KK facing a 4-bet
1-3 NL...
V1: Heavily inked 30-something WG, with some of the ink being poker themed...playing fairly tight, seems like a non-descript low limit TAG. ($450)
V2: 60-something WG...not at the table long...bought in for $100 and is now down to $25
Hero: 60-something WG...playing fairly tight ($400)
V1 raises UTG to $10, V2 next in shoves his remaining $25, folded to Hero in BB who raises to $50...V1 4-bets to $150...Hero...?
The problem is that, whenever kk goes all in against a weaker hand it is not posted. We only get the posts where it's as so we are biased to think the shove is always aa. Just watch the polk video. There's another video where polk folds kk correctly but that is some insanely deep hand not 140 bb
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Funny thing is that in instances where I wrongfully folded KK preflop, everything i knew about V made me believe he had AA so making threads where you node lock V on one hand even though they didnt actually have it is pretty useless.
For simplicity's sake to demonstrate a point.
The idea behind MDF is that if we don't meet a certain threshold, then villain can bet their entire range with impunity. If villain's strategy is -EV even with a hand that's in the top 1/3rd of their range, then clearly we're not failing to meet the MDF.
[QUOTE]That doesn't mean our strategy isn't problematic for other reasons. (It is.)
Agreed.
I'm kinda running out of ways to say this: if villain ever 5b/fs $150, then he his risking $140. If he does not, he is risking $390.
Also agreed, although I think important to clarify that you were implying that UTG is committed when he makes the $150 raise. I'd argue that there are some hands he can raise/fold here.
To be clear, the "sizing error" I believe villain is making here is picking a size that makes it apparent he's playing for stacks without trying to maximize his fold equity. The commonality of such a sizing error makes my assumption better tested, and so more reliable, not less so.
As I said, I'm not sure that we can read so much into these 'sizing errors.' They might mean something, and they might not. Some players will just push a stack or two without even counting or considering the money left behind, etc. The fact that UTG used a 3x sizing when he 4bet in position already indicates that he doesn't understand sizing very well, especially when he has AA and obviously wants action.
We've kind of circled around this a lot in this back-and-forth and I'm still not clear on this: Is your position is that we should never deviate from GTO and that playing exploitatively is necessarily bad?
My view is that GTO is the baseline and should be used until it's clear that there are exploits that can be made (for example, if we know our opponent is folding KK to a 4bet).
To be clear, the exploitation villain is able to make is that he's able to 5b/f 40% of his stack. Sure, if villain is able to pull off the poker jujitsu of forcing us from the pot for $140 without ever getting his $390 in with the worst of it, then he's printing.
I'd argue that villain is able to do that due to hero showing that he folds KK to a 4bet (and therefore only 5bet jams with AA). Of course the sample size is only one hand in this case and I'm extrapolating - but OP did not make any comment like "this is an exploitative fold vs this one opponent, and I would never fold here against other players", or something of that ilk, when he made the original post.
Putting aside the likelihood of villain employing this counter-exploit (see above), I will point out that this exploitability is made possible by the fact that we are not shipping AKs more-so than it is from us folding KK.
Who said we are not shipping AKs? I honestly don't remember this being discussed. What would your shipping range be here facing the $150 4bet?
Fun with numbers time!
Let’s see how often the above scenario would occur naturally in a live game:
First precondition is that we have to get dealt KK, which is 0.45% of hands (ie: every 200 hands, or 8 hours of live play).
For now let’s see how often all the other conditions will be met when we’re not in EP.
So next precondition is UTG is someone who is tight and/or positionally aware enough that a raise-first-in from them limits them to 10% of hands (let’s say this is 1/2 t
This is difficult to guess, but I would almost never go for 50% of the time. In general for 1-2/1-3 I'd put population into four rough buckets for EP actions:
1. Limping 10%+ and raising 5-10%.
2. Limping 1-5% and raising 10%.
3. Raising everything and it's 10-15% depending on the table and/or how aware they are of ranges etc.
4. Raising a lot, but it's spew level 20%+.
...these are roughly in the population order I see them (so #1 is more common than #2 which is more common than #3 etc.)
#1 can be very common at some tables, #2 is more common with bad regs, but if a single person is doing #4 then it's a good game.
Then, one of the other EP players needs to re-raise them, which should be 5% of the time.
In this spot where V1 has ~13bb that happens way more than you might guess, IME. Hence my post that 88 can be crushing V2's range.
It's not that often where a V2 only has 13bb though, mainly because they are shoving way wider than top 5%.
Also even if V2 only has a bit extra and shove $45 ... that's significantly different and my 4bet range is now much closer to a real cold 4bet range.
Also for the truth bombs in this thread, you don't need all of that ... a simpler example is:
V raises to $10
We make it $40 in BB/SB
V makes it $140 instead of shoving 250-400.
...and since the truth bombs were dropped, I've been thinking about it a lot and I can remember quite a lot of instances where V had KK+ and maybe one where V had AK. Also a lot of times where V either called or shoved QQ/AK.
Pretty sure I've also done the small raise way more with AA than AK, at this stack depth (play a bit too much at 300bb+ where you can't lol 4bet ship it).
In this spot where V1 has ~13bb that happens way more than you might guess, IME. Hence my post that 88 can be crushing V2's range.
It's not that often where a V2 only has 13bb though, mainly because they are shoving way wider than top 5%.
Also even if V2 only has a bit extra and shove $45 ... that's significantly different and my 4bet range is now much closer to a real cold 4bet range.
Agreed, and note that it's a 1/3 game, so UTG+1 actually has 8.3bbs.
