3-betting Resources

Hi Everyone,

As an attempt to plug my leaky 3-betting, I'm looking for some pointers towards articles, forum topics, posts, anything that might help me close my poor 3-betting ability.... if you have some recommendations on where to read up and study up on proper 3-betting, I'd like to hear abou tthem...

Thanks,
Monty

I've been working on the same thing lately and here are two threads that appeared in the BC within the last week that deal with this topic:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ce-t80684.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ts-t80718.html

Hope this helps

post some hh's in where you feel like your 3-bet was questionable. are you saying you 3-bet too often, not enough, or your problem is flop play?

My primary problem seems to be 3-bet reasoning. Which destroys all other aspects of it... so I'm looking to revamp my 3-betting from scratch, for the right reasons...

At work now, maybe can post some HH later...

I'm not sure if you have read Renton's "ABCD" theorem, but it's an easy way to understand ranges, and reasons, for 3betting imo. To do a relatively quick review of the ABCD theorem, and how I believe it applied to 3betting.

Range A = nut hands.. These are hands that you want to get value with.. These hands are so strong that you can 3bet and expect to be called by worse, or be ahead of villains 4betting range (Hands like KK, AA, AK, etc.).

Range B = This range includes hands that you feel are profitable to call villains open with. Either you are ahead of villains range or can play the hand profitably postflop in some other manner (exploit villain, implied odds, etc).

Range C = This range consists of the most valuable hands that are just below the range you felt was profitable to call with. Hands in this range are going to be some of your best choices for 3bet bluffing.

Range D = Hands that are not going to be profitable to play in this instance, and therefore you fold.

Something that must be considered. Ranges are not static. And never are. Depending on the villain, the situation, and multiple other factors the composition of each range A, B, C, & D should change.

Example: Against a regular you might find that you can only 3bet KK+ for value because they rarely continue with worse (not saying this is always the case). But against a fish at the table you realize that he is calling 3bets with everything he opens with, and therefore you decide that you can 3bet for value with JJ+, AK. So you make that adjustment to your A range.

Another example would be an individual opening from MP, and you having AJs in LP. Against some individual this might be profitable to call with. Against others their range is such that a call here isn't going to be profitable, so instead you decide to 3bet bluff with this hand as it is near the top of the range that you feel cannot profitably call (Range C).

Also using the logic that the ranges aren't static, you must learn how to tailor your ranges given the situation and villain's tendencies. For example, if an individual is opening a wide range and rarely folding to a 3bet, then you could/should expand your A Range, because he will be continuing with a lot of worse hands generally. Whereas, if villain is folding a lot of hands to a 3bet, then you might not want to 3bet as often for value, but instead you want to gear your 3bets more towards bluffs.

Above are some things you need to consider with regards to 3betting. Whether you apply everything is going to be dependent upon whether you are comfortable and how well they apply to your games. For instance, at the micros you probably don't need to 3bet bluff all that much, because villains major problem will be calling too often. Because of this, you might want to open your value range a bit, and rarely 3bet bluff. What's profitable is going to be up to you in the given situations you are facing.

this is fullring, but could be useful anyway.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...he-t77410.html

Maybe we can add more discussion here?

Stacks - Thinking about range C, what makes some hands just below profitable to call with yet +EV to 3bet with? Can you give examples?

Kmind - First off, I'd just like to say that this is all my understanding, and I am often only partially right in some of my understandings, etc. So take everything I have said, and will say, with a bit of skepticism.

So example wise... MP opens, and we are in LP. This particular villain is your standard taggish player with a fold to 3b% of around 70-75% (which is rather standard imo). We obviously know a hand like AA, KK, can be 3bet for value. And we obviously know against this particular villain we can call hands like AQ, AJ, KQ, small-mid pps, suited connectors, etc and be profitable playing a raised pot IP. So we have just formed our A and B ranges. Regarding C range we should (in theory) take hands that just missed out on the cutoff we used for Range B. Hands like Axs, Kxs, suited gappers are all great hands to choose.

