

12% faced a 4 bet
36% were called. By position:
32% of my 3 bets from the button were called
35% of my cut off 3 bets were called
36% of my BB 3 bets were called
37% of my SB 3 bets were called.

Lessons learned:

Lesson 1: You actually have decent fold equity 3 betting from the blinds. This is mainly due to the fact that most people are stealing a wider range at $50 than they are at $25, so they are forced to fold some more.

Lesson 2: the difference is extreme enough between $50 and the lower levels that I would say that, on average, you should have a 3 betting range from the blinds at 50 that is polarized and weighted toward bluffs, whereas at lower levels you should have a range that is polarized value/semi-bluffs. When you are moving up from $25 to $50, keep this in mind and make sure that you adapt your 3 bets. If you are making player specific 3 bets as I advocate here, this should happen automatically. But make sure that you are on guard to not make 3 bets from habit that you would have made at $25.

Lesson 3: the most common mistake I saw people make at $50 was folding too much to 3 bets. Which really means that they were underadjusting to the fairly high 3 bet stats I was employing against them. I only recognized one or two players I was confident were playing back at me based on the frequency of my 3 bets.

Lesson 4: people at $50 think “fold til I get a premium then 4 bet this guy” is the optimal adjustment. Enjoy it, but FFS, don't 5 bet bluff shove.

Lesson 5: When on your button, show absolutely no restraint in 3 betting cut off opens against standard regs; I mean, just be a complete slut about this. They are all good enough to have a fairly wide stealing range from the CO, but they make big mistakes by folding and calling too much. Note who is making which mistake, and adjust accordingly. Respect 4 bets; as a rule, nobody is really 4 betting light often enough to justify anything other than a fold. However, there are a few regs who are 4 and 5 betting light—identify them and the spots they are doing it in (usually CO v. button and button or blind v. blind) and go to town reg warring.

Lesson 6: the effect of your high 3 bet stat OTB against CO raises will be to level earlier position players into thinking that you could be light when you 3 bet them from the button. Enjoy! Seriously, people will make big mistakes here against you, so be very careful, but, everything else being equal, tend once you have established a really high button 3 bet stat by abusing guys on the CO, you should err on the side of getting it in preflop with your value range against earlier position regs who 4 bet you when you know the reg is capable of adjusting.

Here were my 4 betting stats from $50:

Villain shove: 18%
Villain called: 40%
Villain folded: 52%

Note the high percentage of calls of 4 bets. If you craft a smart range comprised of semi-bluffs and value, this will turn out to be a huge mistake the field makes against you.
I've said nothing about stack sizes, and not nearly enough about position. This monstrosity is already 11 pages in my word processor, so I'm going to post it now and get the discussion started.

Great stuff, mpethy!!

Thank you for this good read!

motherofgod.jpg

Reading!

will check it out asap.

and now, in before we all start cold 4-betting regs BTN 3-bets.

ok, we need to skip a week for COTWs now - I need more time to digest.

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

wow,

many thanks

Cool read, although I was kind of surprised at your low 3bet%. I saw you play at 50NL and you were running 20/18 with 10% 3bet in ~100 hands, ISOing the fish every single time he limps and 3betting button recklessly.

One thing i didn't really see talked about was 4bet bluffing vs high 3bets, can it be profitable to 4betbluff /fold vs certain opponents?

Right at the end you mentioned crafting a range of semi-bluff hands and value hands for 4-betting. When I am playing back at someone who is 3-bet happy, generally I like to 4-bet Axs, occasionally small pps and if I am in position AQ here as well as QQ+AK.

Perhaps the AQ is a mistake, but generally I think it plays well in 4-bet pots given that in steal vs blind situations villians usually jam AK and 4-bet folding it prevents me from making some big mistakes post flop. When a villian has a high 3-bet, I find that alot of the QT/QJ/KQ don't usually end up in their 3-bet range. Villians who flat TT/JJ to a 4-bet can also get their stack in comfortably on a Q high flop.

How does one go about balancing this? Can anyone elaborate on this thought or share what they think is best.

4-bet bluffs are always bet/folds, and yes, at 25nl and 50nl this can certainly be profitable. I think mpethy outlined nicely why he'd be very reluctant to make that pay at 10nl or lower.

Yeah. my stats got so out of line at some points in my tour that:

a. most good regs adjusted at least somewhat, and
b. I put myself in -EV spots.