I'd be interested in hearing what you think UTG+1's all-in range looks like for this amount?
We're getting hung up on the Janda math, so let's make this simple and rewind allllll the way back to Sklansky math. Let's just calculate some basic EV:
Let's say we're the UTG player and we hold JJ. Same action happens, and we are looking to solve the EV of r/c'ing when BB shoves an overpair 22.3% of the time.
So EV = Lucky number 0.777*(Net gain when BB folds) - 0.223(Net loss when BB shoves)
Let's say we have 60% equity against UTG+1, so we win 25+0.6*76-0.4*15= 64.6 78% of the time, which is $5
Can you clarify why we would want to solve specifically "the EV of r/c'ing when BB shoves an overpair 22.3% of the time"? Surely there is more to consider than just this one situation?
I think we're reaching an amicable denouement of our pissing contest, and I think I'll try to end on this post:
Theory and practice is getting pretty muddled here (which is my fault as much as anyone else's). UTG can exploitatively raise/fold $150 with all sorts of hands if they know that BB is only shoving big pairs.
However, r/fing 40% of your stack preflop does not exist as a strategy at equilibrium.
As I said, I'm not sure that we can read so much into these 'sizing errors.' They might mean something, and they might not. Some players will just push a stack or two without even counting or considering the money left behind, etc. The fact that UTG used a 3x sizing when he 4bet in position already indicates that he doesn't understand sizing very well, especially when he has AA and obviously wants action.
My view is that GTO is the baseline and should be used until it's clear that there are explo
I agree, and I think most every reasonable poker pro in 2024 would agree with this statement. What counts as "baseline", "clear exploits", etc are what's up for debate. And it's a debate I don't relish having, whereas I'll go back and forth on EV and MDF and EQR calcs and sims all day.
You have implicitly suggested exploitative strats of the unknown UTG+1's shove, assuming it's a wide and laughable range and that we should be playing against it as such. I'm not good enough at using H2N to run MDA on this spot so I can't put definitive numbers to it, but sufficed to say that in my several million hands the read "even the most vaguely competent players don't 4b+/fold 40% of their stack" is one of the most airtight population reads, on a tier well above "unknown 60yo WGs shove 8bbs with 20%+ of hands."
You're also suggesting that UTG can know that we fold KK to a 4b here in a scenario that arises once every 160,000 hands, yet we can't know how UTG will react to a shove. I'm sorry, but that is such a difficult combination of beliefs to simultaneously believe that I have to think you're just choosing to believe that in this specific context because it helps your argument.
But again, I don't enjoy having this particular argument, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. You've got your exploits you're confident in leveraging; I've got mine; YMMV, GLHF, etcetc.
I'd argue that villain is able to do that due to hero showing that he folds KK to a 4bet (and therefore only 5bet jams with AA).
And you'd be wrong. AA is the only hand that can r/c $150 regardless of whether our 5b jam range is KK+ or exactly AA.
The proportion of big pair:non-paired hands is what affects villain's commitment to stackoff with a hand other than the nuts. If our range is 100% AA, 75% AKs, then villain is committed with any non-wheel pair. If our range is 100% of KK+/AKs, then villain can fold any pair other than KK+. Pure shoving KK actively hurts our ability to get paid in full (in theory).
Of course the sample size is only one hand in this case and I'm extrapolating - but OP did not make any comment like "this is an exploitative fold vs this one opponent, and I would never fold here against other players", or something of that ilk, when he made the original post.[/QUOTE]
I'll just throw out there that even at equilibrium we don't shove KK 100% of the time here. The above might help explain this.
Who said we are not shipping AKs? I honestly don't remember this being discussed. What would your shipping range be here facing the $150 4bet?
I said early on that I assume that villain is calling a shove 100% of the time, and so I am never shoving AKs here, and since I don't feel comfortable explo'ing so hard based on size alone, I would probably just flip a coin with KK in practice, obviously shoving AA 100%, and folding everything else (though there's not a TON else to begin with).
If we thought villain had a r/f range here (which does not happen at equilibrium and essentially doesn't happen in practice), then my strategy would look completely different than anything hitherto discussed. Probably like jam 50% of KK+ and 75% of AKs (flatting all the combos that don't jam), and flat 50% of all PPs and SCs that showed up this way.
Can you clarify why we would want to solve specifically "the EV of r/c'ing when BB shoves an overpair 22.3% of the time"? Surely there is more to consider than just this one situation?
That was for illustrative purposes to:
1) Prove that the actual minimum defense against someone r/cing* $150 in this spot must be much closer to the 19% I calculated than the 35% you calculated. If a hand in the top 1/3rd of villain's range is losing money by r/cing* when we shove big pairs 22.3% of the time, then it cannot be the case that our MDF is in the mid 30s. *See last paragraph for clarification
2) Demonstrate a simple application of the minimum defense principle to a relatively complicated situation (that is, complicated relative to the type of scenario where pot/pot+bet gives you the correct answer). IMHO, you were getting quite confused by the different factors at play, so I just held those factors constant for demonstration purposes.
Honestly, all I did was take the actual formula for calculating MDF here and replaced x with a constant that I knew would produce a slightly negative EV (and put in other constants that I thought would be obviously skewed in your argument's favor yet still produce a number that doesn't support your argument). Because that's all MDF is, it's an EV calc where you replace continuation with x (ie: our fold% is 1-x).
Of course the brunt of our different numbers relies on whether you assume that villain is r/cing or not. My thought was if I could demonstrate that our difference in perspective doesn't rely on me not considering MDF but on my assumption that villain has committed himself with his raise size, then we could lay the MDF discussion to bed and focus on the actual difference in our approach to this hand.
