Playing Big Slick Against A Reraise

Having just read this article and Bryce’s article on 2+2 about combating 3-bettors pre-flop, another, rather unorthodox line, popped up in my mind. (Note, I am not recommending this line, just asking “why not?” for a better overall understanding of the concepts.)
With 100BB stacks and hands that are likely to have around 30% equity against a 3-bettor’s range, why not 4-bet around 40BB, with the intention of calling an all-in bet from the 3-bettor?
If the 3-bettor 3-bets rather light but only 5-bets all in with hands he would have called your all in bet with anyway, say QQ+, AK, hands like suited connectors and even suited aces should have positive EV from a combo of fold equity (the 40BB bet) and sucking out.
Also, probably most players realize that your 40 BB bet commits you to the pot preflop, which means their raise all in holds no fold equity, but in case they just call, you can still abandon the play on the flop in case it misses your hand completely.
Why not???

i would have just called. when u have ak espially if it is uited you want action because if you hit you will get payed off. Its hard to put the button raised as a squeeze play because of your bet before hand. Therefore if you just call and dont hit it is an easy hand to get away from. if you do hit than you will most likely double up. Brunson said he rather have AK over AA because AK you get paid off. Also you want to play the flop with AK because that is how you can get the maximum amount of chips. By re-raising there you are putting ur chips at risk when you really do not have to because you will eithier win a small pot or loose a very big one.

in my fishy world i would be thinking…

* what kind of notes / PT stats do I have on my foes?
* do I have the bankroll to sustain a large loss?
* over the longer term this kind of play would be profitable though only shorthanded
* it might help to establish my ‘image’ as aggressive so not to be messed with
* i have 30% ish chance of hitting an A or K.
* If a loose micro level player – he might have anything so might fold unless he had monster. If he calls I still have a good chance to win
* i might also consider a half pot c-bet followed by push

err… that’s it

jay c,

There is no chance of winning a small pot, because it is already big. There is 35BB in the pot and the effective stacks are ~60BB.

If you call and then fold when you don’t catch, you are making a mistake.

Another advatage of getting it all-in PF is that it negates our positional disadvantage.

Indeed, if they’d read Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book, they’d think it was almost a certainty that I held aces.

I’m going from memory here, but I believe Gordon says, “The fourth raise is aces.” In the example you’re 4-betting, which means you’re putting in the 3rd raise.

Incidentally my first thought was to push also, and my rationale is to take away the positional disadvantage vs. the reraiser and to create dead money in a sort of squeeze play, but with a real hand.

@ScotchMist:

> i have 30% ish chance of hitting an A or K.

I think you’re mixing up the numbers on the flop with the numbers for all five cards. Of course if you push all-in and get called, you can’t miss those times an A or K comes on the turn or river.

Depending on suits, you’re at least 42% heads-up against QQ.

>> And if the stacks were deeper still, I may have called, hoping to flop well and win a huge pot.

So if a A or K flopped you’d be happy to get 150BB all in with TPTK against 2 opponents?

How would you do this? Fold to any action from limper and c/r button button?

…snip…
i would have just called. when u have ak espially if it is uited you want action because if you hit you will get payed off.
…snip…

Effective stacks are 60BB. Ship it. Ship it ship it ship it ship it. Lock in all 5 cards and be done with it.

Some of the games I have been playing in California, there are just too many degenerate gamblers. Therefore that makes this play uber scary, albeit profitable in the long term. Just the other day I pushed $200 all in preflop with AK offsuit from the button with $5 dollars in the pot. I had just got bad beaten and was pretending to tilt. But none the less I got called by pocket 10s, kinda made sense given context, and then by the sick ahole who bad beat me earlier calls with A2 off. And of course he flops two pair.

My point is this, there are just too many sickos out there that I have come to doubt whether fold equity even exists.

But I am not complaining. The action is great. But if I made this move I would absolutely expect a call, and assume that getting the other players to fold is just a pipe dream.

For people saying call preflop and win a big pot:

a) We have to check/fold when we miss, after putting in a lot of money preflop.
b) It’s hard to stack some dude’s QQ/JJ when the flop comes AKx or even Axx.
c) Occasionally the button 3-bettor is bluffing with suited connectors or low pairs, cutting down our implied odds.
d) Live players are bad and will call us with AJ suited sometimes.

AK is the nuts preflop for <100bb anyway…

I shove all day here. You say you were playing loose so the re-raiser could have a pretty wide range to re-pop you here. When the limper flat calls I put him on a medium PP with himhoping to flop a set. If he has 77-TT surely he can’t call a shove from us and the “unremarkable slightly loose” player is unlikely to be a threa.

Even if the limp/caller does call with what we expect to be to be 77-TT we’re in a flip situation with money already in the pot.

***goes to check what happened ***