What about if he shoved with TT+/AQ+ (4.7% of hands)? That would give us 49% equity. We'll keep the other factors constant, so the $EV equation would look like:
These are great ROIs for our hand. And if our opponent starts turning trash into 5-bet bluffs, the $EV only gets higher and higher for us.
The big thing to take away from this section is sliding hand strengths and thinking about how to best exploit our opponents. If they do something badly, we should take lines that exploit that. If they tend to call 4-bets too liberally, then we should 4-bet for pure value and rarely bluff them. If they tend to 3-bet and spew postflop, then we can consider flatting some value hands rather than mindlessly 4-betting them. If they tend to get too aggressive in positional pots, then we can consider shifting hands like QQ or AK into our value 4-bet range. Everything we do is based on our opponents and their actions. If we are unsure, defaulting on playing tighter and only 4-betting KK+ will keep us out of serious trouble. But we should strive to play with as much information and knowledge as possible so our actions are more exploitative and optimal.
The Bluff 4-Bet
Bluff 4-betting is a great way to combat aggressive games. As 3-bet ranges continue to get wider and more aggressive, 4-betting ranges can be widened or tightened in an effort to fight back. We could also adjust by tightening up PF and being able to fight back with more of a value range, but this section focus strictly on the bluff 4-bet.
Let's review some factors that make for a great bluff 4-bet situation:
Wide O-Range/3-bet Range
Like always, we want to start by thinking about ranges. Bluff 4-betting isn't going to be great against a player who 3-bets with a range of QQ+/AK and never folds any of it. His 3-bet range is too strong and we don't expect to solicit enough folds by making a bluff 4-bet. We like players with very aggressive 3-bet ranges. Either resteal situations where they keep something like a 10%+ resteal percentage, or LP spots where they 3-bet a large range. We can usually glean this information from their stats/pop up, but we want to make sure that we are taking notes on their 3-bet ranges and frequencies.
Tight C-Range/5-bet/flat Range
While we are looking for wide and aggressive O-Ranges, we are also looking for tight C-Ranges. When we are bluffing we are usually only interested in outright profitability. Because most players don't call a 4-bet with a range that they are going to fold much postflop, we can only win by getting enough folds now to show outright profit. We don't care if our opponent continues by shoving or by flatting, what we care about is ensuring that he folds enough of the time if we were to make a 4-bet. Often times very aggressive players tend to amp up their 5-bet range, especially in positional pots, so we need to aware of this and use notes/stats to help create our 4-bet frequency against them.
Our Perceived Range
If we want a bluff 4-bet to work, we need it to be believable. Against thinking players, and these are really the only players we usually attack with bluff 4-bets, we need to ensure that they will believe us and fold enough of the time. So if we are playing incredibly LAG, and our opponent realizes this, he might be less apt to 3-bet us wide or more apt to 5-bet us wide. Neither option is great for us nor the profitability of our bluff 4-bet.
Blockers
Having blockers in our hand can be great and make it harder for our opponent to have a larger C-Range. Us having an A or K is great as it makes it harder for our opponent to have hands like AA/KK/AK, a range that tends to continue more often when facing a 4-bet. While blockers aren't the crux of a good 4-bet strategy, they can certainly add a little extra profit to the $EV of a play.
Size
The size of a 4-bet can drastically alter the profitability of our bluff. We want to make sure that the size blends in with our value size, represents well, and gives us the best price possible. With some simple math we can come up with optimal bluff sizes that offer great $EVs.
What we can see here, is that we really need the stars to line up right for a worthwhile bluff 4-bet spot to arise. Many players make the mistake of forcing bluff 4-bet spots, and given the amount of money risked, it can be a very losing endeavor. Let's look at an example to make sure we are thinking about this spot correctly. Say we open raise Ad5d to $1.25 from the CO. The SB 3-bets us to $4.5 and the action is back on us. Let's look at this versus three different players:
P-Fish. A P-Fish should have a relatively strong 3-bet range as he is a tighter player when it comes to raising preflop hands. Also, P-Fish tend to love pushing the call button, so when he decides to 3-bet, we should be more than a little frightened. Against this player, folding would usually be the best option. A5s isn't strong enough to call, we don't want to bluff 4-bet a fish, and thus folding becomes our best option.
A-Fish. An A-Fish will be more aggressive, and thus might 3-bet very liberally here. While that is good in that it makes his O-Range wide, it's not great because he is a fish. He might decide to 5-bet a larger percentage of his range. He might flat the 4-bet with things like AJ or KQ, hands that we will have an insanely difficult time playing against postflop. Because fish don't like to fold, we usually want to take more of a straight forward approach versus them and just play value hands against them. It should also be noted that if we expect to get 3-bet a ton by this guy, then opening with A5s in the first place could be very problematic.