So i compensated by tightening back up in later sessions so I could see how the field adjusts to reasonable stats, rather than absurd stats.

in short, I was experimenting some, not grinding, and you saw some of that.

sure, it's possible against some players. at $200, i show a significant profit with my 4 bets. i make money on my value 4 bets, I make money on my 4 bet folds, and i lose money on my 4 bet/calls.

At the micros, it will depend on your stakes.

The fundamental issue is that people are calling 4 bets these days. Thus, you should never really be 4 bet bluffing; you should only 4 bet semi-bluff or 4 bet value bet.

for example, I will steal with both J9s and 78o. From now on, I will 4 bet/fold J9o, but fold to a 3 bet with 78o, simply because J9s is going to flop better more often.

Before my tour of the micros, I had assumed that people were usually shoving or folding to a 4 bet. But on my tour, i saw that people are actually calling them something like 40% of the time. Based on that stat, you need to expect to see a lot of flops, so you shouldn't ever be bluffing.

This was a huge revelation to me, and part of the reason I didn't write much more than that was because I haven't completely thought through the implications.

A while back i would PTR 80%+ of the people who would call my [properly sized] 4-bet not deep [who wasn't an obv fish/donk, who had reggy stats] to prove to myself that its a **** play.

Long story short, its never a person with great results, generally low volume randoms, breakeven-ish mass grinders and occasionally a ~1BB WR over maybe 50k-150k hands @ 25NL.

It's the reason why i have fold to 4-bet % in my hud, and unsuprisingly the better guys at the level don't have 20-40% fold to 4-bets, play a shove/fold game vs 4-bets.

Very nice post mpethy. Very nice indeed. Amazing.

Question about the highlighted? Does that mean I need to assign people an e-peening range (especially SSFR players)?

But seriously great post.

v nice post, I actually saw u on the 25NL tables and I think I 4bet u like twice, had good hands though...Thanks for the post

Thanks for the article!

Having 28-30% of LP 3-bets called seems very low to me. You state sample sizes aren't credible here so I'll offer mine, which also may not be fully credible. I have about 140k of Rush $10NL in my DB and my BTN+CO 3-bets were called 54% of the time. My preflop fold rate was only 42%, but I was 4-bet only 4%.

I think the conclusion to 3-bet more from the CO/BTN than from the blinds is still correct, though the reliance on the position edge post-flop is the key factor.

This was the only figure that was significantly different from what I see in my DB, meaning off by more than 2-3%. But to compare to the other figures, my blind 3-bets were called 48% of the time matching your 49% pretty closely and I was 4-bet 8% matching your 9% pretty closely.

mpethy,

This is really great stuff. I've had a lot of thoughts on some of these things recently, most specifically having multiple 3-bet ranges and the difference in 3-betting between levels.

This part basically defines exactly what I've been thinking. I've started to learn that quite literally every situation is so opponent/table dynamic specific. I might even go further with what you are getting at and say it could be detrimental to use labels like 'value', 'semi-bluff', etc. without caution that even these ranges are variable on the situation. Maybe the biggest concept I can think of that illustrates what I'm trying to say is that QQ/AK, and even KK, cannot be thought of as a value 3/4b range in some spots and sometimes have to be shifted around. A lot of players at the micros see these hands and just auto-raise against everyone, thinking its for value, when in certain instances its marginally +EV on the straight 3/4b alone, or massive spew. The flipside of this is auto-flatting hands like 99-JJ/AQ (and wider) when you are missing fat value by not 3-betting.

We should strive to construct variable 3/4-bet (and flatting/flatting 3b) ranges in each unique hand. Yet another reason to drop the # of tables we play until we get better at this. These concepts are ridiculously important at 100NL+. You will get pounded if you cannot adjust your ranges/lines to each specific spot. This COTW does a great job of explaining this. Great job.

Also,

This cannot be emphasized enough. 3-betting wider in position at 10NL should be done for completely different reasons than 100NL, and that is mainly due to the level of competition, but obviously still depends on each specific opponent.

great cotw mpethy...as usual. will have to investigate whether i have similar results re resteals being called at 10 and 25, i was under the non-factually based impression that i was not being called anywhere near this often.

WOW... this is a lot to absorb. Excellent CotW!

TY Sir, been waiting for this