What's your standard here?

1kNL 100bb stacks.

We open the CO to $35 with AQo. 22/19/3.6 button with 7.5% 3bet reraises to $120, folds around to us.

This just seems like a really sucky situation to me.

Call and c/c A- and Q-high flops, c/f K-high flops and c/shove maybe 40% of other flops.

laugh at him for reraising 4x in position. and then i would mix it up a bit, maybe 265/call 1/3 of the time, fold 1/3 of the time, take a flop 1/3 of the time. Sauce has said it is okay to 4bet-fold AQo, which seems okay but it is not my style. I'm not going to just say check/shove whenever u see an okay flop because most good players arent using stupid betsizes in 3bet pots anymore that immediately put u to an all in or fold decision.

I call pre mostly, and sometimes 4-bet if I think they are capable of 5-bet bluffing.

I c/c A high, Q high flops. I actually OOP float a decent amount on low raggy boards, if villain is the type that will give up on a blank turn or fire A/Q type turn cards.

c/bomb some flops if villain is 3-betting light AND cont bets too much in 3-bet pots.

I like the way this thread is going already. The following is just a ramble and not directly in response to nutsinho.

Originally Posted by nutsinho

laugh at him for reraising 4x in position.

yes. 95% of the guys I play against haven't caught on to this yet.

Originally Posted by nutsinho

and then i would mix it up a bit, maybe 265/call 1/3 of the time, fold 1/3 of the time, take a flop 1/3 of the time. Sauce has said it is okay to 4bet-fold AQo, which seems okay but it is not my style.

Yeah I've done the maths and my problem with the issue of 4betting AQ with 100bb stacks is that the line is very close between whether we should be 4bet/calling and 4bet/folding. Like say we make it $260 total and he shoves, we need 36% to call. Against 99+,ATs+,AKo we should call but against 99+,AQs+,AKo we should fold. It's very hard to get a good enough idea of an opponents 3betting and 5betting ranges to make these decisions compared with a hand like 83o or A6o.

Originally Posted by nutsinho

I'm not going to just say check/shove whenever u see an okay flop because most good players arent using stupid betsizes in 3bet pots anymore that immediately put u to an all in or fold decision.

This was the reason I was spurred to make this thread. Every time I take a flop my plan is to check/shove most flops that I miss. But a lot of the time the villain will check behind and ruin my plan or else bet like 1/2 pot and then I'm shoving 5x his cont-bet size and it feels like a spew because of the risk/reward ratio. The shove also looks really bluffy because why on earth would I wish to play my big hands like that. Sometimes I wonder why I don't get snapped off by middle pair every time I check/shove a flop after calling a 3bet. I feel like I'd nearly be better off calling 3bets OOP with complete trash and check/minraising the flop so that I could fold to a shove.

I also feel like with the amount of 3betting in today's games, the frequencies with which we have to play back at light 3-betters are so high that we cannot possibly have enough combinations of strong hands in our ranges to avoid getting destroyed by people who 3bet us and then play competently against our reactions. For example if I combat people who 3bet me IP by 4betting them light then I need to strengthen my 4betting range by also 4betting my big hands. However if I do this than any OOP 3bet calling range I may wish to have is easily exposed as being ridiculously weak. If I try to counter this by calling more 3bets with big hands OOP then my 4betting range becomes exploitably weak.

Originally Posted by griffey24

I c/c A high, Q high flops. I actually OOP float a decent amount on low raggy boards, if villain is the type that will give up on a blank turn or fire A/Q type turn cards.

This is pretty interesting and I feel it could be a decent alternative to the check/bomb. I do think we're going to get owned by AK a lot though when we check down though. Like most people who RR IP have a range which is AK/big pairs/suited trash (and not so much AJ/AT) so the flops we would be looking to c/c on and check down actually hit our opponents a good bit better than we'd like (ie they have a low pair or a gutshot or something) or else they have AK or a big pair. Essentially our equity on the flops which we're aiming to float OOP is often lower than we'd like.

Anyone else got thoughts on this?

I'm not sure if this is good or not but if someone is 3-betting me super light, I just 4-bet/call with hands like TT and AQo and use the information to help me figure out what their ranges are. Like you said, it's never going to be that big of a mistake to get it in preflop.

I also feel like with the amount of 3betting in today's games, the frequencies with which we have to play back at light 3-betters are so high that we cannot possibly have enough combinations of strong hands in our ranges to avoid getting destroyed by people who 3bet us and then play competently against our reactions. For example if I combat people who 3bet me IP by 4betting them light then I need to strengthen my 4betting range by also 4betting my big hands. However if I do this than any OOP 3bet calling range I may wish to have is easily exposed as being ridiculously weak. If I try to counter this by calling more 3bets with big hands OOP then my 4betting range becomes exploitably weak

This is true, but on the other hand, if we 4-bet them they're either going to have to fold an exploitably large amount of the time, or else they're going to have to get it in preflop with hands that AQ crushes. Either way we can beat them.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

I'm not sure if this is good or not but if someone is 3-betting me super light, I just 4-bet/call with hands like TT and AQo and use the information to help me figure out what their ranges are.

Just to interject here, it seems important to note that the only real adjustment they can make to exploit this is to reduce their 3betting frequencies which is what we want.

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Originally Posted by griffey24

I c/c A high, Q high flops. I actually OOP float a decent amount on low raggy boards, if villain is the type that will give up on a blank turn or fire A/Q type turn cards.

This is pretty interesting and I feel it could be a decent alternative to the check/bomb. I do think we're going to get owned by AK a lot though when we check down though. Like most people who RR IP have a range which is AK/big pairs/suited trash (and not so much AJ/AT) so the flops we would be looking to c/c on and check down actually hit our opponents a good bit better than we'd like (ie they have a low pair or a gutshot or something) or else they have AK or a big pair. Essentially our equity on the flops which we're aiming to float OOP is often lower than we'd like.

Anyone else got thoughts on this?

Well I'd generally only try floating OOP against ppl that play predictably, and will give up once called on flop and not some crazy aggro's that will barrel air on every street.

In the former case, if we're floating then I'd imagine we'd be betting the river once turn goes check/check, so we'd be taking him off A high AK type hands in this case. Unless he's hero calling A high.

Very good thread,

unfortunately I have nothing to add to the excellent points already made, I think zook and griffey are spot on.

Originally Posted by zook

and c/shove maybe 40% of other flops.

This seems like a lot, what kind of boards?

JTx and stuff with insiders? Or just rag boards with no draws?

Anyone re-raising to $250?

Originally Posted by griffey24

Originally Posted by zook

and c/shove maybe 40% of other flops.

This seems like a lot, what kind of boards?

JTx and stuff with insiders? Or just rag boards with no draws?

I just made that number of up obv. But an A,K or Q is going to flop close to 60% of the time so 40% of the rest is not as often as it sounds. I'm c/shoving any unlikely draws but mainly low boards.

As Irish mentioned, there's an issue with balance here because I'm not calling with QQ+ oop, but I will often call with JJ-88 and don't mind c/shoving those on low boards either if I have the right history with villain. But it takes a few hands in the same specific situation against the same opponent for me to start making plays based on balance rather than what I think is optimal in a vacuum. Balance is overrated.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Anyone re-raising to $250?

As opposed to calling or as opposed to raising bigger? I try to make my 4bets towards the bigger end of what I can get away with to discourage people from calling.