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Lol you said we can c/r some flops. It's up to you to tell me what you meant by that.

My original statement that you responded to was, "Plus nothing says you can't x/r some flops. If you think his range is wide enough to 4bet/stack-off, then it is certainly wide enough to take some pots down post-flop or even x/c with A high."

I think that's pretty clear what I meant. In fact, what I meant is explicitly stated. It's pretty obvious that I was referring to x/r'ing vs. the type of range you are assuming he has (i.e. wide enough to 4bet/stack against), not against the tight range that I think is more accurate, especially considering that way back in this thread I said I would just fold vs. an unknown. And especially considering that I actually said explicitly in the above statement, "If you think his range is wide enough to 4bet/stack-off," thus making it completely obvious that I wasn't referring to x/r bluffing a tight range.

But your statement, "On the flip side of the coin, if you think his range is too narrow to 4bet, then CR bluffing most flops is gonna be spew," suggests that I was recommended x/r'ing vs. a range that is too narrow to 4bet against (i.e. a tight range), which I obviously wasn't at all, thus making your statement irrelevant.

Ya see, I don't like the assumptions you are making about what he does preflop...if those were true then it's quite obvious 4betting would be a mistake but that doesn't mean your assumptions are true.

That's fine, and it's true I haven't played 50nl in a while but my experience on 50nl Merge a few months back was that people in general don't mess around with UTG raisers that much, and so folding AK with no information in this spot was pretty clearly correct. I just doubt it's really changed THAT much to make 4bet/stack off so obviously correct as you purport. And if it has changed that much, then calling is still +EV, so saying to 4bet and it's not even close is still wrong, which was my point in the first place.

I think you need to know a lot about his range to make these kinds of assertions, that is the main reason calling oop is so bad. We know nothing...NOTHING about his range, nor NOTHING about what he does postflop with it. That is why i advocate playing aggressively here (or folding). It makes our postflop decisions way easier and arguably more +ev.

We have to know something about his range or else you wouldn't be able to say that 4betting is so obviously the right play. We don't know anything about this guy in particular, but we know about player population tendencies (i.e. averages), which is the best available information to use to approximate his range in this situation. If we really knew NOTHING about his range, then we would not be able to say that any one play was the right play "and it's not even close," which was my point in the first place (again, note that I never said calling is definitely the play. I just said that it's a lot closer than you say it is and that your logic for approximating EV was incorrect).

I would make the contention that we rarely ever get more than a postflop cbet out of him when we are ahead. Again, this comes from the fact that we know nothing about his postflop tendencies or his preflop range.
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If that's the case, then we can be super confident about folding turns vs. him since he is never bluffing. This makes calling even more attractive because he is unbalanced on the turn, and we therefore do not experience as high reverse implied odds.

My original statement that you responded to was, "Plus nothing says you can't x/r some flops. If you think his range is wide enough to 4bet/stack-off, then it is certainly wide enough to take some pots down post-flop or even x/c with A high."

I think that's pretty clear what I meant. It's pretty obvious that I was referring to x/r'ing vs. the type of range you are assuming he has (i.e. wide enough to 4bet/stack against), not against the tight range that I think is more accurate, especially considering that way back in this thread I said I would just fold vs. an unknown. And especially considering that I actually said explicitly in the above statement, "If you think his range is wide enough to 4bet/stack-off," thus making it completely obvious that I wasn't referring to x/r bluffing a tight range.

Ok, I missed that. I probably agree with that, but that doesn't by default make calling and C/R better than 4betting. I still think 4betting is better vs. a wider range than calling and 'C/R some flops.'

But your statement, "On the flip side of the coin, if you think his range is too narrow to 4bet, then CR bluffing most flops is gonna be spew," suggests that I was recommended x/r'ing vs. a range that is too narrow to 4bet against (i.e. a tight range), which I obviously wasn't at all, thus making your statement irrelevant.

Lol I don't think it's irrelevant-it's largely true...perhaps just a miscommunication. I didn't mean it personally.

