Pre-flop 3betting more -- a primer needed
moishetreats
Red Chipper Posts: 1,819 ✭✭✭✭
I am asking this for live play rather than for online or tourney play.
Last night, it was incredibly profitable NOT to 3bet pre-flop at my game. Just sit back, call, apply pressure post-flop with napkins, gather up the pot, and only get in a big amount of change with a made hand. There was little reason to have a purposeful pre-flop 3bet strategy in that particular game; it was a good game to deviate from my standardized more aggressive 3bet play.
So went my thinking.
If I'm being honest with myself, that might the case. It also might be the case that that was a convenient -- though profitable -- excuse to justify not employing what I can only confess is not a fully-developed 3bet strategy.
I now turn to you.
While I am not at ground zero here, I do think that I need to go back and purposefully reconstruct my 3bet strategy from the ground up. Even though I do have some targeted questions, I'll start by keeping it open more broadly and asking you what you think that I need (or anyone needs) to consider as a baseline for the development of a cohesive pre-flop 3bet strategy.
Thank you in advance -- any thoughts, questions, or guidance is welcome!
Last night, it was incredibly profitable NOT to 3bet pre-flop at my game. Just sit back, call, apply pressure post-flop with napkins, gather up the pot, and only get in a big amount of change with a made hand. There was little reason to have a purposeful pre-flop 3bet strategy in that particular game; it was a good game to deviate from my standardized more aggressive 3bet play.
So went my thinking.
If I'm being honest with myself, that might the case. It also might be the case that that was a convenient -- though profitable -- excuse to justify not employing what I can only confess is not a fully-developed 3bet strategy.
I now turn to you.
While I am not at ground zero here, I do think that I need to go back and purposefully reconstruct my 3bet strategy from the ground up. Even though I do have some targeted questions, I'll start by keeping it open more broadly and asking you what you think that I need (or anyone needs) to consider as a baseline for the development of a cohesive pre-flop 3bet strategy.
Thank you in advance -- any thoughts, questions, or guidance is welcome!
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So, like many things in poker, the primary factor I would recommend you consider here is stack size.
I find that if people don't fold to often then I don't need to 3bet and can dump money in much safer on a favorable flop. But if they are folding to my raises then I'll mix in the AK. The more they fold the wider I 3bet.
I'll follow up on that.
So you are 3 betting only your premium starting hands because you want them to fold?
I think the point is that if the table has players opening wide, but not defending a ton of hands, you should 3-bet wider. At a table where players will open only very solid hands, but limp fold ton of medium hands, opening wider in position becomes the best play, but also depending on stack depth, calling IP because really solid because having a wide array of hands vs a narrow yet strong range makes playing your hand easier, yet playing against you when you are so wide for them becomes very hard.
This may only be partially true though, because back when I was playing a lot more, my default when sitting down was to 3-bet wide. And usually, I'd pick up a lot of pots, because people at $1/2, $1/3, give a lot of credit to 3-bets, folding hands as strong as KQ. But due to my lack of a true coherent strategy, besides the fact that "I 3-bet lol I should have range advantage here lemme smash chips into the middle for 3 streets FE is my God", it ultimately would end up in me punting off my stack after a really profitable first hour or two. I'm sure good players can math and prove that even vs a tight 3-bet calling range, hand selection will allow you to still 3-bet wide, pick up the opens occasionally, and then apply both difficult pressure, and go for max, thin value with your best hands. But that person was not me. I'd get lost on the turn or river when I 3-bet A10ss, got called, flop came out K Q 4, I bet flop, they call, turn doesn't bring in my BD FD, and they check again and now I'm like uhhhhhh would I bet AK again? AQ? Time to give up? I still got sets of KK and QQ, so if I'd bet those, I gotta bet this! Point is, having a wide 3-bet range means you gotta be able to navigate your range that much clearer on each street, and when you have a pretty tight 3-bet range, your actions become much clearer I suppose. I think that was the appeal of short stacking to me at least initially: the correct "play" was so easy, because A. Small selection of hands means B. Not that many actions to think of on the flop and then C. By the turn, your decision is made, and you have the math to prove it much easier than playing a deeper stacked, larger. There was very little room for error, yet the aspects of the game that allow for a lot more profitability where not available to me, but I never left the casino with doubts about my actions. Talk about clicking buttons in a watered down version of the game.
How villains play post flop in 3bet pots is much, much more important, followed by stack depth in determining 3 betting frequencies and ranges
IMO
https://forum.redchippoker.com/discussion/comment/72940#Comment_72940
A couple of these replies I like to read read when things go a little wrong with a few 3 bets.
my starting approach was to use Ed Millers 3 bet ranges from The Course. These are basically balanced ranges (between bluffs and value) with the ranges being wider against players with wider raising ranges. It at least got me 3 betting more, and getting a feel for how players in my games react.
I know often go to extreme exploits, in loose deep games going to pure value, and in nit reg games, going to almost total bluff against certain players. I also tend to use a very very large 3 bet range when isolating the one big whale with an very wide 3 bet value range. Things like whale makes it 10 I make it 25 with KJo or 33 (if deep) if 25 will get the whale isolated.
@Eazzy: I noticed (with some sheepishness and embarrassment now! :) ) in the thread that you referenced that you had started a post of mine which still resonates.
I also recall @Austin writing in that thread that sometimes you have to go back and re-read things to get the basics back into your head. I think that's where I was at here.
Thank you all again for your thoughts, suggestions, and help resetting!
With a back-stop yeah.
I understand. As I get better at post flop play in 3-bet pots this will likely change for me too.
Enjoy ~ Kat
Awesome. Thank you!!
Thank you again for following up!!