NL200: Deep Stacked IP; 4Bet pot

Question

Flop opponent is a TAG with 22/20/2.7 (VPIP/PFR/AF) over ~300 hands. I've been playing a similar style to him.

My hand has good IO IP here as we are deep and I can play this type of hand aggressively in this preflop situation and many postflop situations also. The SB cold 4bets but we are still very deep so I call closing the action.

What do you consider opponents range to be?
What do you consider my range to be?
Possible courses of action?

Thanks.

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$2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

SB: $927
BB: $390
UTG: $265
MP: $406
CO: $430
Hero (BTN): $733

Pre Flop: Hero on BTN has A♥ 2♥
2 folds, CO raises to $6, Hero raises to $23, SB raises to $68, 2 folds, Hero calls $40

Flop: ($139, 2 players) J♠ T♠ 3♥
SB bets $78, Hero ?

Answer 1

Given how deep SB and BTN are, if I were SB I'd think you could have any pair and still call the reraise looking to flop a set. Suited aces (like what you actually had) are possible, but I'd still be somewhat surprised to see one this low. Given the chance to play a big pot, I'd expect most suited connectors and many 1-gap connectors are in-play, but the only non-suited aces I'd expect to see would be AK and AQ (possibly AJ but I doubt it).

If I'm the BTN, I put SB on a narrower range than this. If he has a pair I suspect it's at least TT. Again AK and AQ I suspect are possible, possibly with something like KQ suited thrown in there.

As the BTN, I expect the SB to cbet nearly 100% of his range here, so the cbet tells us little if anything. SB's range should be pretty strong on this street, but vulnerable to many things on later streets. That could be justification to float, but I don't like floating in this instance. I could imagine SB trying to get to a showdown with something like an overpair and refusing to give up after hypothetically checking the turn.

Trying to be him off his hand is going to be expensive, and there are a lot of hands that won't want to give up. Floating would seem to rely on a scare card hitting, and raising the flop would seem to require you suspecting he will fold an overpair (unlikely in my mind) or not cbetting strong hands (again unlikely). I suppose the runner-runner possibilities add a tiny bit of equity for BTN, but I think this is a fold nevertheless.

I fold.

Answer 2

Is SB the kind of player that could see your 3bet as a resteal attempt from the CO?

If so, his range can be quite wide: Top 15% as well as say his bottom 5% (his junk re-resteal range). For his top end, he'll want to play hands with good implied odds, or can hit the flop hard since he's OOP for the rest of the hand. This includes PPs, SCs and big broadways. In his eyes this puts his range ahead of your resteal range and gives him >50% equity preflop.

The flop connects with a fair whack of his range, but also with yours. What is villain's C-bet frequency? If it's >80%, then his flop bet tells us nothing really.

You are often ahead here; you have a backdoor flush & straight draw, and lots of cards offer a good bluffing opportunity. I can see a call being profitable here a good fraction (>50%) of the time.

Any spade, Ace, King or Queen will be scary cards (19 cards) for villain and 8 of them give you a straight draw. Any heart gives you a draw to the nut flush. (another 6 cards)

So there are 25 cards that can come on the turn that should make villain very afraid to continue OOP. If he still shows resistance in this case, I think you're up against a monster, or a brave bluff. But he won't have a medium str holding like top pair. He might even let go of 2 pair depending on your history.