let's talk about flat calling 3bets preflop

robinlacey

ok i've been thinking about this idea of flat calling 3bets more since it came up in a thread last week and i don't like it one bit.

(http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055123120&page=3)

however,fuzzbox and ste both seemed interested in talking about this more and so am i,so i thought i'd make a thread out of it,(i figured it'd be easier to start a new one than to try and revive an old one)since i'm not certain that i'm right and i'm curious to see where they (and other posters obviously) stand on the issue.

all the below is basically me talking out loud,and i've been thinking a bit about it but i haven't gone through everything so i'll be interested to see what people think,but basically what i did was describe roughly what i intuitively feel on the issue and try to explain why i think what i do. i'm no good at maths at all so once the discussion gets started it might be an idea for someone to run a few numbers on things,especially once ste and fuzzbox say what they had in mind in the other thread.



i think intuitively it might seem that because people's 3betting ranges are so wide these days,we can profitably start to flat call these 3bets more often,which if i understood the posts on the other thread correctly is what is being suggested.

in practice however i don't see how this works.

first of all,to make sure we're all on the same page here,this is what i'm assuming:

- roughly 100bb stacks. the bigger the stacks the more often i'm calling 3bets,i presume thats a given.once we get to 200bb stacks i'm probably flat calling with 80%+ of my opening range.

- default game conditions-ie five or six players,and the player in the hand isn't a total head-the-ball. obviously there are some players who we can flat call 3bets against a lot,either cause they're insanely weak postflop (this is very very rare in my experience) or because they're total nutjobs who will stack off with overcards or whatever.these situations are too subjective to talk about generally i think. so we're assuming that the 3bettor is a solid enough player-he may be bad,but he's not totally insane. also i presume we have been playing fairly standard tight agressive stuff.

-the 3bet is for a decent amount,basically at least 3 times our initial raise.obviously i call much more minreraises,because we are more likely to be priced in and also out of spite.

-for the minute i'll just assume we're talking about cold calling 3bets preflop in position,since there's even more reasons not to cold call these bets oop.

-also,i'll presume we're talking about our opening range excluding mid-high pockets pairs,which there are often good reasons to flat call with,since i presume we are flat calling with these reasonably regularly already.i'll also exclude AK,and accept that sometimes calling with AQ too is fine.

if anyone thinks i'm way off in any of these assumptions obviously let me know,but this is what i was thinking of when i said people should call 3bets less,which is what fuzzbox and ste were talking about.



ok,so we raise in late position,as happens about one in every four hands,and we get reraised by one of the blinds(which seems to happen every single these days)

at the moment i think that,given the above assumptions,we should pretty much never be flat calling here,maybe one in thirty times or something i will (and i'll usually instantly regret it) but beyond that i wouldn't.

fuzzbox and ste seemed to be suggesting,and i hope i'm not misrepresenting them here,that we should be thinking about calling more often. ste you said you'd call with "at least 100bbs" with a lot of hands,i'm wondering how often you will call with 100-120bbs,after that there's obviously much more room to manouver. it was also mentioned that we should call more often when we think we are ahead of the villains 3betting range,which lets face it is going to happen a lot the way the games have gone.

first of all i don't think that just because we are ahead of his range we should call whenever we raise with say QK or A9 and get reraised. if we called every time we thought we were ahead of someone's range things would get out of hand,obviously we do most of them,but sometimes we call a raise with AQ or 33 from the blinds and check fold the flop,even though we are ahead of his range for raising and c-betting. (obviously sometimes we bluff lead or check raise his c-bet,i just wanted to make the point that we don't necessarily call whenever we are ahead of the villains range)

the times we don't call despite being ahead of the villains range are the times when it is going to be too awkward to find out if we are still ahead of his range later on in the hand,in smaller pots this usually has to do with position,and what i am saying is that in reraised pots the dynamics have been changed meaning that even in position things are going to be too tricky.

the trouble is that most competent players who 3bet from the blinds are going to bet almost any flop.ok,so knowing that surely we can just call with a lot of hands,or maybe even raise?

i dunno,lets say 100bb stacks,we make it 3.5 bbs,BB makes it 13.
we call,theres now 27 or so big blinds in there. villain leads for 23. if we call,either because we think we are still ahead of villains range,or with the intention of bluffing him later in the hand,we are in a helluva spot on the turn.

the problem is,and this is what i think is crucial,that the pot is going to be the size of our stack,roughly.

this takes away the option of floating almost completely as i see it,since if the villain has a hand he is willing to felt with he will often check the turn,and this isn't really even making a mistake,since there's only a pot sized bet left to go in.therefore our float is dead in the water,since his turn check doesn't indicate any real weakness.

ok,so the bluff is out,what about the chance that we are ahead of his range?
this is a bit more promising,i presume most of us are already calling 3bets and calling a lot of flops with stuff like TT for this reason,so why not expand this idea a bit more?

well first of all i hate being in that spot with TT,and i'm not even sure if i'm ahead calling with it most of the time in those circumstances,its hard to play right when just one over flops,or when the board comes rags even.however in general i always feel thatTT is just too strong a hand to fold to a 3bet preflop in these games(and too weak to 4bet for value with),and often to a flop bet too. (as i typed that i started to question my assumptions about TT there,i'll have to think about that more and i probably already should have,since this a situation that comes up a lot)

anyway,back to our situation-we called preflop because we thought we were ahead of his range.now he's bet the flop,and there's a good chance we're still ahead of his range. this situation kind of reminds of when i first learned about poker and you learn about the concept of "trouble hands"

this just seems like a trouble spot to me,obviously you shouldn't be avoiding making tough decisions,since this is what poker is all about. however,i think you should be avoiding making decisions where you don't have enough information to make a good one,which is how i see this situation.

its the same stack sizes problem as with the flop-we call the flop,then there's only a pot sized bet left.so if he checks the turn,its tempting to feel like we were right to put ourselves ahead of his range and call the flop.the trouble is yet again though that his turn check really gives us very little information.we can often safely fold to a river push i suppose,but at this stage we've already got a third of our tank in there,and we've presumably got a hand with some showdown value. i just think that in this situation we're trying to act on too little information too much of the time,and i don't see a way around it.