All these words to explain what ought to be pretty simple and easy to understand, if we just ask and answer a couple basic questions.
1. Does V have a 4B/5B r/f range that raises to $150 (1/3 his own stack, more than 1/3 hero's stack) and folds if hero 5B/6B-jams for $400 total (pot will be $575, another $250 to call)?
Answer - rarely, if ever. V is almost never raising to $150 and folding for another $250.
2. Knowing the above, how many hands in V's range that raise to $150 are worse than KK?
Answer - very, very few, if any. V's range here MIGHT be QQ+/AK, but often enough will just be KK+, or simply just AA and nothing else.
This is difficult to guess, but I would almost never go for 50% of the time. In general for 1-2/1-3 I'd put population into four rough buckets for EP actions:
1. Limping 10%+ and raising 5-10%.
2. Limping 1-5% and raising 10%.
3. Raising everything and it's 10-15% depending on the table and/or how aware they are of ranges etc.
4. Raising a lot, but it's spew level 20%+.
...these are roughly in the population order I see them (so #1 is more common than #2 which is more common than #3 etc.)
#1 can be ve
I'll be honest I considered this since making my post, and also have since considered how almost everyone's 3b range in these games is <5% regardless of the configuration, so the scenarios where we would be cold 4bing <2% don't seem THAT uncommon.
Honestly, I think live pros' 5b+ ranges are so whack (not slowplaying enough, pushing too thin of value with hands like KK, not bluffing enough) I think the universe of "2/5NL pro plays a premium wrong in a 5b pot" hands would be larger than you'd think, but "hero should have folded that premium" would make up a smaller percentage of those mistakes than people who wonder how often they can save their stack with KK. I think most live pros' approach to being dealt AK/QQ is that they just raise raise raise until they're in over their head, and then they stare down their opponent until they can make an epic read.
Like even most of the intuitive scenarios like "You can fold KK when you're super deep" or "Villain is so nitty you can fold" just make me wonder "should we have flatted earlier in the branch then?" I think it requires a lot of cold action to lead to any pure folds in theory and requires something quirky (like villain's sizing in this hand) for it to be a pure fold in practice.
In this spot where V1 has ~13bb that happens way more than you might guess, IME. Hence my post that 88 can be crushing V2's range.
It's not that often where a V2 only has 13bb though, mainly because they are shoving way wider than top 5%.
I personally think this population read is skewed because someone shoving their last 8bbs usually happens when someone's bled their (presumably larger) stack down after being at the casino for hours and is ready to just either double up or go home.
I personally expect a 60yo WG who bought in for the table minimum an hour ago and has nickel and dimed himself to a $25 stack to just keep playing the same stupid loose/passive strategy that got them where they are now and not suddenly wake up with a 20% shove range with 7 players left to act behind them. (Since OP says they're tight and doesn't have any other HHs on them, I assume they've just gotten here by l/cing and sh--). The 3.75% I suggested earlier is too tight (and not the number I actually used in any of my calcs or assumptions), but I don't personally think it's a meme range.
In any case, I probably wasn't clear enough that I wasn't really trying to demonstrate that OP really meets the preconditions I was talking about. Maybe I was being conveniently ambiguous about whether my math supported my earlier points in the thread lol, but I see this as somewhat distinct from my "straightforward" tight EP v tight EP v sane cold 4bettor scenario.
However, r/fing 40% of your stack preflop does not exist as a strategy at equilibrium.
Well, it's a little less than 40%, but sure I agree that UTG in theory is committed here (but in practice at low stakes some players will fold the bottom of their range to a jam).
You have implicitly suggested exploitative strats of the unknown UTG+1's shove, assuming it's a wide and laughable range and that we should be playing against it as such.
What range do you have for UTG+1? I would estimate it looks something like this:
You're also suggesting that UTG can know that we fold KK to a 4b here in a scenario that arises once every 160,000 hands, yet we can't know how UTG will react to a shove. I'm sorry, but that is such a difficult combination of beliefs to simultaneously believe that I have to think you're just choosing to believe that in this specific context because it helps your argument.
We have clear evidence that OP is folding KK to a 4bet, and I think we can approximate quite accurately how UTG will react to a shove.
And you'd be wrong. AA is the only hand that can r/c $150 regardless of whether our 5b jam range is KK+ or exactly AA.
My argument was that villain is able 4b/f 37% of his stack because he knows that hero is folding KK to a 4bet (and is therefore only 5bet jamming AA).
What ranges do you have for UTG 4betting? Are you saying that you believe AA is the only hand with which they are calling a 5bet jam? And what range do you have for BB 5bet jamming?
I said early on that I assume that villain is calling a shove 100% of the time, and so I am never shoving AKs here, and since I don't feel comfortable explo'ing so hard based on size alone, I would probably just flip a coin with KK in practice, obviously shoving AA 100%, and folding everything else (though there's not a TON else to begin with).
I'd say this really depends on the range that you think the BB is 3betting, otherwise it sounds like you might be overfolding vs the 4bet. What hands are you 3betting as the BB?
If we thought villain had a r/f range here (which does not happen at equilibrium and essentially doesn't happen in practice), then my strategy would look completely different than anything hitherto discussed. Probably like jam 50% of KK+ and 75% of AKs (flatting all the combos that don't jam), and flat 50% of all PPs and SCs that showed up this way.
I find it somewhat surprising that UTG not having a r/f range has apparently expanded your 3betting range considerably in a semi-protected pot - again it would be useful if you could define the ranges that you would be using here.
