CO vs. BTN battles/RR-ed pots/PF stuff

[orange]

Okay, that thread that shpanko had a bit ago had me thinking a little bit about some situations. This is more geared toward CO vs. BTN battles or BTN vs. blind (in which hand ranges are a bit wider than normal) and reraised pots.

In this thread, carrot alluded by saying he'd rather 3-bet 32o than 22 or 33. I agree with this, it takes away from the value of the hand, etc. This thread also reminded me of a thread a long time ago in which me and BalugaWhale were arguing about the merits of reraising a CO opener with 77 when on the button. (can't find the thread doh).

BUT, in reraised pots, we (generally) are not going to be going to showdown with 32o (without a very good hand, ie. a straight or 22x flop or something of that sort). We are more reraising the hand for the value of position and the hope that we will GENERALLY take it down on the flop.

ie:
CO opens, we RR with 32o, he calls. Flop comes xxx and he checks and folds.

We of course are not raising for the pure value of our hand (as in AA) nor are we really raising for deception (well, in a way I suppose, in the sense that we need a pretty large hand in the way that 67s would need to continue in a rr pot). Moreso the value of this position and steal equity on the flop.

So, where is the Question?

22 and 32o both improve rarely. And both are crushers when we DO decide to felt in rr-ed pots. However, CAN 22 be used for this steal value? ie. CO opens, you have 22 on the button and...?

I never reraise here. But thinking about 32o and how often it improves (rarely) and how often 22 improves (rarely), can we profitablly reraise 22 here?

Unlike 77 or 99 and other low-medium pps, 22 doesn't have great showdown value. Take situation 1)

all fold to taggy CO, he opens, we have 22 otb and call, blinds fold. flop comes xxx, he bets, we raise, he folds.

2) all fold to taggy CO, he opens, we have 22 otb and RR, he calls, blinds fold. flop comes xxx, he checks and folds to our 2/3rds.

Now, what is the difference of play here? some observations:
-by reraising, we negate our positional advantage by expanding the pot size and therefore leaving us with little room to maneuver.
-by reraising, we potentially win a pot that we may not have won had we just cold called (ie. flop comes somewhat nasty, we aren't capable of raising/etc). unlike 77 or 88 or whatever, 22 does NOT have great showdown value (albiet some) and we generally cannot just raise for either value (in which some maniacs/lags will call with worse pairs/etc).
-yes, we won the pot in both situations, just got there differently.

And this somewhat applies to BTN or CO vs. Blinds battles. Again, we often reraise PPs from the bb for many reasons stated. We win the pot in a situation where we may not have otherwise (ie. btn opens, you cold call with 22 in the bb, flop comes xxx and you c/f. alternately, btn opens, you rr with 22, he calls and you bet xxx board and he folds).

so, what am i really asking?

not really sure yet. this is a long rambled post based off of positional battles (mainly LP battles) and the mixing of hand ranges and minimal showdown values.

Basically, if reraising a CO opener with 32o on the button is +EV (it has to be in general, given unknown, no reads/history,etc, right?), then why not 22? or 44?

hope that carrot will come in and butcher my thoughts.

[SilentNoise]

im not totally sure. but a few guesses are that (of why you'd rather be calling with 22/33 in position instead of 3betting):

i) not all regs cbet on all boards, so you may be able to get to showdown if you want, with quite possibly the best hand.

ii) calling preflop with 22/33 means that when you do decide to make bluff raises/floats ...JUST INCASE VILLAIN CALLS, you still have like 7% (i think something like that) chance of improving from 22/33 to a set by the river. you will often get a free river card too. 23 does not have this advantage...if you make plays with 23o on the flop, and villain calls, you have a way less chance of 7% or so of improving to a hand that beats his top pair.

iii) i dont think many would argue that 3betting with 22/33 would neccessarily be -EV..i think it is +EV ..but NOT AS +EV as just calling when you have more postflop maneuverability, with a better chance of improving. you can represent more things such as straights/flushes n stuff when the stack to pot ratio is higher. people dont seem to care (probably correctly) about straights/flushes in 3bet pots.

thats all i can think of for now

[SilentNoise]

another thing:

[ QUOTE ]
22 and 32o both improve rarely. And both are crushers when we DO decide to felt in rr-ed pots. However, CAN 22 be used for this steal value? ie. CO opens, you have 22 on the button and...?

