Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem 0.25(BB)
BB ($27.33) [VPIP: 23.6% | PFR: 11.8% | AGG: 45.8% | Hands: 333]
UTG ($49.90) [VPIP: 18.5% | PFR: 12.2% | AGG: 25.4% | Hands: 577]
HJ ($18.15) [VPIP: 12.9% | PFR: 7.8% | AGG: 19.4% | Hands: 1490]
HERO ($25.10) [VPIP: 28.9% | PFR: 23.9% | AGG: 28.6% | Flop Agg: 30.8% | Turn Agg: 27.2% | 3-Bet: 5.8% | 4-Bet: 5.1% | Fold to 4-Bet: 61.6% | Hands: 36490]
BTN ($67.94) [VPIP: 15.2% | PFR: 13% | AGG: 34.5% | Flop Agg: 34.4% | Turn Agg: 35.8% | 3-Bet: 6.7% | Fold to 3-Bet: 50% | 4-Bet: 6.3% | Hands: 3825]
SB ($33.34) [VPIP: 12.9% | PFR: 11.2% | AGG: 28.6% | Hands: 418]

Dealt to Hero: Q J

UTG Folds, HJ Folds, HERO Raises To $0.50, BTN Raises To $1.80, SB Folds, BB Folds, HERO Raises To $5.80, BTN Calls $4

Hero SPR on Flop: [1.62 effective]
Flop ($11.95): 8 J 9
HERO Checks, BTN Bets $3.69 (Rem. Stack: $58.45), HERO Calls $3.69 (Rem. Stack: $15.61)

Turn ($19.33): 8 J 9 K
HERO Checks, BTN Bets $47.80 (Rem. Stack: $10.65), HERO Folds



Villain is pretty nitty, but he seems much better to me than your average nit, for what that's worth. Also didn't realize it at the time, but my 4b is a bit too big

wondering if we should polarise cbet flop...

I'm never 4betting here. I know solvers do but we're trapped in a human body post and SCs are much less likely to realise oop

Interesting spot. Preflop, I agree with Ceres, this is a bad hand to play OOP in a 4bet pot, so I would just fold.

AP OTF, sheesh, I really don't know what to think. I am really not sure who has range advantage in a spot like this. I am going to check GTOWizard.

Okay, the solution is really interesting, and it actually mostly bets your combo OTF and then never calls. Thus, OTT, you never have this combo in this line. I am really not sure how to interpret this solve, but I hope you find it somewhat helpful.

I don't know how much you can really consider suited broadway to be a suited connector, but I get the point you're trying to make

And I have no idea tbh. We're definitely checking a lot tho

I don't really like the 4 bet pre with QJs. When you're 4 bet bluffing you're going to have to fold to a shove, so you really want to have an A or K in your hand when you're 4 bet bluffing at 100 BB in order to block shoves, and the most important hand to block is AK (the most frequent hand that 3 bets and then 5 bet jams at 100% frequency). If Villain is 5 bet jamming QQ+/AK, you're going to get jammed on 15% more often when 3 betting QJs compared to a hand like KTs (31 combos vs 27 combos). Playability doesn't matter when you don't even get to see the flop! Also, QJs is especially bad because to 4 bet because it blocks the entire 3 bet/fold offsuit range of AQo (it calls low frequency), AJo, KQo, and KJo - hands are 3 betting at almost full frequency CO vs BTN and will always fold to the 4 bet (your most important targets). Suited connectors don't make good 4 bet bluffs in theory, but if you're worried about board coverage and want some in there it's probably better to 4 bet lower suited connectors because at least those don't block the auto folds. Your sizing seems fine, anything from 20 to 24 BB is good OOP over a 7.2 BB 3 bet.