That was for illustrative purposes to:
1) Prove that the actual minimum defense against someone r/cing* $150 in this spot must be much closer to the 19% I calculated than the 35% you calculated. If a hand in the top 1/3rd of villain's range is losing money by r/cing* when we shove big pairs 22.3% of the time, then it cannot be the case that our MDF is in the mid 30s. *See last paragraph for clarification
2) Demonstrate a simple application of the minimum defense principle to a relatively complicat
To be honest, I don't think your argument proves your point here. We were discussing the MDF for hero after 3betting to $50 and getting 4bet to $150. There is no way that the answer to that is ~19%.
Well, it's a little less than 40%, but sure I agree that UTG in theory is committed here (but in practice at low stakes some players will fold the bottom of their range to a jam).
Effective stacks are $400 and he raised to $150 total, which is 40% of effective stacks. I will not engage in any arguments about the semantics or calculation of pot commitment so if you calculate it differently then glhf. I'll just use pot odds from here on out to avoid confusion.
This is my response to that range:
[QUOTE=RaiseAnnounced]I personally think this population read is skewed because someone shoving their last 8bbs usually happens when someone's bled their (presumably larger) stack down after being at the casino for hours and is ready to just either double up or go home.
I personally expect a 60yo WG who bought in for the table minimum an hour ago and has nickel and dimed himself to a $25 stack to just keep playing the same stupid loose/passive strategy that got them where they are now and not suddenly wake up with a 20% shove range with 7 players left to act behind them. (Since OP says they're tight and doesn't have any other HHs on them, I assume they've just gotten here by l/cing and sh--). The 3.75% I suggested earlier is too tight (and not the number I actually used in any of my calcs or assumptions), but I don't personally think it's a meme range.[/QUOTE]
We have clear evidence that OP is folding KK to a 4bet, and I think we can approximate quite accurately how UTG will react to a shove.
Just don't tell your opponent what your strategy is before he acts, and you'll be fine. This construct where villain is omniscient and can take advantage of information he can't possibly know while we are unable to leverage an extremely reliable population read is nonsense and I'm truly not engaging with it anymore.
My argument was that villain is able 4b/f 37% of his stack because he knows that hero is folding KK to a 4bet (and therefore only 5betting AA).
Villain cannot 4b/f getting 30% pot odds if we shove AA and AKs and don't shove KK. Villain CAN 4b/f if we shove KK+/AKs. So again, your argument that shoving KK is the difference between villain being able to 4b/f or not is incorrect. Closer to the opposite, actually.
What ranges do you have for UTG 4betting? Are you saying that you believe AA is the only hand with which they are calling a 5bet jam? And what range do you have for BB 5bet jamming?
Given villain's sizing, I put him on AA, a mix of KK and a small percent of other hands just performing a random money torch. My maximal counter-exploit to that is for BB to literally only shove AA, though I would probably also shove 50% of KK in practice.
I'm sorry, but I kinda feel like I've said this a few times.
I'd say this really depends on the range that you think the BB is 3betting, otherwise it sounds like you might be overfolding vs the 4bet. What hands are you 3betting as the BB?
My strategies assumed a 1.67% cold 4b percent. I think that's a bit low, but that's what I was rolling with at time of posting. We've talked about a lot of scenarios (equilibrium vs practice, theoretical response given certain assumptions vs theoretical responses given opposite assumptions, etc) so I'm honestly confused about which scenario you're referring to. In many of them I don't care about overfolding. I AM PURPOSEFULLY OVERFOLDING SO I DON'T PAY OFF HIS EXPLOITABLY NUTTED/UNDERBLUFFED RANGE.
I feel very good about my theoretical shove range in my last response (the 50% of KK+, 75% of AKs one), but the fold and calling ranges don't seem quite right. If anything, I think I'm folding too little versus a 3x 5b OOP.
I find it somewhat surprising that UTG not having a r/f range has apparently expanded your 3betting range considerably in a semi-protected pot - again it would be useful if you could define the ranges that you would be using here.
My cold 4b range would be the top 1.25% of hands + a proprietary mix of other hands, the details of which are for paid customers only. Again, I had it add up to 1.67% which is probably too tight, but I could probably loosen it up without much changing my response to 5bs because as I said before I was calling too much/folding too infrequently as it is.
Effective stacks are $400 and he raised to $150 total, which is 40% of effective stacks. I will not engage in any arguments about the semantics or calculation of pot commitment so if you calculate it differently then glhf. I'll just use pot odds from here on out to avoid confusion.
It's 37.5% - but I realise this is splitting hairs.
This is my response to that range:
"I personally think this population read is skewed because someone shoving their last 8bbs usually happens when someone's bled their (presumably larger) stack down after being at the casino for hours and is ready to just either double up or go home. I personally expect a 60yo WG who bought in for the table minimum an hour ago and has nickel and dimed himself to a $25 stack to just keep playing the same stupid loose/passive strategy that got them where they are now and not suddenly wake up with a 20% shove range with 7 players left to act behind them. (Since OP says they're tight and doesn't have any other HHs on them, I assume they've just gotten here by l/cing and sh--). The 3.75% I suggested earlier is too tight (and not the number I actually used in any of my calcs or assumptions), but I don't personally think it's a meme range."
Sure, that's fine. I'd argue that it's far wider that 3.75%, which I believe can be shown when you look at tournament ranges for an 8bb UTG+1 vs UTG open, and adjust for rake. And of course when this range is wider, BB is 3betting wider and UTG is 4betting wider, etc.