That's fine, and it's true I haven't played 50nl in a while but my experience on 50nl Merge a few months back was that people in general don't mess around with UTG raisers that much, and so folding AK with no information in this spot was pretty clearly correct. I just doubt it's really changed THAT much to make 4bet/stack off so obviously correct as you purport. And if it has changed that much, then calling is still +EV, so saying to 4bet and it's not even close is still wrong, which was my point in the first place.

Ya and see, this is an assumption about the population. This might be true at Merge. I don't know. I play at Ongame where retard reg droolers with 10-25% 3bet preflop regardless of position are commonplace.

We have to know something about his range or else you wouldn't be able to say that 4betting is so obviously the right play.

Well, first of all, I never claimed 4betting was the best play. I just said 4betting is better than calling, which it is.

We don't know anything about this guy in particular, but we know about player population tendencies (i.e. averages), which is the best available information to use to approximate his range in this situation.

That's iffy. You're still making assumptions.

If we really knew NOTHING about his range, then we would not be able to say that any one play was the right play "and it's not even close," which was my point in the first place (again, note that I never said calling is definitely the play. I just said that it's a lot closer than you say it is.)

Erring on the side of aggression oop with a hand as absolutely strong as AK can't be THAT wrong. Since we can't make any assumptions about the relative strength of our hand, I just (perhaps wrongly) think we should play it like the nut hand it is--for it's absolute strength...rather than being passive with it, which is inherently less +ev than aggression.

If that's the case, then we can be super confident about folding turns vs. him since he is never bluffing. This makes calling even more attractive because he is unbalanced on the turn, and we therefore do not experience reverse implied odds.

This is assuming he bets all hands that beat us on the turn.

What I don't understand is saying that AK is ahead of his range so we should 4b/call, but we can't profitably call OOP. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean I get that we are OOP, but just because we have no reads doesn't mean we can't make assumptions about how villain will play. I also disagree that we have to ch/f all flops that we miss.

To say 4b/call is better is to assume he has a decent amount of bluffs in his range. If this is the case, then we should be able to play fine OOP against a 3b. I'm not necessarily saying which is better, but I think it's ridiculous to say that 4b/call is a far superior play imo.

Agree with zach.

I think either option is fine. If one is better than the other, it's negligible.

JJ+AK 60% vs. AKo. Trying to think in perceived ranges villain is repping a strong range vs. your what should be your strong U..TG open raising range. Flat the 3bet.

Some pretty bad advice in here lol.

Calling is completely -ev

It isn't.

you have to hope he bluffs or barrels off with worse TP

You don't.

and you have to fold every time you miss.

You don't. This thread has gotten pretty dumb real quick but let me add that I think 4betting and calling are close, both fine, and the real leaks here are folding to the 3bet or c/f every time you miss.

What I don't understand is saying that AK is ahead of his range so we should 4b/call, but we can't profitably call OOP. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean I get that we are OOP, but just because we have no reads doesn't mean we can't make assumptions about how villain will play. I also disagree that we have to ch/f all flops that we miss.

To say 4b/call is better is to assume he has a decent amount of bluffs in his range. If this is the case, then we should be able to play fine OOP against a 3b. I'm not necessarily saying which is better, but I think it's ridiculous to say that 4b/call is a far superior play imo.

This is exactly what I was arguing from the beginning.

Players 3 bet a lot more aggressively against UTG raisers than they did a year ago, even at stakes as low as 4nl. Sample size is small, but villain seems to be an aggressive TAG who likes to 3 bet. 4 betting here is perfectly fine.

We didn't have that sample size at the time of this hand. He had just sat down at the table. I agree that if we had those stats at the time the hand happened folding would be wrong.

Lol I don't think it's irrelevant-it's largely true...perhaps just a miscommunication. I didn't mean it personally.

Yeah it's true, but it's still irrelevant because it doesn't address anything that I was arguing. It actually addresses the complete opposite of what I was arguing. And I'm not taking anything personally, it's an internet forum lol. I'm clarifying what was argued, even though it was crystal clear the first time.

