99 in CO vs an agro BTN

[BorisTheSpider]

Thanks for the further clarification. I'd like to just talk a bit more about what you've said, to make sure I understand:

No, I'm suggesting you take a look at your range and think about where hands fit in and why. If he's 3betting this much I think calling is probably fine w/99 as long as you have some protection in your calling range.

When you say "protection in your calling range", do you mean some nutted stuff for balance, so that if I call here I'm not always tightly defined as "strong but not AA/KK/AK"?

4betting 99 is basically turning it into a bluff, which I don't see any reason to.

Agreed.

My point was more you need to have a more well defined 4bet bluff range in this spot and I also forgot to add that you should increase your 4bet value range too.

In a vacuum then, just going on his stats (since this was zoom, so there would be no table dynamic, and there is no particular history between villain and I), does this seem sensible:

4bet for value intending to call it off: [JJ+, AKs-AQs, AKo]
4bet as a bluff: [77-55, A2s-A5s, KJs-KTs, KJo]

Not saying those ranges are particularly well thought through, and I will do some more thinking on this, but first I just want to confirm that I'm understanding you correctly in general.

[Savy]

1)When you say "protection in your calling range", do you mean some nutted stuff for balance, so that if I call here I'm not always tightly defined as "strong but not AA/KK/AK"?

2)In a vacuum then, just going on his stats (since this was zoom, so there would be no table dynamic, and there is no particular history between villain and I), does this seem sensible:

4bet for value intending to call it off: [JJ+, AKs-AQs, AKo]
4bet as a bluff: [77-55, A2s-A5s, KJs-KTs, KJo]

1)Yes, things along them lines. However be aware that this is only really required against thinking villains where you should always have some balance because otherwise you are just capping your range and people will fire bets at you relentlessly and make your life hard.

2)We want to be bluffing with equity against his range. To have equity against his range we first of all want to block his continuing range as much as possible, block as little of his folding range as possible and have hands that flop well where we can continue applying pressure. Betting with equity is so much >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> betting without equity.

How you go about doing this depends on what type of ranges you perceive villains to have, there are lots of 3bet/4bet/5bet articles out there that explain all of this in much better detail than I am going to, so I suggest reading a few of them.

[BorisTheSpider]

block his continuing range as much as possible, block as little of his folding range as possible and have hands that flop well where we can continue applying pressure.

Thanks for the clarification. I see what you mean about blockers - it's something I don't think about enough. So like [ATs, A5s-A2s, KJs-KTs, KQo] looks better than what I initially suggested as a 4-bet bluffing range, since it blocks tons of aces, lots of kings, and often flops enough equity to continue applying pressure.

I'll do some more reading.