Lately I have been thinking a lot more about 4bet bluff spots on Bovada. They don’t come up that often, but I feel that I am flatting way too many 3bets and need to widen both my 4bet bluffing range and my folding range. This hand is in the sunday major on Bovada from this Sunday (I play the $18 50 seats satty every week, only satty on my schedule) and got in it. In this hand, villain had only RFI’d 1/16 opportunities and had flatted an open 3/10 opportunities. It was his first 3bet (30 hand sample). I feel that in this spot villains are going to tend to have a very strong 3betting range, but also that they are going to generally fold too much to 4bets. Additionally, I did not really want to play post OOP with a deep SPR vs a nutted range. In the past I would tend to just flat the 3b in a spot like this, but decided that 4bet/fold was the better play. What do you guys think? (we also block his 5bet get in range pretty well)

I think that my 4bet sizing was a little too big, and that the math would work out to be more advantageous to us if I had 4b to something like 17bb instead of 18.5. Seems like a small difference, but I think it’s very significant.

Flopzilla analysis:

If villain is 3betting a linear uncapped range of: 66+, A5o, ATo+, A4-A5s, A8s+, KTs+, KQo, 67-98s, 97s

There is 190 combos in that range, but the reduced combos after we take out our blockers is only 153 combos, and we block most of the top of the range.

we 4b 18.56 and there is 11.49bb in the pot. Our break even bluffing frequency is: 18.46 / (18.46 + 11.49) = 61.6%. Villain has to fold about 62% of the time for us to break even.

If villain folds suited connectors, AJo and under and ATs and under, worst pairs (99 and under), KQo, KT-KQs, he is only calling with 48 combos of hands. Villain’s folding frequency is then: (153-48) / 153 = 68.6%

This still assumes villian is gonna 5b pile AJs and TT, which most villains I don’t think are. However, villain could have a tighter 3betting range, so for balance I think we should keep these hands in.

If villain folds 68% of the time, our profit is:

0.68 * 11.49bb = 7.81bb
-0.32 * 18.49 = 5.92bb

7.81 – 5.92 = 1.89bb profit on the 4bet.

I'm not 100% confident that my math is correct. I'm also facing a lot of uncertainty about villain's 3betting range and it could be much tighter than the one I gave, although villain's fold to 4bet range i think is very likely to be at least 60% of their 3betting range most of the time.