Ya and see, this is an assumption about the population. This might be true at Merge. I don't know. I play at Ongame where retard reg droolers with 10-25% 3bet preflop regardless of position are commonplace.

This was played on pokerstars, where (I think) micro regs tend to be super super nitty.

Well, first of all, I never claimed 4betting was the best play. I just said 4betting is better than calling, which it is.

"4betting is clearly superior on all levels and it's not even close"

That's iffy. You're still making assumptions.

And...your point is? Making assumptions is the essence of playing poker. What is better information about an unknown than payer population (i.e. average) tendencies?

Erring on the side of aggression oop with a hand as absolutely strong as AK can't be THAT wrong. Since we can't make any assumptions about the relative strength of our hand, I just (perhaps wrongly) think we should play it like the nut hand it is--for it's absolute strength...rather than being passive with it, which is inherently less +ev than aggression.

a) this has nothing to do with the quote that this was meant to be a reply to. The quote you are replying to with the above statement pointed out that if we "knew NOTHING about his range" like you contend, you wouldn't be able to say, "4betting is clearly superior on all levels and it's not even close." If you knew nothing about his range you wouldn't be able to say definitively what the best play is.

b) It really isn't a nut hand in these positions. In late position, then yes. But here it's the bottom of our value range. If you look at a graph of equity distributions there's a HUGE drop off from AA to KK, and then again from KK to QQ/AK. It's a convex curve. So saying things like "it's the 3rd best hand in holdem, allllll-innnn" is over-simplifying and ignores how equity is distributed across starting hands.

This is assuming he bets all hands that beat us on the turn.

Even if he doesn't bet all hands that beat us, if he only bets some hands that beat us and doesn't bluff turn a lot like you asserted he wouldn't before (i.e. you said we never pick up more than cbet from him), then turn is a fold and it makes our hand much easier to play. In fact, we can happily x/c A high vs him since he won't be barreling us off our hand with good frequencies.

So your statement about us not getting more than a cbet out of him can actually be an argument for calling. We can get money out of his bluff hands that we would have just folded out had we 4bet, and we can get away from his value range instead of losing our whole stack like we would have had we got all in. And before you respond to this by saying I'm making way too many assumptions about his game, I'm not. Because you were the one who came up with the assumption that we never get more than a cbet out of him. I'm just responding to that assumption that you made.

I would also still like to see some EV calculations of getting all-in vs. a reasonable value range for these positions with varying bluffing frequencies.

Yeah it's true, but it's still irrelevant because it doesn't address anything that I was arguing. It actually addresses the complete opposite of what I was arguing. And I'm not taking anything personally, it's an internet forum lol. I'm clarifying what was argued, even though it was crystal clear the first time.

How can something true be irrelevant? I guess it depends on the reason we're saying stuff...if it's just to argue or get into pissing matches then ya I could see how you'd think it'd be irrelevant..but if we're interested in facts then nothing is irrelevant.

This was played on pokerstars, where (I think) micro regs tend to be super super nitty.

Ya and see I play at Ongame where calling AK oop (ie: being an FPS passive NIT) is unfathomable because people are so wide in their 3bets...so our decision is largely based on population assumptions. If the general population is so tight that you have to call AK oop to mitigate losses against a superior range I would just fold preflop and find some new games cause the profitability is probably not spectacular.

"4betting is clearly superior on all levels and it's not even close"

Compared to calling.

And...your point is? Making assumptions is the essence of playing poker. What is better information about an unknown than payer population (i.e. average) tendencies?

There isn't, and I think we got sidetracked here a little because we didn't clearly define our assumptions from the beginning. The fact is we can both be right if the differences in player populations are significant enough, which they seem to be in this case.

a) this has nothing to do with the quote that this was meant to be a reply to. The quote you are replying to with the above statement pointed out that if we "knew NOTHING about his range" like you contend, you wouldn't be able to say, "4betting is clearly superior on all levels and it's not even close." If you knew nothing about his range you wouldn't be able to say definitively what the best play is.

