4-bet is the new 3-bet?

[Genitruc]

I've been upping the pre-flop aggression ante lately by 4-betting a significant amount of the time when ppl are 3-betting me light.

This is no big deal obviously, and is standard for a lot of ppl. It leads to some really interesting situations though.

Assuming that :
-villain is very aggro preflop and mediocre postflop
- has position on you and
-has been 3-betting more often than smooth calling your raises preflop

what do you when he 3-bets you and you hold :

-99
-AQs
-AA/KK
-rags (4 bet? how often?)

I ask because I find that since I've been at nl400 weird things have been happening (like 5-betting preflop w q10 and folding QQ to a 4-bet). I'm curious if most of you winners just find an easier table or if you have systematic ways of dealing with this stuff.

[aislephive]

I will 4 bet light 3 bettors all the time, but I don't like to do it with hands like TT/JJ and to an extent QQ because you're hard pressed to call a push. When I 4 bet hands like AT it's really just a bluff as I'm not calling a push, so I have to think they're going to fold a large majority of the time to do it. I also don't 4 bet very large with 100bb stacks. Like if I raise to $14 in a 400nl game and get repopped to $44, I'll reraise to like $125 or so. People will rarely just call a 4 bet, it's usually reraise or fold. I will 4 bet AK all day against people who three bet lightly and always call a shove (again, for 100bbs, deeper things get trickier).

I also 4 bet with AA/KK if they know I'm capable of 4 betting lightly or I've 4 bet them before, or if the stacks are deep and I want to get more money in the pot.

[mcatdog]

4-betting light definitely has a place if the stacks are deep. The problem with it with normal stacks is that you have to intend to call a push most of the time you do it. Otherwise it's too easy for your opponent to exploit you by just shoving all-in. If you fold, he gets 30% of your stack right there, and if you do call, his hand range's equity against yours is probably decent enough that he's not even losing that much. So in order to not be exploitable you have to usually call the push.

That being said, when someone is getting out of line with their reraises, I think you're usually better off just 4-betting them with AA/KK as well as some other hands instead of taking the passive line and just calling them with AA. Against guys like this I'm more than happy to 4-bet QQ and AK and get all-in.

[aislephive]

4-betting light definitely has a place if the stacks are deep. The problem with it with normal stacks is that you have to intend to call a push most of the time you do it. Otherwise it's too easy for your opponent to exploit you by just shoving all-in. If you fold, he gets 30% of your stack right there, and if you do call, his hand range's equity against yours is probably decent enough that he's not even losing that much. So in order to not be exploitable you have to usually call the push.

That being said, when someone is getting out of line with their reraises, I think you're usually better off just 4-betting them with AA/KK as well as some other hands instead of taking the passive line and just calling them with AA. Against guys like this I'm more than happy to 4-bet QQ and AK and get all-in.

No opponents at 400nl and below are going to "exploit" you, give me a break.

[mcatdog]

No opponents at 400nl and below are going to "exploit" you, give me a break.

I don't get this post. Any time a player makes a read about the way you play and adapts to it, they are trying to exploit you. Please explain how no one below 400NL does this. Even fish are capable of paying attention, let alone players at 200NL or 400NL a lot of whom are decent players, but aren't playing high-stakes games yet because they still have some leaks that would stop them from being successful there. These guys aren't stupid. Mostly, they will eventually notice and take advantage of you if you're doing something as exploitable as frequently putting in 30% of your stack pre-flop with the intent of folding to a push.

In fact I think the problem with a lot of these guys is that they're too aggressive and way too often, they'll see all that money in the pot and decide to just 5-bet push even if they don't have much -- in other words, my 4-bets have not been too successful at getting them to fold, even though I don't 4-bet very often at all. For example a FTR poster tried the 5-bet push on me awhile ago on me when he had AT. In my opinion, you beat these guys by 4-betting more hands pre-flop and being willing to felt most of them, not by turning decent hands into 72o by putting in 30% of your stack and folding to a push. Just calling their 3-bets with AA/KK like you do is obviously another valid strategy against them.

Edit: (for example a FTR poster tried the 5-bet push on me awhile ago on me when he had AT) I'm an asshole. I didn't mean to be one. I forgot who this was when I wrote that post but I remember now.

[aislephive]

No opponents at 400nl and below are going to "exploit" you, give me a break.

