A new can we fold to 3-bet preflop thread

[Apanage]

My last thread was a little bit confusing since it contained two examples of potential raise/fold to 3-bets which are different. We are no longer discussing folding to a 3-bet from SB since we have position on him (even if I wanted to discuss this more it wouldn´t get anywhere).


I have never folded to a 3-bet preflop in my life during my 500k+ career so I would appreciate if you would leave out word as bananas. idiot, and retard in your posts.
I would like answers or thoughts that are less of the nature: “You can´t fold preflop to a 3-bet.period” and that have more of a mathematical approach. No metagame considerations has to be taken. This situation probably comes up every 10-20 K hands ore so.

Here are the conditions:


You raise A4o/A5o from CO and you get 3-bet by a Tight solid TAG from button.Everyone is folding back to you.Could it not be a better decision to fold this hand or am I way off thinking about it.
His calculated hand range is 77+,A9s,KJs,AJo which is 9.7% of all hands.
Our preflop equity against his range is worth ~ 0.7BB (our EV)if we put in another bet (our EV minus the bet we put in).And that includes when we suck him out on turn and river which we never get the chance to do if we don´t connect to the flop so our equity is even less if our intentions are to fold a flop which that we are not connecting to.
We are always paying him 2.5 BB when we both have aces which is a huge amount given that our preflop equity is worth 0.7BB and that A-hands are approximately 60% (pure guess I don´t bother to count) of his hand combos. Plus he could hit a set if he has a PP.
Pretty much most probable hands (a pair) that we want to take to showdown suffers from the fact that we will lose close to 1 BB more when we are behind than when we are ahead.
We are also for sure the most likely player in the hand to fold the best hand somewhere along the way. We are also for sure the most likely player to give freecards.
Sure we can hit big hands like two pair, paired board trips and straights and get paid. But remember that A5 just makes straights one way (with both hole cards) and that every two pair hand has a lot of outs against it if you´re up against another A-hand. And if you checkraise your two pair hand you risk folding out an eventual PP from villain somewhere.


To say that we not should raise A5o if we can´t handle a 3-bet from a player that reraises us from button 9.7% of the times is not correct. He is folding so many hands that would have great equity in the pot (if he knew that I had A5o) if we raise that it would be profitable even if we would find that a fold to a 3-bet were not appropriate.And remember if we found it appropriate then both the raise and fold are correct.

The question is really. Can we ever manage to lose less than our preflop equity of 0.7 BB postflop considering that he does not spew anything postflop?

I also quote Sqvirrel:

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I raise fold on occasion, but only with a dominatable ace out of position against a tight raiser.

My rationale is that I'm really only flopping to hit an A and maybe win. If all my ace outs are good I will flop an A 16% of the time which means it is zero EV for me to even call the 3-bet. But that's assuming my A outs are good. Around half the time that an A flops I am going to lose - either to a set or a better A - and my odds of making a good hand with my crap kicker are negligible.

I probably find a raise/fold spot less than once/week so I know it isn't exploitable, but it is no less correct when it comes up.

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[sharpie]

I stopped reading when you asked if we should fold to a TAG's 3 bet of our CO raise getting 6:1. We're not gonna turn a huge profit, but we're easily gonna make back our 1SB investment with such good pot odds. Also, unless you're playing low limits or have a specific read, most TAGs are gonna 3 bet isolate wider than that. Lastly even if that is his range, if you fold he's gonna think about expanding that next time, and might make some more agressive actions postflop that he otherwise wouldn't have now he's labeled you a folder.

Edit: If you do fold, type **** ************* misclik!!!1! in the chatbox.

[Oink]

Just a few things I think you need to consider.

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Our preflop equity against his range is worth ~ 0.7BB (our EV)if we put in another bet (our EV minus the bet we put in).

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Since he will c-bet with 100% probability you should do this calculation with 7SBs in the pot and not 6.

EDIT: I am not sure if you already did this.

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We are always paying him 2.5 BB when we both have aces which is a huge amount given that our preflop equity is worth 0.7BB and that A-hands are approximately 60%

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Dont forget that you will chop a non-negliable percentage of A high boards. AK66x is a chop against almost his entire Ax range.


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Pretty much most probable hands (a pair) that we want to take to showdown suffers from the fact that we will lose close to 1 BB more when we are behind than when we are ahead.

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Well that depends on your postflop strategy! Against this player I have no problem using a c/c c/c b/f line on A high boards or a c/c c/c c/f line if I hit my kicker.


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We are also for sure the most likely player in the hand to fold the best hand somewhere along the way. We are also for sure the most likely player to give freecards.


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Since he is a tight player I am pretty sure I can make him fold the best hand on a number of boards. Also since he is tight he will often check behind the turn on boards that missed him giving us free cards.


Overall I think its madness folding in that spot getting 8:1 effectively. Are you running bad Apanage?

[Apanage]

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I stopped reading when you asked if we should fold to a TAG's 3 bet of our CO raise getting 6:1. We're not gonna turn a huge profit, but we're easily gonna make back our 1SB investment with such good pot odds. Also, unless you're playing low limits or have a specific read, most TAGs are gonna 3 bet isolate wider than that. Lastly even if that is his range, if you fold he's gonna think about expanding that next time, and might make some more agressive actions postflop that he otherwise wouldn't have now he's labeled you a folder.