Well we don't know anything...but again I think we got tangled up with two different assumptions here.

b) It really isn't a nut hand in these positions. In late position, then yes. But here it's the bottom of our value range. If you look at a graph of equity distributions there's a HUGE drop off from AA to KK, and then again from KK to QQ/AK. It's a convex curve. So saying things like "it's the 3rd best hand in holdem, allllll-innnn" is over-simplifying and ignores how equity is distributed across starting hands.

It depends on our assumptions, I think. It's the ever loving nuts against the general population at Ongame. There are some exceptions obviously, but vs. unknowns I'm getting it in for 100bbs usually regardless of position and happy about it.

Even if he doesn't bet all hands that beat us, if he only bets some hands that beat us and doesn't bluff turn a lot like you asserted he wouldn't before (i.e. you said we never pick up more than cbet from him), then turn is a fold and it makes our hand much easier to play. In fact, we can happily x/c A high vs him since he won't be barreling us off our hand with good frequencies.

So your statement about us not getting more than a cbet out of him can actually be an argument for calling. We can get money out of his bluff hands that we would have just folded out had we 4bet, and we can get away from his value range instead of losing our whole stack like we would have had we got all in. And before you respond to this by saying I'm making way too many assumptions about his game, I'm not. Because you were the one who came up with the assumption that we never get more than a cbet out of him. I'm just responding to that assumption that you made.

I don't think it's an assumption..it's just an educated guess based on experience. Without postflop information we can't really exploit him so expecting anything more than a bet or two over the long run is unreasonable imo.

I've been making the case this whole thread that it's -ev...meaning we are pretty much going to lose money long run-we gave up the betting lead, we have positional disadvantage, we lack information, and apparently our range is disadvantaged also (if your assumptions are true). I think it's kind of lol that people in this thread don't see that is a perfect storm for losing money...if someone could explain to me how they are planning to negate these disadvantages that would be quite eye-opening.

You have done a good job and have almost convinced me it's marginal to call oop, but it's never going to be super profitable afaic (though you didn't claim this, to be fair).

Even if it is neutral or even slightly +ev to call oop preflop I still don't think we can turn it into a +ev hand long run with the presence of the aforementioned disadvantages.

If you actually have a plan for doing so, I'm all ears.

How can something true be irrelevant? I guess it depends on the reason we're saying stuff...if it's just to argue or get into pissing matches then ya I could see how you'd think it'd be irrelevant..but if we're interested in facts then nothing is irrelevant.

How can something be irrelevant if it's true? Since when does true=relevant. C'mon, use some logic. It's irrelevant to the argument because it's totally obvious and no one argued against it in the first place. If I were to say, "You should fold everything but the nuts when a passive fish min-raises the turn," that's as true as it gets, but it's still obviously 100% irrelevant because no one argued that you shouldn't be folding when a passive fish min-raises the turn. So obviously just because something is true doesn't mean it's relevant to the argument.

Ya and see I play at Ongame where calling AK oop (ie: being an FPS passive NIT) is unfathomable because people are so wide in their 3bets...so our decision is largely based on population assumptions. If the general population is so tight that you have to call AK oop to mitigate losses against a superior range I would just fold preflop and find some new games cause the profitability is probably not spectacular.

I mean, not really. You don't have to find new games just because AK isn't a fist pump get it in vs. a 3bet when you open UTG. Obviously there are a ton of other huge leaks people can have other than spewing vs. UTG openers. Plus, calling AK oop is really not an FPS passive nit play. In fact, it can be argued that it's superior in a vacuum vs. a polarized range. There's no way to know for sure because it's so hard to accurately measure the EV of calling, but it's not this outrageous retard play that you make it out to be.