I don't get this post. Any time a player makes a read about the way you play and adapts to it, they are trying to exploit you. Please explain how no one below 400NL does this. Even fish are capable of paying attention, let alone players at 200NL or 400NL a lot of whom are decent players, but aren't playing high-stakes games yet because they still have some leaks that would stop them from being successful there. These guys aren't stupid. Mostly, they will eventually notice and take advantage of you if you're doing something as exploitable as frequently putting in 30% of your stack pre-flop with the intent of folding to a push.

In fact I think the problem with a lot of these guys is that they're too aggressive and way too often, they'll see all that money in the pot and decide to just 5-bet push even if they don't have much -- in other words, my 4-bets have not been too successful at getting them to fold, even though I don't 4-bet very often at all. For example a FTR poster tried the 5-bet push on me awhile ago on me when he had AT. In my opinion, you beat these guys by 4-betting more hands pre-flop and being willing to felt most of them, not by turning decent hands into 72o by putting in 30% of your stack and folding to a push. Just calling their 3-bets with AA/KK like you do is obviously another valid strategy against them.

I didn't mean that players at 2/4 and below are incapable of exploiting you, just not in this manner. Some are, but the vast majority are not. 5 bet all in bluffing is extremely rare, and hands like AJ/AQ pretty much always fold to a 4 bet preflop unless you've been really out of line or you two have a long history together. That is why 4 bet bluffing is very profitable under the right set of circumstances. I've 4 bet light and with AA/KK and got folds a large majority of the time against people who I think are reraising thinly against me. If you have people who are felting ATo against you then you probably should 3 bet AJ/AQ with the intention of calling a push, but most players aren't 5 betting all in with a worse hand there almost ever, and they will almost never just call a 4 bet preflop, and that's why I do it. It takes a really good read to 5 bet all in with AJ or as a bluff with 100bb stacks.

In most of your posts it seems like you focus too much on metagame issues, particularly complex ones at low stakes. This is really unnessecary IMO, people at levels like this play very predictable and aren't even thinking past the first level.

[SmackinYaUp]

Guys, I'm a little confused here. What is the definition of 3betting and 4betting?

I always thought 3betting was I raise preflop, someone re-raises me, and then I 3bet it. So 4betting is taking it one step further and putting in over half the stack.

Anyways, whatever you call it - here's what I do when someone is re-raising me light preflop. I either hunker down and wait for better hands or cold call their re-raises. If I have position, I'm calling with way more hands than I am calling with oop.

I rarely put in another bet preflop because it feels like I'm giving them too much of a chance to play perfectly. Its probably flawed, but here's my thinking: if I only put in big re-re-raises with aces and kings, its gonna be pretty easy to get away. If I put in big re-re-raises with other hands, I'm going to have to fold and lose a lot of money when they push. They are going to have to fold way too often when you 4bet with junk to make it profitable.

If its someone who is reraising light and I start rereraising light in return, they're going to start sticking it in with more hands and we're both going to be gambling with lots of money in preflop. If you can switch gears and catch a big hand in a reasonable amount of time then you're gold. Could be bad, but I don't wait for that.

Thats why, even with aces and kings, I only call reraises for the most part. It makes your big hands less obvious, lets you go set hunting more if they're giving you odds or close to odds, and keeps the pot in control. It does give them more of a chance to catch up against your big hands, but oh well.

[DaNutsInYoEye]

PF:

3-bet: someone raises and there is a re-reraise

4-bet: raise, re-raise, re-re-raise

[Warpe]

PF:

3-bet: someone raises and there is a re-reraise

4-bet: raise, re-raise, re-re-raise

...blinds count as 1 bet. Limit term, and I'm not sure if it's used beyond FTR in reference to NLHE.

[SmackinYaUp]

PF:

3-bet: someone raises and there is a re-reraise

4-bet: raise, re-raise, re-re-raise

Wait - on 3-bet, you mean someone raises and there is a reraise right? Not re-reraise.

[Warpe]

Wait - on 3-bet, you mean someone raises and there is a reraise right? Not re-reraise.

correctomundo

[9999999]

one time i made it 5 bets on the flop and got arrested from partypoker security. then they arrested me and they said "i bet youre sorry you did that" so i raised that bet and they 3 bet so i just capped and won

[Genitruc]

rofl

Mcat that is just too funny about your A10 story (of course I was the one who 5 bet A10 preflop trying to get AK/JJ/QQ to fold since AA/KK typically smooth calls the preflop 3-bet intending to get money in on a safe flop... And of course I spiked a 10 to suck out on Mcat's AK). Why would I think you're an asshole for using it as an example. If anything, it's a relevant example...

