Facing a regular 3bettor preflop

[Boobie Lover]

You are playing 5/10 NL with $1000 effective stacks. You hold 44 in the CO and open to $40. The button reraises to $120 and the blinds fold. According to some old logic, you should call here for set value. But, is that correct? I don't think so.

Say that the button has a very small reraising range of QQ+, AK. This is the ideal opponent that you are going to face in this scenario. But, even though this player is the ideal opponent,. Every time QQ flops badly or AK doesn't hit the flop, it is rare that you are going to take this opponent's entire stack. Add on the fact that you might flop a set and still lose the hand, and calling here for set value is very thinly +EV or even -EV.

Now instead replace the buttons reraising range to 40% QQ+-AK, 20% 99-JJ AQ-AJ, and 40% other suited connectors & small pairs. If you call with 44 and only continue past the flop if you flop a set in this scenario, there is NO WAY this is anything but -EV. Roughly 7 out of every 8 flops you are going to not hit your set, and this opponent is going to take the pot down with a continuation bet. Then, the lucky 1/8 flops you do hit your set, he isn't going to stack off anywhere near enough for you to make this play profitable since he is going to have some crap pair or complete air a lot of the time.

So, calling with low pairs only for set value is definitely a losing play against someone that 3bets with some regularity preflop. Then, what is a person to do to counter this constant 3bettor? Well, if he is 3betting light preflop,you could 4bet light right back at him. If he knows you know that he 3bets light and you counter 4betting light, then you could conceivably be 5betting for value with a much frequency than what some low limit people may understand. This is why some people may be puzzled when observing high limit games and see AJ vs. 67s all-in preflop for 80k. This is the thought process that happens in these games.

You also could check/raise bluff on the flop against his cbet with some frequency against this regular 3bettor, or you could call if the flop is favorable to you (but this scenario creates difficult situations on the turn). All these things 3betting preflop and countering them is what is making me more frustrated with NLHE cash games, but I suppose the games can't always be golden.