4b sizing dilemma vs tilted villain?

$250 feels pretty small, especially considering we are in the worst position. I’d probably go something like $375.

1K effective versus V2. You have make him think he has odds to call and you aren't pot committed. I would go about 250.

250 seems fine
I’m not sure I completely understand the dynamics, but if he thinks you’re aggro, I would go bigger. Sometimes, a villain thinks ‘you want a call’ when you go small and gets out of the way. There’s always a mind game.

If you think villain is inelastic and will think you’re trying to steal, I might go much bigger, but you really don’t want him to fold.

I don’t worry about the fish unless they do something

You're cold 4B'ing from OOP. V1 might be getting tired of V2's $hlt and tightening up her opening range. V2 might be expecting her to do that, and tightening up on his 3B range when V1 opens. He might also just be 3B'ing a linear range that we mostly have crushed.

Just raise to $275, and hope to get it in good pre, or hope to get heads up and get a clean flop.

2x pot is like 275, and we are OOP. In general I think sizing down vs. bad players isn't good.

375 is almost 3x pot, which seems a bit on the high side.

Size is tied to ranges though, if you aren't doing this with A4s/K7s then bigger for sure.

We are only 200bb effective and are cold 4betting, so I think we should lean bigger anyway. Not sure many people have a cold 4bet/fold range, even at 2-5.

Not exactly a direct response to illiterat's post above...

Theory says we're supposed to use really small sizing when 4B'ing, like 2x-2.5x, where we're skewing to the high side of that range when we're OOP and skewing to the low side when we're IP.

That said, there's frequent discussion among the Crush Live Poker crowd about how it's often a mistake to 4B using a small size at live low stakes, because we're creating a situation where we're either losing value or giving our opponents a good price to see a flop and try to stack us when they make 2P or a set.

This situation is a bit weird / awkward, when we've got V1 the fishy opener starting $700 eff and opening for 6x, and a different aggro V2 3B'ing to 3.5x from IP. Even if we min-click this to $210, we're committed to calling it off if V1 jams for $700. Meanwhile, if V1 folds, V2 is getting a great price to continue.

Even if we go to $275, we're just about at the point where we're priced in to call the rest off if V2 jams for $1k.

I'm not saying we necessarily want to leave ourselves an escape hatch to fold if either of them 5B-jams pre, but it's going to be pretty gross if V1 5B-jams for $700, knowing we're priced in to call it off, while also knowing she probably only 5B-jams AA.

If we start going much higher than $275, we're just pricing ourselves in more, and making it harder for us to fold to a jam post-flop, even on an ace-high board. We're also making it harder for them to call our 4B with worse, because they're just not getting the correct odds to set-mine.

So...it's a pickle. I don't love the spot. I'm not sure if we're hoping to get stacks in pre or hoping they both fold to our 4B. If our attitude is that we're just going broke if either of them have AA, then I guess we could just jam all in right now, and hope one or both can't release a lower PP or AK.

The problem is GTO sizing and what GTO is doing is so far from what humans are doing here...

GTO Wiz 100bb:

LJ opens
CO 3bets
SB 4bets...

AQs/A5s over 50%; ATs/KTs/TT ~5%; JJ ~10%; Slivers of AJs/A4s/KJs/99/65s; (all of these, even AQs/JJ, are basically 0 EV)
QQ pure 4bets for 0.6 EV
AKs mostly shoves, but sometimes 4bet. Both for 1.8 EV
AKo mostly 4bet, but sometimes shoves. Both for 0.3 EV
KK mixes between 4bet and shove both for ~8.8 EV

Then AA pure 4bet for 24 EV

...then if LJ shoves and CO folds SB folds everything except AA/KK/AKs/JJ/TT (but only AA/KK are +EV).

In the given example I doubt AKs/QQ is that bad EV wise, and KK is probably printing, but then I also doubt dangomango is clicking 4bet with KTs 1 in 20 times.

If you're going to quote just a portion of something I post, I'd very much appreciate it if you made clear if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me. I seem to not do well interpreting nuance, and so I'm honestly unclear about what point you're making.