Just don't tell your opponent what your strategy is before he acts, and you'll be fine. This construct where villain is omniscient and can take advantage of information he can't possibly know while we are unable to leverage an extremely reliable population read is nonsense and I'm truly not engaging with it anymore.
My view of this is that we are looking at preflop range vs range (as we might in a solver) where both players know each other's ranges, but BB is making the fundamental error of folding KK to a 4bet, as happened in the hand. Of course UTG is going to adjust his strategy when he knows this is the case (and should shove almost his entire range as it all has the required 20% equity to play vs UTG+1).
Villain cannot 4b/f getting 30% pot odds if we shove AA and AKs and don't shove KK. Villain CAN 4b/f if we shove KK+/AKs. So again, your argument that shoving KK is the difference between villain being able to 4b/f or not is incorrect. Closer to the opposite, actually.
My argument is that BB is only 5bet jamming AA (which we can infer from his folding KK) and that therefore UTG should fold everything except AA in response.
Given villain's sizing, I put him on AA, a mix of KK and a small percent of other hands just performing a random money torch. My maximal counter-exploit to that is for BB to literally only shove AA, though I would probably also shove 50% of KK in practice.
I'd argue that villain's 4bet size is larger than it should be (he went to 3x when 2.3x or so would be about right) and that the general low stakes population use a smaller size (even a min-click) with exactly AA, as they want action (and that they use a larger size with AK etc). In any case I'd say that villain's range is somewhat wider than what you mentioned in practice, and in theory can be even wider than that (again working with UTG+1's range being significantly wider that 3.75%).
My strategies assumed a 1.67% cold 4b percent. I think that's a bit low, but that's what I was rolling with at time of posting. We've talked about a lot of scenarios (equilibrium vs practice, theoretical response given certain assumptions vs theoretical responses given opposite assumptions, etc) so I'm honestly confused about which scenario you're referring to. In many of them I don't care about overfolding. I AM PURPOSEFULLY OVERFOLDING SO I DON'T PAY OFF HIS EXPLOITABLY NUTTED/UNDERBLUFFED RANGE.
And does it look any different if you use a 3bet squeeze range instead of a cold 4bet range? Again, I'd argue that 1.67% is far tighter than what is optimal, and that UTG's range is not as nutted as you believe.
OMFG, lol. I'm actually embarrassed.
My view of this is that we are looking at preflop range vs range (as we might in a solver) where both players know each other's ranges, but BB is making the fundamental error of folding KK to a 4bet, as happened in the hand. Of course UTG is going to adjust his strategy when he knows this is the case (and should shove almost his entire range as it all has the required 20% equity to play vs UTG+1).
If that were the case, then we would know villain's range and our exploitation of them would be extremely straight-forward. No argument over their range would be necessary.
That's not what's happening. As it stands, you've created an informational imbalance where villain is clairvoyant of our strategy and we are no clairvoyant of there's.
I struggle to see how this is instructive even just as a thought experiment/toy game, much less a productive way to analyze a HH.
My argument is that BB is only 5bet jamming AA (which we can infer from his folding KK) and that therefore UTG should fold everything except AA in response.
I think we're getting a little confused between all the scenarios and hypothetical strategies we're talking about in these posts.
But what you wrote makes no sense as a response to what you quoted. It is INCORRECT for villain to r/f against the range that DOESN'T contain KK and CORRECT for villain to r/f against the range that DOES contain KK.
The key to ensure that villain is committed to shoving is to increase your ratio of unpaired hands to big pairs. Shoving KK accomplishes the OPPOSITE of that.
Now, I happen to think we shouldn't shove AKs because I don't think villain has a r/f range. But IF YOU WERE to protect yourself against villain exploiting us by r/fing range here, then the adjustment would be to increase the ratio of unpaired hands in our range.
(See the paragraph "If you force IP..." below for more on this scenario.)
I'd argue that villain's 4bet size is larger than it should be (he went to 3x when 2.3x or so would be about right) and that the general low stakes population use a smaller size (even a min-click) with exactly AA, as they want action (and that they use a larger size with AK etc). In any case I'd say that villain's range is somewhat wider than what you mentioned in practice, and in theory can be even wider than that (again working with UTG+1's range being significantly wider that 3.75%).
I think this thread is pretty instructive in learning how your typical LLSNL TINO thinks through sizing in these spots: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/170/l...
I think he made it 3x because he doesn't know that 3x is unusually big in this situation. People just kind of think 3-4x is the acceptable range of raise sizes, just like many people think 1/2p-1p is the range of acceptable bet sizes postflop, and anything else is weird and potentially FPS.
I think when he has a value hand, he's just trying to not f**k it up, so he just goes with a "normal" 3x. $115 is just fancy CiB nonsense and shoving is just blowing us out of the pot.
When he has a light 5bing hand, THEN he notices that $150 is committing anyway, so if he's going to GII regardless, he might as well be the one to shove himself to deny equity and avoid getting in a really gross spot postflop with a <1 SPR when his AK whiffs or his QQ runs into an overcard. (I doubt there's any scenario he seriously considers what you and I know to be the actual correct size).
But he's not thinking about how his entire range plays here, so when he has a clear value hand he doesn't think through how he would have thought through it if he had a light hand.
And does it look any different if you use a 3bet squeeze range instead of a cold 4bet range? Again, I'd argue that 1.67% is far tighter than what is optimal, and that UTG's range is not as nutted as you believe.
