KK 3 bet, did I 3 bet the right sizing?

fundiver199 said:

Preflop
I would advice you to stop using charts, since they are always written for very specific situations. Here the 3-bet was kind of small, but there was also a cold call of the 3-bet from the blinds, which the chart surely does not take into account. You went to 3X or 18BB, which is kind of small, when there are two players in the hand, so I would go a bit bigger here like maybe 4X or 24BB. You are still not crossing the preflop threshold with that kind of sizing, when you are 100 BB deep. If this was a tournament hand, where the effective stack was shorter like 70-80BB, then this would be good sizing, but in a 100BB cash game I think, its to small.

Flop
Now you bet really big leaving less than a half pot sized bet behind, if he give you action. This kind of sizing makes it kind of obvious, you are never folding, and my big question is, why do you want to play this so fast and almost make it a 1-street hand? Its a total contradiction to the sizing, you were using preflop. You have 3 streets to get the money in, so you can bet as little as $0,25 on the flop and put his A high in a tough spot. You have most of his range drawing to 2 or 3 outs here, so there is very little value in forcing him out of the pot.

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Bluelime said:

Thanks a lot for your answer it was really informative. My reasoning was simply that since it's 2 NL I wanted to shove money into the pot and get paid for it, but sadly he folded. I suppose maybe I should've bet lower.

What do you suppose his range is ? To be quite frank I never know what ranges people have even when I do reviews. What does it mean to have your range drawing to 2 or 3 outs ?

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Bluelime said:

My reasoning was simply that since it's 2 NL I wanted to shove money into the pot and get paid for it, but sadly he folded. I suppose maybe I should've bet lower.

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Bluelime said:

What do you suppose his range is ?

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Bluelime said:

What does it mean to have your range drawing to 2 or 3 outs ?

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eetenor said:

How to think about ranges-first get GTO Wizard and look at solver charts. It will show you what range is supposed to 3 bet you. then think about your 2nl villains are they 3 betting more or less of that range.
2 out hands are pairs QQ etc they have 2 outs AQ has 3 outs to the A + draw equity.

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fundiver199 said:

But why then did you not apply the same logic preflop? There are very few hands, that will give action to a 4-bet to 18BB, that will not also give action to a 4-bet to 24BB. So by going small you are leaving money on the table preflop. You dont need to have a balanced 4-betting range at 2NL, Because as you say, people are calling to much, so bluffs are not profitable. Which mean, that if you have a hand like KJs, that might be supposed to 4-bet some percentage og the time, you can just call his small 3-bet and see a flop. And then your entire 4-betting range is for value and probably also happy to stack off especially against the fish, who cold called a 3-bet out of position.

Also nobody are suggesting, you should not go for max value postflop on this board. You absolutely should. But there are 3 streets postflop, so if you bet small, you can get your value on the turn and river. Or maybe a small sizing induce him to ship it in with a hand like AK, because he dont want to fold to a small bet, and he also dont want to call, or he think, it looks weak, so he turn AK into a bluff. There is a reason, why solvers never bet this big in a 4-bet pot, and that reason also apply to a 2NL game.

Since he folded, I am pretty sure, he had a hand, that missed, with AK or AQ being the most likely, since he did 3-bet you in the earliest possible position and then also called your 4-bet. But the issue is, that even if he was somehow in there with a hand like A6s or 55, that flopped a weak pair, he can just fold to this flop sizing, since you are representing exactly the kind of hand, you had. If he is a thinking player, even hands as strong as 99-JJ can go straight into the muck, because you basically always have QQ+ for value, when you take this line and sizing, and zero bluffs.

As explained by eetenor hands like AK or AQ are drawing to 3 outs against KK, and hands like 99-QQ are drawing to 2 outs on this kind of board.

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