For ease, I'm going to put their stats next to their names.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) ($24.50)
UTG ($15.65)
MP ($50.05) - 26/13
CO ($25.60) - 45/23
Button ($24.55)
SB ($38.85) - 23/21

Preflop: Hero is BB with K , A
1 fold, MP raises to $0.75, CO calls $0.75, 1 fold, SB raises to $4, Hero raises to $11

What do you guys think of 4-betting vs calling/folding?

At $25nl I think this is a fold, raise and reraise by a TAG OOP is almost never worse than AK.

I cant say that i like folding at all, but i think calling is ur best option. You will have position on the SB with the pot still relatively small, you will also get to see the original raiser and the smooth call act just in case they re raise which makes it an easy fold. Re raising here looks like it could be a total disaster.

I don't think you can just fold. Calling is best imo. Folding here is so nitty it's ridiculous.

How big are your samples?

I'm going to reiterate that folding is best, unless some new info is presented. Like this guy is a squeeze monkey or something, which would be very odd for $25nl. People don't 3bet pf at $25nl unless they have good hands, hell people barely even raise! SB is showing up with a very narrow range when he 3bets OOP to 4.5xbb.

Let's say our AK is not crushed by AA or KK and we elect to call. How much are we going to win if we do hit? One bet maybe. We might get a c-bet from JJ, QQ, etc but the only time a lot of action will come down is if we hit and he hits set. We are never going to win a big pot when we hit, we are going to fold when we don't hit, and we are going to lose big pots if we both hit. Those all seem like bad options. Folding AK pf is something you have to be willing to do at micros.

Many people that play higher stakes and haven't played low in a long time misrepresent the play. The players are for sure bad, but they are bad because they like to call, not because they are over-aggressive preflop. Felting AK pf as the cold 4th bettor will not be a profitable play. Calling with it is just bleeding chips without a plan.

65 hands. So they give some idea but are not perfect.

65 hands isn't a lot, but it's a few orbits and gives us an idea. If we elect to call, we're shoving any flop because of stack sizes, right?

I don't think I'd want to shove all the flops. We don't know if MP and CO are calling yet. Supposing they fold and we miss, I can't see putting in $20 with no pair.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your statement.

IMHO,

fold > raise >> call

Yeah, I'm fairly happy with this explanation. I knew there was an issue with reverse implied odds which is why I was sort of on the cusp between folding and 4-betting. At the time I figured that there was enough dead money in there to make it +EV even if I was shoved on. After playing around with stove, I realize I was wrong. Also, another factor that I didn't take into consideration during play is that occasionally one of the two people behind me will have a legitimate hand.

I think that in the context of a heads up pot, for example I open in MP and he 3-bets from SB that 4-betting is clearly going to be the best choice. The only exception might be if the 3-bettor has an exceptionally tight 3-betting range. Do you agree?

I generally agree with this. Folding and raising are options. Calling is not.

Tskillz, he didnt cold 4-bet!

good advice from tskillz. In cash games we want to be in as many profitable situations as we possibly can (many times we have no choice, given the inevitability of probability, e.g. dealt KK against AA). For the reasons tskillz provided, this is NOT a profitable situation for us, thus a fold should be viewed as correct.

It kind of depends. If we have a read on the MP as a somewhat light opener, along with a CO that's somewhat loose, and a SB that has those reads and is prone to squeeze with something lighter as a result, then 4-betting is perfectly reasonable.

For example:
MP opens 87s, CO calls with KJo, SB 3-bets with ATo...we've got the best hand

Granted, our reads don't particularly tell that story here, but it's a plausible scenario.

In my games, given the stats of the guys, this is a fist pump 4bet always. ymmv at $25nl I guess if you feel people never 3bet light.

But you have a somewhat tight opener opening, a calling station calling, and an aggro lagtard 3betting. Pretty standard 4bet with AK imo, I'm only worried about original opener but he is less likely to have AA/KK since we have AK, and he's likely to fold QQ and certainly JJ- to this action.

Fold if you don't want to raise. Calling is the worst option imo. Its really spewy, its obvious you have AK/QQ/JJ when you cold flat call a 3bet especially with all that money out there, so you're almost never going to make any money post flop because they either have an underpair if you flop the A or K, or you're just going to have to check/fold. And if you do get all the money in, you're almost never ahead.

Mark

People actually fold QQ preflop at 25nl?

Please explain. Is this not a 4bet or is it not cold? Maybe I'm using terminology incorrectly.




Absolutely plausible and your example is definitely correct. Given just those stats, even with 3bet stats I wouldn't make the move unless I had over 120 or so hands on the squeezer. I feel like 3bet% takes a long time to converge and the kind of info that is needed to make your play is substantial in lowstakes. Honestly, I wouldn't want to be playing at any table where someone is squeezing at $25nl.



I have no idea what ymmv means. I think your analysis is spot on for $100 max and over too. I'd 4bet AK at $100max here almost always just believing that SB was a spazz and that I'm far ahead of his range. If you are the opener with QQ are you getting it in against a 20/17/4(3bet) in the BB that 4bets? Villain dependent even if they have those stats? Just wondering.

What range do you guys expect the SB is 3-betting with here?

Cold means you have no money in the pot. So cold 4bet is if player A raises, player B reraises, then player C rereraises.

ymmv is your mileage may vary.



I would expect a 26/22 or whatever the stats were we had on SB to be 3betting ATC (any two cards). At my laggiest I run 26/20 and I would 3bet J3s, 95o, etc, given the stats we have on the opener and the caller.

Mark

Well the SB is 3-betting, and you can't really 'cold' 3-bet someone.

If hero raises, button 3-bets, then the SB makes it $8, that would be a cold 4-bet.

Atm it's just a 3-bet squeeze.

Interestingly, this hand is probably more of a fold in the lower-middle stakes, while it's probably weighted towards a 4-bet at the lowest and upper-middle stakes.

I put him on something like 88+,ATs+,KQs,AJo+. We've got a lot of those hands beat and can fold out some that we're not. Basically, he's unlikely to advance against our potential 4-bet with anything worse than AKs,AKo,TT+.

I play $25 and I lean towards a fold. I am a super nit, but there are too many players with a 3-bet range of QQ+, AK. Depends what kinda player he is and the general vibe. I call sometimes, fold sometimes. I hate 4-betting with AK against most people

Results:

Everybody folded round to SB, who tanked for 30 seconds or so and then folded.

Too bad it wasn't on AP; he could've shown you his kings

LOL, if that happened I'd tell him I had jacks, just to tilt him.