are 4bet bluffs just torching cash
In my experince, in live small stake, 3bets tends to be on the larger size and very linear, there are occasional bluffs with suited Ace rags, but mostly 99+, big Ace, and KQ for value. And when they 3bet they are not folding to a 4bet.
With this setup, it is an error to 4bet bluff, and will 4bet purely for value. But what is the value threshold against that particular 3betting range? What hands can we flat? Can we just fold AK here, since calling a big bet just to fold 70% of the time does not seem profitable. Can we set mine? Is calling JJ and playing bluff catcher the right play?
Since 3bets dont happen all that often can we just fold everything and continue with KK+, especially after opening small?
yeah, vs someone who doesnt barrel air, it easy to continue. I can see the merits in continueing and folding to a 2nd barrel.
On a different note, Im kind of curious how you would play oop in a 4bet spot with QQ, JJ vs villain with range 99+, AJs+, KQs, AKo. They never 5bet and flat 4bets with everything they continue with.
$1/$3, $300 effective. you open $12, they make it $50, you 4bet $125. Board comes faborably low either rainbow or two tone.
For the most part my only OOP 4bet at 300 effective after a 3bet to 50 would be jam. For what it's worth, I like opening to 10 in 1/3 and 50 is a really big 3bet from an in position player. General not looking to make the SPR lower than 1, would rather just jam.
But let's say if you were deeper when you 4bet.
I probably wouldn't 4bet with JJ vs someone with the range you described. My question is, what do they do vs 4bet jam? Even at a deeper SPR, we can have a 4bet jamming range. Is he going to fold out any pocket pairs? AKo? AJs? KQs? He should fold out some of his weaker pairs at least. In which case we can jam AKo and KK. If he isn't folding out pocket pairs, we can just jam QQ and KK. We smaller 4bet with AA and AKs (and can with QQ unless we are chosing to jam). If he isn't folding out anything, the AKo is probably very close between calling and small 4betting, and the larger open raise we make and larger 3bet they have, the more it might be around 0 EV, so it may be close to a fold as well. The 3bet range you describe is just so tight. I would really like to see them at least 3betting with AQo as that adds another 12 combos and makes AKo above 50% equity.
As for postflop, on most boards I would be betting small on the flop, 25% is my most common size. You need to take your stack size into consideration for your overall strategy. The deeper you are, the more multi-barrel bluffs you can consider making. The smaller your stack is, the more give ups I would have on later streets. So if you are bluffing, you kind of have to decide where you are going to take your fold equity. On some boards, the strategy will be to half pot the flop and then mostly have give ups. On other boards, you might 25% pot the flop, half pot the turn if you decide to barrel, and then river strategy depends heavily on how much you have behind and how much fold equity you have. For value hands for the most part it is the same sizing scheme,only we don't give up. We bet all streets and try to get the money in for the most part. We only trap sometimes when we think villain will bluff or value bet worse and we can get more money in by checking.
You asked specifically if I had QQ or JJ what would I do. I already established I wouldn't have JJ. With QQ, I am probably going to go for 2 or 3 street all ins if I have an overpair. With and A or K on the board I still bet flop, mostly check turn, mainly folding to aggression that threatens playing for stacks. Because so much of villain's range will be hitting the A or K if it comes out, and villain is also probably not going to float with like JJ, TT, 99 on an A or K high board to later steal the pot from queens by jamming later.
The purpose of 3! bluffing is to take the pot preflop or with a cbet, particularly with tight scared play in a tournament. You also don't want your 3!s to be read as premium hands, so they will fold or call and often be able to tell from the action whether you have a big pp or AK.
In 1/3 games, people usually call 3!s, so less point in 3! bluffing. If people 3! QQ/AK, they will usually call or shove against a 4! and usually get shown AA/KK, and take it as a bad beat or that they 3! too weak a hand. So it doesn't make much sense to 4! A5s and try to get QQ or whatever to fold.
