Lets say we are in the CO and we open raise with AK. BTN 3bets us and we have to decide between calling, 4betting or shoving.

Villain is very aggro with a 3bet% of >10.

What do you do?

Isn't this a perfect spot to shove instead of calling and playing OOP on a flop where you completely miss 2 out of 3 times (or more if Villain has blockers)?

Yes.

Don’t shove. You can’t balance this.
4 bet around 2.5x. (Assuming 100bbs eff)

This.

Just shoving 100BB over like a 9-10BB 3-bet is really bad.

Ye just 4bet anything around 22-25 bb's depending on 3bet size. Just keep your 4bet ranges well balanced.

Agreed - perfect spot to 4bet. Definitely not calling and playing AK OOP.

You can very well use balanced shoving ranges. That's not why shoving is bad.

not profitably vs a normal size 3 bet.

Balanced ranges are profitable by definition. Try again.

I don’t believe that to be true?

Ex- having a balanced 4 bet range vs a nit who only 3 bets KK+ is lighting money on fire

It seems like the consensus is to 4bet.

Can anyone go into more detail why shoving isn't the best option here?

Villain on hand is a very aggro player and I see him calling lots of 4bets. Given V has position its going to be really difficult playing AK on a missed flop.

That being said I think I'm too biased because I am asking this question because it was exactly this that happened. I 4bet and missed the flop. I Cbet, got called and had to give up, loosing almost 50 BB and feeling completely lost without a clue what to do :P

Shoving pre only gets called by hands that beat you. If he's flatting a 4b light, i.e. suited broadways, worse Ax...then yay.

Stack sizes are key. Assuming we're 100bbs deep this is a standard spot for a 4bet. You can't take one loss in a 4bet pot as justification for overbet shoving AK as a default strategy. Here are two other scenarios that could easily occur when you 4bet AK in this spot;

1. Your opponent flats your 4bet. The flop comes ace high and your opponent stacks off with AQ.

2. You 4bet shove. Your opponent snaps you off with AA and you lose 100bb.

If the hand your describing had played out like either of the options above would you still advocate auto 4bet shoving AK. Don't be results orientated. Ak is often overplayed and beginners often find it difficult to play post flop when they don't connect. 4bet shoving doesn't rectify these issues. It means you win the minimum most of the time when your ahead [opponent should get away from AQ/AJ pre] and lose the maximum the majority of the time your opponent has the upper end of their 3bet range.

If you'r really struggling with AK pre it might be worth considering flatting 3bets in certain spots rather than 4betting. It's opponent specific. Some opponents are only ever 3betting premium hands. Some opponents 3bet junk hands.

Shoving puts you in a spot where your flipping at best usually. You want to allow especially an aggressive player the opportunity to shove over the top of your 4bet and we don't mind to much if were called we can still play some poker postflop. Cbets will usually be on the smaller side in a 3bet pot aswell around 1/3p which allows for a 3 street game still.

No sure what that has to do with 4bet sizing and why 2.5x instead of shove is better? No we shouldn't bluff against someone who's never folding. I think you're confused mixing "theory" and exploitative play.

But to answer your question, a balanced 4betrange against KK+ would be AA and some high equity bluffs blocking AA such as A5s. The goal is to make KK indifferent to calling.
Still better than the 100bb you'd have lost if you shoved! It's poker, sometimes you lose money and a lot more than 50bb let me tell you.

There's as well a scenario where opponent flats the 4bet and flop comes Q high or 459 , JJ5, KQQ ... Which flops do we cbet? Villain might go nuts and jam most of our cbets in a 4bet pot (happens a lot at the micros). Same as checking , he might be just jamming and we're forced to fold. That's what @beginner11 said that we miss the flop 2/3 times.

Nothing, was just responding to you saying balanced range are by definition profitable. My understanding is that they are not, and the example I gave is to illustrate a time when a balanced range is bad. If you have information on villain like op says (aggro 3 better) your going to want to use a more aggressive 4 betting range than a balanced range would suggest as an exploit. But if you have no info on V, a balanced start is best (unless you have some strong player pool reads)

If someone is only 3 betting Kk+, 4 betting A5s is -Ev, and your 4 bet range should only be AA. This isn’t balanced, but is the most profitable counter strat.


And Yeah, of course you could use a balanced shoving range, but your bluffs are going to lose so much money it will make it unprofitable. Your RFE Is going to be through the roof.

And I know that OP isn’t thinking of usuing a balanced 4bet shoving range, he’s thibking of only jamming AK, and 4 betting smaller with QQ+ because they are easier to play post flop.

So I agree I did word my original post wrong, you can use a balanced 4 bet shoving range, but it’s a pretty terrible strategy .

That just shows you don't know what poker theory is, bluffs are close to 0ev by definition. Villain has to fold some KK's here.

Not true. The KK+ 3 bet example is used is straight from the book grinders manual.

Figure 66- a very imbalanced defense range vs a passive fish who ever 3 bets light

4bet/call - only AA
Call- 66-KK, 89s, T9s
Fold - everything else

Note - not even flatting AK, as it is likely hopelessly dominated
Easily exploitable strat, but won’t be exploited by passive fish like the one in the example.


You really don’t agree with this?

Again you can't differentiate between theory and exploitative play. If we only jam AA villain should only call with AA.

I already agreed that we shouldn't bluff if villain never folds, it's hard not to haha

Shoving puts you in a spot where your flipping at best usually. You want to allow especially an aggressive player the opportunity to shove over the top of your 4bet and we don't mind to much if were called we can still play some poker postflop. Cbets will usually be on the smaller side in a 3bet pot aswell around 1/3p which allows for a 3 street game still.

That should be 4bet pot.

Yeah, think Ojune is right here. The Grinder's Manual also has a good example of how to balance vs. a 3-bet -- there's a lot of math behind balancing what you 4-bet/call, 4-bet/fold, and call -- but we don't ever factor in villain's range. We just care about continuing with a wide enough range to not get exploited by villain 3-betting ATC. Then we separate that range accordingly across the three options, taking care that our 4-bet/call to 4-bet/fold ratio is balanced enough such that villain can't 5-bet or shove ATC. I always figured the point is that if villain starts getting out of line by shoving too wide or calling too tight (or whatever), that he ends up making mistakes against a balanced range.

We could hypothetically shove over a 3-bet and construct it in such a way that it's balanced, but as soon as we start making assumptions about villain's range and changing our range from those assumptions, we're getting into exploitative play and foregoing balance.

My theory is pretty rough. Hopefully that's more or less right.

Still don't shove PF.

I think you should have some A5s/A4s in your 4-bet bluffing range about half the time (folding the other half). AK should almost certainly be a (1/2-1pot?) 4bet, which is better than folding, flatting, or shoving.

Assuming 100bb deep, you sigh call a 5-bet shove w/ AK and probably fold if deeper (say, 150-200bb).

I have no problem understanding that I will be called by worse hands if I shove in many cases.

But I still struggle with the fact that I will miss 2 out of 3 flops or more, playing out of position.

I guess the key to this is the fold equity? Villain will probably fold quite a bit when we 4bet?

Calling the 3bet sounds better when I think more about it, as I suppose I and many others overvalue AK (AK has 65% of any random hand(?) AND the deception value we get in a situation where Villain is holding Ax.

When you shove you deny villain's equity while realizing yours. Makes up for the fact that when we do get called we have less than 50%.