The continuation strategies I posted could sustain a 3.3% cold 4b percent. If you assume UTG+1 can shove more like 2/3s of UTG's opening range (say: 6.67%), then we'd be ISOing with the top half of UTG+1's range (and top 1/3rd of the PFR's range), so that seems plausible given the effective stacks limit everyone's risk of running into the top of their opponents' ranges (UTG+1 is less worried about running into the top 1/4 of UTG's range at the time of their decision, and we're less worried about running into the top quarter of UTG+1's range at the time of their decision, and our range is already well-suited to perform well against the top portion of UTG's range).
In that case, the strategy I posted would have a 17/33/50 R/C/F response to UTG's 5b. I think this is defensible (if not perfect) against a standard $115 5b.
A $150 4b does not happen at equilibrium, so how we defend against it depends on the assumptions made that got villain to take that action, and how much we want to exploit that.
The minimum amount of assumptions would be to act like we put this in the solver but only gave IP one bet sizing option, and it just happens to be the crappy size of $150. Even in this case, it will never r/f. I think OOP would respond with more of a 20/20/60 strategy, perhaps KK becoming a pure shove and PPs and SCs calling more like 25%.
If you force IP to r/f some percent of the time you'd have to nodelock that strategy because, again, it's so easily exploited that it's not going to fill that branch no matter how else you configure it. The MES would obviously depend on the exact strategy you nodelock, especially the r/f frequency, but assuming that frequency is high enough that we're worried about him r/fing light, OOP's counter-strat would be something gnarly--like 50/17/33, perhaps with all QQ+/AK shoving, except for AA which flats along with a large mix of all of the lower PPs and SCs for board coverage. Notice the shove range is almost 1:1 AK:big pairs, making it an enormous mistake for villain to fold anything in their range (it is a 60bb mistake to fold 77 against this range.)
The strategy I'm proposing is what I believe to be the MES given my assumptions about his range and strategy (which, by the way, is the assumed answer for any response in an HH): Namely, that villain is 100% r/cing with a range that is overwhelmingly heavy on clear value hands. If we're assuming a 3.3% cold 4b range from us, my MES is an extremely exploitative 14/0/86, whereas the answer I gave for what I'd actually do in practice is more like a 21/0/79. Super duper exploitative (ie: exploitable).
I didn't consult any tools for this because I don't have a way of running custom preflop sims, but this is the best application of my knowledge from theory and analogous sims.
"We are no clairvoyant of there's"
"Numerator"
"committed 40% of their stack"
Does anyone wanna be my 2p2 intern and edit my posts, because this is frankly getting embarrassing.
If that were the case, then we would know villain's range and our exploitation of them would be extremely straight-forward. No argument over their range would be necessary. That's not what's happening. As it stands, you've created an informational imbalance where villain is clairvoyant of our strategy and we are no clairvoyant of there's. I struggle to see how this is instructive even just as a thought experiment/toy game, much less a productive way to analyze a HH.
It's instructive because we can see clearly what a massive mistake it is for hero to fold KK preflop, and how villain can adjust his play to take advantage of that.
It is INCORRECT for villain to r/f against the range that DOESN'T contain KK and CORRECT for villain to r/f against the range that DOES contain KK.
As I said before, my argument is that BB is only 5bet jamming AA (which we can infer from his folding KK to the 4bet in the hand as played) and that therefore UTG should fold everything except AA in response to any BB 5bet. This is a good example of an obviously exploitative adjustment that villain can make due to hero folding KK to a 4bet (and therefore narrowing his range to exactly AA).
The key to ensure that villain is committed to shoving is to increase your ratio of unpaired hands to big pairs.
It's unclear how you can make this claim whilst also claiming that neither player is clairvoyant in the examples we're looking at.
I think he made it 3x because he doesn't know that 3x is unusually big in this situation. People just kind of think 3-4x is the acceptable range of raise sizes, just like many people think 1/2p-1p is the range of acceptable bet sizes postflop, and anything else is weird and potentially FPS.
Yes it's certainly clear that villain does not understand bet sizing theory well, and that fact could lend strength to the argument that he may have a raise/fold 4bet range (i.e. is not committed when he raises to $150) because he may not be operating under the belief that "I'm committed once a third of my stack is in the pot". I agree that this is doubtful, but it's not impossible. If you asked many low stakes recs how much of their stack needs to go in before their whole stack is committed, I think you'd get a pretty big range of answers from maybe 25% to 60%.
The continuation strategies I posted could sustain a 3.3% cold 4b percent. If you assume UTG+1 can shove more like 2/3s of UTG's opening range (say: 6.67%), then we'd be ISOing with the top half of UTG+1's range (and top 1/3rd of the PFR's range), so that seems plausible given the effective stacks limit everyone's risk of running into the top of their opponents' ranges (UTG+1 is less worried about running into the top 1/4 of UTG's range at the time of their decision, and we're less worried about running into the top quarter of UTG+1's range at the time of their decision, and our range is already well-suited to perform well against the top portion of UTG's range).
Sure, this makes sense. But what do you have as the BB squeeze range vs an UTG open and UTG+1 call?
Also (beyond simply using a tighter/stronger range) what is the math/logic behind "UTG+1 can shove 2/3s of UTG's opening range" and "hero ISOing with the top half of UTG+1's range". Specifically, why is exactly 2/3s and "the top half of UTG+1's range" used?
If you force IP to r/f some percent of the time you'd have to nodelock that strategy because, again, it's so easily exploited that it's not going to fill that branch no matter how else you configure it. The MES would obviously depend on the exact strategy you nodelock, especially the r/f frequency, but assuming that frequency is high enough that we're worried about him r/fing light, OOP's counter-strat would be something gnarly--like 50/17/33, perhaps with all QQ+/AK shoving, except for AA which flats along with a large mix of all of the lower PPs and SCs for board coverage. Notice the shove range is almost 1:1 AK:big pairs, making it an enormous mistake for villain to fold anything in their range (it is a 60bb mistake to fold 77 against this range.)