(the one other option if of course that the villain will sometimes check the flop,however i think its way too common for 3bettors to check push the flop with overpairs and strong draws these days for a flop bet here to be much use,its very rare that someone 3bets preflop and check folds the flop,and against players who will we can just put a note on them and do it all the time till they notice.)

it all comes down to the fact,i think,that in a reraised pot where the 3bettor has been first to act and c-bet,a turn bet and check can mean exactly the same thing.obviously there are loads of situations in poker where something means one of two things,but i can't think of another situation where the context is so unhelpful and the two actions so close in meaning.

one thing i would be curious to see,and this actually scares me a little,is if,with that fancy new pokertracker style program i forget the name of,it would be possible to figure out someones three betting frequency,then their c-betting frequency,and then figure out of it is profitable to just call every 3bet for a while and then just push over them on the flop.obviously they would catch on after a while but it might be something that could start happening,although god i hope not the games are tough enough as it is! anyway that's a maths thing so i'd be useless at figuring it out but i'd be interested to see what conclusions anyone reaches. and for the love of god,on the off chance that they haven't thought of it already,don't post it to twoplustwo if you do!

anyway,i'm far from certain about the above but that explains why i was saying what i was in the other thread about not flat calling 3bets preflop except in very specific circumstances.

i'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks.

Bozzer

Nice post robin. I’ll just add some thoughts on the topic (most of which arose during msn convos with a highly respected 2plus2 poster).
Disclaimer: recently getting back into the game and am only playing 1/2 nl fwiw.

Defending vs light 3-bettors oop

• depends on how light and your opening range - your opening range from early position should be almost prohibitively 'tight' for them to get too loose
• let's say you open 22 - light reraiser from the button, standard 100bb stacks - fold.
• fold with smaller pairs with 100bb stacks.
• if he's very out of line and continuation bets every time i'd recommend calling with 99+, AK/AQ and shoving overpairs + AK/AQ 75% or so
• like you open AQ he reraises from button - call with AQ 50-75% of the time preflop and shove the flop 75% of the time you see it and it's rags.
• dont do it ALL the time - otherwise he'll quickly adjust and destroy you and be LESS inclined to call-shove overcards if you've recently c/r'd him all-in
• the reason why overcards are better is, of course, because they have more equity vs. his calling range than small pairs
• if a small pair gets called it's dead in the water..
• overcards, prob have 20% equity or more - which means he has to fold LESS often for your play to be profitable



• the looser his preflop reraising range the lighter you can call preflop; the tighter his calling range the more often you can shove flops
• the relative tightness of his calling range given his preflop range determines your preflop/flop strategy
• so if he's reraising very light preflop but calls very light postflop you're better off ditching bad hands
• do not do this too often
• it is +EV but only assuming certain things are true. if you think for whatever reason your opponent has tightened his 3betting range even slightly or reduced his cbet frequency with hands that missed - you're making a grave mistake check-raising all-in in those spots
• you can't be predictable. mix it in.. but do not do it often.



• i'd mix some 4betting in. 4betting is more attractive as they reraise more frequently, especially if they play well post-flop - mixing in flop checks
• i'm more inclined to 4bet vs. loose reraisers out of the blinds and with a very tight range from EP facing a CO or BUT reraiser

Defending vs light 3-bettors in position

• again i'd start by adding hands with high card strength and suitedness
• smaller pairs added as stacks get over 130bb or so - suited connectors around the same stack depth
• reraising 22+, A9+ is just super easy to exploit
• call, float
• call, shove
• you're folding like 75% of your range after you cbet on random flops
• ultimately a lot of fooling around in 3bet pots can lead to unnecessary variance
• a lot of money is going in the pot and you don't have a ton of information, so you have to be reasonably certain your assumptions are true


FTP’s pr1nnyraid had some thoughts on this subject a few months back

Someone said you never fold to a 3bet...explain.

here's an example for you. TAG 3-bets me and I have XY. I know/believe they're 3-betting light and I call. I flop a gutshot, they c-bet, and I shove. Uh oh, I run into AA. He wins a stack. Or, I call with XY, shove with air and run into a set. Spewing money, yes? Of course. But for one, they WILL fold on lots of occasions, and occasionally fold the best hand, to START, and secondly, if they see me shoving with nothing, they're going to have to bet/call with the bulk of their range in the future, no? Like 99 on a J high flop or even QQ on an A high flop? Which means that if I adjust well enough, I can start getting AI with JT on that J high flop or A5s on that A high flop, whereas if normal considerations were in effect, I'd be calling and hoping to check it down. Another consideration: TAG sees me calling his 3-bets with whatever I opened with. He now feels that he needs to continue to 3-bet me light because his hand preflop is perceived to be better than mine preflop, with no plans for how to play me OOP in a bloated pot postflop. Which leads to people bet/calling AT on QQ4 flops against me when I shove 66.

A little rambly, but it's all part of a larger gameplan. And it can be really high variance and result in massive downswings if I'm not paying a lot of attention.

Same goes for OOP play - you're sure a guy 3-bets light, so instead of 4-betting, you decide to call and c/r AI any decent-looking flop, knowing that they c-bet 100% of the time and will have to fold many, many of the hands they've reraised with.

fuzzbox

This is very long, and I havent had time to read it properly and digest it properly.

My thoughts on expanding a calling range (especially in position), stem from my own experience in 3-betting light Vs an LP raiser, from the blinds, and them calling my 3-bet. Now, I find myself in much much worse position than they are in, on the turn, given A. a flop bet, and B. a flop call.

Now I am oop with a pot bet left on the turn in a very inflated pot with absolutely no idea if my opponent is strong/weak/floating. I believe that the 3-bettor is in a worse position than the caller.

Also - it can go lp raise, blind 3-bet, lp call, blind bet flop, lp shove. And once again, if I'm light, then I'm in a bad spot.

Since I find it troublesome to play against the guy who calls 3-bets somewhat light, then I wonder if I should expand my calling range in this spot myself.

AmarilloFats

robinlacey wrote:

lets say 100bb stacks,we make it 3.5 bbs,BB makes it 13.
we call,theres now 27 or so big blinds in there. villain leads for 23. if we call,either because we think we are still ahead of villains range,or with the intention of bluffing him later in the hand,we are in a helluva spot on the turn.

the problem is,and this is what i think is crucial,that the pot is going to be the size of our stack,roughly.

The inherent advantage of being first to act in a 27bb pot with 87bb left is pretty strong imo. By 3betting pre villain has deprived us of room to manoeuvre ..We can't really float his c-bet and a raise of his cbet commits most of our tank. It seems to be a very strong position to be in!

