4-betting range hypothetical

[spoonitnow]

You're 8-handed, 100bb deep all around, $0.50/1 blinds on PokerStars. It's folded to you in the HJ, and you raise to 4x. The cutoff folds, and the button (a total unknown) 3-bets to 12x. What is your 4-betting range, and why?

[pgil]

I don't think I 4bet complete unknowns. if anything it would be AA/KK for value, but that may be about it, and not everytime.

[badgers]

I don't think an unknown is 3betting in that situation that 4betting for value either as a bluff or for value is the best play

[spoonitnow]

I don't think an unknown is 3betting in that situation that 4betting for value either as a bluff or for value is the best play

....and why?

[Fnord]

AA/KK/(QQ/AK) or more depending on what I think of him for value.
Throw in a bunch of suited connectors, suited Aces or smaller pairs as a bruff.

These spots are all about flow and the other guy's range.

[spoonitnow]

AA/KK/(QQ/AK) or more depending on what I think of him for value.
Throw in a bunch of suited connectors, suited Aces or smaller pairs as a bruff.

These spots are all about flow and the other guy's range.

How much of SCs and Axs and small PPs? There's not much to know about flow or the other guy's range if he's an unknown, which is the fun part of the question.

[Renton]

probably just AK and AA tbh

[Fnord]

I rarely 4-bet bruff unknowns.

[badgers]

I don't think an unknown is 3betting in that situation that 4betting for value either as a bluff or for value is the best play

....and why?

Sorry just to fmp i meant to put that they're not "3betting enough" in that situation.

It's really hard to define an unknowns range in that situation, we don't know if this is a LAG, TAG, LP, maniac,nit, etc. etc. Against an unknown with AA even OOP I feel like it is best to call and trap. I know that the standard in 6max is different, however unknowns in 6max are going to be 3betting and stacking off wider so that makes 4betting better as it will get less respect and therefore more value.

I guess it also kinda depends on the 3bet sizing as well, the smaller the 3bet the more likely I am to 4bet as I want a small SPR to compensate for playing the hand OOP. The same applies for how deep we are, ie. the deeper we are the more I will 4bet. I won't balance my 4betting range against complete unknowns, however even 20 hands can give you some indication of how they're playing.

As a bluff I don't like this as well. AA/KK/AK makes up a big portion of an unknowns 3betting range in my experience, and there's no point "balancing" or trying to get an "optimal" bluffing frequency when we don't even know their range. I don't think game theory is applicable to this particular situation since we don't have a clue what their range is, and bluffing at all maay be horrible here if they're going to stack off with their entire 3betting range which wouldn't be that unusual imo.

[badgers]

on second reading i see that you have specified the stacks and 3bet size so just ignore that paragraph

[allabout]

Agreed against an unknown I 4 bet pretty much only AA, KK, AK. This is assuming absolutely no reads (like this is the first time you've seen him 3bet, haven't seen many showdowns etc). Why? 'Cause if I 4bet (even bluffing), I'm calling ai most of the time, and vs an unknow it does absolutely nothing for metagame.

[allabout]

Ya know I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately, and had something pop in my head. If I raise in the HJ and the button 3bets as an unknow, maybe I should be 4betting much lighter. Why? Because I'm unknown to him as well and therefore my 4 bets should get tons of credit to an unknown.
Maybe I don't need to stack off with every hand I 4 bet, especially against an unknown. Even a fairly weekish 4 bet should get a lot of credit, so say I raise to 4x he raises to 12x, if I raise to say even 28x or so he can only really call or raise w/AA or KK I would think. Or maybe this would just be giving away money, but when I thought about, "hey, my answer is about the same as the other guys here", I thought, "maybe it should be different if thats how the regulars play." Anyway, thanks for provoking more thought spoon.

[daven]

If I'm feeling nitty = likely.

AA - most of the time, but a case can be made for calling and then check-raising any flop all-in.
KK - occasionally, fold to 5-bet and fearing AA if they call.

Until they prove otherwise, typically i assign a 100bb unknown a 3-betting range of AA/KK. AA I generally 4-bet here, but only cos an unknown is likely to call with KK then bet the flop hard if checked to. KK I flat. AK i tend to fold, other pairs I call - but take care post plop.

[badgers]

KK - occasionally, fold to 5-bet and fearing AA if they call.

[daven]

KK - occasionally, fold to 5-bet and fearing AA if they call.

ooops, 100bb deep. Ok, then I like 4-betting KK even less here.

[badgers]

meh even if we're deep i hate the idea of 4bet/folding KK

[allabout]

KK - occasionally, fold to 5-bet and fearing AA if they call.

ooops, 100bb deep. Ok, then I like 4-betting KK even less here.

Why don't you like 4betting KK 100bb's deep?

[daven]

KK - occasionally, fold to 5-bet and fearing AA if they call.

ooops, 100bb deep. Ok, then I like 4-betting KK even less here.

Why don't you like 4betting KK 100bb's deep?

i like 4-betting KK 100bb deep, but not sure if there's any value doing so against an unknown.
Spoon put it best in another post - why do we raise?
to fold better hands
to get more money from worse hands

agaisnt most unknowns neither is happening here if we 4-bet..

[spoonitnow]

KK - occasionally, fold to 5-bet and fearing AA if they call.

ooops, 100bb deep. Ok, then I like 4-betting KK even less here.