Other. There are two parts of a normalized resteal range. The part that will continue versus our 4-bet, and the part that will fold to it. Because most nits, TAGs, and LAGs are polarized when 3-betting from OOP, they tend to keep the same “top-side” of the range. The most popular nuttish parts of the range are this:
Those are the most standard “top-side” ranges that players would use. Of course, if a player had a 3-bet of 15% and would only continue versus a 4-bet with KK+, we know that they would be folding 93% (14/15) of the time. If they have a 3-bet of 9% and would only continue versus a 4-bet with QQ+/AK, we know they would be folding 72% (2.5/9) of the time. This is why having big samples on players is great, because we just check our notes and their stats and can estimate the profitability of our play.
So we know better than to 4-bet bluff fish or other players who won't fold enough of the time to show an outright profit. We know who we can 4-bet bluff, and how they would tend to continue. The issue arises when players start shifting hands from their folding range into their 5-bet shove range. For instance, say we steal and get 3-bet by a guy with a 10% resteal range. We know his normal shove range here would be QQ+/AK, meaning that 25% of his resteal range is continuing.
But what if he started taking some of his bluffs, like 73s or K9s, and started putting them in his 5-bet shove range? Then instead of getting folds 75% of the time, the success rate might drop to something like 60%, 50%, or even 40% if he gets very frisky. The more likely a player is to shift bluff hands into their 5-bet shove range, the less likely our bluff 4-bet will be outright profitable.
We can extrapolate a lot from this. For one, we want to take bluff 4-bets against players that are more likely to fold to it, and not get tricky with the bluff part of their range. Two, if players are shifting a lot of bluff hands into their 5-bet shove range, then we should make our 4-bet range more for value. And three, if a player is 3-betting us a large percentage of the time and we don't know how their 5-bet range contorts, we can consider making our opening range into that person stronger so we can 4-bet for value.
The last thing we want to talk about here is the bet size and necessary folding frequencies to show profit. Just like with 3-betting, we are risking a decent amount of money to run this play. The normal size for a bluff 4-bet should resemble that of a value 4-bet. We don't want to go so large4 that we risk too much, and we don't want to go so small that we risk them continuing too often, even though it gives us a better price. Because of this, the normal size is around 20-25bb. Here are the normal opening sizes and 3-bet sizes we would deal with. From there we can look at some different 4-bet sizes to see how often they would have to get fol
ds to show outright profit in Table 2.
As always, the more we risk with our 4-bet size, the more often we need our opponent to fold to show an outright profit. And again, because we can't really win this pot postflop if he calls our 4-bet, we care the most about outright profit potential. We can also run very simple $EV equations to see how much money we can expect to make, or lose, with a 4-bet. If we can estimate how often a 4-bet would solicit a fold, we can just plug in the other variables:
Let's take a hand where we open raise to $3, our opponent 3-bets to $12, and there are $1.5 in dead blinds in the middle. We decided we want to 4-bet up to $24. Let's run the outright $EV if we expect 50% folds, 66% folds, and 80% folds.
We can play around with the outright $EV formula and try out different fold rates and 4-bet sizes. We should do a lot of this kind of work off the table so that we have very clear ideas on the profitability of our plays when we are in a hand. While basic bet sizing principles are still true - smaller sizes get action more, bigger sizes tend to fold out more of their range - we need to ensure that we don't make our bluff sizing noticeably different from our value sizing.
Overall, bluff 4-betting usually isn't a massive part of our game. It is a great play to use when the situation is perfect, but it isn't the kind of play we really want to force. Like we talked about earlier, it is often times better to change our opening range rather than change our 4-bet range, unless we have a very clear idea on how profitable the bluff 4-bet will be. We should just make sure we stay focused on who we are attacking, and ensure that if we are going to bluff 4-bet that we are getting folds at high frequencies.
4 A big part of the reason why we don't want to 4-bet too large is that it commits us to the pot unfavorably. If we 4-bet so large that we are getting 2:1 versus the 5-bet shove, we would actually be priced in to call with a hand as weak as 22 knowing our opponent has QQ+/AK.
Table 2: 4-Bet Sizing and Its Profitability (No Dead $)
The Flatting Of A 3-Bet
There are times when we are 3-bet and we have a hand that we might consider flatting. One of the bigger mistakes that players make is flatting 3-bets too liberally. We really only flat a 3-bet in full ring when we have no other good option. Take this hand:
We steal from the CO with JJ, the SB (an aggressive TAG with an aggressive resteal percentage) resteals, and it is our turn. Let's review our 3 options:
Fold. JJ is probably ahead of his 3-betting range. He is aggressive, resteals liberally, and should have a range much wider than just AA/KK/QQ. Because we are so far ahead of his 3-bet range (especially if he heavily weights the bottom-side), folding here, especially with position, would be losing value
4-bet. While JJ is probably ahead of his 3-bet range, a 4b here might not be doing much more than turning our hand into a bluff. No better hands will fold, and unless we know that his 5b range has quite a few bluffs in it (aka, our 4-bet is for value), no worse hands will continue.
Call. Using our positional edge and post-flop edge (i.e. card edge), a flat here can be a good play. We also notice that no other option was good, and thus flatting just kind of becomes the only play to make.
