Okay, this is a scenario question that I'm confused as to what to do. Let's say I'm UTG or UTG+1 and raise 4XBB with JJ/QQ/AK. The villain in the CO or on the BTN in this scenario is a nit who runs 8/6, but his 3bet% in position is huge over a couple of hundred hands and has decided to isolate me/pick on me with position.

This same villain's 3bet stats from LP and blinds are 17% and 25%, respectively. Now, I typically only 4bet KK/AA depending on the villain. Given this particular villain's stats (8/6) I will still normally only 4bet KK/AA, but since he's been 3betting me relentlessly preflop and with such large 3bet percentages, my question is what do you do with a holding such as QQ/JJ when the flop is low (say 72T rainbow)? Do you b/f to any aggression? c/c all the way to the river on an A- or K-free board?

FWIW, I've been running at 13/8/2-3 over 30K hands so I feel that this villain has decided that I'm easily exploitable with a preflop 3bet when OOP and on a low flop as I'm generally not willing to get it all in with QQ/JJ on a low flop. Any thoughts?

Does he ever cold-call then, maybe as to not "waste" his AA/KK as you are "obviously" folding to 3bets all the time?
Maybe he´s not even raising the top of his range.

However, what he´s doing is probably +EV for him, especialy if you decide to see a flop with QQ/JJ (too strong to fold) and then give up the hand on a flop that is good for your hand (too weak to play for stacks).

I´m really no expert, but I doubt the answer will be found postflop. He just knows how to get you to turn your hand face up. You can stop this preflop. He has to fold a lot of his hands to 4bets if your perception of what he´s doing is correct.

It comes down to wether or not you really want to trust your read IMO.

Maybe try to loose a stack getting it in preflop with 54s for meta-game reasons
He´ll probably stop bullying you before you have to show a single fighting-back hand down. And if you should loose your stack to his AA, it´s even better for you to show down 54s instead of QQ you see.

*bump*

Any other takers?

I agree with want to learn in that I can be fit/fold postflop with QQ/JJ in this scenario and shoving on this villain with SCs preflop may in fact help my metagame .

Is his 3bet-% greater than your EP raising %? If so, you're ahead of his 3betting range and could 4-bet for value every hand you raised with, and see what he does.

If villain is running 8/6 ish, I'm probably going to be patient and pick my spots. If he is only raising 6% and approximately 25% of those are 3bets he can't be blowing you off of that many hands can he? Doesn't that mean he's only 3betting like 1.5% of the time?

Is the villain doing this just to you or to everyone? What is his typical stack size?

His range is tight enough that he probably figures he's ahead of everyone's range otherwise, which is why he is 3betting. If he's below 50 BB, you'll need to start treating him like a short stacker.

I think 4-betting light here is a mistake long term. If you start doing it a significant amount of time, he'll figure that out and exploit it.

I'd think about never 4 betting him heads up and when oop, checking any flop. By checking, you switch positions with him. Now he has to make a move without having any clue whether you have a hand or not. Most of the time, he won't have the straight or flush draw you're worried about anyway. If he bets, you're either raising or folding, making it clear you're playing for his stack if you raise. If he's cbetting most of the time, you've got a winning play by raising frequently.

Make him start questioning himself rather than you questioning yourself.

Great post.

I was thinking along the same lines as venice, but at the same time, gman339 has a point. If he's that tight he might just be playing the cards in front of him. I'd want to have some idea of his post flop play versus others, i.e. some evidence of second level thinking. You may be being a little paranoid here.

But I dunno, I've only been using a HUD for a few weeks, so I don't have a great idea of what exactly is in a 9%ers range. 99+ AKo, AKs? Seems about right?

How is his c-bet %? And what size of c-bet does he normally make?

Ok just to mention that, this is how I understood OP when I made my post:
"Villain is 8/6 in general.
He does, however, 3bet 17% of the time when he is in LP and there is a raise to his right, and 3bets 25% of all raises when in the blinds.
When up against OP, he 3bets even more."

So I was operationg under OPs perception that the villain is bullying OP.

Yes, this villain was bullying me in particular. I only had 3 pots with him and he 3bet me in position for every single one. I held AK UTG in one hand and he was in the CO and 3bet me. Other two orbits with him, I held QQ and JJ and was UTG+1 with him on the button and my preflop raise got 3bet both times by him. I agree with gman's post that maybe I'm being paranoid and if he's running 8/6 then perhaps he's just playing his cards. But, I was simply playing my cards and was showing serious weakness to his 3bets with good holdings. I just find it hard to believe that with my image (13/8) and his (8/6) that he wasn't just bullying me. All 3 hands...and all 3 were 3bet by him in position.

Ok, 3 hands is not enough for me to fight back light!

Keep in mind you can still set mine with QQ/JJ, and he'll show up with AK a lot.

If you aren't getting the right odds considering implied odds, then WTL is right. No point tangling light with such a tight player. Plenty of fish in the sea; steer around the buoy!

Hey, wait!
When they have AK, we don´t need "odds" as we are ahead and can value bet.
We need odds only when behind of their range.

So, trying to setmine to make a hand to stack AA/KK but not getting stacked ourselves unimproved and trying to call and get one bet out of AK or whatever on a low flop are two different things, really. I don´t think we can do both things assigning one range to them.

Another problem is, say Hero open raises 4bb and villain 3bets to 12bb. Hero calls. Pot is now 25bb (with one chip from the other blind in it) and remaining stacks are 88bb (I assume 100bb stacks).

So SPR is 3.5. I don´t think Hero can try to bet or call to get something out of AK or whatever w/o committing. That´s just what Hero doesn´t want to do.

In a nutshell, I guess most competent players would berate OP for the reluctance of playing for stacks if OPs read were over more than three hands.
I personaly am weak enough to understand the problem very well.
But I guess one just has to accept variance.

And again, while it is just 3 hands I don´t play back.

They could steal 25 of my 4bb open raises and then that would be the same loss as getting a 100bb stack in for just one time when behind, if there were no suckout equity if behind. Even with the possibility of sucking out, we must be pretty sure, and for the time being an 8/6 style is the better information imo.

He really could have had good hands. I know the feeling though; I've certainly lost a stack or two thinking that I was being messed with. The idea that a thinking player running 8/6 could try and massively open their range against other thinking players is interesting though. All in all though, the money you make against the donks will always be > than any tag vs tag vs nit battles.