[/ QUOTE ]

a made hand with 23 isn't nearly as good as with 22 since alot of the time 23 will flop two pair which has a 25% chance of being counterfeited by the river i believe, which is much higher chance of a set being oversetted by the river.

[eigenvalue]

I think generally it's bad to reraise with 22 AND with 32o from the BTN vs CO. The reason is this: If CO is observant and plays not to bad, he will soon recognize that we reraise light with tons of hands. If he plays correct, he will soon raise decent hands only and NEVER fold to our reraise. A huge part of our reraising profit is our fold equity.

That equity will disappear if CO plays correct and we will be in deep trouble with reraising trash hands. Of course it's only true if CO plays correct. If he keeps folding and folding and folding, we can reraise with anything. But if he's decent, he will detect that we must reraise with tons of hands, so if he plays mathematically correct, he soon will never lay down any pair, any A etc and we play lots of huge pots with him with hands that are behind preflop. This cannot be good in the long run.

[Etats360]

[ QUOTE ]
I think generally it's bad to reraise with 22 AND with 32o from the BTN vs CO. The reason is this: If CO is observant and plays not to bad, he will soon recognize that we reraise light with tons of hands. If he plays correct, he will soon raise decent hands only and NEVER fold to our reraise. A huge part of our reraising profit is our fold equity.

That equity will disappear if CO plays correct and we will be in deep trouble with reraising trash hands. Of course it's only true if CO plays correct. If he keeps folding and folding and folding, we can reraise with anything. But if he's decent, he will detect that we must reraise with tons of hands, so if he plays mathematically correct, he soon will never lay down any pair, any A etc and we play lots of huge pots with him with hands that are behind preflop. This cannot be good in the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]

If villian never folds to our 3bets OOP, we are essentially turning a TAG into a calling station donkey. This is one of the most profitable situations to be in. As long as we adapt accordingly and tighten our 3bet range in concert with the CO's adjustments, we want this to happen.

I'm not saying you should 3-bet w/23o, because I don't think you should. I just think your reasoning as to why we shouldn't do it is wrong.

[orange]

btw, using 32o is a sortve extreme example. but imo, its not TERRIBLY different from the 45s and the Axs that we 3-bet alot.

[carrotsnake]

carrot is drunk <3, I'll post tomorrow if someone reminds me, wants me to

[ValarMorghulis]

22 flops a good hand much more often than 23o. Don't know how you can say otherwise. 45s isn't as good as 22 in this regard but it is still much much better than 32o. The value of 3betting comes from the %wins_pre_flop+%cbet_wins_post_flop+%improves_post _flop_stacks_villain.

If the third percentage is 12% for 22 and 2% for 23o, then 22 is 6 times better than 23o. That's a lot.

I occasionally 3bet 22. Obviously when you call w/22 you sometimes have to bluff postflop. You need some bluff equity to make your preflop call profitable because villain isn't going to pay you off enough when you hit because his range is wide. You can get this bluff equity on the flop or the turn or whatever depending on how you play it. But you can also get the bluff equity needed to make 22 profitable by 3betting preflop.

[Unknown Soldier]

it not that 3b 22 isnt +EV, but flatting is usually more so.

[Fonkey123]

[ QUOTE ]
it not that 3b 22 isnt +EV, but flatting is usually more so.

[/ QUOTE ]

About half the time I confuse you with NolimitSoldier, and I always get insanely jealous that you're banging fluffpop, then I realize that ISSCKM.