1/3 Lost ranging villain with QQ

How old are you? Honestly wondering if given that you’re an older guy you can make crazy disrespectful folds in a spot like this.

Probably just fold. I'm down way more money than any other hand when I put it in wirh Queens at LLSNL pre.

I did fold,
I guess I was hoping someone could give me a way to range villain, but it must be purely a game of chicken.

It puts me in such a bad spot, I think I want to steal this play from villain. I don’t know what he had, but down here in the low limit streets, I need to start 4Betting light. Nobody seems to have an answer for it.

Now, I just need to decide when not to do it as I go looking for this play

Grunch:

My standard 3B sizing when OOP is going to be 4X, or $60. When you raise to a smaller size, it possibly induces aggro opponents to 4B lighter.

Using that sizing also makes it hard for opponents to find a 4B size that's less than all in, when the usual open is $15 and we're starting with $500. He's pretty much pot committed with any 4B size over a min-click. So what happens is they tend to raise-call a lot, and not raise-4B all that often.

This leads to my heuristic for low stakes, that many players will open too wide, and 3B too wide, and call 3B's too wide, but mostly 4B extremely tight. Their 4B range is mostly just going to be AA/KK/AKs. If he's shown himself capable of 4B'ing A5s, it changes things and makes ranging him more difficult.

I generally think the cold 4B from the blinds is stronger than the raise-4B from late position. I can't imagine he's 4B'ing JJ or worse, but I could get behind the idea his range is QQ+/AK and maybe some occasional AQs.

V's sizing here suggests he's not folding to a 5B jam. I'd think we're not doing all that great against a range of QQ+/AK.

I think we should mostly fold here, absent a read he's capable of doing this with JJ and / or A5s.

ETA after reading other posts - I have no problem folding QQ pre to a 4B.

Describing the villain as both "young" and "middle-aged" did make me laugh a little.

Folding is reasonable in this spot. I personally wouldn't "steal this play" from villain because 3bets are generally really strong at a $1/$3 table, which makes 4betting light basically suicidal. Most people don't fold QQ here.

If you haven't seen him showdown in similar spots, it's tough to put him on a range. Most people do not 4-bet light in LLSNL. Most typically it's like QQ+, AK or in some cases even tighter, like KK+.

I like the fold. With his sizing I would almost look at it as a jam. That's 1/3 of your stack so it's getting close to pot committing.

Just to play devil's advocate though, a jam could have merit in your spot. Against QQ+, AK you still have 40% equity. You need less than 45% equity to stack off with the dead money in the pot. So if he 4-bet/folds at all it becomes a +EV shove for you.

I'll be way outvoted, but while 3betting preflop is probably the default play, I think this is also a perfectly ok spot to just flat (especially if BB is horrible). We're deep and OOP to a competent aggro player with no other dead money in the pot, we're kinda not thrilled with taking it down preflop or getting 4bet or building a massive pot to a terrible flop OOP, etc., so we're kinda cool with rope-a-doping for a mediocre pot. Give me smaller stacks / a less competent player / other dead money / position / AA / etc., then more reason to 3bet. IMO, and I'll be outvoted by a massive margin.

As played, with an old guy image I just fold here.

GcluelessoldguynoobG

+1billion

Gcomingupon7000hoursoflive1/3NL,0light4betsG

Another thing people sometimes fail to consider is their own image, and what the 3-bet represents.

If you're the type of player that 3-bets suited Broadways every time from the SB, and you've shown down some KQs, QJs type hands then it makes it much more likely your opponent could be 4-betting with hands we're ahead of. If your 3-bets are always JJ+, AK then your opponent probably won't get out of line 4-betting.

I dunno. I see plenty of light 3B's at 1/3. I don't see many light 4B's.

I don't know but when I see an older V 3b like OP did I'm thinking KK+ and wouldn't be looking to 4b light. Maybe the V has AK or JJ if they think you're messing around but usually you can give them credit for KK+.

Do you 4b light at 1/3? Does it generally work?

I am open to the fact that your games in PA might be very different from my games in CT, but, from my limited experience, I don't think that they are. I mean, you might see a dude 3b AJo, but that doesn't mean he is going to fold when you 4b A5s.

i dont understand why we woudlnt want to 3b pre when people overdefend to 3bets in live 1/3.

if the default 3b 4x sizing OOP is getting too much respect then 3b smaller to like 3.5x.

