Preflop 3- and 4- betting

     I haven't posted a theory entry in a while and I've had some thoughts on preflop (re)re-raising so I thought it'd be a good time to write them down.  Hope some find this helpful and feel free to contact me with anything you disagree with or anything you find interesting.

     In shorthanded no-limit hold'em games, players are opening all sorts of hands and usually no one has any sort of premium hand.  Because players' opening ranges can be fairly loose, they frequently cannot stand a reraise (3-bet).  One of the best 10/20 players on PartyPoker, formerly BLdSWtTRs, popularized a style of preflop play that involves 3-betting tons of open raises.  Frequently he takes the pot down preflop, and when he doesn't he is able to easily manipulate the pot in position postflop.  When a player opens from the cutoff, it is not uncommon to see him reraised by a light 3-better with 22, 76, A7, Q8, etc.  This deception can be great when playing deep stack poker, espeically in position.  BLdSWtTRs is an extremely successful player and his light 3-betting style has become very popular.  A very good 2+2 poster, AJFenix, also started this great post on light 3-betting and it caught on with 2+2 midstakes players (many of whom have moved up to the high stakes games).  Three-betting light also puts your opponents on tilt and is definitely a weapon to use at the tables, but many players overuse it a bit in my opinion.

     Light three-betting has become very popular and it's important to know some ways to combat this technique.  First, there is the 4-bet bluff.  For example, consider a 10/20 game with $2,000 stacks.  I open from the cutoff with 76 for $70 and the button reraises me to $240.  The usual play here is to fold, but if I know the button is 3-betting me with a wide range, I could 4-bet him as a bluff.  In order for the bluff to be at all credible I'd make my 4-bet to about $720.  I'm risking another $650 to win $340 so if he folds roughly two thirds of the time I show an immediate profit.  Personally I am not a fan of 4-bet bluffing with stacks of 100 times the big blind.  Too often the button will just go ahead and push all-in over your 4-bet and you will have to 4-bet/fold.  Mathematically you will be making a mistake a lot of the time if you are 4-bet/folding hands such as AT when he is 5-bet shoving hands like 99, which would not be that uncommon in a shorthanded game.  I have tried playing a style involving some preflop 4-bet bluffing but I wasn't very pleased with the way it worked out.

     Another reason to 4-bet is for value.  Making a 4-bet for value with a hand like pocket kings is ideal as long as it doesn't give away the strength of your hand, but the problem is if you never 4-bet as a bluff, people will fold everything other than aces and kings, and move in on you with these two hands (against which you are a dog).

     To make handreading more difficult for opponents, and to avoid the mess of 4-bet/folding incorrectly, one style of preflop play involves never 4-betting.  Playing within this framework we would just call all of our opponents 3-bets with our good, excellent, and sometimes speculative (for deception) hands.  This makes it difficult for our opponents to know when we have a monster and their mistakes are amplified because the pot is reraised and all postflop bets will be very large.  There are definitely disadvantages to never 4-betting though:

• Constantly playing large pots out of position against the light 3-better.
• Fails to get maximum value in preflop with our monster hands.
• Difficult to read our opponent's hand if he has a wide reraising range .

     Most solid mid and high stakes players use a heads up display to give them the playing stats of all the players at their table.  If they see that you are a loose player, they know you are opening lots of hands that you should fold to reraises and they will tend to 3-bet you a ton with garbage.  The problem with never 4-betting is that you don't punish their light preflop 3-bets.  Because you never put additional pressure on them preflop and are constantly folding your 86 to their 3-bets, they have no incentive to stop 3-betting you.  I've played quite a bit with never 4-betting and was fairly pleased with this style.  The added benefit of remaining deceptive in reraised pots is very nice against a light 3-better who is likely to fire any flop.  However, there are certainly a few exceptions where I would make a 4-bet.  These include

• Deep stacks.  If we are playing with say 200BBs and I have a monster, I want to get as much as possible in preflop.  I will balance this with the occasional 4-bet bluff when deep stacked.
• Multiway pot.  If several players call my raise and someone reraises, I will frequently 4-bet with good hands as an attempt to get the pot heads up or as a resteal if I think the reraiser is running a squeeze play.
• When I have the nuts and I'm sure my opponent has a very good hand.  If I raise under the gun and a very tight player reraises me, I can be pretty sure he has a strong hand and I will try to get the maximum value out of aces preflop rather than give him a chance to fold postflop.

     Towards the end of August I tried out a bit of a more crazy style.  I was still working out the kinks so I lowered the stakes and played around 10,000 hands at 3/6NL using lots of 4-bet pushing.  I played a very loose-aggressive style (stats of 31/24/crazy) and was constantly being 3-bet preflop because I was opening with so many hands from all positions.  Whenever I was 3-bet by someone who I perceived to be a competent player capable of 3-betting me light I would go ahead and shove all-in with aces, kings, and ace-rag (suited or unsuited) assuming we had around 100BB stacks.  Typical hands would look like

***** Hand History *****
Table Monster #1277497 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: LeRequin_ ( $743.25 )
Seat 3: OoOsLAPOoO ( $707.50 )
Seat 4: Donkey_Klonk ( $731.50 )
Seat 6: kiosk_______ ( $298 )
Seat 5: Hero ( $624 )
kiosk_______ posts small blind [ $3 ].
LeRequin_ posts big blind [ $6 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD OoOsLAPOoO
FOLD Donkey_Klonk
RAISE Hero, $21
FOLD kiosk_______
Gerdi666 has joined the table.
RAISE LeRequin_ $71
ALL-IN Hero
LeRequin_ : what are you doing down here
FOLD LeRequin_
Hero does not show cards.
Hero wins $704