As played, I think you need to check/jam this flop. This flop is pretty horrendous for your range, but it's also one of the best flops for your hand, and if you're ever going to 4 bet a hand like QJs coverage on this exact type of board is the reason why. I think checking range makes some sense here, and when you check and face a bet, I think you just want to jam here. You'll get to deny equity from his bluffs, and you actually have plenty of equity when you jam on this flop. Sure, you'll sometimes be crushed by the slowplayed AA/AJs/KJs/sets part of their range but on the other hand, you can actually make a lot of worse hands call here. A hand like TT is going to have to call a shove because it has tons of equity against KK+, but your particular hand actually has it in really rough shape, and there's a ton of combos of TT out there (6 combos, almost as many as the 7 combos of sets). Also, KTs/ATs are supposed to call a shove as well, and if BTN calls suited connectors like JTs and T9s preflop that have to also call a shove you're actually crushing a bunch of hands when you get called (plus if they make a mistake and fold you just win the money and deny their equity). If you just call, you're going to allow them to realize their equity at their own price rather than make them make a decision for all of it with most of the hands in their range, a range that you have plenty of equity against when you're called by anyways.

Thanks dahjr15, I wanted to say that I much preferred x/shove flop I did not really know why. We are not "crushed" by AA, I think ? We don't fear that many hands in BTN range, are we? Slowplayed overpairs, few sets. No 2pairs I would think, 7T and QT not frequently at all... Whereas they will bet TT and A high when checked to.

Not 4betting this particular villain with this hand, as played i think we want to range bet flop in some capacity, probably 1/2p. Tho since he's a nit I'd exploitatively just bet 1/4p here

I think I get what you're saying, but imo that doesn't automatically mean that the entirety of our 4bet "bluffing" range is going to be only hands with an A or a K. QQ/JJ should still jam at a high freq, particularly at higher rake structures, not to mention that AA should be flat called by villain a significant % of the time at any rake structure. But maybe that's less relevant in practice if these regs don't know to flat most AA and jam some JJ

AQo/AJo/KQo/KJo block Ax and Kx just as much as they block Qx and Jx, I don't really see that as a reason for not wanting to 4bet this hand

And you also called QJs a "suited connector," which I think is categorically incorrect, though technically true. I think it's more of a "suited broadway." idk where you've gotten your ranges from, but GTOWizard basically only ever 4bets broadway, suited aces, suited kings, and T9s. 4betting lower suited connectors seems like a terrible idea to me when you block nothing at all

I'm just using simplified GTOWizard ranges, so I'm 4betting this 25% of the time. Not sure where you've gotten your ranges from, but I've always assumed GTOWizard was decent enough for preflop at least

This I basically 100% agree with though

I think that's probably the best idea tbh, though this guy is actually pretty decent for a nit

Really don't think we range bet here, this board is probably even worse for our range vs a nitreg than it would be in theory

Appreciate you posting the solve, think this kind of confirms dahjr's general idea that this hand in particular really wants to push its equity

These are good thoughts for sure, although I think I may have confused you a bit on the second point. When you're 4 bet bluffing (or semibluffing/bluffing in general), the most important thing you need to have for it to be +EV is direct fold equity, getting folds from BTN is where you're going to make your profit. So my second point was that having a Q or J in your hand when 4 betting blocks the offsuit part of BTN's 3 bet/fold range while not blocking many shoves at all (only the pairs). When you compare that to having an A or K in your hand, with those types of hands you're blocking the unpaired portion of the shove range as well as blocking fewer 3 bet/folds.

To be honest, the thoughts I sent you earlier were just general unproven blocker theory thoughts, so to make sure I wasn't spewing crap I decided to prove it out theoretically (I can try and share my Excel file if you'd like). Just like you, I use GTO Wizard for preflop solves (and postflop for what it's worth), and here's the solution for BTN's response facing a 4 bet from CO:



In theory, the BTN should be 3 betting a 12.2% range vs a CO open, or 161.7 combos. I added up all the combos in Excel, and even though it's not obvious right away from the chart, the highest proportion of the 3 bets actually comes from the offsuit portion of the range (69 combos vs 58.2 combos of suited hands and 34.5 combos of pairs). Remember that when you're looking at GTO Wizard charts, even when you have it shown adjusted for range height there's still 3x as many offsuit combos as suited combos (12 vs 4) and 2x as many offsuit combos as paired combos (12 vs 6) for a particular "box". Anyways, you can see that when facing a 4 bet, BTN should theoretically be folding 51.9% of their range, calling 22.1% of their range, and jamming the remaining 26% of their range. When you're looking at the hands you're trying to fold out with the 4 bet, most of them are from the offsuit broadway part of the range (54.8 of the 83.9 combos that fold).

