[1/3] Defending vs 3bet 100bb

If the straddle wasn’t on, is Hand 1 ever a 4bet @ 200bb?

I am not going to be terribly helpful here, but will just say that these seem like borderline spots against solid, thinking players, where hands that are one pip stronger (ATs, JTs) are probably easy continues and hands that are one pip weaker (A8s, 98s) are probably easy folds. I think I would be more tempted to call with T9s given you are less likely to be dominated, but the price you are getting with A9s is significantly better and the player may be more apt to 3b light with the straddle left to act. BB 3bets can skew tighter in live games because it's so easy to just call your medium-strength hand and see a flop.

Hand 1 I would fold. V has been actively 3betting and appears to be a reg, but I am going to assume villain 3bets very linearly, like never flatting AQo and JJ+ like solver would do sometimes. Our hand is already not a pure call in theory.

Hand 2 leaning towards fold as well again because he is linear, the rfi/3bet sizes are pretty big, and SPR is not very high.

Both are even more folds if this is a raked game.

That said, both spots pretty close, slightly winning to slightly losing. If you want to go 50/50 call or fold I think that's fine.

Generally no. Without straddle this is equivalent to LJ vs bb, and we don't need to 4bet anything pure in that spot when 200bb deep other than aces. We can mix 4bet with KK, AKs, AKo, and low frequency with suited wheel aces and that's already plenty of 4bets.

GTO-W at 6max, with 2.5x RFI, is overwhelmingly folding (85%), with the remainder 4! (15%).

Seems standard, especially with a hand like A9s that's more likely to lose a big hand rather than win one.

At 100 straddles, I was looking at the straddle + ante charts from HJ vs bb 2.5x open and A9s it was about 50/50 call fold vs bb. But without antes and with a 3x open it is probably closer to a pure fold or low frequency 4b or fold.

I'll add my response in spoilers so as to not derail the thread at hand:

GcluelessNLnoobG

For everything that stayed on topic, there have been a lot of really helpful replies, thank you everyone.

I ended up folding both hands to the pre-flop aggression. Hand 2 was closer to a call, for sure. But with SPR ~ 3, it slid into the muck and we move on, c’est la vie.

FWIW, though both spots are poor, I actually think H1 is closer to a call than H2 is. H1 we're getting almost twice as good IO (12.75:1 vs 7.5:1, admittedly both sucky) plus we have high card strength (which we want in small SPR pots).

CcluelesssuckyspotrankingnoobG

I probably call in hand 1 to see a flop, and fold in hand 2.

Hey OP, did you see any of Vs hole cards when he 3bet or RFI? Without knowing the hole cards, the two 3bets close to each other offer limited info. Players get back to back premiums all the time. In the Bb, your typical loose passive 3bets JJ+, AK, and mostly calls the rest. So against a typical player, hero is imo way behind.

I think if you had smaller open sizes and hence smaller 3b both could be calls.
Hand 1 your 6x open seems large, maybe it works in a game where ppl flat dominated and weak speculative stuff? Anyway given that you open large and get 3b to 22x that seems a bit much.

Same issue in hand 2 except the open is smaller but the 3b is a larger multiple of it.
Yeah I just fold both but could see playing on in hand 1 if the opponent is bordering on Maniac which he doesn't seem to be.

both seem like relatively clear folds to me. In hand 1, if villain was SB I could imagine an occasional FPS 4 bet with a suited Ace, but BB 3 bets at low stakes are generally nutted.

there are just better spots than these

gg, that's quite the spoiler message! Guessing a few sarcastic comments got deleted?

I think you're a dirty nit too, but I agree that you get far better results than almost every player and I'm guessing almost every poster here and you enjoy it so you do you. Plus you post coherently, consistently and constructively.

My guess is that the majority of your win rate comes from your very disciplined post flop folds rather than your pre flop limping strat but it's a guess and I don't know and if one is essential to the other then again, all power to you

On GG's spoiler: I would sometime like to know his whole opening and flop strategy, including the principles of implied odds and reverse implied odds that drive it. Good players really just don't know what to do after you open-limp your range preflop oop.

In relation to the sklansky book. I don't have this one but I have some of his older ones. It's interesting if you go back now and reread the theory of poker etc it's clear a lot of the stuff in there is just bad advice as the game has moved on d out understanding of it has increased. The problem with the new book is that sklansky probably is stuck in the past.

https://youtu.be/f70tVMGt1gM?si=dVrWK1FB...

There's bart Hanson on some of the hands, in particular the infamous kk hand GG mentions, which he thinks is just absolute nonsense. He doesn't understand the limp pre or the flop fold.

My take on ggs strategy is that it can win against very bad players. It won't work at higher stakes so you aren't going to learn much about playing good poker following it but you could beat 1 3. It seems designed to maximise Sharpe ratio rather than win rate. So if you are allergic to variance and never want to play higher then it's probably a decent strategy. But if you want to get better and maximise hourly rate it almost certainly isn't. There must be a reason the strong pros and the computers do not play like this!

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Hand 1 is a 3x open because it’s straddled

i would personally fold in both hands.

There are much better spots in weak $1-3 games. No need to get involved here.