And again, you are changing my argument. You say, "If the general population is so tight that you have to call AK oop to mitigate losses against a superior range I would just fold preflop..." I said I would fold in the first place because I expect ranges to be tight here. So I was never advocating calling vs. a tight range. The argument was that 4betting wasn't so obviously the higher EV play over calling if his range is wide enough to not fold. And this has more to do with the structure of his range. If players are superpolarized and have KK+ and some occasional QQ/AK as their value range vs. UTG openers, but have very wide bluff ranges, calling is certainly not so obviously worse than 4betting especially given his smallish 3bet sizing. If players are 3bet/stacking AQ and TT-JJ and have a lot of bluffs, 4bet/stack is probably better. My argument was that even if players are aggressive 3betters vs. UTG, it's a lot more likely that they are very polarized and aren't getting hands like AQ in. Thus, you can't say that 4betting is sooooo much better than calling.

It depends on our assumptions, I think. It's the ever loving nuts against the general population at Ongame. There are some exceptions obviously, but vs. unknowns I'm getting it in for 100bbs usually regardless of position and happy about it.

Again, if it's such a strong hand and people are so wide and spewey, than calling can't be soooo much worse than 4betting.

I don't think it's an assumption..it's just an educated guess based on experience.

That's pretty much the definition of an assumption as it pertains to poker.

Without postflop information we can't really exploit him so expecting anything more than a bet or two over the long run is unreasonable imo.

If you expect him to on average have unbalanced frequencies (i.e. you can't expect him to barrel a lot as a bluff), then why can't you exploit him?

I've been making the case this whole thread that it's -ev...meaning we are pretty much going to lose money long run-we gave up the betting lead, we have positional disadvantage, we lack information, and apparently our range is disadvantaged also (if your assumptions are true).

No. For about the 3rd time, that's not my assumption. If our range is disadvantaged, I would fold like I said in my very first post and like I have asserted multiple times throughout this discussion. The argument is over what to do if his range is wide enough to play back, and my argument is that 4betting can't be said to be soooo much superior on all levels to calling. Further, it's not just as clear cut has, "Is our range advantaged or disadvantaged?" The structure of his range is important. If he is wide and polarized (i.e. bluffing a lot but not thinning out his value range), calling is certainly a viable play and can't be soooo much worse than 4betting.

I think it's kind of lol that people in this thread don't see that is a perfect storm for losing money...if someone could explain to me how they are planning to negate these disadvantages that would be quite eye-opening.

You have card advantage vs. a polarized range, getting good odds (which also means there's less dead money to win from a 4bet), where you rep a strong range by calling so you can expect to not get barreled that much, meaning a) you don't get fucked by reverse implied odds, b) you can get more money from his bluffs when they cbet than you would have had you 4bet and folded them out c) you can get away from his value range when you are beat, when you would have lost your whole stack had you gotten 4bet/stacked off.

You have done a good job and have almost convinced me it's marginal to call oop, but it's never going to be super profitable afaic (though you didn't claim this, to be fair).

Yeah, I don't think 4betting is "super" profitable either. I think they are both close, like I've been saying all along.

Even if it is neutral or even slightly +ev to call oop preflop I still don't think we can turn it into a +ev hand long run with the presence of the aforementioned disadvantages.

? EV is the long run expectation. If it is slightly +EV to call, then it is by definition a +EV hand/play in the long run.

No EV calc?

Ok anyway this is sort of dragging on and not really being beneficial anymore but one thing I wanted to add was that a lot of this discussion was based on the inaccurate assumption that 4betting means we are getting it in which is obviously only going to happen a certain % of the time...and then only a certain small % of that time are we going to be behind very far.

4betting also gives us two extra ways to win: 1) immediately when he folds and 2) with a cbet on the flop after he calls

which is just fundamentally better than calling when the only way we can win is to hit, and some % of those times we hit we will be behind also.

4betting does increase the likelihood we will win the pot, which seems to be inherently more +ev than calling. It also increases the pot size in general, meaning that we win bigger pots more frequently===again more+ev

Obviously this is based on the assumption that his range is wider than say QQ/AK which it might not be, and I can't say anything about Stars or other sites population tendencies.

That's all I'm gonna say at this point as this discussion has kind of devolved into rigid thinking and argumentativeness... gl.

"Population tendencies". This type of thinking may be wrong.

I have found this hand few days ago and wanted to reply, but somehow I forgot. Now I would like to add my 2 cents.