We can't call 77 88 99 TT for set value alone
We should flat call with AA KK occasionally..Go for stack a donk
But most I like the idea that, against frequent 3bettors, we should "narrow our opening range and widen our 4bet range"..

CaptainNemo

With 100BBs this is a tricky question. With 300BBs + I think there's a lot of value in calling 3bets with a very wide range.

BigCityBanker

robinlacey wrote:

i dunno,lets say 100bb stacks,we make it 3.5 bbs,BB makes it 13.
we call,theres now 27 or so big blinds in there. villain leads for 23. if we call,either because we think we are still ahead of villains range,or with the intention of bluffing him later in the hand,we are in a helluva spot on the turn.

.
.
.

a turn bet and check can mean exactly the same thing.obviously there are loads of situations in poker where something means one of two things,but i can't think of another situation where the context is so unhelpful and the two actions so close in meaning.

For me it boils down to this.

AmarilloFats

fuzzbox wrote:

My thoughts on expanding a calling range (especially in position), stem from my own experience in 3-betting light Vs an LP raiser, from the blinds, and them calling my 3-bet. Now, I find myself in much much worse position than they are in, on the turn, given A. a flop bet, and B. a flop call.

Now I am oop with a pot bet left on the turn in a very inflated pot with absolutely no idea if my opponent is strong/weak/floating. I believe that the 3-bettor is in a worse position than the caller.


Since I find it troublesome to play against the guy who calls 3-bets somewhat light, then I wonder if I should expand my calling range in this spot myself.

I disagree that the 3bettor OOP is in a worse position.

BUT- if a hand has got to the turn after 3 bet from the blinds and a call of a c-bet

---

USUALLY(taking Robin's assumptions) the 3bettor will have the worst hand.

fuzzbox wrote:

Also - it can go lp raise, blind 3-bet, lp call, blind bet flop, lp shove. And once again, if I'm light, then I'm in a bad spot.

i don't see how this is helpful fuzzbox.of course this "could happen" .so what?

fuzzbox

AmarilloFats wrote:

I disagree that the 3bettor OOP is in a worse position.

BUT- if a hand has got to the turn after 3 bet from the blinds and a call of a c-bet

---

USUALLY(taking Robin's assumptions) the 3bettor will have the worst hand.

I dont see how this is true. You 3-bet in blinds, then c-bet flop, and get called. First, we dont know what sort of hands you tend to show up with here, so how do we know that you are usually behind if you get called on any random flop?

i don't see how this is helpful fuzzbox.of course this "could happen" .so what?

Its not supposed to be helpful - Im trying to show how, if you 3-bet light, you can get put into nasty spots by somebody who calls relatively light, in position.

Van Dice

2 excellent posts from robinlacey and Bozzer, need to rereread!

Ste05

AmarilloFats wrote:

I disagree that the 3bettor OOP is in a worse position.

BUT- if a hand has got to the turn after 3 bet from the blinds and a call of a c-bet

---

USUALLY(taking Robin's assumptions) the 3bettor will have the worst hand.

I'm glad you started this thread Robin, I'm up to my eyes at the minute to reply properly, but I will later, however one point to take note of is the Blind 3-better has by far the worse position, all he knows is we've raised PF then called a 3-bet, he has very little knowledge, and before he finds out anything he will have committed 1/3 of his stack, (13BB's for the 3-bet and then another ~20 in his inevitable C-bet) we have complete control of the hand, we can decide to 4-bet and see if he wants to get AI PF, he'll fold all hands he's not willing to push with, so there's no problem just calling when in position with AA/KK as well, we haven't shown weakness, in fact we've shown strength. I could go on for ages about this, I'm basically doing the same thing Robin did and just thinking out loud, I'll continue my ramble later.

But one of the most important thing that changes and makes our position much stronger is that we will see the flop texture before making a decision and can base our decision based on that, in general as Robin says, the 3-bettor will nearly always fire a c-bet, (unless the flop is really gross) we can then see what the flop texture is like see what it looks like, decide if: (a) will it fit his range (b) does it fit our perceived range (c) does it actually hit us at all (d) etc. etc. etc. There's no calling to see what he does on the turn in my mind, if I call the flop, I'm letting him bluff his chips off, or not allowing him to fold a weaker hand then mine. I'm usually pushing or folding based on my perceived fold equity, my hand equity against his range, history etc. etc. it's a shallow hand and should be played as such with adjusted hand ranges based on history and table dynamics.

If he checks the flop then the whole thing changes again but again we have more information. I'll post more later....

I'm looking forward to this thread and I didn't re-read what I wrote above nor put a whole lot of thought into it so if it's complete gobbledygook, apologies I'll correct it later, also Nice posts Bozzer and Robin.

NickyOD

Thanks for coming back bozzer!!

When it comes to calling 3bets there is a hell of a lot of data that should influence your decision.

- Obviously your opponents range is the most important factor, but also....

- How does he play postflop. Does he fold overpairs or does he go into trappy passive mode which makes it very unprofitable to call 3bets, or is he a bad tag who can't fold postflop and goes bananas with AK, These palyers you call more. even though both probably have the same preflop 3betting range.

- What is your table image. If it's bad cold calling overpairs probably has a lot more value but connected drawing hands probably don't. If it's good then you should probably begin to widen your range against all your opponents.

- What history do you have with this player? Will he get the impression you're getting out of line or have you been caught overshoving flops with air already? Have you always just 4 bet your big pairs or cold called against him. Have you dogged him calling a reraise with J-8o? Whatever you have done recently you should probably keep changing it up.

Here are 2 hands I probably misplayed.

Hand 1:

$2-$4 I raise a very tight player (17/5) from the SB for the 4th orbit in a row. The table in general has been very tight and I have been laggy.

I make it $14. He makes it $48. We both have about $650 maybe more. I call.

Flop is Q-T-6r. I check. He checks behind.

Turn is a 3. I bet 66 he calls.

River a blank. I check. He checks behind with AK.

The most important thing to learn from this hand is that I can't make this preflop call the next time I play this player because he will either decide not to reraise me with AK any more or learn to c-bet the flop, but even so my preflop call in this initial hand probably bad against this type of player since I can probably rarely play a big pot with him although I might be able to now after showing this hand.

Hand 2.

