In a recent mailbag, I discussed the potential for exploiting players who size bets one way when they want to induce a raise and another when they don’t. I had the opportunity to take advantage of such a player last Sunday.
I’d already folded to re-raises twice this orbit, so I probably had a bit of a weak-LAG image going on, ie it looked like I was stealing a lot but giving up easily. Villain was new to the table, so I didn’t know anything about his raise sizing, but I could from even preliminary stats (something like 30/25) that he was aggressive and didn’t like to give up pots. I didn’t expect him to take kindly to a blatant steal of his BB. That, combined with the fact that his re-raise was uncommonly small when could have set me up very well to shove on him led me to think he was light. I risked more than I ordinarily would on a light 4-bet, but based on his sizing he really seemed like he wasn’t going to call:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 25 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t14399)
BB (t22144)
UTG (t12436)
UTG+1 (t6698)
MP1 (t27056)
MP2 (t7691)
MP3 (t17795)
Hero (CO) (t13200)
Button (t23608)
Hero’s M: 19.56
Preflop: Hero is CO with 8♣, A♦
5 folds, Hero bets t600, 2 folds, BB raises to t1355, Hero raises to t13175 (All-In), 1 fold
Total pot: t3085
Results:
Hero didn’t show 8♣, A♦.
Outcome: Hero won t3085
Perhaps a basic question, but what kind of 3bet size would you have read as him trying to set you up to shove on him?