Facing a 5-bet all-in: the last decision

What can possibly call a 5-bet shove?

Only hands that beat, or run close to, the strongest range in poker. A player who shoves all-in over a 4-bet is representing the very top of their holdings, and usually has it. To call off a stack against that, you need a premium of your own: the best pairs and, at most, the strongest ace-king. Everything else, including hands that were happy to 4-bet, folds, because 4-betting as a bluff and calling a shove are separate decisions with separate bars.

How is this different from facing a 4-bet all-in?

The ranges are even tighter. A 5-bet arrives after more money has already gone in and after you showed strength with a 4-bet, so the shoving range is more concentrated at the very top than a 4-bet-jam range is. That pushes your calling range down to only the hands that can look a monster in the eye. In practice the difference is a notch: where a 4-bet-jam might get called by a strong pair, a 5-bet-jam often does not.

How often do you call a 5-bet shove?

About half the time, measured against the range you 4-bet with rather than against all hands. In combinations that is 30 to 75 out of 1,326, which is 2.3% to 5.6% of everything you can be dealt.

That half is higher than most players guess, and the reason is that the 4-bet already did the filtering. You do not arrive here with a random hand. You arrive with a range that was strong enough to put in the third raise, so a good share of it can take one more.

Which hands call a 5-bet?

Aces, kings and ace-king offsuit call in all fifteen spots. Ace-king suited calls in fourteen, queens in thirteen, jacks in twelve.

Below that the list runs out quickly, and it runs out in a way worth noticing: this is one of the only places in poker where ace-king offsuit is as reliable a call as its suited version. When all five cards are coming and no further betting can happen, the flush that the suited hand occasionally makes is worth only a couple of points of equity, and against a shoving range the two hands are close to interchangeable.

How do you actually learn these?

Not by memorising every grid. The gap between knowing the right play on a page and finding it under a clock is where the money goes, and closing it is a matter of repetition. PlusEV deals these exact spots back to you and returns to the ones you keep getting wrong. The opening ranges these all branch from are in the chart library, and the positions guide explains why seat decides so much.