Edit: If you do fold, type **** ************* misclik!!!1! in the chatbox.

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Everytime I see someone referring to preflop odds I get a little bit suspicious.
This is a postflop game and the preflop odds must have some correlation with your potential postflop odds.If you 60-70% of the time hit top pair with your hand and still lose 2.5 BB when you had an equity of 0.7 BB to begin with then you have to stop approaching this with some 6:1 high-sounding empty-phrase.
This is exactly villains range otherwise my question would have been asked about another range. And if he labels me as a folder when he see me do this 1 in 20000 hand I´m sure I´m not the one doing the biggest mistake.

[sharpie]

Let's say you don't carry on unless you flop an ace or 5, which will happen about 1 in 3 times so I've heard. If you flop an ace you have slightly over 50% equity. If you flop a 5 depends on the board, but let's say a bit under 50% equity. So very roughly speaking you have somewhere around 50% equity when you hit 1/3 of the time. You're OOP against a dominating range so there are RIO involved, but getting 6 to 1 (or 7 to 1 as Oink put it) these aren't enough to overcome the good price you're getting.

[Apanage]

Since the whole thread is evolving around our negative implied odds.The only question is
You have 0.7 BB preflop equity against him. Can you manage to lose less on average postflop if you would play this hand a million times?
His mandatory continuation bets doesn´t matter.

He is a tight solid player which also makes your c/c,c/c, B/f line extremely transparent. Maybe he just calls but when he doesn´t you have made a huge mistake.

And yes i´m running bad (or playing bad)but I don´t think that has nothing to do with this post.
Í guess I have to be glad that I still make money though

[Apanage]

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Let's say you don't carry on unless you flop an ace or 5, which will happen about 1 in 3 times so I've heard. If you flop an ace you have slightly over 50% equity. If you flop a 5 depends on the board, but let's say a bit under 50% equity. So very roughly speaking you have somewhere around 50% equity when you hit 1/3 of the time. You're OOP against a dominating range so there are RIO involved, but getting 6 to 1 (or 7 to 1 as Oink put it) these aren't enough to overcome the good price you're getting.

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I couldn´t said it better myself.You have 33% equity in the pot to begin with but only 33% chance to hit your hand (if we for simplicitys sake exclude draws).Basically you have wasted a great deal of your equity to just hit your hand (if we are assuming that you always fold when you don´t hit).
Then when you hit your hand you have 50% equity and are destined to lose 0.5-1BB more when behind than when you´re ahead.

Remember that I´m not implying it is better to fold to a 3-bet preflop bet but someone must explain why it isn´t and that person better not talking about preflop odds.

[sharpie]

It's as simple as PF odds, though. If we were getting 3:1 it'd be an easy fold.

[Guy McSucker]

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Let's say you don't carry on unless you flop an ace or 5, which will happen about 1 in 3 times so I've heard. If you flop an ace you have slightly over 50% equity. If you flop a 5 depends on the board, but let's say a bit under 50% equity. So very roughly speaking you have somewhere around 50% equity when you hit 1/3 of the time. You're OOP against a dominating range so there are RIO involved, but getting 6 to 1 (or 7 to 1 as Oink put it) these aren't enough to overcome the good price you're getting.

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I couldn´t said it better myself.


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Okay, so read it again.

The quoted passage says that when you hit you have 50% equity on average. So let's assume we just get ourselves to showdown every time we hit and muck ASAP every time we miss. We're either putting in money with 50% equity postflop, or putting in no money postflop. Either way, postflop is worth ZERO to both us and our opponent.

In this strategy, we essentially chip the pot those times we hit, and give it up the times we miss.

So one time in three, we get half the preflop pot. That's 3.5SB one third of the time or 1.16SB, making the preflop call clearly +EV even with this feeble postflop strategy.

Now add the times you river two pair or make a straight etc and manage to outplay your opponent because his hand range is tightly defined and I think you can improve on this.

[Apanage]

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It's as simple as PF odds, though. If we were getting 3:1 it'd be an easy fold.

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No it isn´t
If we for simplicity use the percentages you provided in your previous answer.

33% to hit your hand. (3-flush boards and straight draws excluded.)
50% equity after you hit (with a pair) your hand and you´re going to continue.
That means that your chance to win is roughly 16.5% after the flop.Which is equal to your preflop odds.

But those odds are just taking into account your chances to win. It is not taking into account how much you´re going to win.
Against an equally good villain I will maintain my opinion that you lose approximately 1BB more to him than you can get out of him because:

You´re playing WB/WA with an ace
You call down with an inferior pair of 5:s
You give him freecards to improve his hand

So it is IMO very clear that if you were only playing for hitting a pair it would be a losing proposition to call the preflop 3-bet.

But we must take into account when you hit a big hand and give it some value.And there is where I fail.I don´t know how much value we should assign to that
But what I do know is if you hit a big hand (exkluding an unlikely straight)then it will be very obvious to him when you raise, since most players just plays WB/WA with their aces, and he will shut down his action pretty fast.
He also has good redraws against an eventual two pair and can sometimes correctly fold a PP when you checkraise and he sees the ace on board.
And it would be you that lose most when two big hands collide. Cause the most likely scenario of two big hands colliding is you hitting your two pair against his trips.