I've been thinking quite a bit lately about how to deal with various re-raisers and came up with a distinction that I think is important: loose re-raisers (LRR) and tricky re-raisers (TRR).

Optimal combat strategies against these will depend on various percentages of loose or tricky re-raises vs. value re-raises (suggestions there are certainly welcome!), but my main intention here is just to describe the phenomena.

First of all, VALUE re-raises I'm just going to define as AK and JJ+ or some subset of those hands. What the LRR and TRR have in common is that they raise a lot more than that. Example: in my journal, I recently defined a semi-tight re-raise as one who in the given situation is re-raising 99+ and AQ+. That's a step in the LRR direction--but not in the TRR.

Where the 2 types differ is that the TRR picks his extra raising hands from OUTSIDE the range with which he would call a raise--maybe A6, which, suited or not and from EP or LP is imo not a good hand with which to call a raise or such.

The LRR, on the other hand, picks hands to re-raise with which you could call a re-raise. Like the semi-tight re-raiser who re-raises 99 and AQ. Both of those are imo fine for just flat calling a raise.

The TRR is imo likely to be a better player (and I really think it's a better play). Also, the TRR has a clear distinction on when to call or fold to a push. The LRR may call a shove light, at least at the lower levels. I say this in part because I just got off a table with 2 of these guys to my left where I had decided on a relatively conservative push range of AK and KK/AA. One guy in half-stack called my AKs push with KQ (and of course spiked a Q--if I may diverge a bit in order to whine).

The TRR in any case is certainly clear about always folding the tricky re-raises to a push. He's more setting up a shove where he can call with a big hand.

As is probably clear, I'm planning on becoming a TRR, although I'm not yet sure about how far to take it.

Anyhow, I'm convinced that a very conservative shove range against even the semi-tight RR and certainly a clear TRR or LRR who obviously has a bunch of weakish hands in there somewhere is KK+ and AK--although AK starts to do worse vs. the LRR if he'll call a shove with JJ or less (since AK makes its profit by folding off smaller pairs that are actually slight favorites).

Yeah, I think lighter 4-betting is the solution, but the frequency and range depend on your call range as well as the frequency of your light 3-bets.