[gabe]

one way to combat people 3 betting you is to not raise in the first place

[Genitruc]

Another way to combat people 3 betting you is to not play poker in the first place...

[9999999]

Another way to combat people 3 betting you is to not play poker in the first place...

rofl

[gabe]

Another way to combat people 3 betting you is to not play poker in the first place...

thanks

alot of these light-3 betting guys at mid stakes dont really know what they are doing. just play straightforward against them and since they think they are awesome lags they'll either make thin call downs too much or spew chips on bad bluffs.

[Genitruc]

Another way to combat people 3 betting you is to not play poker in the first place...

thanks

alot of these light-3 betting guys at mid stakes dont really know what they are doing. just play straightforward against them and since they think they are awesome lags they'll either make thin call downs too much or spew chips on bad bluffs.

gabe was only trying to be somewhat dick-ish. Not a complete asshole...

Your reply wasn't all that helpful since a lot of these bad laggs you're talking about reraise regardless of how tight you play preflop.

The essence of your 1-liner post seemed to be "tighten up preflop so you can take the heat when ppl reriase". I don't see how it was relevant since in OP I mentioned 3 examples of hands that anyone, no matter how tight they are playing preflop, is raising from all positions.

So simply saying "tighten up preflop" doesn't help much. What do you do when one of these bad laggs reraises you and you have JJ? Or AQs? etc... How does your replying "Don't raise" help at all?

[gabe]

gabe was only trying to be somewhat dick-ish. Not a complete asshole...

thats a good way to start a post where you are looking for help

Your reply wasn't all that helpful since a lot of these bad laggs you're talking about reraise regardless of how tight you play preflop.

the point of tightening up isnt so they start respecting you more and reraising less, the point is that you have stronger holdings so its easier to go to war with them

I don't see how it was relevant... So simply saying "tighten up preflop" doesn't help much.... How does your replying "Don't raise" help at all?

OK. i get it. you didnt get anything out of what i said.

[gabe]

I either hunker down and wait for better hands or cold call their re-raises. If I have position, I'm calling with way more hands than I am calling with oop.

calling reraises of a LAG who is decent postflop is usually bad unless you plan on bluffing alot. you usually dont have implied odds with only 100bb stacks, so alot of the equity youre looking for is from making them fold.

[alias2211]

Your reply wasn't all that helpful since a lot of these bad laggs you're talking about reraise regardless of how tight you play preflop.

then play for big pots PF with marginal hands against them. when you demonstrate to them that you're willing to play MTT at the cash game tables just like they are, then they either knock it off or lose a lot of big pots to you. defining their ranges is extremely important, and it might cost you a few stacks to figure out how wide they really roll. if they aren't a regular, then just tighten up and observe or you might just be donating. but at some point where you can tell that you're going to be playing against them often, you have to let them know that you have the bankroll to ride very small edges very hard. the higher you go in stakes, the smaller your edges and the harder you have to ride them, so start getting some practice.

So simply saying "tighten up preflop" doesn't help much. What do you do when one of these bad laggs reraises you and you have JJ? Or AQs? etc... How does your replying "Don't raise" help at all?

JJ and AQ are PF allin hands against goofy lags. i play against some players that i'm willing to go allin with hands as bad as Q8s and stuff. pushing w/ JJ is a great hand to help you define their range, too, if you get to showdown. i don't recommend starting w/ Q8s and working up from there, though but ultimately, you have to ask yourself: how can you pass up opportunities when you know you're mainly ahead of his push range simply because you're fully or deeply stacked? if you can, then you're losing value long term.

if you just can't hack playing OOP on them then don't do it. that is fine, not everyone has the stomach or the roll to play full stack coin flips. but if you do, you're capitalizing on a great way to add to your rate. again, you need to be properly rolled against players like this that can define the term 'shortterm variance' in totally new ways.

