Good BTN opens, good SB 3b, we flat in BB

Flop is say 35Jr, SB cbets

Hero holds a pocket pair less than JJ (no set).

Do we raise? We're often good, love folds, and have position on SB.

Do we flat? It's bad to bloat the pot when we're behind with only ~2 outs. Floating strengthens our flat range; we can still iso-raise safe turns for FE against BTN while intending to FSDR SB.

So about 60% raise OTB and around 35% in the small? First step is figuring out how likely it is that a player holds a better hand.

I usually raise here. The pot is large and the button will usually have 6+ outs if he or she doesn't have a better hand already. The prospect of folding out a six-outer, combined with the outside shot that the button will fold a pocket pair above yours but below Jx, strongly swings this towards a raise for me. It also makes the hand a lot easier to play against the SB because you can largely determine how many bets will go in on any later street.

The pairs really slip in value as they go down. I tend to 4bet/fold pre. I don't think it's necessary to flat, and you're missing value against their ranges since if they are attacking the blinds you either have equity against their ranges, or you have a pair that isn't going to play well on the flop because it's vulnerable to one overcard. This is one of the better flops for a middle pair, so raise otf. I don't like just calling three here.

There's a lot of hands that are between 25% and 34% equity that we'd want to see a flop with 3 handed, but are spewy to cap with.

55-, A8s-, QTs-Q9s, KTs-K8s, JTs-J9s, T9s-T8s, 98s, A9o, KJo, QJo are all hands that can justifiably enter the pot raising a raise and a 3 bet, but 4 betting them is spew.

So rather than base a 4 bet or fold strat around playing:
66+ , A9s+, KJs+, ATo+, KQo, QJs (11.0%)
We add those hands in and have 20.7% of preflop hands.

If I'm against weak players, I'll happily bifurcate and cap the good stuff and call the marginal stuff.

This is certainly the currently en vogue way to think about this. But here is some food for thought:

1. You probably don't want to play some of the hands that barely have their fair share of equity here. You have both bad absolute and relative position here-- you are acting after the aggressor, and you are not acting last. Specifically, of the hands you mention, I would single out 55 as a hand I would expect to be -EV even if it theoretically has its fair share of equity. It's going to be incredibly hard to play it post-flop the 7 out of 8 times you don't flop a set.

2. Capping has some advantages too, even if it means you are "spewing" with some of the hands at the bottom of your range. For one thing, it represents strength and may actually allow you to get some cheaper cards post-flop, paying 1 bet instead of 2 to draw on the flop, for instance. Also, it solves the relative position problem, as instead of acting directly after the aggressor, you are now the aggressor.

3. I should probably do a separate post here on this, but this might be a good spot to bring this up. I have played against a number of people who post here. (Not, to my knowledge, jdr, by the way, who I have heard great things about.) And I have found that, in practice, some people gamble it up a lot more than they admit here. In other words, other than a couple of hands like 55, I find jdr's ranges pretty reasonable honestly EITHER for calling a 3-bet or capping against typically aggressive late position raisers and 3-bettors in a mid-stakes game. But in practice, I've seen people, including 2+2 posters, calling FAR broader ranges out of the big blind in this situation. 65 suited shows up a ton here, for instance.

Further, I have seen these same broad ranges show up even when the raiser and 3-bettor have more narrow ranges (for instance, when the raise comes from a TAG in early position and the 3-bet from a smart player who takes ranges into account from the small blind).

In other words, I get the feeling that for a significant number of players, even if technically in a perfect world calling 100 percent of your range is a more +EV play, just capping a narrower range would be +EV FOR THEM because it acts as a disciplinary device. (Similar to the way that not cold-calling a single raise in position pre-flop acts as something of a disciplinary device, because if you are in "3-bet or fold" mode you dump some of the things you might be willing to cold call with like suited connectors.)

At any rate, not saying anyone has to go back to capping. Just saying that there are arguments in favor of capping a slightly narrower range rather than calling 100 percent of a slightly broader range here.

^^ A fine post, but can others please discuss postflop.

My initial reaction is that you are ahead of their ranges and there are good and bad turn cards for your hand, and further that in a 3 way pot there's some benefit to slowplay. So why not check-call and raise-fold a brick on the turn?

Your hand is still vulnerable. If you just call something like A9 might peel, and hit, and the main concern is increasing your likelihood of winning the pot which is already a decent size, imhe.