I open from EP for $16 with QQ and the button who is new to the table. min re-raises me on the button. He has $280. The BB colds calls the $28. Back to me and $12 to call into a $68 pot Probably very profitable to just call but I feel like I end up folding the best hand on the flop way too often so I make it $90 to go. He min reraises me again for $60 more. I fold.

Is my 4 bet bad? If yes then I should probably just call with KK also since it is basically the same hand as QQ in this situation.

Hectorjelly

Ive been up for over 24 hours so I'm not going to attempt a long post. But a couple of months ago I totally changed my play from almost never calling three bets to calling a lot of them. Ive found it quite profitable, the average hand that you are playing against is now much less strong so semi-bluffs are much more successful. This is at the lower limits though where I probably enjoy a much bigger edge over players than people playing 5-10 or higher.

AmarilloFats

Good post Ste.

Ste05 wrote:

all he knows is we've raised PF then called a 3-bet, he has very little knowledge. so there's no problem just calling when in position with AA/KK as well,
we haven't shown weakness, in fact we've shown strength.

AS opposed to what exactly? What other normal courses of action could lead to a more accurate read? The preflop action does NOt lead to you having more info than the 3bettor.. I don't think either player has shown weakness!

the logic that " if we have AA KK and flat call the 3bet he is going to hang himself " just doesn't cut the mustard.
Aggressive players win more money cause they don't run into monsters often enough.
And to react to the aggression in pots of this size mean you often need to commit your stack...
Meanwhile the 3bettors are picking up a lot of smaller/medium sized pots.





My point is - when the 3bettor bets 23bb into the 27bb that is a great deal of pressure.
SURe sure you could have a set; slowplayed AA KK or flopped the nuts ..BUT usually you wont have that great a hand and neither will he ...
If you're gonna continue you're have to bluff push or float alot with only a PSB left,,,,....

imo With 2 players in the above situation it makes more sense to be the 3bettor, the one applying the pressure.

fuzzbox

AmarilloFats wrote:

Aggressive players win more money cause they don't run into monsters often enough.
And to react to the aggression in pots of this size mean you often need to commit your stack...
Meanwhile the 3bettors are picking up a lot of smaller/medium sized pots.

Aggression can be a good thing, and in general its often better to be the one who is the more aggressive.

However, too much aggression can be a bad thing, and it is also exploitable.

When ppl continue to 3-bet my LP opens, then I feel that I should combat this in some way. I believe that 4-betting is quite risky, and that, over the long term, it doesnt make me more difficult to play against. However, calling these 3-bets more liberally, especially since I have position, can surely be a good thing.

By calling in position, I have lots of options and we have only comitted circa 10-20% of our stacks thus far. Now on the flop, generally the 3-bettor comes out firing. Now he puts in another 8-15% of *his* stack, BEFORE I make a decision on what to do.

I can still do a lot of things now
If I have a big hand and he is aggro, then I can call here, hoping to trap him for the rest of his stack.
If he calls too much, then I can value-shove my big hands
If he folds too much, then I can semi-bluff a wider range than normal
If he bluffs too much, then I can call him down light, allowing him to continue to bluff Vs my hand
If he gives up easily, then I can call here and when he chks the turn I can shove.
If he plays straight forward, then I can call here with a one-pair hand, then if he shoves the turn, I call if I improve, and fold if not, and if he chks the turn, then I can shove with the best hand/to push him off a hand like 88 on a TQ3 board.

Basically - I should use his constant 3-betting against him, if I can. Yes there will be variance, and yes, I'm gonna get my stack in bad sometimes. But overall, I am surely much much harder to play against ... AND I can better get paid when I *do* have a big hand.

Anyway - those are some of my thoughts. I dont think it should be dismissed out of hand, because I do believe that there is lots of strategy around this, that would be good to talk about. I know that I dont play these spots as well as I would like, and I also know that I am being 3-bet much much much much more than normal, and so we need an effective counter to this.

CaptainNemo

AmarilloFats wrote:

Aggressive players win more money cause they don't run into monsters often enough.
And to react to the aggression in pots of this size mean you often need to commit your stack...
Meanwhile the 3bettors are picking up a lot of smaller/medium sized pots.

.

As a general rule I think becoming passive is a losing play in all types of NL except in very specific circumstances, e.g. if there is a maniac at the table who bets all the time but folds when raised. But up against a thinking player you will just lose in the long run through playing passively.

If you don't want to fold the TT because you think you're ahead of the bettor's range then why not shove? And if you think you're behind the range then a fold is totally fine. And IMO if you're not sure then folding is by far the better option.

If you find it uncomfortable playing TT against a reraise then you may even consider mixing in some limp-reraising with this hand so that you're the one applying maximum pressure?

Just for clarity, I'd much rather be calling a 3-bet with 76s than TT.

fuzzbox

Also - if I call regularly, then I am kinda forcing the 3-bettor to put in 25%-40% of his stack in order to win the pot from me. He would like to win my 3% raise regularly, but if he cannot do that, then he has a very big risk, out of position, with a marginal hand.

His other option, is to stop 3-betting me so much (which would be nice).

CaptainNemo

fuzzbox wrote:

His other option, is to stop 3-betting me so much (which would be nice).

If someone is regularly reraising me in situations like this then every now and then I will shove over the top. Based on their frequency of reraising you would have to be very unlucky to run into a hand that they can call a push with, and if you do this a couple of times they will slow down against you. I prefer to counter aggression with aggression.

fuzzbox

CaptainNemo wrote:

If someone is regularly reraising me in situations like this then every now and then I will shove over the top. Based on their frequency of reraising you would have to be very unlucky to run into a hand that they can call a push with, and if you do this a couple of times they will slow down against you. I prefer to counter aggression with aggression.

By doing that I completely negate my positional advantage. I also allow him to play perfectly against me.

CaptainNemo

fuzzbox wrote:

By doing that I completely negate my positional advantage. I also allow him to play perfectly against me.

I think by calling you're making a mistake in order to allow him to make a mistake. I'm more concerned about the psychology of the situation rather than whether you obtain the right result in this 1 particular hand. You have to make him fear 3-betting you, which he's not going to do if you just cold-call him.

I'm not saying you should always shove, just that you should do it once or twice if you are being reraised regularly. You need to be feared, and if you're seen to be raising, then only calling a reraise, players won't fear your raises at all.

fuzzbox

CaptainNemo wrote:

I think by calling you're making a mistake in order to allow him to make a mistake. I'm more concerned about the psychology of the situation rather than whether you obtain the right result in this 1 particular hand. You have to make him fear 3-betting you, which he's not going to do if you just cold-call him.