Interesting, thanks.
The strategy I'm proposing is what I believe to be the MES given my assumptions about his range and strategy (which, by the way, is the assumed answer for any response in an HH): Namely, that villain is 100% r/cing with a range that is overwhelmingly heavy on clear value hands. If we're assuming a 3.3% cold 4b range from us, my MES is an extremely exploitative 14/0/86, whereas the answer I gave for what I'd actually do in practice is more like a 21/0/79. Super duper exploitative (ie: exploitable).
Sure, I mean this really depends on how you believe hero and villain are deviating from equilibrium. If villain knows hero is folding KK to a 4bet, then villain should 4bet close to range. If hero believes that villain is super-nutted, then of course he should continue with a very right range. But I still think a 3.3% cold 4b range from hero is significantly tighter that optimal, and that's why I'd like to see how things change if we instead use a BB squeezing range.
It's instructive because we can see clearly what a massive mistake it is for hero to fold KK preflop, and how villain can adjust his play to take advantage of that.
I agree that it's instructive insofar as it demonstrates that exploitative strategies can be counter-exploited if villain knows what your strategy is. I'll leave it at that.
As I said before, my argument is that BB is only 5bet jamming AA (which we can infer from his folding KK to the 4bet in the hand as played) and that therefore UTG should fold everything except AA in response to any BB 5bet. This is a good example of an obviously exploitative adjustment that villain can make due to hero folding KK to a 4bet (and therefore narrowing his range to exactly AA).
It's important to me that you acknowledge that there exist hands other than AA and KK.
It's unclear how you can make this claim whilst also claiming that neither player is clairvoyant in the examples we're looking at.
Let me rephrase the quoted: "The key to ensuring that villain is making a mistake against our range by raise/folding is to increase your ratio of unpaired hands to big pairs."
Yes it's certainly clear that villain does not understand bet sizing theory well, and that fact could lend strength to the argument that he may have a raise/fold 4bet range (i.e. is not committed when he raises to $150) because he may not be operating under the belief that "I'm committed once a third of my stack is in the pot". I agree that this is doubtful, but it's not impossible. If you asked many low stakes recs how much of their stack needs to go in before their whole stack is committed, I
Again, I don't know how to filter H2N to show me all hands where villain 4b+ 40%+ of their stack, so we'll just have to agree to disagree here. You don't trust my population read as much as I do, and I can live with that.
Sure, this makes sense. But what do you have as the BB squeeze range vs an UTG open and UTG+1 call?
My squeeze range in that situation would just happen to be an identical 3.3%, though the range composition would be different (ie: less linear because we would have a flatting range too). Because of this, it would function a little more like a 4-5% linear 3b frequency in some ways, but that fact mostly goes away once they re-raise (because we just end up folding the bottom of our range anyway and what's left is constructed pretty similarly).
Also (beyond simply using a tighter/stronger range) what is the math/logic behind "UTG+1 can shove 2/3s of UTG's opening range" and "hero ISOing with the top half of UTG+1's range". Specifically, why is exactly 2/3s and "the top half of UTG+1's range" used?
It's a mix of logic, heuristics, and drawing the best comparisons I can from analogous sims: Since UTG+1 has zero fold equity (ie: from their perspective, it was a protected pot from the beginning), it only makes sense for them to shove for value. I was going off a heuristic that any hand in the top ~2/3 of an opponent's range is a value hand against their range as a whole, and after double checking that in PokerStove just now, that seems to kind of more-or-less apply here: AQo and 99 have ~50% equity against my personal UTG opening range. Mind you, that's still not enough to justify shoving here since there are still 7 players LTA who can wake up with the nuts and 10% rake, so I think the truth is somewhere in the middle between my initial 5% number and this latest 6.7% one.
(I took the leap in logic in my first post that a tight 60yo WG who bought in short would not have the leak of playing MORE aggressively than a bot, but I think it's fair to question that application in this particular spot even if it's a good general guiding principle. It's probably more accurate to say that a player like that is going to have a very stable ~10% raising range across all configurations, which makes them much more passive than a bot overall, but they're not appropriately tightening up in this spot and so they may actually be a little exploitably wide.)
As for why I'd want our range to be in at least the top half of UTG+1's range, well for one the pot is still 100% protected even at the point of OUR first decision so we also have to play purely for value. But also ranges for cold entry into a pot are just extremely tight in general. There's no real viable flatting option here OOP to both players, and in order to barge into the pot for 17bbs after only having 1bb committed, there needs to be a clear incentive to do so.
Again, I assume you'd have to be in the top 2/3s of the tightest player's range to just be racing against them, and that doesn't seem strong enough to justify cold entry into the pot when you'll be OOP and deep against someone ELSE who will have a better hand than you almost 1/2 the time. I've just seen enough analogous situations (including postflop spots facing a bet and raise cold) to feel extremely confident that barely being ahead of both players is not good enough justification to throw a re-re-raise in there cold.
You betcha champ.
Sure, I mean this really depends on how you believe hero and villain are deviating from equilibrium. If villain knows hero is folding KK to a 4bet, then villain should 4bet close to range. If hero believes that villain is super-nutted, then of course he should continue with a very right range.
That's all I'm saying. And if you aren't jiving with my pop read, that's fine too.
This is obviously an absurd fold. To think otherwise is simply being results-oriented because villain happened to have AA this time. Hero's 4bet size is also wonky; should be closer to 70.