Why don't you like 4betting KK 100bb's deep?

i like 4-betting KK 100bb deep, but not sure if there's any value doing so against an unknown.
Spoon put it best in another post - why do we raise?
to fold better hands
to get more money from worse hands

agaisnt most unknowns neither is happening here if we 4-bet..

Note that better hands never fold preflop on purpose when we have KK.

Just a thought.

[spoonitnow]

I've been playing around with writing a program to help me automate certain common calculations I do when forming ranges against specific opponents and crap like that (a more functional and somewhat glorified spreadsheet tbh), and I got to thinking about facing 3-bets against unknowns and yadda yadda yadda we have this thread. I've been thinking about similar problems and here's a fun example with a constraint on raise-sizing and not being able to call.

So say that 100bb deep we are restricted in our actions so that we can only raise to 4x, 4-bet to 32x, or fold, and villain can only 3-bet to 12x, 5-bet shove, or fold. We are in the cutoff, villain is in the button, and the blinds fold (we have raised to 4x, villain 3-bets to 12x, etc.) After 1.5bb in blinds, we raise to 4x, and villain 3-bets to 12x. Since he's betting 12bb to win 5.5bb he has to take it down 68.57% of the time to break even, so to make bluffing have the same EV as folding for villain, we should be 4-betting 31.43% of the time. Similarly, we have the choice to 4-bet to 32bb, when villain has the option to make a 5-bet shove. He'll be betting 88bb to win a pot of 45.5bb, and along similar lines as above he'll need to take it down 65.92% of the time, meaning we should call 34.08% of the time to make a 5-bet bluff have the same EV as folding without taking into account the showdown equity of when we call and what range we call with.

While this particular fantasy scenario isn't all that important by itself, it gives us some ideas about how our ranges should break down in each position against unknown players when we take into consideration the real world (ability to bet any amount, different sized stacks than 100bb, ability to call, other players in the pot, balance, etc.)

[bjsaust]

We cant assume an unknown wont continue with JJ+,AK, so saying that 4-betting KK doesnt get called by worse is just wrong.

[spoonitnow]

We cant assume an unknown wont continue with JJ+,AK, so saying that 4-betting KK doesnt get called by worse is just wrong.

It's not necessarily that 4-betting KK doesn't get called by worse, but if we just call the 3-bet with KK then we force villain to take a weaker range to the flop where we can [often] get more value than if we 4-bet.

Also, the typical 3-bet is to ~12bb which makes the flop pot ~25bb when we have ~88bb behind, for an SPR of ~3.5 which makes our hand pretty easy to play.

I'm not a huge fan of the play OOP because I rarely call 3-bets OOP with other hands, so it becomes kind of obvious what I have.

[pokerfan]

i hate to 4 bet with AA/KK vs multitabling regular TA nits in my games coz they tend to fold their 3 bet range the majority of the time like its their job.

[wufwugy]

excluding a style that mixes it up (plays all hands differently), i believe that a style that almost never 4bets and just flats when it continues is superior to one that 4bets most often. this is because a 4betting range should be more unbalanced than a range that exclusively flats.

this applies really only to v good opponents

[spoonitnow]

i hate to 4 bet with AA/KK vs multitabling regular TA nits in my games coz they tend to fold their 3 bet range the majority of the time like its their job.

Then 4-bet more ldo.

excluding a style that mixes it up (plays all hands differently), i believe that a style that almost never 4bets and just flats when it continues is superior to one that 4bets most often. this is because a 4betting range should be more unbalanced than a range that exclusively flats.

this applies really only to v good opponents

lol wat

[wufwugy]

its not that hard to get

[spoonitnow]

its not that hard to get

You don't type/speak English well enough for me to understand the ideas you're trying to communicate or something. It's like I'm reading what you type but I don't know what you're trying to get at, no offense. I'll give you an example.

this is because a 4betting range should be more unbalanced than a range that exclusively flats.

A 4-betting range should certainly be less unbalanced than if you always fold/called against 3-bets by definition as it would include hands both for value and for bluffs, but I don't think the word unbalanced is what you meant, so I get stuck here for 5-10 minutes trying to figure out what you mean.

In any event, it's not sufficient evidence to suggest that a strictly 4-betting range would be weaker overall than a strictly flat-calling range since the bluff part of the 4-betting range purposely has a weaker hand strength.

[wufwugy]

excluding a mixed range, which i dont really have too much opinion on, there are two ways to play vs 3bets. 1) polar range and 2) flat or fold

a polar range is where we 4bet with big hands we want to get in and bluffs we will fold to a 5bet and call with hands too strong to fold to a 3bet but too weak to come over the top. this is the best way to go about it pretty much until villain knows you're polar. this is because your 4betting range is unbalanced as well as your flatting range.

if instead of 4betting you flat everything your range becomes 100% balanced, and a v good opponent will not be able to exploit the polarization since your continuing range vs his 3betting will be wider.

[spoonitnow]

I understand what you're saying now. The hang-up was in the particular "verbage" used: balanced vs polar. Somewhere along the line they came to be opposites, but balanced has another meaning than being opposite of polar in terms of the game theory involved. One example, a polar range can be perfectly balanced in a game theory sense if it's a part of optimal play in some spot, etc. No biggie.

I really wish another word besides "balanced" would have become the standard for meaning the opposite of polar. Like maybe non-polar.

Anyway, we agree for the most part here.