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Flop 4-bet
This is from the homegame the other night, I know @Binkley was at the table. Very early on, everyone had around 100 BBs. Hero (lol) opens to 3x from LJ and I get a single caller from the BB, on whom I have 250 hands at this point. 250 is not really enough hands to make any sophisticated exploits vs an opponent, but you can get some good info about basic preflop and flop tendencies.
FLOP (227) Kd2d2c
Villain leads 114 into 227, just over half pot. On my HUD, I can see that this player calls preflop with lots of suited and unsuited Broadway hands, has a “donk” of 27% (or 3/11 opportunities) and they fold to flop 2-bets 67% of the time (2/3 times). So obviously this is too small a sample size to really make any hay out of the fold to 2-bet stat, but we can safely assume that they donk more than rarely, and not with a nutted range. So, in a vacuum, that’s the kind of donking range I like to raise against, so I do, to 419, leaving 2,426 behind. Typically I will be raising here with a pretty wide range of value and bluffs. At this point the pot is 760 and it’s 305 for the villain to call.
Usually the flop raise is the “TSN turning point” of the hand, but villain clicks it back(!), 3-betting to 724. At this point the pot is 1370 and I have 305 to call, giving me almost 4.5:1 pot odds, so I’d only need about 18% equity in the hand to call here, which now that I run the math, is a hard offer to turn down – if I didn’t have to keep playing poker on the turn and river, that would have been a more tempting proposition (lol), but in-game, even with fewer obvious bluff combos than with the 2-bet, I elected to 4-bet shove instead, and villain folds with their remaining 2,239.
OMG I kinda LOVE this player’s flop 3bet/fold, how often am I bluffing that far down the decision tree? I’m clearly bluff-2-betting a lot of diamond draws, but their clickback 3-bet puts me in a tough spot to balance if I want to continue – but a calling range is also tough to balance there so I chose to shove instead.
Any guesses as to either of our ranges throughout the hand? If it helps, 3x is my standard open size at that stack depth. Upon review if I had to guess I would say the foe folded a K after value betting it first and then turning it into a bluff. Board means they can’t have a “K+draw” hand which is a little limiting as well.
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3 Replies
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I remember that this was early and stacks would have been about 100BB effective. It’s unusual to have this much flop action on such a hit or miss board. Yes there is a flush draw possible but it is a paired board with no straight draws. I viewed this as a way ahead/way behind situation.
Your hand is either
- Way ahead of your opponent’s and unlikely to get outdrawn
- OR way behind and unlikely to improve to better
There is less incentive to raise in way ahead/way behind situations. You would rather call and keep in villain’s hands that you are beating and avoid bloating the pot when you are behind.
Hero will have stronger K’s (AK, KK) and overpair (AA) that BB would lack.
But BB will have more 2’s in their range (K2s, Q2s, A2o).
So the bet/raise/3bet/4bet jam on the flop, looked more like a leveling war to me.
BB leads: “You missed this flop.”
LJ raises: “So did you. But I can easily have AA, so I’m taking back the betting lead “
BB click-back: “But I have more 2’s. I’m going to retake the beating lead and possibly triple barrel.”
LJ jam all-in: “I also could have KK for a full-house”
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I love this reply @Binkley …
Pot Size — 227
Flop — Kd2d2c
Villain bets 114 into 227
— bet size 50% — offer 33% break even
Hero raises to 419. The villain needs to call 305 to win 760
— bet size 40% — offer 28.5% break even
Villain raises to 724. The hero needs to call 305 to win 1370
— bet size 22% — offer 18.2% break even
There is 2239 effective left.
If Hero shoves for 2239. The villain needs to call 2239 to win 3609
— bet size 62% — offer 38.3% break even
Combinatorics
— Fullhouse —
- (KK, K2) represent only 3 + 6 = 9 combos
— Trips —
- (A2, Q2, J2, T2, 92, 82, 72, 62, 52, 42, 32) represents 8 combos each
— Two Pair —
- (AK, KQ, KJ, KT, K9, K8, K7, K6, K5, K4, K3) represents 12 combos each
- (AA, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33) represents 6 combos each
The most telling part of the action is the min-raise from our villain.
Why would they min-raise?
— they have the BEST hand
- why not offer good pot odds and try to build the pot. They know you’re drawing dead here. Their biggest fear is losing the fish on the line, not getting outdrawn on the turn or river.
— they have a STRONG hand
- if they have trips, min-raising isn’t that bad. It will build the pot, put their opponent in a weird spot where (fold, call, and raise) all have merit because it provides them with more info when you react to their min-raise. If you flat call the min-raise, then trips is likely good and they can comfortably bet the turn. If you raise the min-raise, then trips might be behind (especially with kicker problems) and they can possibly find a fold.
— they have a MEDIUM strength hand
- if they have a flush draw, min-raising offers them a possible free card on the turn. Ideally, they would want to be in position so they can check behind. Being out of position, min-raising with a flush draw would be pretty terrible.
- if they have two pair like K8, min-raising would also be terrible. It will get a free card some of the time but not often enough. It would be bloating the pot for an opponent who is getting good odds to call and has already shown on interest on this flop.
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Yup, you guys are hard to beat – @Binkley you are correct in the leveling war, and @ARW you are correct that the min bet made me think there was some fold equity to be had there. In fact i was holding 76s and raised the flop as a pretty standard semi-bluff despite the paired board because it is also a good cbet spot vs a small blind calling range. I think the foe should be trying to exploit my wide 2betting range there and light 3bets are as good a tool as any. while I block some of the flush draw combos we’d like them to have here, it’s hard to find many other 4bet candidates that block value that I would have included in a 2bet range as well. So if I want to shove value here I need a few bluff combos to balance that out.
What are some other better bluff candidates? Hands that block KX like QJx? Trading “blocker value” for “equity when called value” is a healthy tension that I struggle with a lot. Maybe the paired board should incline me towards blocker raises instead of FD raises here.
This hand is a good counter-example to another post I just made about 3-bet shoving the turn. It was also a paired board with a flush draw, but in that case I shoved with value to strengthen a shoving range, and in this case I was basically playing a numbers game and hoping they had the weak part of their range this time. It feels like a weakness in my game that I need to spend some time on – postflop lines vs particular villain types, choosing when to pull the trigger, and why. Maybe a seminar topic one of these days!
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