The hands that tend to fall into this category are hands like 99-QQ, AQ, AJ, KQ, etc. Hands that are strong, probably ahead of our opponent's range, but hands that don't do great facing a 5-bet. However, there are other times, and with other hands, that we can consider flatting a 3-bet. Let's look at two spots.
We raise with AA from MP1, the button (an aggressive LAG) 3-bets us, and it folds back to us. Let's review our 3 options:
Fold. We have AA, we aren't folding preflop in a cash game.
4-bet: 4-betting AA is certainly +EV, but just because something is +EV doesn't mean it is optimal. We would 4-bet if we knew enough second best hands would continue to it. If he would take things like JJ/QQ/AK too far preflop, then we should go for the 4-bet. But if we think he folds everything but KK to a 4-bet, then flatting can be a better option.
Call. Assuming that he would player closer to perfect versus a 4-bet, we could certainly call and keep him in the hand with a weaker range. This gives him chances to keep bluffing, or feel committed with second best hands postflop. Calling with things like AA or KK here are good from time to time so our “flat call vs. a 3-bet” range isn't just JJ/AQ type hands.
Or this hand where we steal with T8s from the BUT, the BB 3-bets. We know the BB is a 17/14 with a 12% resteal, but also know that he is a “CB-and-quit” type player in 3-bet pots.
Fold. Certainly an option. But, being that we know he resteals light (and thus the garbage side of his range is large) and that he will CB and check/fold turns if he misses, we know how we can win the pot. If we are planning on folding to the resteal that we know is coming a large percentage of the time, we might just open fold instead of stealing.
4-bet. We could 4-bet, but if our opponent is an aggressive 5-better, that could be a poor option. Let's just assume he would 5-bet most all of his range, so 4-betting isn't an option.
Call. We can consider calling here because we know how we can win the pot. T8s will hit TP+ or a FD/OESD about 32% of the time. But, we also know when we miss that we can float flops and stab turns as well, giving us more ways to win the pot. While it is pretty rare that we run into a situation with these specific parameters, it is important that we understand and consider all of our options whenever possible.
We should be noticing that the option to flat a 3-bet, as opposed to folding or 4-betting, is heavily influenced by information. The more information we have in terms of width of range or postflop tendencies makes our decision to flat easier. While it is rare that we have the information necessary to flat T8s, we should look for spots where players tend to play a “CB-and-quit” strategy and abuse them. Again, flatting a 3-bet is not something that we do often, but with information or the correct hand in the correct spot, it is a nice play we can add to our playbook.
The Art Of Sizing A 4-Bet
Most players tend to make a lot of mistakes in the sizes of their 4-bets. They either size them too large and lose value, or they make them too small and lose value. While the size of our 4-bet can change drastically based on stack size, the average 4-bet size is around 20-25bb. This size is used for a couple of reasons:
For Value. When we 4-bet for value we want to use a size that doesn't automatically tell our opponent that we are stacking off. This size gives them room to bluff 5-bet shove, and also let dumber players call and put more money into the pot badly.
For Bluffs. Because we don't 4-bet bluff fish, we don't need to worry about the calling frequency of our opponent going up in an a very harmful way. As a bluff, this size looks the same as our value 4-bets, while also giving us a price on our bluff. While on average we still need a 60% success rate just to breakeven, it fits well in our overall strategy.
For Blend. If both our value and bluff sizes are the same, it makes it very difficult for our opponents to know what we are doing. While we don't care about blending for fish (we play straight forward and for value against them), we do care about doing it against the players we would consider 4-bet bluffing.
This doesn't mean we want to be static though. If we were playing against a player who we thought a bluff 4-bet would be good against, but they would fold to a any sized 4-bet, then we should make smaller bluff 4-bets. If we were playing against a fish who would call our value 4-bet more, regardless of size, then we should make it as big as they would call. While we should stay within the area of 20-25bb on average, we can make more exploitative sizing if we have information leaning us one way or another.
8. Preflop Adjustments
There are numerous things we need to adjust to well in order to thrive in today's games. This chapter will go over some of the major adjustments we need to make in our preflop game to achieve higher win rates. While improvement in any one of these areas should prove beneficial to your game, improvement in all of them will improve your game quality in no time at all.
The Ta
ble Selection
Table selection is always an important part of our game, but a part that is not often times talked about. Table selection is a personal thing. Based on your style of play, you should consider looking for different table types. For instance, if you are playing a very tight and passive style, then a table full of nits and TAGs will not be the best table for you. Of course, you should always adjust your game as the conditions of a table change, but initial selection is still very important.
Usually we want to choose tables that allow our style to thrive. If we are going to play a lot of tables and use a tight and robotic strategy, then selecting loose tables with lots of fish will be the best choice. If we are going to play a very positionally aggressive style, then we want tables with lots of players that fold preflop, or fold to continuation bets. Make sure to select tables that allow you to play your best game without needing to force things.
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