We are all ready to fire that 3-bet resteal preflop against that blind stealing clown. But should we shove all in or 3-bet to around 7-8x BBs or so?
This is a situation that I run into hundreds of times during each session at my stakes. In the most basic form: I am in the big blind with a 20BB stack. Technically, my stack is now 19BB since I have already posted the BB. An aggressive stealer opens on my big-blind from the Button or SB trying to steal. His steal range varies from 30%-55%. This type of confrontation is absolutely un-avoidable even with the best table selection. When multi-tabling you will have numerous Russian push-bot type players getting super-aggressive and religiously attacking your blinds. They will all somehow have steady win-rates of .3-.8 BB/100 in hundreds of thousands of hands playing a 12/10/5 style and have yet to hit a negative EV spike in their lives. These idiots make more than you do at your day job. You either man up and respond or keep getting stolen to hell. I’m still not an expert on this subject, but I’m going to do my best to break it down. I may also post this anonymously on some forums to get feed-back.
So let’s say we determine it is indeed EV to 3-bet the villain’s steal. So next we just shove all in right? Well not necessarily. I’ve been experimenting with mixing my 3-bet re-steals between an all in push and a 7-8x BB raise. I’m still uncertain on which strategy is the right way to go. Perhaps the strategy you use should be dependent on the specifics of the situation. I’m going to first lay out some advantages and disadvantages to each play. Next I want to discuss the math we should consider when our (7x-8x BB) re-steal is slammed with an all-in 4-bet. The math will look into the question: Will it ever be mathematically correct to fold instead of calling when 4-bet in this situation? If so, what hand should we fold? My theory is that we should rarely if ever fold here because we will be pot committed. However, one must consider a few different variables which will be discussed later in the post.
3-bet Restealing All in Pre.
Advantages to Shoving:
1) We are 100% making an EV play.
We already have the villain’s open range, and we know our hand is EV to push all in. Simple enough right?
2) We put increased pressure on our opponent to fold.
You may have the nerve to call our 7x BB raise with A2o, but how about an all in shove with A2o? Quite a big difference.
3) We can’t be exploited post flop.
It’s a one-way street home-slice. If the opponent varies from the math he is going to lose in the long-run.
4) The play requires less of a thought process. It is an “easier” play to make (assuming your initial push range math is correct).
It’s EV and can save you some time. This is useful when playing 16+ tables at once.
All in Shove Disadvantages:
1) An EV play is NOT necessarily an optimal play.
Sure it’s EV to re-steal all in preflop with AA, but this isn’t always optimal. Your goal is also to maximize profits. If we feel our opponent will fold to an all in push, but call an 8xBB raise then the correct move would be to NOT push our AA all in preflop. There are certain situations where milking big hands can increase profits. Especially holding a monster against a casual player here. Your all in shove could very well scare him off.
2) We risk our entire stack.
We are risking a full 20BBs at a minimum. All the opponent needs to do is catch that top end of his range and our 20BBs are gone at least 70% of the time.
3) Ok this isn’t all that simple of a play.
Your EV shove range can vary drastically based on your effective stack size and the villain’s open raise size. It is feasible to get your game to a point where you have most common situations calculated out based on different variables. However, this is going to take some serious study. I’d say at least 25 hours for me to come up with all the calculations on my own. Also note the calculations include Villains expected call range, which isn’t a black and white variable. Estimating this call range % correctly comes from massive amounts of playing experience.
3-bet Restealing to 7x-8x BBs.
Advantages to resteal 3-betting to 7-8x (BBs):
1) We aren’t risking our entire stack.
This gives us flexibility. Are we sure it’s optimal to risk our entire stack with QJs because it’s an EV play? A regular could have just pinned us down as 3-betting him light. Maybe he decides before the hand: “I’m stealing and calling a push with 22+, Ax, Kx, any broadway. So go ahead and try to resteal again mother fucker.” Or maybe he has decided: “Ok I’m not getting stolen again by this prick, next time I steal I’m going to be holding TT+, AQ+. Maybe we pick up a read and get away from the hand saving ourselves some loot.
2) We can out-play our opponent post flop.