I'm not saying you should always shove, just that you should do it once or twice if you are being reraised regularly. You need to be feared, and if you're seen to be raising, then only calling a reraise, players won't fear your raises at all.

I dont agree with your assessment. If I am 3-betting a LP opener fairly light, and he is calling me with more than normal regularity, then I find him very difficult to play, and would fear that situation.

If he only ever 4-bets or folds, then it doesnt really bother me too much.

CaptainNemo

fuzzbox wrote:

I dont agree with your assessment. If I am 3-betting a LP opener fairly light, and he is calling me with more than normal regularity, then I find him very difficult to play, and would fear that situation.

If he only ever 4-bets or folds, then it doesnt really bother me too much.

Maybe it depends on the type of players you're facing. But if I maneuver an opponent into calling my reraises or continuation bets with weaker hands than he normally would, I consider myself to be in an ideal situation to stack him.

You may be more than good enough to handle situations like this and judge whether you are probably ahead or behind. But the situations that have made me the most money in cash games are where my opponent has decided that because I am perceived as playing loose and aggressive, a good strategy is to just call me with a good hand and allow me to dictate the play for a while. I find it hardest to play my natural game when another player is countering me with aggression and in that situation I will be forced to change gears and adopt a more "normal" game, and isn't that your goal here, where you want the guy to stop 3-betting you quite so much?

I may be playing at a much lower level than you so like I said maybe what I'm saying applies less at your level if the players are in general touch, perceptive, and hard to get paid off against.

cardshark202

Great posts here. I really like your line of thinking fuzz. Its something I would like to incorporate more into my game. Oh and welcome back bozzer!

fuzzbox

CaptainNemo wrote:

Maybe it depends on the type of players you're facing. But if I maneuver an opponent into calling my reraises or continuation bets with weaker hands than he normally would, I consider myself to be in an ideal situation to stack him.

Equally, if I maneuver my aggressive opponent into situations where he bluffs his stack off too much, or he is prone to calling off his stack too light postflop when I have a relatively big hand, then I think that can be considered an ideal situation to stack him.

You may be more than good enough to handle situations like this and judge whether you are probably ahead or behind. But the situations that have made me the most money in cash games are where my opponent has decided that because I am perceived as playing loose and aggressive, a good strategy is to just call me with a good hand and allow me to dictate the play for a while. I find it hardest to play my natural game when another player is countering me with aggression and in that situation I will be forced to change gears and adopt a more "normal" game, and isn't that your goal here, where you want the guy to stop 3-betting you quite so much?

Well I want to make money, if he wants to 3-bet me light, then I want to try to find a really good way to exploit his actions. Playing in position, in big pots is surely an advantage that I do not want to pass up.
Obviously I dont call light Vs everybody, and I continue to fold Vs 18/5 dudes, but if its a 27/22, then I cant just let him run over my LP opens, and 4-betting can be v.risky.

Also - this approach will make me look loose and aggressive, which is something that you want also ... right?

ocallagh

3-bets seem to have reduced the skill level required to play the turn or river with only 100BBs. Your decision preflop, on the flop including mainly position, ranges(PAHUD etc), FE and PE (and also your ability to hit flops) have taken over 100BB NLHE.

I think it's time we had 300BB tables so we can play a turn and a river in 3-bet pots.

AmarilloFats

^^v. good posts.

a quick question...
Take Robin's example...
"Lets say 100bb stacks we make it 3.5bb in LP,BB makes it 13.
We call ,theres now 27 or so big blinds in there. villain leads for 23."

lets assume

We have a range for opening in LP of the top 25% of hands.
Villain's 3betting range is identical to our opening range ie 25%.
We call his 3bet with our entire opening range ie 25%.

Flop comes xxx villain leads out for 23bb into 27bb

Who has advantage?
Perhaps if each are versed in Bozzer's counter strategy they are both have the same equity.

But if the player in position does not call/ raise/ raise all in with nothing occasionally he will be in a losing situation.
I am fairly sure players are not adapting well to a 3 bet an a strong lead with 100bb

the fact that when most players call the 3bet and then fold unimproved on flop makes the 3bet c-bet stategy the stronger of the 2 positions....for the time being

sikes

Captain, do you really 4bet shove? 100BB, raise to 3, three bet to 12, shove 97, to win 15/16. Looks pretty crap. The more complex you make poker, ie the more streets you play the better, 4 betting is totally overrated especially 4bet shoving.

However, plenty of food for thought.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

CaptainNemo

fuzzbox wrote:

Well I want to make money, if he wants to 3-bet me light, then I want to try to find a really good way to exploit his actions. Playing in position, in big pots is surely an advantage that I do not want to pass up.
Obviously I dont call light Vs everybody, and I continue to fold Vs 18/5 dudes, but if its a 27/22, then I cant just let him run over my LP opens, and 4-betting can be v.risky.

Also - this approach will make me look loose and aggressive, which is something that you want also ... right?

I agree with what you're saying in general about playing big pots in position but what people are saying in this thread is that 100BBs is too small to exploit position properly after the pot has been built to a certain level preflop. If he c-bets on the flop there is essentially no play left and you simply have to decide if you have the best hand or not and play accordingly. This will probably end up forcing you to tighten up on your raising requirements from LP. However if he's widening his 3-betting requirements why shouldn't you widen your 4-betting requirements, isn't that a logical extension?

I agree there is more risk involved and of course I'm not suggesting doing this more than say 20% of the time that he 3-bets. But against a player showing so much aggression against you it's like Doyle says, you're "fixing to play a pot" because otherwise he is too hard to play against.

ocallagh

some really great posts here. Mods I would suggest throwing this into the poker guide.

fuzzbox wrote:

Aggression can be a good thing, and in general its often better to be the one who is the more aggressive.

However, too much aggression can be a bad thing, and it is also exploitable.

When ppl continue to 3-bet my LP opens, then I feel that I should combat this in some way. I believe that 4-betting is quite risky, and that, over the long term, it doesnt make me more difficult to play against. However, calling these 3-bets more liberally, especially since I have position, can surely be a good thing.