I really dont like calling pre think it is a 4 bet. on flop is real close I dont think sb is auto c betting here againststrong ranges so although you smash the 3 bet range are you really in that great of shape against a bet here?

I don't like 4b the smaller pairs, and would just assume muck. I think some compromise can be made in a 3b/4b pre strategy, but it's not my forte so I just keep it simple. I think small pairs play terrible in this spot.

As played though my thinking is towards thinning the field, protecting your hand, and getting to a showdown cheaply. If your raise can't knock the guy out on the flop, then well I don't like my hand at that point. I also think raising on the flop is for info to figure-out if the guy behind you has anything like a jack, though I don't expect him to necessarily fold 88, which might be enough info anyway. It's better to put bets in w two outs otf than ott and still be uncertain otr.

To me, raise the flop for info.

I'd probably call the flop and bet the turn if checked to.

Ps your seat sucks.

lol dude this is supposed to be "just as soon'. hahaha

Yes well no plans to grammar for rolz, lol.

i'll deal with postflop first to separate the two .

the pros and cons of raising are pretty obvious. the issue becomes your opponents. when you have aggressive/tricky/solid opponents, raising here will often cause problems, especially if they know you're a thinking player or they've seen you do it before.

if your opponents are more predictable/honest/passive, you're gunna raise much more often. note that predictable/honest/passive doesn't necessarily mean tight.

you're also going to likely bet the turn in most cases, except for instance if an A or K peels off and you're still three handed on the turn.

anyways, i'd tune my raising frequency on this board to my opponent's abilities and tendencies. ceteris parabis, you should raise this on the flop though to prevent BU from tagging along with a hand like QTs or something similar for 1 bet (though some will for 2 and that's fine) and b/c your plan is then likely to bet the turn and check the river, and to get value from the sb's likely overcards. there's some chance to fold out a better hand, like 88 if you raise 66 here, but that's a smaller part of the reason to raise.

if you're kr'd on the turn, depending what fell and what the situation is, i'd err towards folding without any info (but if an additional draw type card fell that adds a suit for example, and my single opponent is tricky, that may be worth a calldown).

also, if the sb is strong/tricky, you'd probably prefer to just call down all 3 streets than try to get a raise in b/c he'll have some b/3b that you should be calling down but realistically can't with a low pair. that's the cost of playing against solid folks.

to prevent BU getting to those bad turn cards for 1 bet. pot is big now, we should try to win it or limit the field (as one reason for potentially raising here)

general PSA: *never do this*

We should have a delayed value range, but I'm not liking throwing vulnerable hands in the range. I'd rather delay hands like QJ-AJ and AA.

+1. We aren't high enough in our distribution to be raising OTF. Call and reevaluate.

I agree that our hand isn't very strong, but 3handed dynamics can change things. There's a lot of value in raising out the 3rd player and playing IP against the SB.

With AK, I'm very often raising flop. It's value is just below 22/44, but has much better playability. There's still a small chance I'm currently best. It gives me board coverage on A/K turns and rivers. Even better, often BTN will fold out hands with 6 live outs, but call with hands that I dominate! I'd be tempted to raise some combos of AQ as well for the same reasons.

i am just calling.
good value has a bluff catch we have and a tons of bad cards can cripple our hands
we should face a stronger range than usual .
anyway in my distribution i should have enough J+ to raise for value.
Much easier to raise TT than lets say 77 for example.
lower we go with pair, higher the chance one of them have a better pp should increase.

The problem with raising the flop is that we could be easily be 4bet on the flop or the BTN could call two cold. Either way we are in a bad spot and our position sux.

Seems like those that want to raise the flop with decent pocket pairs here aren't thinking about the long term plan for the hand all the way through the river. I ask how do you feel about the small blind betting all streets and you're sitting there with your underpair on the river after calling all streets and facing a river bet? That seems like a marginally profitable call for that decision branch. Now, think about your entire range and in which bucket you want to put those river bluffcatchers on the flop. I'm imagining a few buckets:

call the flop and reevaluate

call the flop and probably raise the turn

call the flop and hope to improve to a hand that can raise the turn for a higher profit than calling down through the river.

raise the flop and hope nobody 3+ bets.

raise the flop and hope somebody 3+ bets.

fold the flop.

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I think the (raise the flop and hope nobody 3+ bets) bucket should become stronger and stronger as the game gets tougher and more aggressive to the point that it's (empty) in a very tough game.

4 betting preflop eliminates all of these problems.