I think we may have had some miscommunication. I think we're likely in agreement here, but I'd like to clarify.

You said 3B's at 1/3 are generally very strong. My response was that I see plenty of light 3B's, but not many light 4B's. Though we should probably define what a light 4B is.

It's certainly possible the games play differently around the country, but my suspicion is that most low-stakes games play the same in most places.

This isn't scientific, but based on my observations, I've started developing a working heuristic to describe the low-stakes player pool's ranges for open-raising, 3B'ing, calling a 3B, and 4B'ing.

Generally, it seems to me that most of the player pool is aware that they should be playing raise-or-fold with most of their range pre, but many don't really differentiate what hands should raise based on position. As a result, they tend to open for a raise with any hand they want to play, whenever no one else has opened. The ranges don't shift with position, as theory would suggest.

So, part one = they open too tight or too wide, from every position.

Building on the same logic, they understand the value of being the last aggressor, and believe there's value in having the "betting lead" going to the flop, and they've started to become aware of the concept of a light 3B. So when someone else has already opened, they've become comfortable 3B'ing a wider range, often regardless of the original raiser's position.

So, part two = they 3B too wide, from every position. A 3B at low stakes isn't always a super strong hand.

To be fair - many players still 3B too tight, but they tend to be easy to spot.

Where it gets interesting is when there's a 4B. Generally I think the cold 4B is going to be a stronger range than a raise-4B, especially when the 4B comes out of the blinds. Even if they're aware that it's "fishy" to cold-call a 3B, they still have a 3B cold-calling range, whether they admit it or not, or if they even realize it. So the cold 4B instead of a cold-call of the 3B is likely to always be a strong hand near the top of range.

So, part three = the cold 4B is usually super-strong, because they'll still cold-call a 3B with a condensed range of playable / strongish hands.

At the same time, most low stakes players aren't comfortable 4B'ing light. Most don't really know how many hands in their open raising range should be 4B, so when they raise and get 3B, their 4B'ing range tends to be either way too narrow, just AA/KK, or they'll 4B with a merged range that includes some hands that should just be folds or flat calls.

What happens as a result is they don't have enough of a raise-fold range facing a 3B, because they don't know how to differentiate between the hands that should raise-fold when they get 3B, the hands that should raise-call the 3B, and the hands that should be 4B that aren't AA/KK. Because they know the pool is capable of 3B'ing light, they tend to over-defend against 3B's.

As support, consider that most low-stakes recs are either too tight, such that their opening range doesn't want to fold to a 3B, or they're too loose, such that their opening range is so wide they don't know what to do with too many hands in their range when they get 3B.

So, part four = they call 3B's too wide, and their raise-4B range is not very well constructed, sort of mergey, with hands that are in the top X% of their raising range rather than a linear range of just the top Y% or a polar range of the top and bottom Z% based on position.

Just to try to add clarity to the above - if an opponent's cold-4B range is just AA/KK, their 4B'ing range after they open for a raise and get 3B might be QQ+/AK, or even a bit wider, like JJ+/AQs+. They don't really know how to construct a 4B range that is linear or polar based on position, and just default to "I'm at or near the top of my range".

Think of how many times you've seen someone raise, get 3B, and then 4B-jam QQ or AK. Was that a light 4B? Arguably, yes, it was, if the only hands that are calling are AA/KK. But we probably wouldn't say they were 4B'ing light with QQ/AK. Those are premium hands, right?

Now think of how often you see someone raise, get 3B, they call, and at showdown they have some low or middling pair that should have folded to the 3B pre, or they go for a check-raise on a "safe" flop with TT or JJ and get snapped off by AA/KK.

They open too wide, and call 3B's too wide. They either 4B too tight or too wide, because they don't know how to construct a 4B range, and don't really know how to play a big chunk of their range post, because they're opening too tight or too wide, and 3B'ing too wide, and calling 3B's too wide, etc.

I think if that situation happened at my games I would fold or sometimes call and see what transpires on the flop. Normally people 4 bet QQ+ and AK there is 1 combo of QQ left, 6 combos of KK, 6 combos of AA and 16 combos of AK. That is 13 combos of QQ+ and 16 combos of AK.

If you have experience with this guy 4 betting light then he has even more combos of cards you’re ahead of which makes me want to call.