[Genitruc]

gabe let me repeat the OP in condensed form :

How do you play very strong but non-dominating hands (i.e. 99-JJ and AQs-ish hands) when 3-bet preflop by strong preflop - but mediocre postflop - laggs and you are OOP. Also, how does this differ from the way you play dominating hands (AA/KK and sometimes AK) when 3-bet under the same circumstances and why?

Now do you see why "tighten up" is irrelevant?

[gabe]

im pretty sure you mentioned something about rags in your original post AND im pretty sure i started my post with 'one way to combat 4betting....'

combining these two things im pretty sure what i said wasn't irrelevant. also i think you are a tool for trying to prove the irrelevance of one of my one line posts.

[mcatdog]

In most of your posts it seems like you focus too much on metagame issues, particularly complex ones at low stakes. This is really unnessecary IMO, people at levels like this play very predictable and aren't even thinking past the first level.

I think metagame is even more important in low-stakes games than it is in high-stakes games, because it's easier to put fish on tilt than it is to put decent players on tilt. We've all been in the situations where you've raised three or four times in a row, and suddenly, some fish gets so frustrated that they go all-in with nine high and you stack them. That's the benefit of increasing your bluffing frequency for metagame reasons, but you have to do it not often enough that it becomes +EV for your opponents to call you down light when you're bluffing. Keeping this balance is something that I take into consideration during every hand of poker that I ever play.

I guess your point is that it's possible to destroy low stakes just by playing ABC Poker, which is of course true. But you won't win as much as you could, and your game won't improve much either.

[gabe]

i agree with all the stuff you said mcatdog except for the very first statement

[mcatdog]

I'll defer to your better knowledge than mine since you've actually played in high-stakes games and I've never played higher than 2-4. I should have just said that it's very important at any level.

[gabe]

think about it like this......you dont really need to know much about metagame to beat low levels, but you must have a good grasp of it to beat high stakes

[Fnord]

Somewhat unrelated, but my current thought on the subject of meta-game is that I want to establish enough mistrust in my opponents to get them to continue to take marginal hands too far against me. Also, I want to be in enough pots to get more than my fair of shots against the table donator's stack(s). I play a lot of tables with 1-2 terrible players, 2-3 medicore/predictable ones and maybe a good one.

I think for most small stakes games that's optimal. Going apeshit aggro in a raked game against terrible players has too high of a spew factor unless you can utterly destroy them post-flop with weak hands. A loose raise here and there and routine isolation raises get the job done without inspiring them to get too crazy against you.

Also, I worry about balance for routine plays against aware opponents. In odd situations, late streets and against unaware opponents (or ones I have a good read on) I just make what I think is the best value play biased a bit towards avoiding close spots.

Just my 2 chips.

[gabe]

fnord let me repeat the OP in condensed form :

How do you play very strong but non-dominating hands (i.e. 99-JJ and AQs-ish hands) when 3-bet preflop by strong preflop - but mediocre postflop - laggs and you are OOP. Also, how does this differ from the way you play dominating hands (AA/KK and sometimes AK) when 3-bet under the same circumstances and why?

Now do you see why your advice is irrelevant?


SORRY man had to do it

[gabe]

Somewhat unrelated, but my current thought on the subject of meta-game is that I want to establish enough mistrust in my opponents to get them to continue to take marginal hands too far against me. Also, I want to be in enough pots to get more than my fair of shots against the table donator's stack(s). I play a lot of tables with 1-2 terrible players, 2-3 medicore/predictable ones and maybe a good one.

I think for most small stakes games that's optimal. Going apeshit aggro in a raked game against terrible players has too high of a spew factor unless you can utterly destroy them post-flop with weak hands. A loose raise here and there and routine isolation raises get the job done without inspiring them to get too crazy against you.

Also, I worry about balance for routine plays against aware opponents. In odd situations, late streets and against unaware opponents (or ones I have a good read on) I just make what I think is the best value play biased a bit towards avoiding close spots.

Just my 2 chips.

all jokes aside. this is worth talking about. i think "mistrust" is a good thing to plant, but i dont actively try to make people not trust me. i might be betting at alot of pots because i think its +EV in alot of spots, but the aggression along the way causes the bad image. i think this is different than some people who know metagame is important but try to hard to build image.

[Fnord]

Now do you see why your advice is irrelevant?

The subject drifted. The OP's problem is basically not enough of a problem in the games I play for me to chime in until then. Generally if someone with position is giving me a lot of grief, I just find a different table.

