Some Thoughts on 3-Betting for Newer Players
Introduction
The topic of 3-betting pre-flop has had tons of stuff written about it. I'm going to assume 100bb stacks in no-limit hold'em games here. The principles looked at here will translate over to other situations with proper adjustments. I should point out ahead of time that I'm an advocate of 3-betting with a polarized range in position and a not-as-polarized range out of position. The reasons for this will become evident in my argument for how to create a 3-betting range.
Constructing Your 3-Bet Value Range
Most people have an exploitative view when it comes to constructing a value range for 3-betting. What I mean by that is they look to 3-bet all hands that are +EV without ever 3-betting any "value hands" that will be -EV. This is a logical way to approach 3-betting for value, and it's fine for most people most of the time. This is what I'm advocating that players do.
Something you need to realize, however, is that your hand's equity against your opponent's non-folding range isn't the whole story. Suppose your opponent had a range of all broadways, and you 3-bet with a hand like AQ. If your opponent 4-bets with {AK, QQ+}, then you're going to lose your 12bb or whatever those times. If your opponent calls with something like {AQ-AJ, KQ, JJ-TT}, then you're going to win quite a bit when you both hit top pair. You're also going to win a significant amount when you hit top pair and Villain hits a second pair.
The point here is that pre-flop equity isn't the whole story. As an aside to do with pre-flop hand equities not being transitive, 22 beats AK, AK beats T9s, and T9s beats 22. Fun stuff.
If you see someone make a 3-bet from the blinds with something like AQ, and you don't understand since they seem to be slightly behind their opponent's range in terms of equity, this is why.
Constructing Your Calling Range
When you face a raise before the flop, your best hands make up your value 3-betting range. Your next best hands make up your calling range. For example, if you think that QQ is a hand you would like to 3-bet, but you wouldn't like to 3-bet JJ, then JJ is probably in your calling range.
The reason that having an idea of your calling range is important is because it rules out hands that could be in your 3-bet bluffing range. If a hand can be profitably called, then it should usually be in your calling range instead of your 3-bet bluffing range. For more information on this idea, check out this post by Renton.
Because your calling range in position will be large than your calling range out of position, your 3-betting range in position will be more polarized than your 3-betting range out of position. What I mean by this is that the gap between your value 3-betting range and your bluffing 3-betting range will be larger when you're in position than when you're out of position.
Constructing Your 3-Bet Bluffing Range
From an exploitative point of view, you would like to 3-bet every hand that is profitable to do so that you aren't calling. This isn't always the best idea because it becomes really obvious really quickly to many opponents that they need to 4-bet you more often, and it can be really hard to determine if your opponents have adjusted. For this reason, I advocate that players 3-bet bluff a more measured amount.
The hands you start with for your 3-bet bluffing range will largely be based on which hands you're calling with. The size of your 3-bet bluffing range overall will be determined by how often you think your opponents are going to fold and how often you think they will call or 4-bet you.
How Different Variables Affect Bluffing
Suppose it folds to MP who opens to 4x in a 6-max game. It folds to Hero on the button, and Hero 3-bets to 12x. How often does MP have to fold for a bluff like this to be profitable?
We can't evaluate this as a simple "bet/(bet+pot)"-style problem because there are extra variables that must be considered. First, the blinds have a chance to 4-bet us or call. Additionally, our EV changes based on whether MP folds or calls. I'm going to do a quick analysis to show how the blinds can affect our calculation. Note that our standard "bet/(bet+pot)" calculation would say that we need Villain to fold about 12/17.5 = 0.686 or 68.6 percent.
Let's look at how SB and BB act. If we hold a hand with no blockers, we'd expect the small blind to not hold a hand in {AK, KK+} about 1197/1225 = 0.977 or 97.7 percent of the time. If we say that the SB or BB will fold unless they have a hand in this range, then we'll expect it to not fold around to MP about 4.5 percent of the time.
Blinds don't fold, we lose 12bb
Blinds fold, MP folds, we win 5.5bb
Blinds fold, MP doesn't fold, we lose 12bb
We'll call MP's chance to fold when it folds around to him F. Our break even EV is:
0 = (.045)(-12) + (.955)(F)(5.5) + (.955)(1-F)(-12)
0 = 0.54 + 5.25F - 11.46 + 11.46F
0 = -10.92 + 16.71F
10.92 = 16.71F
F = 0.654
So that alone would mean MP would need to fold about 65.4 percent instead. Now obviously there's a lot that we aren't taking into consideration like the times he calls and we see a flop and things like that, but I'm just illustrating how a single factor can change things. There are a lot of these factors, and you're going to have to pay attention to them to have a general idea of how you should adjust your 3-betting ranges.
Sample Range Analysis When Bluffing
I'm going to use a full ring UTG range to do a simple range analysis as an example. I'm choosing a full ring UTG range because it's small and easy to work with, and that makes it good for examples. Suppose UTG opens to 4x with approximately {77+, AQ+, KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s}, and we hold A4o in late position. We're considering a 3-bet to 12x. Let's look at Villain's range in terms of the number of combinations.
AA(3), KK(6), QQ(6), AK(12), AQ(12), KQs-T9s(16)
That's a total of 55 combinations. Let's estimate that we're going to need our opponent to fold something like 65 percent of the time when it folds around to him for our bluff to be profitable. This means that we're going to need him to fold about 36 starting hand combinations, and that means that he'll need to continue with fewer than 19 combinations. Since {QQ+} is 15 combinations and {QQ+, AK} is 27 starting hand combinations, whether 3-betting is +EV in a vacuum depends mostly on whether we think he'll fold AK.
The Role of Blockers
Let's say that we have the same spot as above except we're holding T9o. Our opponent's range breaks down differently.
AA(6), KK(6), QQ(6), AK(16), AQ(16), KQs-T9s(13)
Our opponent now has 63 combinations, and to get him to fold 65 percent of those, he'll need to be continuing with fewer than 22. At this point, {QQ+} is 18 combinations, and {QQ+, AK} is 34 combinations. It still comes down to whether or not our opponent will fold AK in this particular spot, but it changes the distribution of our opponent's range in ways that are important to take note of since it can seriously impact your fold equity in a some situations.
Being Afraid of Missing the Flop
A lot of people are afraid of 3-betting non-pair hands because they're scared of missing the flop and "not knowing what to do." What they don't realize is that there's no difference between this and open raising something like AQ. You play it in the same kind of way when you miss the flop. The only difference is that the SPR is a bit smaller and your opponent's range is different.
A simple piece of information that might make this easier for some people is that your opponents are much more likely to 4-bet with big pairs than to just call. This means that on flops like J94, their range isn't going to be very strong.
Good luck.
