this forum is to discuss strategies about light 4betting.
for the ones who don’t know what this means, it means 4betting as a bluff, a raise is made, then a reraise, and you reraise again as a bluff. this may sound like poker suicide, but it can be a useful strategy in the right circumstances, but should be used very rarely and very cautious.
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here is my question: i played the 2,5M tourney on this site, blinds 10/20, stacksizes around 3000, i was in the BB and hold 9 10 offsuit. the BTN raised to 70, and the SB 3betted to 180 (not fully sure about the exact betsize). the BTN raise really seemed like a steal, and i thought (not completely sure) that the SB was restealing. so i made a light 4bet to about 425 (i know i should have raised higher, but thought too late of that). the BTN folded and the SB called. board was K and two medium or low cards (don’t remember which ones) but i missed… he made a half pot bet (about 450). i thought about it but folded.
so the question is: did i played it well or not? my biggest hestitation is should i have floated the flop instead of folding.
Overall in my opinion I think you played it alright. Like you said though you probably should have 4 bet a little higher. I think a 4 bet anywhere 475 to 525 would have been good enough to get the SB to fold.
Typically like you I rarely 4 bet. Usally I do it when I have a very strong hand preflop or the nut flush draw hits the board. Sometimes it works in my favor other times it doesn’t.
If I 4 bet preflop and completely miss the flop I’ll sometimes bluff and make a continuation bet and get my opponents to fold.
[quote=“yiazmat, post:1, topic:6521”]
so the question is: did i played it well or not? my biggest hestitation is should i have floated the flop instead of folding.
[/quote]10/20 & ~3000 means you were in level 1 or 2… normally the higher the buyin, the higher calibre of players (usually )… Now 9-10 off in the BB, with 2 raises infront of you … raises red flags, but its still early … Small blind will be 1st to act and is the top raise’r , so call the 180 and look to raise after the flop or fold. Unless I alreday have the table presence to make a raise stick and get them to fold, I prolly wouldn’t raise pre-flop.
The whole point of a raise like that is to get all others to fold. This early in a MTT normally you don’t know what others are willing to pay with marginal hands, unless you have already play’d against them. The worst person called you, the 1 person who will have posistion on you after the flop. At that point, you either are committed to fire’n that 2nd bullet, or folding to most bets…
I think 450 was not right… I’d say 720ish… the right play was to fold to the 1/2 pot bet or re-raise ( 2nd bullet, bluff ). You also said “med-low cards” with the K, so that means you prolly didn’t have a draw or you wouldda remembered it. All you can do is hope, that hand helps you extract money later on with the anti-bluff.
I prolly wouldda floated , and called the 180… to see the flop, hoping the other dude didn’t re-raise the 180…
i see that most of you wouldn’t even have made the light 4bet in the first place? which brings me to a additional question: what kind of situation would you consider light 4betting?
also additional question for sassy sarah: i see you would have called the 3bet of the SB PF, but what’s your theory behind that? 9 10 offsuit seems a bit weak to call a 3bet, you probably play OOP since the BTN would probably call, and there is not much to hit that would beat 2 players (or at least not that you can risk with). also you lose the initiative to the SB.
i’m not saying it’s bad to call, but it does feel so because of all these examples. but i might be wrong of course.
I like your idea and the way your were thinking, but I do not like the hand you chose or the situation particularly.
Positives: I think your 4-bet size was fine to potentially get some folds, and in the 2.5m tournament people play tight enough that they might fold to a 4-bet.
Issues: There are not many 3-bets on Replay, so light 4-betting is risky because many players’ 3-betting ranges are exclusively QQ, KK, and AA. You went for the cold 4-bet (meaning you were not the original raiser), which means that your 4-bet has to get folds from 2 opponents, not just 1, which makes it even more difficult. You have position on the 3-bettor, which is good, but I would worry about getting called by the button as well.
My main issue with your bet is actually a different reason: 9T offsuit is just not a good hand to use for this. I would want to use a hand that is suited because it gives extra equity on some flops and/or a hand with an ace in it because it blocks AA and gives you equity against your opponent’s range. I think 9T suited would be an ok hand to raise with because you can flop a straight draw or a flush draw, instead of just a straight draw, but my favorite hand to do this with would be A5 suited or at least A2s-A4s because they reduce the probability that your opponents have AA, you can outflop KK or QQ, and you can flop a straight or flush draw. With a hand like 9T, I would just fold every time in this situation.
As played, I would fold because your opponent seems very strong. Strategically, it makes sense to float just because you raised with such a weak hand. You will almost never flop anything, so you kind of have to represent AA, try to make a very strong bet and just hope your opponent can fold a really big hand, but given their play and that board, you are possibly up against AA, AK, or KK which will probably never fold, so folding is best.
(??oop btn??) … The only worry I have calling the 180, is orig raiser might re-raise such a lame raise, then all hell can break loose… my possible raises are 420,720,1420,All-In… I would rather call the 180, than raise to 420.
Joe is right, @ a certain level 400ish is deff enuff most times to get most ppl out… Joe is also right on point, once the flop comes… but the problem there is, you’re outta posistion. SB is 1st to act, therefore you will have to re-raise him if he bets out, enuff for him to fold and you have no information yet about the 3rd person in hand. Here’s where being last 2 act can help… you get to see how all others have reacted before you make your play.
Bottom line Yaiz, depending on more factors than listed…
My call % of the 180 bet is less than 60%.
This is an insta-fold, especially at this stage of the tournament. Joe gave a litany of reasons for it so I am only going to add the bit about stages of the tournament. This was very early in the game. You hadn’t done any of the work to set up a bluff 4-bet yet. Sure, there is something to be said for taking an early role as table captain but this is not the spot nor the hand. Let others do damage to each other here and create imbalances in stack sizes. As soon as you get variance in stacks, then you can start attacking weak spots using all the different tools at your disposal.
Just my opinion and since I’m playing so badly that I’m actually offending myself, take it with a grain of salt.
As to when to light 4-bet, I can’t give you a good strategy for here yet as I haven’t seen even enough 3-betting that isn’t QQ+ to have an answer. From what I’ve seen so far, people 3-betting seem to be willing to play for stacks. Then again, that is from my limited exposure. I’m sure people like Joe and unranked can give you far better answers.
This was an easy fold. Light 4-betting only works against good players generally (because they understand what your repping and aren’t going to get it all in bad). You should never be light 4 betting against a player you have not observed quite a bit. In live play it is generally a terrible idea. Online, the only time I ever used it is on Americas card room when I was using a HUD and had significant stats on another player (they had a high 3 bet percentage over a significant sample size). Also, even if you have seen them 3 bet light, when you have such a weak holding, you have to know that the player actually has a fold button (a lot don’t). They may have a hand that should be snap folding to a 4 bet, but they just won’t do it. When you have a hand this weak, their trash hand may well be better than yours. Then your just playing a high priced guessing game post-flop. Just fold the trash hand and move on to the next.
Another note, generally if your going to light 4 bet, you would want blockers in your hand (hands like A5s for example), since it makes it less likely they have the nuts. Also hands like this still have some equity if called.