You basically just repeated the point I was making - humans aren't bots. Bots aren't opening 6x, and they're finding 3B's and 4B's with hands humans generally wouldn't.

The theoretical support for 2x-2.5x 4B sizing breaks down in raked games with human opponents who open 6x and are subject to cognitive errors. I suspect the 4B sizing a solver would choose varies with the stack sizes. We're starting out fairly shallow here, when V1 opens to 6x.

If you're suggesting a smaller 4B size, okay, why? If you're suggesting a larger 4B size, okay, why?

It seems like you're suggesting we go larger. I'm inclined to agree, and suggested a size that is closer to 3x than 2x. I wouldn't hate a 3x or even larger size, but I do think the stack off threshold is worth at least a moment's consideration before we make it $300 or more.

Even $275 may be over our stack-off threshold, with the money that's already in the pot. This may be a spot where the only size that makes any sense is all-in, but of course a $1k jam may not get called by hands we have dominated.

If we're going to make it $300 or more, I think a case could be made that we should just jam. If we're never folding pre or post, perhaps we shouldn't give either opponent a more favorable price to see a flop and then decide if they want to get the rest of the money in. And if we get snapped off by AA, so be it.

The 2x sizing isn't quite as relevant when it's a cold 4bet, still less so OOP as far as I'm aware.

Feels like at least 3x is what you want OOP whilst keeping the size to less than 1/3 of effective stacks (ignore V1).

I'd make it 300.

This is what I'm talking about. If we make it $300, are we folding if V2 jams for $1k? I don't think we should.

What if we make it $300, and V1 jams for $700? Even if V2 knows we could re-jam for $1k, he's getting a good price to see all 5 cards. So he re-jams, and we...fold? Call?

Is there a world where we level ourselves into folding, because someone always has AA in a 6-bet pot?

I'm fine with making it $275 or less and calling the rest off, or folding if we think someone always has AA. I'm fine with deciding if we're just going with it on the flop if one or both call. I'm fine jamming and letting our opponents decide what they want to do.

I think anything between $275 and all-in may be kinda meh if we're just never folding. We're giving worse hands a good price to see a flop while committing ourselves to calling off the rest.

I probably just jam with KK. With AA and some slivers of bluffs I might make a small 4-bet to like $250. I don't really like doing that with KK because he's going to call so much with Ax, and you're just giving him a cheap opportunity to flop an ace and draw out on you.

It sort of sucks that V2 is likely wide here with the aggressive dynamic, so he will likely fold a lot. On the other hand he might think we're getting out of line, so he might call our jam pretty light.

I guess I don't hate just exploitatively going with a committing 4-bet size of like $350 with exactly KK. That is, if we think we can get him to put all the money in significantly wider this way. Theoretically this sizing doesn't really make sense, but it can be effective in loose live games.

With this aggressive dynamic we should never be folding KK. It's more of a question of how to get the most value with it with the least risk of being drawn out on.

I think we are all mostly agreeing ... I guess the point I was making (slightly drunk on a Sunday) is that what size you choose for the 4bet shouldn't be "because GTO says so" but "because we are never folding and this size is most likely to get the most money in ahead, even though it looks strong and reasonable people will probably fold a lot to any reasonable size".

In general, I'd agree, if we're assuming an aggressive V2 or just a generally aggro dynamic. OP seems to assume opponents are tilted based on prior hands when they may not be, and trends towards exaggerating the level of aggression from some opponents. So, I'm not sure how much we should assume here.

It's 2/5. If we cold 4B, and someone puts in a 5B, it's often going to be AA/KK/AKs. If there's a 6B, it's typically just AA. Even if V2 is maniacal, he's unlikely to 6B as a bluff, or for value with QQ or worse. It's not like we're cold 4B'ing JJ here.

The only reasons to think it may be otherwise here would be the potential tilt-factor of V1 5B-jamming for 140BB's with QQ/AK or worse, and in that scenario V2 believing he's getting the right price to re-jam with AK or whatever, so he can see all 5 cards, or perhaps thinks there's some fold equity when we 4B to $275, whereas there wouldn't be if we choose a bigger size.