Villain is a young dude with poker tattoos and you think he only has AA here? You need to stop seeing those monsters under the bed and get your money in.
This, 100%. Also, everyone knows you fold KK preflop. Can't be great for you.
I think all you need to do to know this is not only AA is to imagine what the villain would do with KK. Unless your answer is flat (I don't think he ever does as played to what is essentially a 3bet) or fold (come on), the whole argument that you should fold KK kind of falls apart. Now just expand your imagination a tiny bit and throw QQ and AKs in there. I've been playing low stakes recreationallly for almost 20 years, and the described villain will absolutely jam QQ and AKs here some of the time.
I've been playing low stakes recreationally for almost 20 years, and the described villain will absolutely jam QQ and AKs here some of the time.
Nobody has said they wouldn't. Will they non-shove 4bet AK/QQ though?
I realize there's a lot of text to read, if you want to respond ... but you don't have to read much of it to realize nobody ever disagreed with the words you said.
It's important to me that you acknowledge that there exist hands other than AA and KK.
Of course, but it's pretty safe to infer from BB's action (folding KK) that his continuing range is exactly AA, which is obviously hugely problematic.
Let me rephrase the quoted: "The key to ensuring that villain is making a mistake against our range by raise/folding is to increase your ratio of unpaired hands to big pairs."
Sure, but again - how can we know that villain is going to raise/fold unless we are clairvoyant?
Again, I don't know how to filter H2N to show me all hands where villain 4b+ 40%+ of their stack, so we'll just have to agree to disagree here. You don't trust my population read as much as I do, and I can live with that.
I was mostly talking about live low stakes, where I'd argue it's a lot more common to see ~minclick 4bets with AA and massive 4bet overjams with AK.
My squeeze range in that situation would just happen to be an identical 3.3%, though the range composition would be different (ie: less linear because we would have a flatting range too). Because of this, it would function a little more like a 4-5% linear 3b frequency in some ways, but that fact mostly goes away once they re-raise (because we just end up folding the bottom of our range anyway and what's left is constructed pretty similarly).
Sure that makes sense although I'd argue that 3.3% is a little on the tight side.
It's a mix of logic, heuristics, and drawing the best comparisons I can from analogous sims: Since UTG+1 has zero fold equity (ie: from their perspective, it was a protected pot from the beginning), it only makes sense for them to shove for value. I was going off a heuristic that any hand in the top ~2/3 of an opponent's range is a value hand against their range as a whole, and after double checking that in PokerStove just now, that seems to kind of more-or-less apply here: AQo and 99 have ~50% equity against my personal UTG opening range. Mind you, that's still not enough to justify shoving here since there are still 7 players LTA who can wake up with the nuts and 10% rake, so I think the truth is somewhere in the middle between my initial 5% number and this latest 6.7% one.
Yes I think this is moving in the right direction.
(I took the leap in logic in my first post that a tight 60yo WG who bought in short would not have the leak of playing MORE aggressively than a bot, but I think it's fair to question that application in this particular spot even if it's a good general guiding principle. It's probably more accurate to say that a player like that is going to have a very stable ~10% raising range across all configurations, which makes them much more passive than a bot overall, but they're not appropriately tightening up in this spot and so they may actually be a little exploitably wide.)
I agree that the vast majority of players are a lot wider than they should be in UTG+1's shoes.
As for why I'd want our range to be in at least the top half of UTG+1's range, well for one the pot is still 100% protected even at the point of OUR first decision so we also have to play purely for value. But also ranges for cold entry into a pot are just extremely tight in general. There's no real viable flatting option here OOP to both players, and in order to barge into the pot for 17bbs after only having 1bb committed, there needs to be a clear incentive to do so.
Again, I assume you'd have to be in the top 2/3s of the tightest player's range to just be racing against them, and that doesn't seem strong enough to justify cold entry into the pot when you'll be OOP and deep against someone ELSE who will have a better hand than you almost 1/2 the time. I've just seen enough analogous situations (including postflop spots facing a bet and raise cold) to feel extremely confident that barely being ahead of both players is not good enough justification to throw a re-re-raise in there cold.
Sure, agreed.
Half way through the thread. FWIW, an UTG's 4bet range vs BB is as tight as it can get. According to my charts, the only pure 4bet is AA. After that it's a mix of kK and AKs and a smuttering of your bluff card of your choice, like A5s.
So to take it back to 1/3, does population 4bet this loose? If you are in Villain's shoes facing a 3bet from a 60 year old guy, do you 4bet this range or do you tighten up?
It's not an exploitative fold, it's an exploitable fold - as is clear in the discussion above
By definition all exploitative folds are exploitable.
Half way through the thread. FWIW, an UTG's 4bet range vs BB is as tight as it can get. According to my charts, the only pure 4bet is AA. After that it's a mix of kK and AKs and a smuttering of your bluff card of your choice, like A5s.
So to take it back to 1/3, does population 4bet this loose? If you are in Villain's shoes facing a 3bet from a 60 year old guy, do you 4bet this range or do you tighten up?
Well, you could in theory get a little tighter if it was a button straddle, SB open, button 3bet, SB 4bet - but sure, I understand what you mean.
In my experience at 1/3 villains on average (especially those aged ~30 with poker tattoos) will certainly 4bet with AA, KK, AKs, AKo, some QQ/JJ, and some bluffs. In a situation where they have extra incentivization (such as the hand in this thread) they may go slightly wider.
Facing a minclick 3bet from an OOP 60-year old opponent in a protected pot is definitely concerning but I am still 4betting at least AA, KK, QQ and AK in response.