Preflop
Villains has prob 3-bet once this session (1/5), OP didn't mention it was against him. He 3-bets EP open, I think he his nuts vs air ratio is ~~ 80/20, 75/25 or 70/30 (given my overall experience and observations). By nuts (3b/5b preflop) I consider { AK, QQ+ }, against which we have 38.8% equity.

****** 4b/c *****
- say we 4-bet to $11, so we put additional $9.50 to win $16.25 ($11+$4.50+$0.75) = we need 58.46% fold equity to make this 4b a break even play (I don't take any equities into consideration)
- if we get shoved on, we get ~~ 39.5% pot odds to call and obv we do call (we lack almost 1%, but that's not a big deal)

If he has 21 combos of hands he stacks of pre, then he has to have like 25-26 bluffing combos. This means he 3-bets around 60 combos on BTN vs EP open (remember about AK's card removal effect, lots of AK/AA/KK/Ax stuff is blocked), which is about 4.5%.

Quick research throughout some of regs in my database shows, that people's 3-bet vs open from EP is usually about 2-3%. Only some more aggro regs have this around 4-5%. In other words: lots of you have said both flatting and 4b/c are close.

In my opinion 4b/c is going to be -EV given my assumptions powered by my experience. Let me know what you think about it (also try to check out your databases and your regs, make sure to add 3b vs open from stat in your popup).

I would also like to add, that AK is usually a profitable 4-bet hand not because it is a favorite (you almost always get it in as a dog), but because you take down loads of dead money preflop.

_______________________________________________________________________

****** Flat 3b OOP *****
This one looks fine. We call with a decent hand. The opponent is usually going to fire at least one barrel, so we can pick up some money on Axx and Kxx boards.
There are also some other boards we might x/c on, like 234/254/345. JTx also looks pretty good, because I don't think he would have 3b pre with AJ or JJ/TT, so we have at least 7-10 outs and we can credibly rep a set = Villain will be more cautious postflop = if he keeps on barreling, he has QQ+

That was just an example to show you we don't have to x/c only 1/3 of the time we hit our pair, but obviously I'm not going to go over all possibilities, there are too many variables. Still, this line is better then 4b/c pre w/o any dynamics and reads imo.

___________________________________________________________

****** River play *****
You have also focused on preflop, while the river decision is far more interesting. Looks like a slowplayed set and that's it (spades bet the flop). Only 4 combos. It could be K8s or Q8s too. Your flat calling range OOP hits this board pretty well. Eh, him bluffing here is getting more unlikely now. Probably a fold, but I can't guarantee I am folding here in game

Ok anyway this is sort of dragging on and not really being beneficial anymore but one thing I wanted to add was that a lot of this discussion was based on the inaccurate assumption that 4betting means we are getting it in which is obviously only going to happen a certain % of the time...and then only a certain small % of that time are we going to be behind very far.

Nothing was based on that assumption. Obviously we don't get it in every time. That's just poker parlance. When I say something like, "I would bet/call the turn," that obviously doesn't mean I expect to get raised on the turn every single time in that spot, it's just describes the line you plan to take if opponent takes a given action. So it's not an assumption at all. I think it's pretty obvious that no one itt expects to get it in every time we 4bet. It's just terminology.

which is just fundamentally better than calling when the only way we can win is to hit, and some % of those times we hit we will be behind also.

It's not the only way we can win as I've pointed out before. If he's so wide that we want to 4bet, then there's no reason we can't x/c Ahigh and x/r some flops. If he's not that wide we should fold.

4betting does increase the likelihood we will win the pot, which seems to be inherently more +ev than calling. It also increases the pot size in general, meaning that we win bigger pots more frequently===again more+ev

a) on the other hand, calling risks less money than 4betting. b)No EV calc with different range assumptions?

Obviously this is based on the assumption that his range is wider than say QQ/AK which it might not be, and I can't say anything about Stars or other sites population tendencies.

If the regs on your site get in JJ/TT/AQ vs. UTG openers then are you just playing a 16/14 style and printing money from their spew?