Take Axs and Kxs for example. In both cases you have a blocker, which halves the likelihood of villain having either AA or KK. It also cuts the likelihood that villain has AK by 25% (16 combos to 12 combos). And when called, your hand is going to have some sort of equity over his calling range that other hands won't have. For instance, if villain is calling your 3bet with JJ+, AQ+, and you 3bet Axs, you still have 30% equity in what was essentially a bluff. You probably won't play the hand nearly as aggressively as you would had you 3bet for value, but you will be able to showdown the winning hand some % of the time.

Hands like suited gappers generally don't have blockers, but you are likely to still be in decent shape against villains calling range. You will very rarely run into a situation that screws you do to reverse implied odds. That is if we 3bet bluff with 86s, sure we will get called some portion of the time by overpairs, but rarely will we get called by a bigger 8 or 6. And not only will we flop a strong made hand some % of the time, but we will also flop draws. And of course our draws will have decent equity no matter villains range (practically).

So this is how I view things when considering whether to 3bet (value/bluff), and to formulate my preflop calling range. I'd just like to note that the ranges (as Renton stated) aren't always clearly divided. That is, often a hand can fit into two categories and either play is correct. Easy example is you could obviously 3bet for value with AA, but you can also call with AA profitably pre-flop. Which you choose should depend on villain, balancing, etc.

I think that's a sick post Stacks. Very very nice.

I think now we have to discover how frequently we are using some of these hands to actually 3-bet bluff this villain. I mean, are we always looking down and seeing 68s/K7s and 3-betting 100% in this case?

I just wanted to add one more thing.. When you 3bet you should try to know as clearly as possible your reasoning for doing so. You should have already made out a plan for most instances. It is never good to 3bet a hand like QQ expecting to get value, but end up questioning yourself when villain calls or 4bets. If this is the case, then in most instances you shouldn't have 3b QQ in the first place. Because your reasoning for 3betting was because you assumed you would get called or be ahead of villains 4betting range often enough to be profitable.

Also note that situations will affect your ranges, even against the same villain. An example would be a standard MP open, and you have QQ on the BU. This is a spot where calling or 3betting can be correct. Well in a lot of my games, I will often call here, because most individuals play relatively nitty when facing a 3bet in these positions, and I don't feel he will continue with worse too awful much. But I obviously know I can play QQ profitably with a call, and don't want to narrow his range to one that is ahead of me.

But if the same villain opens and there is two calls, then I'm often going to be 3betting here. QQ is a fine hand, but I don't want to reduce it's value to sethunting in this instance, and it's going to get tricky to play in a multiway pot (obv). Plus there is more dead money in the pot that I'm happy to take down.

A 3-bet is just like any other bet.

Why do we bet?

Formulate your own answer and ponder over its implications for your game.

Just thought I'd point out that blockers are overrated as a reason to 3-bet. If you 3-bet bluff a hand like AJo that has blockers, yes you block a lot of the hands he'd call a raise with, but you also block a lot of the hands he tried to steal the blinds with.

Let's say villain raises the CO with a range of
22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,98s,87s,76s,65s,ATo+, KJo+,QJo.
That's 262 combos out of 1326 possible combos. Now let's say his strategy against a 3-bet is to 4-bet and call a shove with AK, JJ, QQ, KK, to 4-bet bluff with AJo and KQo, and to call the 3-bet with TT, AA, AQ, AJs, KQs, KJs, and QJs. That's 102 combos which is 39% of his raising range.

You might say, if we 3-bet AJo then we're blocking 23 of those 102 combos, and reduces his range by 20%, but there's more to it than that.

If we 3-bet with 65s then the only hands in his raising range that we block are 66, 55, and 65s, so he still raises 255 combos and continues with 102 of them, that's 40% of his range.

If we 3-bet with AJo then we block a ton of hands, but we also block all those suited aces and broadways that he might have been raise-folding with. Now he's only raising 219 combos and continuing with 79 of them which is 36%. So yeah the blockers do make a small difference but not nearly as big of one as it might appear at first glance.

Good post, mcatdog. Really appreciate it.

Was hoping you/someone had a decent post on what to call 3bets with considering stack sizes/position/villain/etc.