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Is this always a fold?
Following raise and re-raise is this a fold in sb. x is reg, bit passive. y is good aggressive reg for this level.
| mattless | Small blind | £0.05 | £0.05 | £11.55 | |
| liamboi11 | Big blind | £0.10 | £0.15 | £9.38 | |
| Your hole cards |
| ||||
| x | Raise | £0.30 | £0.45 | £7.84 | |
| y | Raise | £1.10 | £1.55 | £8.55 | |
| BLUFFA360 | Fold | ||||
| pennys | Fold | ||||
| mattless | ? |
Comments
yeah fold
The 4-bet here is the sort of thing we have to do occasionally and 77 isn't the worst hand in the world to do it with. It's as much about balancing our range as it is about this particular hand. If we want to always 4-bet in these situations when we have AA, KK, etc. then we have to also 4-bet sometimes with other hands.
We're not playing the strength of our hand, but at least with 77 we'll have something to hope to hit if we are called.
The issue between us is obviously that you seem to think that mid-pairs are too good to 4-bet/fold. My thoughts on the matter are that not many players are going to 5-bet a cold 4-better with less than a premium hand - we can rule out KQ, AJ, probably AQ and 66 and below from almost all players ranges here. Basically that's going to mean AK, AA, KK, QQ and possibly JJ. Against that range of hands we're obviously going to need about 3.5/1 pot odds to call as a break-even. That's not likely unless our 4-bet is very big. So now mid-pairs to my mind are certainly not too strong to fold.
As for the talk of having our 4-bet called, well that's not something that's going to happen very often if we pick our opponents well. Even so, it will happen occasionally.
I wasn't referring specifically to this hand, I was really just trying to explain what I thought grantorino was getting at and trying to explain why you might 4-bet with 77. Our position won't usually make a huge difference, since we're not likely to see too many flops when cold 4-betting but it would certainly be a better move in position. I'd probably fold about 95% of the time and not give it another thought. I would never, ever call and would 4-bet the rest of the time intending to fold to a 5-bet.
When I'm saying 4-bet bluffing with 77 is good, I'm not saying it's necessarily better than 4-bet bluffing with Ax or Kx, I'm just saying it's probably not worse. The whole blocker thing does make sense but if you have your opponent's on a wide 3-betting range anyway I'm not convinced that it makes a huge difference that a single Ace or King is accounted for, though clearly it makes some difference. On the other hand, on those occasions when we are called, I'd rather be holding a hand like 77 than a hand like A3. Again, that's not going to make a huge difference because we won't be called often but it will happen.
It's still a reasonable play to 4-bet as a bluff against those "aggro" players because they will lay down a fairly wide portion of their range. Obviously, it's going to be better to 4-bet the "super-aggro" players but only if they're going to believe that you're not 4-betting light.
The way you're talking is that you would consider only 4-betting for value against these super-aggro players with 77. If you believe that you may be perceived to be weak when they see your 4-bet, then why do it with 77? If that's how you think they perceive you, then you can use your image to really hit them for value and only make these moves with bigger hands. Surely, by 4-betting with 77, if they perceive you to be weak they'd be right. 77 is not that big a hand to catch them out with. I can't imagine calling the 5-bet and saying "Haha! You thought I was 4-betting light but I actually had the mighty 77!"
So when I'm talking about 4-betting here, I want to know i) the opener and 3-better are reasonably laggy ii) I will be perceived as reasonably tight. If my 4-betting range is going to be perceived as being very loose, then I'm not going to 4-bet without a strong hand.
(Sorry if that's little hard to follow. I've tried to tidy it up.)