Small PP facing a steal...

[CBAT]

Button is 25/14/1.5 AF with a steal pct from the button at 50% (4/8) over 130 hands. What is the best move here. Button is 1/2 folding to 3b, I don't have any notes on villain.

If I call here and hit my set, the odds of getting paid off 1/10 or so are pretty low. And if we call and miss, we are playing OOP.

We could 3bet, he folds, everything is good. He calls we play a 3b pot OOP with either rag pair or if we are fortunate, a set.

Or we could obviously fold.

$0.10/$0.25 No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($30.85)
UTG+1 ($25)
MP1 ($11)
MP2 ($24.25)
MP3 ($32.65)
CO ($24.70)
BTN ($34.10)
SB ($23.25)
Hero ($53.90)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35, 9 players) Hero is BB
6 folds, BTN raises to $1, 1 fold, $0.75 to Hero ($53.65)?

[texa8]

i find myself just calling in these spots, i dont want to get 4 bet off my hand missing a chance to flop a set...

im also willing to c/c a lot of flops and see what villian does on the turn.

[Carroters]

3-bet or fold depending on how villain reacts to 3-bets. You have very little implied odds, so flopping a set rarely will not justify calling with a hand that can't flop equity very often at all to be playing oop with no initiative. If villains Bu range is much tighter calling for set odds could be decent, but not vs this guy.

If he folds to a lot of 3 bets then this is a decent hand to 3 bet bluff with; otherwise you can fold and not feel too bad about it. It's a much better idea to chose hands that can flop well vs or dominate a wide opening range instead of one's like 44 that will just flop terribly most of the time and be difficult to play post on most boards.

Your chance to flop a set isn't something you should be too concerned about since you'll just not get paid anywhere near enough vs this guys weak Bu range.

[Dragon Slayer]

I think you can 3 bet this once and a while. Like Carroters said even the times you hit your set its very hard to get paid off a lot vs his BTN range. You said you would be playing a pp hand OOP in a 3 bet pot. Just cover up the fact that you have 44 and play against what you think his 3 bet calling range is. Its a good way to practice 3 bet pots imo.

[Sup3rM4N]

Flatting here sucks. As its been said before, 3bet or fold pre.

BTW, where in NY do you live?

[CBAT]

Albany in like 3 weeks.

And I agree on 3bet or fold.

[kmind]

I think fold >> other two options

[Imthenewfish]

3 bet about $2.50? Would he 4 bet a hand like AJ? I think it depends on how he plays his BTN range facing a 3 bet. He may 4 bet strong hands and not weaker ones, in which case you really don't have any implied odds in raising and hitting a set against a strong hand. If he is a low stakes fish that wants to slowplay a big hand he probably wouldn't have opened on the BTN for 4x. I see 3 betting here pretty much as a steal. I'd fold.

[rong]

I'd 3bet this nearly every time, and if villains been getting out of hand a bit recently and 4 bets me, I may even shove if if the pot size relative to to my remaining stack leads me to think I'll have enough fold equity. (This may be wrong and may explain my last post regarding stacking off with all sorts of crap)

I've found that lately people who steel have wised up to the blinds 3betting wide (again this may be personal as I tend to 3 bet in the big blind quite a lot) and will often 4 bet a lot, so shoving with a pair may well be coin toss quite often or even have you as a major dog but the chips in the middle justify it.

BTW I've no idea if this stacks up mathematically.

[surviva316]

3b/shoving isn't good given stack sizes. also, if someone is playing back at my 4b's enough for me to feel it necessary to 5b bluff, then i'm not 3b'ing 44 OOP in the first place.

like most people have been saying in this thread, there are some regs i flat this against, some regs i call against and some regs i fold this against. due to how quickly my 3b'ing image gets at my stakes, the distribution ends up being something like 80% fold, 15% 3b, 5% flat.

villain's stats over this sample, his open size, our stack sizes and the fact that we have a 130 hand sample on him, so we likely have already done some restealing over his database makes me have no issue at all folding here.

not that this necessarily applies to op, but i think that when players move up from the micro stakes, they have it so engrained in their subconscious that getting dealt PP's mean they're going to see a flop 99% of the time and oooo baby they might catch a set, and this is how you get stacks, that even once they start to become decent small stakes regs who can actually kinda think about the game, they have a tough time approaching PP's facing a single raise objectively, and always auto lean toward continuing somehow. eventually this starts to go away, and you start to be much happier about being dealt like 63s in certain spots than 22-66.

[BooG690]

villain's stats over this sample, his open size, our stack sizes and the fact that we have a 130 hand sample on him, so we likely have already done some restealing over his database makes me have no issue at all folding here.

It's bad to assume imo. If we haven't done any restealing, here's a nice spot to three-bet and do so. You don't want the button to continually steal your blinds so I like playing back here and three-betting.

Calling is awful and this was explained quite well by Carroters. Cliffs: BU has such a wide range here that we're not getting his stack often enough to justify calling for set odds. We are accustomed to calling for set odds when, say, UTG opens. UTG usually has a tighter range and calling for set odds may be good. However, again, here BU's range is mega-wide.

We know he's stealing 50% and I'm going to assume you HAVEN'T been playing back at him much up to this hand (which is why you're posting this here and asking whether or not this is a good spot to play back). Three-betting is good here because it gives us the initiative. We need the initiative to have decent fold equity if we find a flop we can cbet profitably on. Note that we are lacking initiative with a call and you're going to find yourself c/f'ing a lot.

