Ive been working with a friend of mine, cousin really, on his understanding of poker strategy.

He asked me to help him construct some ranges for, specifically, 3 betting button vs CO open and then he wants to work his way back from there.

I really don't know the best way to go about it.

Can anyone help with this?

Let's say it's nl50 6 max online

We are playing on anonymous site (Bovada/Ignititon)

100bb effective with CO and both blinds. We are button.

We want to 3 bet a polarized range with the value hands being maybe TT+, AQ+

We will default flat call a capped and bound range until we have a good reason to uncap our flatting range and/or switch to a more linear 3 bet range.

How do we figure out the number of light 3 bets we ought to have to balance against our value range in this (or really any) situation?

I def want to use A5s, A4s, K9s, and some of my suited connectors that are almost good enough to flat like 65s and maybe 54s. I feel like that will give me a good mix of hands that can cover a variety of boards and some hands with good removal.

I was originally thinking we wanted to have about a 2 to 1 value to bluff ratio if we are offering about 2 to 1 to call our 3 bet. But maybe that's not good enough since we get to realize our equity when we get called and if our opponent 4 bets we can still combat him with 5 bets. Also, we are in position so we should be able to over realize and we have an advantage in the "implied odds vs RIO ratio"..

So, is there a consensus about what percent of your 3 bet range ought to be light?

Or maybe just telling me what a good resteal % is would get me moving in the right direction.

if anyone has something like a blue print for constructing 3 bet ranges that would be fantastic.
If you want to share your own 3 bet range from the button when facing a 3xbb open raise from the CO at small to medium stakes NLH 6 max, I'd love to see that as well.


Thank you all in advance..

I like to think of preflop semibluffing as having the purpose of being frequent enough to keep the other player calling my 3 bets with bad hands. I start with the obvious semibluffing hands like A5s-A2s, KQs-98s all at frequency <100% depending on the game texture, and other good hands like KJs. Then from there with a read that the cutoff folds too much, I'll add hands on the margins. With a read that the cutoff calls too much, I'll take away hands on the margins. With a read that the cutoff 4 bets too much and or with the wrong hands, I'll tighten up my 3 betting range significantly and call more preflop.

Bluff:value somewhere between 60:40 and 50:50. The more you call 4b the less light hands.
I like a mix of playable hands e.g. Axs with offsuit with blockers e.g. ATo KJo.

I believe the optimal bluffing % formula is: call/pot+bet+call.

So that would make it 6/4.5 + 9 + 6 = .307. So you would want around 31% bluffs or so, but that's for heads up and there are 2 players left to act, I'm not sure if that affects the optimal bluffing % or not.