A thought about making decisions easier

A lot of players basically never call a 3bet OOP, they 4bet or fold.
A lot of players rarely call out of the blinds, they mostly 3bet or fold.

No player only c/r or fold on the flop.

Why is that?

I really don't understand the question.

People use raise/folding strategies from OOP preflop because by calling they're often playing a guessing game and a few factors combined make raise/folding more profitable for them compared to calling OOP.
Even when worse hands are rarely calling and better hands never folding. Think of JJ getting 3bet and you're OOP against a standard TAG.

Conceptually thinking; they're making it easier for themselves by narrowing the decision to a 2 way decision (raise or fold) instead of 3 way (raise, call, fold).
They throw away the lowest part of the calling range, and raise the upper part and so the calling range is vanished.


Now switching over to OOP flop play without the initiative. I think (and this is most likely related to skill) there are flop spots that we basically feel c/cing isn't profitable. But we rarely use the raise/fold strategy (with the intention of making it a 2way decision) on the flop as we do preflop.

If I had to think of a board I'd say i.e. a low drawy one and we have a bad TP or so. We're ahead, but c/c isn't profitable because positions, board and ranges are so that villain will get the best of it when we c/c.

I edited the post Irish, hope it's a little more clear now.

Ok yeah I think I get you now.

I think the difference is that with 4bet or fold OOP vs a 3bet strategies, we're actually making the hand a lot easier to play if we have JJ or something and we're never making a huge mistake as long as the 3bettor isn't like 12/8 or something.

If we call pf in the blinds with 88 and c/r a J46fd flop because we don't want to play guessing games by c/cing, we actually dump ourselves in a ton of guessing games because we're not sure of our equity when he reraises us or how to continue when he calls our raise. Both situations are a little nasty. So really we're making the hand harder to play.

Thats my initial thoughts.

Ok yeah I think I get you now.

I think the difference is that with 4bet or fold OOP vs a 3bet strategies, we're actually making the hand a lot easier to play if we have JJ or something and we're never making a huge mistake as long as the 3bettor isn't like 12/8 or something.

If we call pf in the blinds with 88 and c/r a J46fd flop because we don't want to play guessing games by c/cing, we actually dump ourselves in a ton of guessing games because we're not sure of our equity when he reraises us or how to continue when he calls our raise. Both situations are a little nasty. So really we're making the hand harder to play.

Thats my initial thoughts.

if a situation comes up such as a 22/19 or whatever reg opens from UTG+1 and we call in the BB with AsJs and the board comes down A37r without a spade, is it ever ok to c/r in an attempt to 'slow him down' and try to get to showdown vs AK or AQ (ie he might check back turn with better and we'll only have to call one bet on river bearing in mind he might fire with no showdown value thinking we took a stab on the flop with a pair and then gave up) as opposed to being faced with 3 barrells when we're not totally sure of his 3 barrelling tendencies.

edit, just realised why this is flawed but i'll leave it here as it loosely relates to the discussion.

I call and lead.

The reason people do not call oop is it is very very difficult to bluff after calling a hand oop, especially post flop, which makes it hard to play air hands profitably. If you call one street you risk not giving yourself a profitable bluffing opportunity.

It has nothing to do with it being easier or more simple although that may be a byproduct. Also pantherhound to address your post it would be insanely stupid vs most players to c/r the flop in that situation. Slowing them down is a phrase that is too general for me. There are times where I try to do something that decreases the chances of someone bluffing because I predict I will fold to a bet on the next street and I want to make that fold as profitable as possible.