By calling in position, I have lots of options and we have only comitted circa 10-20% of our stacks thus far. Now on the flop, generally the 3-bettor comes out firing. Now he puts in another 8-15% of *his* stack, BEFORE I make a decision on what to do.

I can still do a lot of things now
If I have a big hand and he is aggro, then I can call here, hoping to trap him for the rest of his stack.
If he calls too much, then I can value-shove my big hands
If he folds too much, then I can semi-bluff a wider range than normal
If he bluffs too much, then I can call him down light, allowing him to continue to bluff Vs my hand
If he gives up easily, then I can call here and when he chks the turn I can shove.
If he plays straight forward, then I can call here with a one-pair hand, then if he shoves the turn, I call if I improve, and fold if not, and if he chks the turn, then I can shove with the best hand/to push him off a hand like 88 on a TQ3 board.

Basically - I should use his constant 3-betting against him, if I can. Yes there will be variance, and yes, I'm gonna get my stack in bad sometimes. But overall, I am surely much much harder to play against ... AND I can better get paid when I *do* have a big hand.

Anyway - those are some of my thoughts. I dont think it should be dismissed out of hand, because I do believe that there is lots of strategy around this, that would be good to talk about. I know that I dont play these spots as well as I would like, and I also know that I am being 3-bet much much much much more than normal, and so we need an effective counter to this.

Great post.

Coupled with Bozzers post and also some refining preflop I think it could be very effective. Variance could be high, but it will be fun.

CaptainNemo

sikes wrote:

Captain, do you really 4bet shove? 100BB, raise to 3, three bet to 12, shove 97, to win 15/16. Looks pretty crap. The more complex you make poker, ie the more streets you play the better, 4 betting is totally overrated especially 4bet shoving.

However, plenty of food for thought.

The 1st point is that if he is 3-betting so much, but is also a good player, then almost all of the time he can't call this. You may be horrendously unlucky and walk into a monster but based on his frequency it really would be unlucky.

The 2nd point is that if you are doing this a small but significant % of the time you will discourage what he is doing. The point is not to win the money in the pot, although that would be nice. The point is to discipline someone who isn't taking your raises seriously.

If there's someone at the table regularly reraising me then yes, I will do this every now and then (I'd say 20% or a bit less), and I am very rarely called; also, they will invariably slow down against me at least for a while which is what I want.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

sikes

As fuzz made the point, he can play perfectly against us. It would be very easy to do the maths on this, I dont have the time atm, but your 4 bet shove is definately not a winner, it cant be.

CaptainNemo

LuckyLloyd wrote:

If you are doing that 20% of the time at random then it is surely profitable for them to continue 3 - betting you liberally.

Is it? I don't know. We are not just going to be folding the rest of the time...all I'm suggesting is that you need to mix in a shove a certain % of the time to undermine his strategy. I don't think that NEVER shoving here is good.

CaptainNemo

sikes wrote:

As fuzz made the point, he can play perfectly against us. It would be very easy to do the maths on this, I dont have the time atm, but your 4 bet shove is definately not a winner, it cant be.

I'm sure you can prove this mathematically and I certainly wouldn't be able to argue against it. I really am coming from a more psychological perspective which I would find hard to back up except from personal opinion on the game, but I am certain from experience that there are situations where it is mathematically incorrect yet (over a session) profitable to make certain plays.

E.g. You raise with AT and get 3-bet from the blinds. You shove, he folds 99 and you show. Has he played perfectly? Will he play perfectly next time this situation occurs?

sikes

CaptainNemo wrote:

I'm sure you can prove this mathematically and I certainly wouldn't be able to argue against it. I really am coming from a more psychological perspective which I would find hard to back up except from personal opinion on the game, but I am certain from experience that there are situations where it is mathematically incorrect yet (over a session) profitable to make certain plays.

E.g. You raise with AT and get 3-bet from the blinds. You shove, he folds 99 and you show. Has he played perfectly? Will he play perfectly next time this situation occurs?

Poker is a mathematical game, if it doesnt make sense mathimatically, its wrong. Your example in isolation can be both good and bad depending on a load of factors but 4 bet pushing is going to cost, whether it be a -EV play depends, but trying to fit it in to a good strategy is going to cost. Someone who 4bets push is going to keep getting 3bet by good players becuase its easily exploitable, its not an effective defensive against 3bets and showing is making the situation worse.

ocallagh

CaptainNemo wrote:

E.g. You raise with AT and get 3-bet from the blinds. You shove, he folds 99 and you show. Has he played perfectly? Will he play perfectly next time this situation occurs?

that is results orientated. he had 99 and folded. what if he had AA? You should be working off ranges, and not particular hands.

For example, if their range is any two cards and they will call you with any two cards, then AT would be a profitable push. This rarely occurs, only against maniacs.

If their 3-bet range is 99+, AJs+ and they call your push with TT+ and AJs+ then your push is absolutely horrible.

If their 3-bet range is 44+, A5s+ and they call your push with 88+ and AQ+ then your push is not so bad, still probably a losing play though.

If their 3-bet range is very wide and they call your push with any pair and KQs, A8s+ then your push is ok. (getting close to a mainiac again here)

Bozzer

I think fuzz is really on the money in this thread.

Guys like cts with v high att. to steal %’s thrive on bad tags who open up their 3betting range from the blinds but play poorly oop in reraised pots. These guys have had success against weak opposition who either fold too often preflop or on the flop, but against tough opponents who are capable of effective countermeasures they end up ceding pots oop postflop. And as a corollary by always reraising strong hands you make ‘raised pots’ easy money for the preflop raiser (but that’s another thread).

Against good opponents it's really tough to analyse these spots meaningfully. There are tons of textures, tons of preflop and game-flow variables to consider.
3betting isn't nearly as effective as it used to be. Now it's so commonplace that most people have ranges/frequencies that aren't trivially exploitable, so it's a variance war and no one wins. Except the few who outguess everyone, or run well or luckbox their way to great frequencies.

CaptainNemo

sikes wrote:

Poker is a mathematical game, if it doesnt make sense mathimatically, its wrong.

I don't think this is correct. Obviously it would be impossible to prove it mathematically though :-D

Poker is also, in fact almost predominantly, a psychological game. Maybe you guys are talking more about online play than live?

Anyway sikes I've seen you post really good stuff before so I'm listening to you on this issue but I have a feeling that the opponents you're describing are a higher calibre than the ones I'm talking about.