[gabe]

wait

you responded to my post seriously, so im not sure if you know my post was a joke..

[Genitruc]

I must be pretty thick for not realizing that your 1st response was a joke gabe. If it was, then I guess I guess all I can say is

thanks

You are right, I did mention rags in OP. My bad.

You seem to get really pissy when someone responds sarcastically to one of your posts. It doesn't seem quite reasonable of you since you were apparently joking from the start.

I am grateful for your help and respect your opinion. That's why I probably took your post too seriously.

What bugs me though is that you seem to be saying that your 1-line post is simultaneously relevant - in that it responds to an essential element of OP - and immune to questioning - since I'm such a tool for questioning a post that was so "obviously" a joke.

[gabe]

i wasnt joking from the start

[gabe]

wait

you responded to my post seriously, so im not sure if you know my post was a joke..

this post was intended for fnord's last reply, not to you genitruc

[Lukie]

Genitruc, to be honest, I just read through this thread really quickly, and gabe has actually only posted something for everyone to think about. Tightening up your raising requirements is legit advice with a chronic 3-better on your left. All of his responses I've seen have just been him giving ideas and insight into his thinking. Of course you can disagree with it, but there's no reason to give him such a hard time.

[Genitruc]

Genitruc, to be honest, I just read through this thread really quickly, and gabe has actually only posted something for everyone to think about. Tightening up your raising requirements is legit advice with a chronic 3-better on your left. All of his responses I've seen have just been him giving ideas and insight into his thinking. Of course you can disagree with it, but there's no reason to give him such a hard time.

No prob I hear ya.

I shouldn't have gotten so pissed in the 1st place. Gabe is right i DID include the scenario where you are raising rags (end of my OP) and tightening up is good advice if you want to avoid tough decisions.

Also I misunderstood gabe when I thought he was saying he was joking with his 1st post. That pissed me off for obvious reasons (mentioned above) but I misunderstood things so forget it, my bad.

flamefests are a waste of time and sry if i wasted ppl's time initiating one...

So if ppl still feel like discussing this, let's tackle the part of my initial post that alias, mcat and aislephive have responded to so far. In my limited experience at nl400 this has been by far the trickiest thing I've encountered.

-how to play good pairs (99-jj) when 3-bet
-how to play big suited connectors when 3-bet
-how you like to play monsters when 3-bet

Obviously I'm not looking for a primer or anything... But situations where you are 3-bet by an aggro preflop, you are OOP and hold a hand like 1010 or AQs seem very interesting . Also how this compares to playing your monsters.

There is no easy answer in these situations so what helps you decide what to do? why 4-bet vs smooth calling vs pushing vs folding?

[bdawg56kg]

One strategy is to simply not 4-bet at all pf, but this can lead to higher variance because you have to be pushing hands like AK/AQ/rags unimproved on the flop sometimes. Also, you sacrifice some clearly +EV situations, like say you open AK in co, and get 3-bet by button. 4-betting here is very +EV (since you have great equity against his range preflop), but if you employ this strategy, you will whiff the flop 2/3 of the time, plus being oop makes things tougher. ie do you c/r all in or c/f on a 255 flop? But consequently, you should earn more with your big pairs, and also if you feel you have an edge over your opponent in re-raised pots, you should be more willing to apply this strategy, since a very common leak (myself included) for mid-stakes players is playing well (ie not spewing) in re-raised pots.

Edit: This applies to 100bb stacks only. With deeper stacks I think you definitely need to include 4-betting in your arsenal.

[SmackinYaUp]

I either hunker down and wait for better hands or cold call their re-raises. If I have position, I'm calling with way more hands than I am calling with oop.

calling reraises of a LAG who is decent postflop is usually bad unless you plan on bluffing alot. you usually dont have implied odds with only 100bb stacks, so alot of the equity youre looking for is from making them fold.

That is a really good point if you're playing fit or fold post flop. One of the hardest things to do is play well in a re-raised pot.

Before I started sucking at 5/10, I was playing in tons of re-raised pots against lags. The stacks get sucked in pretty fast but there is still some room to maneuver - especially against opponents who don't have as great of cards as often.

Honestly though, I folded most of the time I was re-raised. Most of the re-raised pots I played were from me re-raising lags. It was really a bitch playing postflop in big pots against them at times.