[FTR Quick Tip 007] 3-Betting, Part 4: Example Hands

Hey guys it’s Mike1013 for Flop Turn River. In my last few videos I’ve been talking about three betting, about three betting for value, about three betting for bluff. About what hand you should use, what hand you shouldn’t use. So today I’d like to go over some example hands illustrating these concepts.

Before I get started let me explain the stats I have up in my hut here. First number VPID, second number is PFR then we have three bet percent and steal percent. On the next line C bet and fold to C bet. And if I need any other stats from the pop ups I’ll explain them as I go along.

Ok so let’s take a look at this first hand here. It happens at 100 NL full ring cash game and we have A six suited on the small blind. It folds around to the button and it’s on us and we have to decide what we want to do. Looking at his opening range here, it looks like it’s 28% on the button, I don’t think we have a profitable cold call especially given that the big blind behind us might decide to three bet himself. So lets see if we can possibly three bet this hand. Let’s look at his full to three bet stat, it’s 53%, which doesn’t look too great at first. We don’t make an outright profit by three betting him here. But let’s look at his full to C bet, it’s rather high and let’s see if we have any good numbers, specifically in three bet pods. It looks like he’s folding to C bet. It’s only six times, he folded four out of six times. But that tends to give the impression that he’s playing pretty fit or fold in three bet pods. So when you combine that post flop fold equity with the chance that you know about half the time he’s going to fold immediately to our three bet. I think this is the kind of hand that can sometimes flop pretty well that we should use to three bet him here. So I would go ahead and three bet this one.

Okay let’s move on the second hand here, in the hand here we have Ace/Jack off in the button and the cut off opens. Let’s take a look and see what kind of range he’s opening from the cut off. I don’t know if you guys can see it here but it’s 23% in the cut off and let’s look at his full to three bet stat. It’s only 46% so we can’t really bluff here to make an outright profit. We can’t three bet for value because if he’s continuing with half of his 23% range that’s only about a 12% range and we’re behind the 12% range. But, we are doing decently well against the 23% range, so I think this is a pretty good spot actually just to cold call and especially because the blinds don’t look too active they’re probably not going to three bet us very much. So we’ll get to play in position and be ahead of his range which I think we should do. Now you might say, but Ace Jack is frequently dominated so we’re going to get into problems post- Flop. Well, against tighter ranges, yes ace/jack has dominated. But against a range that probably included ace, ten and a whole bunch of suited aces I think ace/jack dominates just as often as it’s dominated. Plus we’ll have position so I think that this is a good spot for cold call and we shouldn’t try to get fancy or do anything strange with the three bet here.

Now lets look at another ace/jack hand. This time at a 2NL table. We’re in the button again. This time the cut off opens. It’s a min open and if we look at his stats here, he looks really like a bad player. He doesn’t look good at all. We have a very small sample but nobody runs that hots even over a small sample. So I think he’s a very bad player, he’s probably opening 50% or more in that spot. Let’s look at his fold to three bet stat. He’s folded to zero three bets out of three opportunities. So I think he has like 50% here and he might be calling with almost all of it. Which ace/jack definitely is ahead of that range. There’s no need to over think that spot. I think this is a very clear three bet for value and it’s not even close.

Okay our next hand happens at a 50 NL table. There’s a limp in early position and the button raises and it’s on us in the small blind with Queen ten off. Well I think it’s pretty clear we can’t cold call here. Queen ten is just not very good especially given there’s another player who might cold call behind as well. And the big blind might decide to three bet himself, he looks decently active. Let’s take a look at this guy’s stats and see what we can determine. What range is the opening here? 30% so he’s not super wide on the button really. How often does he fold up to three bets? Wow, 68% of the time. Okay so that’s a lot and actually if we look at that positionally it looks like he’s folding especially a lot in the cut off or button. So since we can’t cold call with a hand like this but it does have very good blockers, you know we block queens we block tens, we block Ace/Queen, King/Queen a bunch of hands that he might have in his range to call three bet. And combined with the fact that his fold to three bet profit is so high I think we make a very good profit here by three betting him. So I’d go ahead and three bet here.

Okay so this next hand actually happens at the same table and against the same opponent. He’s in the high jack in opens and we’re in the cut off with seven five off. Clearly this would not be a good hand for a cold call and we can’t three bet it for value but can we three bet it for bluff? Remember this guy’s folding to a huge amount of three bets. Even still I think this hand is especially bad, it doesn’t have blockers, it’s very low. It’s not going to play terribly low post flop. I think we should just let this one go and wait for better opportunities for three bet bluffing.

Thanks for watching, I hope this has been informative.