I do get the feeling that people are missing the point I'm trying to make. Talking about whether pushing A10 in 1 specific hand is profitable or not is irrelevant. If you could find 1 correct way of playing in any given situation then computers would be beating humans at poker. The kind of poker we're talking about in this thread is like rock, paper, scissors, or maybe even a game of chicken. Psychology becomes an extremely important factor.

sikes

Pyscology is just another variable in the equation that determines their range.

We should try and keep the thread on topic!

robinlacey

wow loads to get through...

i've a few things to do so i probably won't be able to read all this properly till later on or tomorrow,looks like some interesting points have been made though,i'm looking forward to going through it all properly.

Vamos

cts made a good post in his old blog that deals with this, it might be a bit dated but a good read anyway.

http://cts687.livejournal.com/14591.html

opr

Also Jman has started a thread on 2+2 with some good discussion not directly about this but related to the whole subject.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=11354065&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

Opr

robinlacey

nice work everyone,lots of interesting stuff to think about.i'm too tired to write a full response but there were a couple of things i noticed straight away reading through that i wanted to comment on.

Bozzer wrote:

FTP’s pr1nnyraid had some thoughts on this subject a few months back

Someone said you never fold to a 3bet...explain.

here's an example for you. TAG 3-bets me and I have XY. I know/believe they're 3-betting light and I call. I flop a gutshot, they c-bet, and I shove. Uh oh, I run into AA. He wins a stack. Or, I call with XY, shove with air and run into a set. Spewing money, yes? Of course. But for one, they WILL fold on lots of occasions, and occasionally fold the best hand, to START, and secondly, if they see me shoving with nothing, they're going to have to bet/call with the bulk of their range in the future, no? Like 99 on a J high flop or even QQ on an A high flop? Which means that if I adjust well enough, I can start getting AI with JT on that J high flop or A5s on that A high flop, whereas if normal considerations were in effect, I'd be calling and hoping to check it down. Another consideration: TAG sees me calling his 3-bets with whatever I opened with. He now feels that he needs to continue to 3-bet me light because his hand preflop is perceived to be better than mine preflop, with no plans for how to play me OOP in a bloated pot postflop. Which leads to people bet/calling AT on QQ4 flops against me when I shove 66.

this is interesting and makes a lot of sense,and is kind of what i was getting at in my vague mumblings about doing some maths with that new program that tracks 3betting frequencies and all the rest.

however i think this gets into metagame stuff quite a lot,which is interesting but not fully what i was mainly interested in,which is whether we should be opening up ranges for calling 3bets from generic solid enough opponents. not that its not worth talking about,far from it,but i think one of the things with this is that krantz plays nosebleed stakes where the player pool is a lot smaller and so you are playing a lot more against specific opponents and their tendencies- i'd imagine that this is the case at 25/50 and higher a lot of the time,but at 2/4 to 10/20 there will usually (hopefully) only be one or two regulars at the table,and in general i try and steer clear of them as much as possible.still interesting stuff and i'll think a lot more about it for situations where i can't avoid playing regular thinking or semi-thinking players.

even as it stands a situation often develops where i can call a 3bet with weaker hands against certain opponents because i have been playing against them in such a way as to force them to widen the range of hands they will stack off with postflop,sometimes i've just been running them over a bit and i know they will start to make a stand,other times i've been caught bluffing,and other times it just happens that i've hit some good hands against them which haven't gone to showdown so i know that my image with them is going to force them to stack off fairly easily.even this though is metagame stuff which doesn't come up that often and is much more of a feel/rhythm thing than anything else.

robinlacey

Ste05 wrote:

I'm glad you started this thread Robin, I'm up to my eyes at the minute to reply properly, but I will later, however one point to take note of is the Blind 3-better has by far the worse position, all he knows is we've raised PF then called a 3-bet, he has very little knowledge, and before he finds out anything he will have committed 1/3 of his stack, (13BB's for the 3-bet and then another ~20 in his inevitable C-bet) we have complete control of the hand, we can decide to 4-bet and see if he wants to get AI PF, he'll fold all hands he's not willing to push with, so there's no problem just calling when in position with AA/KK as well, we haven't shown weakness, in fact we've shown strength. I could go on for ages about this, I'm basically doing the same thing Robin did and just thinking out loud, I'll continue my ramble later.

But one of the most important thing that changes and makes our position much stronger is that we will see the flop texture before making a decision and can base our decision based on that, in general as Robin says, the 3-bettor will nearly always fire a c-bet, (unless the flop is really gross) we can then see what the flop texture is like see what it looks like, decide if: (a) will it fit his range (b) does it fit our perceived range (c) does it actually hit us at all (d) etc. etc. etc. There's no calling to see what he does on the turn in my mind, if I call the flop, I'm letting him bluff his chips off, or not allowing him to fold a weaker hand then mine. I'm usually pushing or folding based on my perceived fold equity, my hand equity against his range, history etc. etc. it's a shallow hand and should be played as such with adjusted hand ranges based on history and table dynamics.

If he checks the flop then the whole thing changes again but again we have more information. I'll post more later....

I'm looking forward to this thread and I didn't re-read what I wrote above nor put a whole lot of thought into it so if it's complete gobbledygook, apologies I'll correct it later, also Nice posts Bozzer and Robin.

interesting post and i'll read over it and think more about it again.however one line made me realise something i've been vaguely thinking for a while without properly articulating it to myself,which i think is fairly central to the whole discussion.

you say "it's a shallow hand and should be played as such with adjusted hand ranges based on history and table dynamics."

this is true,but is also problematic because its not like other shallow stacked situations.in a tournament when you are shallow stacked and you hit top pair you're getting it in and you don't have to think about it. this is what makes shallow stacked poker very easy.

however the fact that it is a reraised pot completely changes the dynamics,i mean on full tilt at 5/10 and up it probably is getting to the point where the games are so agressive and there's so much three betting preflop that the game almost becomes a shallowed stacked game the whole time,but i try and avoid playing in those types of games!

there's still plenty of games up to 25/50 on the internet which aren't that crazy yet (and long may it continue!) but there is still an awful lot more 3betting going on than in the past. and in these games the fact that its a reraised pot still means something,you still have to tread fairly carefully,which means that its not quite as simple as just seeing them as a normal shallow stack situation.

now i'm still undecided as to the implications of this (and by the time i've decided the games will probably have gotten to the point where we're 5betting J9s preflop for value!) but it basically seems to get back to the problem of not having enough information to make a good decision.

