What is it with people going nuts with A4 and A5
Playing the WSOP $25K Super Main Event. I saw 3 instances of pros going nuts with A4 or A5 (suited and unsuited) preflop. Massive 3 bet shoves (30+ BBs), crazy 5 bet jams for 80BBs, etc. The other players are not folding in this spots. It's not like they got to show their bluff shove and it worked for their image. They got snapped off.
Is every solver telling people that they need to do this?
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I think these are solver approved shoves as good bluffs (at least the suited hands). These are good shoving candidates because (1) they block AA and AK, and (2) the suited versions have decent of equity against V's GTO calling range.
That said, the solvers are constructing ranges and strategies based on the opponents also playing GTO. So while these shoves may be unexploitable, they are probably not the best strategies against the population and specific players where we have reads on them. Indeed, the population probably has a lot less raise-folds than GTO strategy suggests (perhaps incorrectly overcalling because they view the player as GTO -- GTO ranges have the monster hands in their shove ranges too). I am certain that the population has way less 4-bet/fold hands (some players have none) than GTO. So it is possible that the pros you witnessed are not exploiting this tendency. Or its possible, everything was played correctly, and we're being results oriented.