Anyways, I did some analysis comparing how blockers impact BTN's range facing a 4 bet. For the purposes of this exercise, I compared QJs with KTs, the highest frequency bluff 4 bet that GTO Wizard 4 bets almost pure (84.5%). Here is a summary of the baseline continuing range with no blocker impact (so about what would happen if you were to 4 bet pocket 2s):



And here is how the ranges change if you 4 bet QJs and KTs:



As you can see, QJs blocks a full 4.5 combos more folds compared to KTs, whereas KTs blocks more combos of both calls and jams than QJs. Most of those fold combos QJs blocks comes from that offsuit broadway region (AQo, AJo, KQo, KJo) you were referring to earlier. All of this results in a hand like KTs getting 2.3% more direct folds than QJs, which doesn't seem like that much at first but assuming the pot is around 11 BB that translates into 0.25 BB of profit directly from folds. Also, blocking more jams means that you're not going to get blasted out of the pot right away as often with a hand like KTs/K9s compared to QJs, which allows you to realize more of your equity postflop. Also, this all assumes that your opponent is jamming JJ at full frequency - if your opponent ever flats JJ (which I see all the time at 50NL) the disparity between QJs and suited kings becomes even greater as the gap in the jam range becomes even bigger (now QJs blocks fewer jams), plus suited kings can now realize their 30-32% equity vs JJ. Finally, a hand like KTs has more equity when called than QJs - around 42% compared to 40-41% for QJs.


Yeah I do agree with this mostly, and I especially agree with your suited broadway and lower suited connector comments. I guess if you were to ever 4 bet a lower suited connector maybe a hand like 65s makes some sense because at least you block A5s/low freq 66 jams (which almost no one finds in game but it's something at least). For what it's worth you'll see GTO Wizard 4 bet 65s at some frequency at 200 BB effective, especially in the NL500 rake structure. However, in terms of QJs itself, from what I'm seeing in GTO Wizard it recommends 4 betting it 11% of the time, so very low frequency anyways and much lower than 25%. But given the negative blocking/domination problems with the hand I would personally rather just pitch it and either 4 bet a suited king more often or use a hand like A9s or A4s to 4 bet instead (which GTO pretty much pure folds for some reason). The same thing goes for JTs, which GTO Wizard recommends 4 betting 42% of the time for some reason; that hand actually plays pretty well as a call OOP imo as it does quite well against the AK/AQ/KQ types of hands, so I usually just throw in the call and then find other hands to 4 bet. Idk I typically just play QJs/JTs as a pure fold/call, I only consider 4 bet them as a hyper exploit against a 15%+ 3 better that has a fold button. I like hands like A9s, A4s, and A3s instead as 4 bets instead, but you should play however you feel most comfortable. As a disclaimer, in general I don't know if you want to take any of my advice because I'm not really that good of a player, I'm a breakeven rakeback reg lol (-0.9 EV BB/100 on ACR 50NL Blitz with 127k hands).

Just fold preflop. Don't 4bet bluff nitty regs. That's not how you beat them.

Normally I'd agree with you, but this guy has been very actively 3betting my wide opening ranges. It's probably still a fold, but this guy seems much more competent than the average nitty reg

He's probably just getting hands. We can't overreact to small samples.

If a guy with a < than 7% 3bet % overall 3bet me 5 times in a row. He had it all 5 times in most cases.

I'm basing that assumption on hands that have went to showdown, again normally I would agree with you there

Also, I think in a case like this that has a big sample, you can look at their positional raise and 3b % to get an idea of what's going on. If the guy has a 13% raise in every position, and 3b% by position is also looks kind of flat, then it's going to be more likely that he's just playing his cards.