One way you can make sure your opponent is not flatting your 3-bet, or 4-betting for that matter, is by manipulating the stacks so he cannot do so.
An example I see frequently is when a player with 40BB opens in the cutoff to 2BB. The player on the button, also with 40BB, decides to 3-bet his typical amount, 4.8BB. The blinds fold. Well, now the cutoff player has a wealth of options. He can force the button to defend for all of his chips by 4-betting only 8BB more, making the total bet 10 blinds. He will be risking an additional 8BB to win almost twice that amount, meaning his raise doesn’t need to be successful more than 55% of the time. Yet, the button, who was so eager to exploit his positional advantage, now feels he needs to jam 40BB in order to do anything about it. You can argue that he could flat, but the option isn’t very attractive either, especially if he doesn’t
have a read on his opponent.
What if the button made it 6BB instead of 4.8BB? This play is not popular, but mathematically there isn’t much reason for that. The blinds are going to come over the top of a raise like that very seldom. The cutoff is stuck. He can’t flat and feel like he has great implied odds, and any 4-bet will commit his 40BB stack. You’ve more effectively checkmated him. He has significantly fewer options. Pay attention to what your opponent could do when your stack is vulnerable. Try to turn the tables on him.
Cold 4-bet bluffing
The cold 4-bet is one of the few plays that is not only stunningly underused but also misused. The situations for it are few, but the 7BB or so it allows you to capture can make a huge difference.
Many people say the only way you can learn when to 4-bet bluff is by trial and error. I disagree. We could set up a number of hypothetical situations and learn from them instead of putting our own money and time at risk. This is why when the middle-aged players ask me if they have any chance in poker I give them an emphatic yes. Lee Nelson was 63 years old when he started tearing up tournament poker. I would argue that the amount of time he spent studying the game outside put him at that level way before experimental lessons would have taken him there. Let’s set up a likely situation where we’d try a cold 4-bet. We have A-x. The other card doesn’t matter, because there’s no chance we’re getting flatted, and we have no intention to call a shove. Player 1 opens from the cutoff with 40BB. He makes it 2,000 at our fictional 500/1000, 100 ante (10 players) table. Player 2 on the button makes it 4,500 on the button, also with 40BB. We have them both covered. We decide to make it 13,000 from the big blind. We are risking 12,000 to win 21,000, which means our bet needs to work 57.14% of the time. While the numbers might not be exact (you’re unlikely to be at too many 10-handed tables), a similar situation will play itself out in many of your potential 4-bet bluffing spots. How do we figure out if we should 4-bet here? Well, we take possible opening and 3-betting ranges, and see where we can draw the line. Then we write down what that line is, and take it with us on our daily business. Let’s try one. The original raiser is opening with 40% of hands. This is why the button was 3-betting so much. We see that the button’s overall 3-bet is normally 14%, but it’s 18% when on the button. It’s very important to look at where someone likes to 3-bet, as there are many favorite spots. For example, somebody who 3-bets a good deal might never do it from the button because they’re worried it looks too obvious.
For an estimate we say they’re 3-betting 15% of the time in this situation. How do we figure out if our 4-bet is going to work?
Diagram 5
First we take the 40% opener (Diagram 5). In this instance (although it isn’t shown in the Diagram), we have an ace blocker. He has 479 opening combinations are possible, if he’s playing a very tough 40% opening range.
Now, what do we think he is 5-bet jamming? We’re unlikely to have much of a sample of this particular situation. It’s a good idea to look at someone’s “Fold to 3-bet” statistic. If someone generally respects 3- bets, they’re far more likely to respect a cold 4-bet. If they generally do not believe 3-bets, they may assume that you believe the 3-bettor must be picking on his obviously wide opening range – meaning he expects you to cold 4-bet as a bluff some percentage of the time.
Diagram 6 Let’s say this guy was fairly typical, with a fold to 3-bet of 60%. He knows you’re a bit aggressive, so he might widen his range a smidgen, but he’s not going nuts. So, let’s say he’s defending the range on the previous page (Diagram 6). As we can see, this is a “terminator range.” I would not expect everyone to 4-bet A-Qo or 8-8 in this situation 100% of the time, especially with so little invested in the pot, but for the sake of argument let’s say they are jamming this. That means Player 1 on the cutoff is defending with 71 combinations out of 479 he started with. 71/479 = 0.1482. Player 1 is defending 14.82% of hands. To simplify, let’s make this 15%. That means he is folding 85% of the time.
Diagram 7
Player 2 on the button is 3-betting 15% of the hands. It is worth noting there are several ways to compose this 15%. I have attempted to give Player 2 a more solid range than would normally be found in a bluffier 3-betting range, so we can prepare for the worst (Diagram 7).
Note: many people would flat J-10s here but would 3-bet J-7s as a bluff. We want more hands that could possibly be in our opponent’s 5-bet jamming range. That helps us prepare for the worst, so we’re including them.
Now, this range starts with 191 combinations. He’s going to be playing a much higher percentage of hands than Player 1. But how many? Let’s say he uses just the hands an aggressive and perceptive player would play (Diagram 8).
Diagram 8
Some would argue that this range is too wide. They say that many people would not jam A-Js. Others would say you could include some other hands in your opponents jamming range.
The truth is that this range is already wide. We’re assuming Player 2 on the button is 3-betting 8-8 100% of the time, which is not likely the case. Frequent 3-bettors routinely flat hands they should be placing in their 3-bet range, because they know they will be forced to play a large pot if anyone plays back at them. They also usually 3-bet far more hands than they can profitably defend.
Our opponent is defending with 66 combinations out of 191 he started with. That means he is defending 61/191 = 0.3455 or 34.55% of the time. For simplification, let’s say 35% of the time. This means he is folding 65% of his hands.
Our first player was folding 85% of the time. The two of them are folding 0.85 * 0.65 = 0.5525 or 55.25% of the time. Was this enough to justify our cold 4-bet? No. Recall, we needed our 4-bet here to work 57.15% of the time. However, we also rounded up and gave our opponents the benefit of the doubt at every opportunity. We’re likely right at the breakeven point. What we can derive from this is a note such as: When initial raiser is opening 40% of the hands and re-raiser is 3-betting 15% of the time, and neither has any special read, a cold 4-bet, with an ace blocker, which cannot be flatted will work approximately 55% of the time.
Now, whenever we see an inflated version of this we will know to attack. Say the initial opener is playing 45% of the hands from the cutoff and the button is 3-betting 20% of the time, and we are in the big blind. We will know to attack because it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to be defending enough hands. Their ranges will need to be composed even more solidly (unlikely) and they will need to be defending a more grotesque amount of hands (unlikely if the table has not been active and if we have a normal reputation).
More importantly, we will know when to not 3-bet here. Just because a guy is 3-betting 20% of the time doesn’t mean we can cold 4-bet, especially if he’s aware of how often he has been 3-betting and the initial opener is only playing 25% of the hands. We can also see how difficult it will be to cold 4-bet with one or two players to act, if our initial raiser and 3-bettor are not playing insane ranges.