On the note of 3b/shoving, we have no dynamic here. Don't automatically 3b/shove small PPs because you saw it in some video. The more important part of 3b/shoving with small pocket pairs is the dynamic that was created in past hands (which is the part of the video that viewers DON'T take in). We cannot assume that because his ATS is high, his 4b'ing range is wide. That makes no sense.

[kmind]

44 is only good at 3betting if they fold a ton. We don't have that proof yet.

[BooG690]

44 is only good at 3betting if they fold a ton. We don't have that proof yet.

Folding a ton...where? If they fold a lot preflop or on the flop, betting 44 is good here.

And are we waiting to three-bet with {QQ+,AK} to find out he folds a ton to our three-bets?

Additionally, we have 130 hands on villain. I'm sure we have some information on his fold to 3b.

[CBAT]

Folding a ton...where? If they fold a lot preflop or on the flop, betting 44 is good here.

And are we waiting to three-bet with {QQ+,AK} to find out he folds a ton to our three-bets?

Additionally, we have 130 hands on villain. I'm sure we have some information on his fold to 3b.

Yea it's 1 out of 2 as posted in the first post

[daven]

you're baby deep here and need to consider villain's tendencies beyond pre-flop when deciding what's best here. Folding is never terrible. Calling and 3-betting are both sometimes ok.

[surviva316]

Folding a ton...where? If they fold a lot preflop or on the flop, betting 44 is good here.

And are we waiting to three-bet with {QQ+,AK} to find out he folds a ton to our three-bets?

Additionally, we have 130 hands on villain. I'm sure we have some information on his fold to 3b.

fwiw, the fact that we likely have a dirty 3b'ing image was the last on the list for a reason (mainly because it doesn't necessarily apply to op)

just stoved it and i'm fine with 3b'ing ~18% of our range in this spot.

let's look at it this way: what are the advantages of 3b'ing with 22 as opposed to 83o? what are the advantages of 3b'ing with 43s as opposed to 83o? considering this, which hand would we prefer to 3b when facing a 25/14 w a 4/8 ATS and 1/2 F23B? considering the previously stated, which hand do we prefer to 3b when facing a 16/14 w a 25/100 ATS and a 75/100 F23B

sure, we can get villain to fold postflop, so that's why we want a hand that's most likely to see a flop we can cbet and barrel (as opposed to the exact hand that's LEAST likely to see a flop to bet and barrel). also, that's why even the advantages of holding 44 in this spot aren't as large as they would be against someone who's likely going to continue with a strong range.

[Fnord]

I want a hand like Q9s here and let him bluff it off into my pair, with some f'ing around mixed in. 44 is a badish hand because he's not stacking off often and it's going to be a tough hand to showdown. That said, I've been known to flat, close my eyes and check/call the flop.

[oskar]

I'm leaning towards 3b. I really want to know how much he folds, and how he plays post flop. The most common tendency people have there is that they call the 3b too light pre, and then fold too much on the flop. I'd make it 3.5 and c-bet any flop, until he gives me a reason not to.

[Imthenewfish]

If you 3bet you're going to be leading out on most flops because of your momentum? If you're going to do this I would want a hand that's more likely to connect with the flop than a low PP.

[rpm]

just stoved it and i'm fine with 3b'ing ~18% of our range in this spot.

how did you use pokerstove to determine a % of our range you think is a good amount to 3bet here vs this guy?

[oskar]

If you 3bet you're going to be leading out on most flops because of your momentum? If you're going to do this I would want a hand that's more likely to connect with the flop than a low PP.

I'm still hoping some math guy will come in and explain what I'm trying to say
The thing is that 4x is a big raise when he has such a wide range. You exploit that by either making him fold at some point, or you just play back with a stronger range. Ideally both. If I don't know a lot about how he plays in steal spots, I want to find out really fast, so I don't mind 3-betting Axs, any PP, maybe some Kxs. If he folds a lot pre, then I expand my 3-bet bluffing range, and flat stuff like AJ+, bigger pairs that I would normally auto 3b. If he calls a lot and gives up on 40%+ of flops to a moderate c-bet, then I 3b a ton including all my value broadway hands, and just pound ever flop... not because of momentum but because it is +EV.
If he calls a lot pre AND on the flop, then I want to 3b stuff that can make TP hands, and would rather dump small pp's in their favor.
If he starts 4-betting like a monkey, then small pp's become better to 3b because they're fine to 5bet jam against a really wide 4-betting range, and so on.

The point is: if you don't know anything about how he plays, then you really can't say what the best play is. That's why I don't mind spewing just a little bit against a somewhat unknown there bb vs btn.

[Micro2Macro]

Pick a hand that has better equity postflop to 3bet, especially vs an unknown (!). We can find out how he reacts to 3bets by 3betting suited gappers for example, which are going to leave us in less shitty spots postflop.

if we know this guy plays very tight against 3bets and will always have a premium when he calls or 4bets then 3betting is fine since he's going to fold >80% of the time anyway in a vaccuum and we won't have to put any money in postflop unless we bink a set or hit some really gin flop to bluff at. Running multi street bluffs with 2 outs out of position though, likely not a good idea.

Game flow is important here, sometimes you'd 3bet, sometimes you'd fold vs the same player. Against some players it will be a bad idea to ever 3bet small pairs, though lots of people seem to just do it 100% of the time. Interesting.

[surviva316]

how did you use pokerstove to determine a % of our range you think is a good amount to 3bet here vs this guy?

i just put in all the hands that i'm ok with 3b'ing here, and it was 18% of ATC. there was no magic to it or anything, i was just making the point to boog that just because we're not 3b'ing small PP's here, doesn't mean we're gonna be like nitting it up against this guy or anything.

kinda sad my bigger paragraph in that post isn't getting much love. i personally think it's pretty thought-provoking