Hey guys, trying to do a hand review per day as one of my new years resolutions but I'm a noob so I need all the help I can get from you distinguished ladies and gentlemen!

This situation is from a practice example on GTO wizard.

To start I have AdJh in the CO.

Preflop is a 4bet pot with a pot size of 49BB. I am in position in the CO vs. The SB.

Flop is AsKh4s. SB checks to me.

I have top pair and I'm in position, so my first impulse was to make a 3/4 pot sized bet.

GTOwizard says to bet way smaller though (7BB recommended bet).

I'm thinking this is because in a 4bet pot against the SB, we would expect the SB to have a very very strong range. Lots of AA KK QQ AK JJ and then AQ suited, etc. Basically the cards in the SB's range are stronger than mine.

Then the flop hits the SB's range hard. Even though they check to me, they likely have a very strong hand that will beat mine. Aces with higher kickers, two pair, and possibly some sets. If we bet too much then we are likely betting into a stronger hand. If we check, then we aren't going to catch them if they had played something like JJ or pocket 10's. So we try to bet on the smaller side in the hopes of illiciting a fold without committing too much into what is likely a losing proposition.

Is my analysis correct? Please let me know how you think is the best way or ways to handle this situation. I'm trying to understand the bet sizing and intuition.

If it's a 4-bet pot than the original raiser (presumably you in the CO in this situation) is the one who put in the final 4-bet, so you'll have all the AA/KK/AK/AQ hands here, and the small blind will have very few. Balanced preflop ranges will do some flatting of 4-bets with them, but it's primarily going to shove all in with these hands rather than play a flop out of position. The SB's range is relatively polarized relative to our hand here. It's either hands that are way ahead of ours or way behind. In these spots, we benefit most from betting very small.

If we bet large here we are really only getting called by AQ+, which is very bad. But with a small bet we can get value form hands like 99-QQ which he will have a decent amount of the time here, and have a hard time reacting properly to very small bets on this flop.

Ah ok I see so if we are way ahead then a small bet will likely make them give up and fold. If they are way ahead then we're beat anyways so we're throwing away chips...

But in terms of the SB's range, wouldn't we expect them to have a very strong range to call a 4bet since they are out of position? In other words, why do we expect their range to be polarized?

Edit: never mind I see. If they had aces kings or queens then they would have shoved.

Hi, Ktierne3!

The CO range on the flop has a huge edge in equity and the nuts on the flop. This allows the CO to bet Cbet 100% of the range with a small sizing.


In 4bet pots the SPR is low and we don't need to increase the size of the pot by the river with big bets. Therefore, sizings such as 1/5-1/4 of pot are used.

We always welcome new users on the forum and on our Discord server. If you have any other questions, we will gladly try to answer them.
Welcome!