Perhaps we would rather be attempting to out-play our opponent post-flop.
3) Regulars will generally think we are trying to milk a big hand and fold more often.
Especially at first. This type of raise just screams QQ+, AK.
4) This can frustrate regulars.
Assuming they aren’t all bots. It’s pretty damn annoying to be re-poped to 7-8x BBs. If you fold you look like a complete loser. Also, many may respond by calling light with hands they really shouldn’t be calling with. Many have no idea what the hell they should be calling with.
Negatives to 3-betting to 7-8 (BBs):
1) We leave ourselves open to counter-exploitation.
We are slammed with a 4-bet holding A7s with 13BBs left. Now what? How about A7o? It becomes a pot odds calculation based on their hand range, which I will discuss in much more detail below.
2) We can be out-played post flop.
But we are awesome so that never happens right? I will say that it’s seriously hard for me to imagine a 100NL regular playing beyond his range, but I guess it could happen in parallel universe or something.
3) The best regulars will eventually adapt and get testy.
DON’T TEST ME DAWG! You see a regular adapting to your strategy and he begins CALLING as a standard play. This happened to me last night. Luckily I didn’t have much of a decision as I flopped a top pair ace holding A2 and jammed my remaining 12BBs all in to take down the pot. However, if we go with this play I would recommend noting this regular in an EXTREMELY noticeable color for future reference. Such as red, as in red = STOP/DANGER. The regular has proven himself as a thinking human being with the ability to adapt to various strategies, this is saying something in itself. Going forward I would switch to jamming his steals all in with hands that I would rather not be forced to play post. This is not the sort of cat-mouse game you want to be distracted by when playing 16+ tables. So don’t play it, simply shove all in preflop where you calculate it to be +EV. I would also keep mixing in 7-8BB raises with monster hands against this villain since he has proven that he can be milked for 4 extra BBs in this spot. Also you are hoping to keep him around and stack him on the flop with a dominating hand.
Responding to a Call.
Now we are forced to out-play our opponent pre-flop. If we are comfortable in our ability to out play the villain fine. If not, we MAKE A NOTE of this player and jam him all in preflop in future situations with comparably moderate holdings. By moderate holdings I mean hands that are EV to re-steal with all in, but not EV to play on with post-flop with a short-stack.
Responding to an All in 4-bet.
An easy way out would be marking this player as “light 4-better”. We then resteal him all in pre-flop in the future so we can’t be exploited from an EV standpoint. Or we can figure out the calculations and go to war.
Example:
We are in the big-blind with 20BBs. We are now down to 19BBs because we posted our blind. A short-stacker raiser with a steal range of 30% attacks our dignity with a 3x open from the button. We pick up A4s. This is an all-in resteal hand here because we estimate that his call range is around 20%. However, we have been running like shit all night. We decide not to risk the entire stack and test the waters with a 7BB raise. He of course responds by lashing out with a violent all in 4-bet.
BB Break Down:
Villain= 20BBs committed.
Blinds= 3 BBs.
Hero= 7 BB committed.
Hero remaining= 13 BB.
So by calling we would be committing 13BBs to win 43BBs. BEE-BEES Christ it sounds like a candy or something. WE HAVE BEE-BEES, SNACKS, AND SODA IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND OUR PARTY!?!?!
Anyways sorry…….. So 13BBs to win 43BBs.
This means our hand needs a 30.2% equity for us to break even here. If we are below 30% against his range we FOLD, if we are above 30% we should call. That isn’t a lot of equity needed to call here. Even the worst girl I have ever dated in my life probably had around a 30% equity and I mean that isn’t saying much. “I’ll give you 30%, want to date me?”. I mean wtf doesn’t sound all that promising right? But all this hand needs is a shit 30% equity and it’s EV for us to call here. We almost need to hero fold to get out of this. So we estimate what the fuck this lunatic is 4-betting with and we conclude: 88+, AQo+
So can we fold here?