***** Hand History *****
Table Monster #1280723 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: rilleg ( $3032.26 )
Seat 1: Hero ( $1273.86 )
Seat 3: AlwaysPlayDrunk ( $833 )
Seat 5: RavenQ ( $617.45 )
Seat 6: stargate_58 ( $654 )
Seat 4: grapevinekid ( $591 )
RavenQ posts small blind [ $3 ].
stargate_58 posts big blind [ $6 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
RAISE Hero, $21
FOLD rilleg
FOLD AlwaysPlayDrunk
RAISE grapevinekid, $55
FOLD RavenQ
FOLD stargate_58
ALL-IN Hero
ALL-IN grapevinekid

Flop: (Pot: $85)
[ ]

Turn: (Pot: $85)
[ ]

River: (Pot: $85)
[ ]
grapevinekid shows [ ] two pairs tens and nines .
Hero shows [ ] two pairs kings and nines .
Hero wins $682.86 from side pot #1 with two pairs kings and nines .
Hero wins $1187.50 from the main pot with two pairs kings and nines .

     Ten thousand hands isn't nearly enough to determine a winrate, and I felt like I bluffed a tad too much postflop when I tried out this style so my winnings could have been higher, but here were my numbers:

     Let's do some of the math behind preflop 4-bet shoving.  I will be using PokerStove for most of the analysis.  It's really nice free software, I'd highly recommend checking it out.  Consider a 3/6NL game with $600 effective stacks.  I open from middle position with A5 for $21.  The button, an aggressive 22/17 player, reraises me to $77.  I shove all-in for $600.  Let's assume he will call me with { QQ+, AKs, AKo }.  Against this range my equity is right at 30%.  Actually, against just about any sane calling range I have around 30% equity with a suited ace.

              equity (%)  win (%)   tie (%) 
Hand 1: 30.1525 % 28.99% 01.16% { A5s }
Hand 2: 69.8475 % 68.69% 01.16% { QQ+, AKs, AKo }

     So when my 4-bet shove is called my expectation is

          0.30 * (600 + 21 + 6 + 3) - 0.70 * (600 - 21) = -$216

     When he folds to my 4-bet shove, I win

          77 + 21 + 6 + 3 = $107

     Then if he folds to my 4-bet shove 2/3 of the time, the play is roughly neutral EV with A5 in this situation (2*107 - 216 = -$2 in EV).  His calling range of queens or beter and ace-king is precisely the top 2.6% of hands.  So for him to fold to my 4-bet shove more than 2/3 of the time and make my shove profitable, he needs to be reraising me with more than 7.8% of his hands.  The top 7.8% of hands is the range { 88+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AQo+ }.  When I have a loose, wild image, players are 3-betting me light with all sorts of stuff, including suited connectors and small pairs, most of which they will have to fold to a push so the shove shows an immediate positive expectation.

     My opponents see that I am 4-bet shoving with a loose range and they may try to adjust and start calling me more frequently.  The problem for them is that I'm also shoving with my monsters (aces, kings, and ace-king), so by calling me with say TT they will be a huge dog a significant portion of the time.  This style of play is difficult to adjust to and I frequently got absurd amounts of action when I shouldn't have: 

***** Hand History *****
$600 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 29, 01:38:31 ET 2006
Table Monster #1277309 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: ForNoGoodReason ( $543.40 )
Seat 4: tcsboy ( $721.90 )
Seat 5: NEED4SPD5 ( $993 )
Seat 6: IBWNZOREDU ( $1053.99 )
Seat 3: Hero ( $1012.15 )
Seat 1: DockSlapped ( $600 )
tcsboy posts small blind [ $3 ].
NEED4SPD5 posts big blind [ $6 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
RAISE IBWNZOREDU, $24
CALL DockSlapped, $24
FOLD ForNoGoodReason
RAISE Hero , $105
FOLD tcsboy
FOLD NEED4SPD5
ALL-IN IBWNZOREDU
FOLD DockSlapped
ALL-IN Hero

Flop: (Pot: $162)
[ ]

Turn: (Pot: $162)
[ ]

River: (Pot: $162)
[ ]
Hero shows [ ] two pairs aces and fours .
IBWNZOREDU shows [ ] a pair of fours .
IBWNZOREDU wins $41.84 from side pot #1 with a pair of fours .
Hero wins $2053.80 from the main pot with two pairs aces and fours .

     Perhaps more importantly than getting action on my monsters and +EV shoves with hands like ace-rag are the metagame implications of 4-bet shoving with a wide range.  Playing a loose-aggressive style can be very profitable but it is extremely difficult to do when my opponents are constantly 3-betting me.  When I frequently 4-bet shove over my opponents 3-bets, many of them just stop 3-betting me altogether which is great.  The nonstop shoving preflop really puts a lot of my opponents on tilt (see the AQo vs AA hand) and I have no problem getting action when I need it.  In sum, I was fairly pleased with the way a 4-bet shoving style worked out.

     It's always important to stay deceptive in no-limit hold'em, and this includes preflop play.  A good player should be able to play many preflop styles (TAG, LAG, 3-betting a lot, 3-betting very little, etc) and implement them at the right times.  By adding a new gear or two to your game you can improve a lot as a player.  Just when your opponents think they have adjusted to your play, you switch the gears on them (i.e. from 4-bet shoving a ton to never 4-betting) and throw them off again.  Forcing them to play this constant guessing game of what mode you are in ensures they make plenty of mistakes and you will reap the profits.