this year i haven't played nearly as much poker as i should have,but most of the poker i have played has been in 5/10 6 max games on sites other than stars and full tilt.there is a lot of three betting in these games,and they are fairly tough,but i still think i have an edge on the regulars,and most of this comes down to how bad they are with metagame situations.

the most common mistake i exploit in these solid taggish regulars is the fact that they get sick of being constantly three bet and make calls that are way too loose preflop and then stack off too lightly postflop.basically,i'm agressive,but i'm not that agressive,and they fail to realise this and adjust to it. at the moment i'm trying to get back to playing loads of hands of disciplined poker,and i decided to start out playing 20k hands of 2/4,and i've found the players to be really terrible,and they're particularly bad at dealing with this sort of carry on.this makes me think that in these 2/4 to 10/20 games it might not be necessary to open up our calling ranges much because they're all doing it and doing it so badly that that might be where our edge is coming from.

i think this experience of playing otherwise alright players who make such a hames of these situations is one of the reasons i was against calling 3bets more in the first place.

now obviously the fact that other people are doing something badly is not a reason for us not to try to do it well,but i suppose what this whole thread is about is trying to figure out how possible it is to do this well,or if its necessary or even possible or whatever.

robinlacey

fuzzbox wrote:

When ppl continue to 3-bet my LP opens, then I feel that I should combat this in some way. I believe that 4-betting is quite risky, and that, over the long term, it doesnt make me more difficult to play against.

another very good post,lots to think about.however i have to disagree with this,i think in a lot of situations 4betting is the answer and is still very profitable,i'm not saying its the only solution but i think it definitely should be in your arsenal.

i also don't see how you think 4betting doesn't make you more difficult to play against,if i had a choice between playing opponents who never 4bet bluff preflop and opponents who do i know which one i would choose.

robinlacey

CaptainNemo wrote:

.

If you find it uncomfortable playing TT against a reraise then you may even consider mixing in some limp-reraising with this hand so that you're the one applying maximum pressure?
.

i really don't like limp reraising with TT because this overrepresents your hand,which is not something you want to do be doing except when you are bluffing,with a hand as strong as TT overrepresenting it from the get go is going to put you in a lot of horrible spots.

robinlacey

NickyOD wrote:

Hand 2.

I open from EP for $16 with QQ and the button who is new to the table. min re-raises me on the button. He has $280. The BB colds calls the $28. Back to me and $12 to call into a $68 pot Probably very profitable to just call but I feel like I end up folding the best hand on the flop way too often so I make it $90 to go. He min reraises me again for $60 more. I fold.

Is my 4 bet bad? If yes then I should probably just call with KK also since it is basically the same hand as QQ in this situation.

i think 4 betting preflop with QQ and folding a reraise is pretty awful in general,and especially against someone with only 2/3 of a stack.

in these modern agressive games if you can't profitably get it all in preflop almost all the time with QQ then i don't think you are playing nearly agressively enough,AK and QQ have become hands i automatically get it all in with preflop unless i have a specific reason not to,and the way games are going JJ will probably end up joining that list soon.

robinlacey

ocallagh wrote:

3-bets seem to have reduced the skill level required to play the turn or river with only 100BBs. Your decision preflop, on the flop including mainly position, ranges(PAHUD etc), FE and PE (and also your ability to hit flops) have taken over 100BB NLHE.

I think it's time we had 300BB tables so we can play a turn and a river in 3-bet pots.

i think this intuitively seems like a good idea but in practice it wouldn't be.

the trouble is that deep stacked tables are always going to be a minority interest on any site that opens them,and will attract much better players,since these are the only ones that want to play deep stacked.(this already happened on full tilt as far as i know)

i think if a 5/10 fish had the 2000 buyin to play deep stacked 5/10,he'd just take it to 10/20 instead.

100bbs is fairly ingrained as the standard internet max,a lot of sites even name their stakes accordingly,and i can't see this changing,at least for the fish.

one consolation though is that with these games getting more agressive and more and more pots being played for stacks,the 100bb games often end up getting deeper quicker,so we do get to play more deep stacked pots against the fish without relying on them consciously choosing to do so.

robinlacey

hmm,those replies were fairly all over the place and unfocused,even by my standards,hopefully i'll be a little more coherent after some sleep!

there's certainly a lot of food for thought in the thread,and those links that opr and vamos put up both look really interesting,i'm looking forward to reading them.

one general point worth making though is that i think people are underestimating the power of 4betting. there's a lot of talk about it,but aside from full tilt i don't think theres that much going on and i still think its very effective and being sold short a bit on this thread. in my experience about one in four habitual 3bettors will hardly ever fold to a 4bet,and i put notes on these people,but the rest will almost always just give up with most of their three betting range.

it has got a bit more complicated recently though,a few months ago there was a bit of a rhythm thing where you'd let the first few 3bets slide and then after a while you'd have to 4bet to take a stand,sort of like the "fixing to play a pot" thing.

these days 3betting and particularly squeezing is so common that if i sit down at a table against unknown opponents and one of the first things that happens is that i raise in the cutton,the button calls and the BB 3bets i will pretty much always 4bet.

this is partially because people are 3betting so much that you can just assume that an average unknown is more likely to be squeezing than betting for value here,but also because that rhythm that i talked about earlier has sort of become the "standard",its just part of the routine and everyone knows it,but people will usually give you credit the first time since they will tend to think you aren't 4betting light until they've 3bet you a few times. i also try to find other somewhat less obvious spots to 4bet,for example against some players (not many though!) you can 4bet twice in a row and they will think "well he's not going to have the balls to do it twice in a row with nothing"

fuzzbox

Hey Robin,
This thread is not about 4-betting more, its about expanding our 3-bet calling range.

4-betting has its place in the world.

So does calling 3-bets in position more often, so that when we are 3-bet we dont get into a "call with pairs" and 4-bet/fold everything else.

robinlacey

fuzzbox wrote:

Hey Robin,
This thread is not about 4-betting more, its about expanding our 3-bet calling range.

4-betting has its place in the world.

So does calling 3-bets in position more often, so that when we are 3-bet we dont get into a "call with pairs" and 4-bet/fold everything else.

well i don't think its a simple as that,our 4betting and folding frequencies when we are 3bet are surely germane to a discussion on flat calling preflop.