10nl AQo bb

[mondayscool]

SB: $10 (100 bb)
Hero (BB): $10.68 (106.8 bb)
CO: $12.57 (125.7 bb)
BTN: $13.99 (139.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A Q
CO folds, BTN raises to $0.40, SB folds, Hero raises to $1.10, BTN calls $0.70

Flop: ($2.25) 3 7 7 (2 players)
Hero ??

V is 16/14 36% steal from BTN, 0/1 fold to 3b, 28 agg%, 0/2 fold to CB

okay so I have to wonder if I should even be 3betting pre here at all, and I think if I am I should be 3betting larger for more fold equity.

but my main question is OTF. do you CB here? if so how much? I have to wonder what the point of CBing here is as I don't think he'll ever fold his 88-JJ, sometimes QQ. might not even fold AK.

thoughts?

edit: sample of roughly 100 hands

[Cobra_1878]

How many hands is villain sample from?

36% steal from button gives you enough to be 3betting hands like AQo imo. You prob should be 3betting a little larger though.

I don't think you can cbet that flop. As you said, I doubt you're getting many PP's to fold that flop meaning you would have to barrel again on the turn leaving yourself in a bad spot. C/f

[daviddem]

If you're cbetting here, you have to be prepared to fire 2 or 3 barrels.

He is pretty tight so you can still maybe fold out AK OTF and some medium PP with a second barrel, especially if the turn is a relatively high card.

cbetting also most likely prevents villain to bluff with stuff like AJ or KQ or SC's as he doesn't seem to be the type to raise flops with air.

[spoonitnow]

What's your 3-betting range pre-flop here?

I'd consider a larger bet size OOP.

[Savy]

I'd consider a larger bet size OOP.

Why is this?

[mondayscool]

larger 3bet for more fold equity i assume, something like 1.3?

im assuming that when you ask what my 3betting range is you're asking what my 3betting range is in the eyes of villain. if this is the case then it is quite wide, something like 10% with like

99+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo, maybe with some smaller sc's in there as well

[Savy]

Why does a minor difference in 3bet size affect the fold equity? Surely it doesn't affect the chance of your opponent folding. 31% equity needed for it to be a good call for your bet and 34% if you raised to $1.30.

Shouldn't change his calling range too much should it?

[BankItDrew]

Why is this?

It lowers the SPR, making playing oop easier.

[daviddem]

The basic idea behind a larger 3b size is to set a higher price for villain to make you play postflop OOP. When you raise to $1.1 here, you make it only 0.8x pot. If you want to make it 1x pot from the BB, you raise to $1.25 and for 1.2x pot, you raise to $1.4.

Your profits are less OOP than IP, so you somewhat compensate for that by building a bigger pot from the get go. Note that obviously this is assuming that you are profitable when you play 3b pots OOP. If you loose on average when you play 3b pots OOP, then you are only loosing more when you make the pot bigger.

You can't really say that this is only for fold equity, because your sizing should be the same whether you are bluffing or value betting otherwise what you are doing becomes transparent pretty quickly. However assuming villains are more likely to call 3-bets when they are IP, then yes, when you 3b-bluff you should bet more to improve your fold equity.

So in short:
- when you value-3b, you bet more OOP to boost your profits which are diminished by the lack of position
- when you 3b-bluff, you bet more OOP to boost your fold equity which is diminished by the fact that villain is more likely to call IP.

Also, just like postflop, when you value 3b, you have to bet enough to deny your opponents odds of drawing out on you. For example, if you 3b a PP, you want to deny two higher cards the odds of flopping a pair or better. For example, AK will beat QQ OTF about 28% of the time, so when you 3b QQ, assuming villain has lots of AK's in his calling range, you should offer him odds significantly worse than 28%.

You could say "but if I am more profitable IP, do I not want to build an even bigger pot IP?". Well yeah, it would be nice and you can probably do that against fish, but reasonably good players do not like to flat 3-bets OOP, so you should give them a better price to entice them to do so, and when you bluff there is a better chance that they fold OOP so you can get away with betting less for an equivalent fold equity.

[daviddem]

It lowers the SPR, making playing oop easier.

I am interested in an example of how it makes the hand easier to play.

[Icanhastreebet]

It lowers the SPR, making playing oop easier.

...and our range is also a lot stronger(read polarized but top heavy) when we 3b from the BB then when we 3b from the BTN or at least it should be.

[spoonitnow]

I am interested in an example of how it makes the hand easier to play.

With fewer bets left in the hand, there are fewer strategical options, making it easier to play.

In general, as SPR increases, the size of the positional advantage increases. From a game theory purist standpoint, there are examples of no-fold games in Mathematics of Poker where the IP player's advantage increases as more raises are allowed if you want to go that route.

[bigspenda73]

I think you could argue both ways in terms of 3bet sizing. Smaller keeps a lot of dominated hands that are surely in his opening range in the hand, larger more than likely increases our fold equity, so while it might make 1 street more profitable, I'm not sure that it makes playing subsequent streets any easier. If your object is solely to shrink the SPR with a hand like AQ OOP against a tight-caller then I think that's poor reasoning.

But I think I'd call here anyways against a very tight player 4x'ing the button and go from there.