A4s against this super-tight 4-bet range is going to still have a +EV 31.4% equity, so now it would be a mistake to fold. Against even an absurd (JJ+, AK) range A4s will still have a fractional +EV equity of 30.3%. Our opponent would need to have a range of (QQ+, AKs) for us to correctly fold A4s here (we would only have 29.1% equity, still a very border-line fold). It just isn’t possible for us to assign a range so ridiculous. So in this situation we should basically never fold with A4s.
In this exact situation let’s assign our villain a worst case scenario 4-bet range of: 88+, AJs+, AJo+. With this range what hands would it be positive EV for us to call with? What hands will give us at least a 30.3% equity?
I figured out the math behind everything with the help of Pokerstove. Our positive EV call range here turned out to be: (22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q4s+, J8s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 76s, AJo+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo, T9o). Man was I surprised. I’m going to bore you with some cool findings:
1) Q4s turned out to be the break even call hand with exactly 30.2% equity.
2) All of the pockets pairs were no brainer positive EV calls. Even 22 had a 36.0% equity, ranking 19th out of all possible hand rankings.
3) Ax off-suit matched up very poorly. Even ATo missed the cut with a 29.4% equity, which surprised me. We would rather be calling with Q4s here than ATo. So remember this important stuff! If someone puts a gun to your head and says: “A 30% stealing villain opens on your short-stack BB with a 3x raise. You 3-bet, he shoves you all in with a 4-bet. You may choose to be holding Q4s or ATo. The choice is yours, just remember that if you lose you die.” PICK Q4S, NOW YOU KNOW. I definitely would have picked ATo and had a .8% increased probability of that lunatic blowing my head off. But maybe I would have got lucky who knows.
4) K3s stacked up better than AJo here.
5) Every Axs and Kxs hand turned out to be a +EV call.
6) Every Qxs hand was +EV for us to call, with the exception of Q3s and Q2s.
Conclusion (Sort-of?):
Going forward I’m going to make my re-steal 7x-8x BBs standard as opposed to pushing all in. Once you have an EV push range figured out you can milk with monsters and still escape with the 12-13 BBs in worst case scenario situations. Once a specific opponent proves they will 4-bet loose and/or call loose then my strategy will suddenly change. Against loose callers/4-betters or adapting players I plan to shift my strategy back to jamming them all in pre with a range that is EV to shove (but not proven EV for me to play post-flop). With monster hands I would keep the raise to 7-8BBs even against the loose caller/trickster.
Why?
The villain is going to have trouble picking up on the fact that I’m changing my resteal strategy specifically against him on a full-ring table. He may in fact NEVER PICK up on it. Especially considering I’m still going to be 3-betting 7-8x BBs against 90% of my opponents, and I’m going to keep the 7-8 bet size with premium holdings even against the awesome adaptive player. Even if the opponent correctly concludes: “Ok against me he’s only shoving all in with a steal, unless he has a monster”, we simply fold him out and move on. Chances are he is not going to make this conclusion, and he will continue to try to out-play us with moderately above average holdings which we profit from. It would be shocking for him to make this conclusion, but if he showed me conclusive evidence otherwise than I would revert back to shoving him all in with any hand I am stealing with against his range (including premiums). It becomes a game of constant adaptation and staying one step ahead when going to war with the best of the best players. But this discussion is perhaps a little advanced at 100NL, and honestly I’m probably wasting my time even typing about it, but it is in the back of my mind. I would be VERY impressed if a regular made this sort of distinction and adapted to what I was doing. I should obviously be worried about plugging my 3-bet% leak preflop first.
Going Forward:
A) Try keeping the 3-bet to 7x-8x as opposed to shoving all in.
B) If the opponent is solid and likes to call/out-play the flop, go back to all in resteals with less than premium hands.
C) If the opponent 4-bets light, get ready to make some tough calls based on pot odds/ range calculations. As the calculation above shows, this can become rather complicated. I think it’s best to record the situation and analyze later if unsure. Then switch to an all in shove against this specific opponent with less than premium holdings in the future.
Overview:
I am keeping my 3-bet to 7x-8x preflop against any given opponent until they prove to me that I should do otherwise. Once (if) they prove themselves a worthy adversary, I will begin resteal jamming these opponents with less than premium holdings (that are still EV shove) to counter exploitation. Let the games begin....
-bag
Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 6:02AM