If we make this $275 and they both jam, the pot will be $1975 and we'll have to call off another $725. We'll be getting just over 2.7 to 1. At that point, I'd think it would be hard for us to fold KK, even if we think one or the other might have AA.

I somewhat wonder if we should be more willing to fold if we go bigger than $275-$300, precisely because there wouldn't appear to be any fold equity. So if V2 jams we can assume he has no bluffs, and he just has AA.

This kind of reminds me of a hand I played a few months ago. We got stacks in 3-ways pre. I had KK. My opponents both had AA, and held, to chop up my stack. As they were stacking up my chips, I started to think I could have found a disciplined fold given the action.

Those pre-flop 4B/5B ranges tend to be insanely tight at low stakes.

Sure. Rub it in.

I do agree that we probably don't need to worry about what would be GTO here.

I'm honestly unsure if there's just no scenario in which we're ever folding, and if that's true, what the best sizing is.

If there's a world in which we might fold, I'd think there's a size we'd want to use. My hunch is $210 is small enough to induce, forcing us to call, and much more than $300 is large enough to make it a a huge blunder if we then fold. Somewhere around $250-$275 seems like it would be the correct size if we might fold.

If there's no world in which we'd ever fold, my hunch is we'd either want to go $250-$275 or just jam all in, and I'm not sure which is better.

So, it seems to me the debate here is whether or not we'd ever fold, and if the answer is we're never folding, which size is better, something sorta-kinda close to GTO, or all-in, because the poker gods can sort it out.

I believe part of the reason the bet sizes get smaller as more bets go in is that smaller sizes put pressure on our opponents to continue with more of their range.

As a bonus, very often opponents will perceive that there's some fold equity when we 4B to an amount that doesn't pot commit us to calling the rest off, and turn their lower PP's into a bluff by 5B'ing. Alternatively, if we 4B jam, they may call off light, because we have so many combos of AK that their lower PP's beat.

That's why I was suggesting we should either use a smaller size or just jam. When you make it more than $300, there's no perceived fold equity, and so they can't jam light. They tend to start over-folding those lower PP's.

You let them off the hook.

This would've been a fun discussion if hero was IP. I think the highlighted is something that happens close to never but we pretend it does. I don't think people adjust to cold 4bs because they simply never happen and are always exactly what we expect them to be.

You could be right. Actually thinking more about it, this is in line with my experiences as well. Several times I've stacked an otherwise good reg with AA vs KK, and then listened to them spend the next 15 minutes acting like they made some huge mistake, and how they could have potentially gotten away if they just flatted my 4-bet or something.

That even included situations where there was an aggressive dynamic where we had been raising and reraising each other all night. Still when the money went in 200 bb deep we both "had it."

Anyway I agree this situation would have made for a better discussion if we were IP. I think there would be more merit to a small 4-bet in that scenario.

OOP, like I said in my first post, I'm probably just jamming with KK.

Still I don't think Dango made a huge mistake with the large committing 4-bet size. I think sometimes opponents talk themselves into calling wider with something like JJ or AQs when faced with the non-all-in 4-bet, when they would have just folded vs a jam. In theory a committing 4-bet might not make sense, but in practice it can sometimes squeeze a little extra value out of your hand.

Fish will make a loose call with worse PP's and AK when we jam. The reg playing the 3B-or-fold strat probably won't.

The configuration here matters, I think.

If we 4B to $300, and V1 flats, V2 is getting a good price to come along, but probably won't jam over the top, because it should be obvious to him we're not folding. So he basically gets to see the flop and a chance to hit 2P+ for another $200. Meanwhile we'll have $700 left behind, and more than that in the pot, making it mighty hard for us to fold post-flop.

If we jam, she may call the rest off with worse. If we make it $250-$275, he may think there's fold equity if he 5B-jams. I just don't see how 4B'ing to any size in-between makes much sense in this set-up, with the reads we were given.