After having just read Bobbo's post about not needing to always employ meta when it's not necessary (although, I don't agree with the claim that's it's practically never necessary...very stake and opponent specific), I have decided to write a strategy post of my own.

First I'd like to start of with the concept of c-betting, and how it's been widely overused. In a vaccuum, the c-bet is essentially the perfect play to make at all times regardless of your holdings and playing against a player X. The reason being that since your opponent will hit a hand (including a pair or better or some kind of draw) around 1/3 of the time, you will show automatic profit betting any flop, even hands that have showdown value. The problem is that when taken out of the context of a vaccuum players are still c-betting against players that they have specific reads on with hands that either do or do not have showdown value, and they c-bets aren't working. This is because rarely can a hand be taken in a vaccuum. Sure, c-bets can be highly profitable, but if you are c-betting 100% of the flops that you've raised preflop then your opponents will adjust (even the BAD opponents), and what should be a highly profitable strategy has just become an exploitable one.

This is what is happening with 3-betting.

When player X raises on the button, many players will 3-bet way too many of their hands from the blinds (not 100%, but a number that's exploitable). While, in a vaccuum, 3-betting every single time is most likely a +ev play, by virtue of the fact that we aren't playing in a vaccuum, makes it highly exploitable. The reason 3-betting has become so rampant is that many players aren't willing to battle against 3-betting as they are against C-betting, however, those who are absolutely dominate rampant 3-bettors.

So what hands should we 3-bet against what players? That could turn into a very long post, so I'd like to narrow my focus to one hand: KQ.

Let's use the example of a 25/22 button opening and we are in the BB after the SB has folded. We know that KQ is doing really well against button's range and we know that the button is probably raising too often on the button. So what do most people do? They go right ahead and repop right there. Now, unless you have such extensive history with the button where you can go broke on any TP flop, I contend that repopping here is an egregious mistake.

For some reason, many people in today's games feeling that outplaying someone comes just as much preflop as it does postflop, which leads to some very serious leaks (too loose preflop to work on image, then too passive preflop when people adjust and hero misses everything). It's more important to think about how someone's preflop game can HELP someone's postflop game. So, back to KQ.

So, if we reraise with KQ, we give the button 3 decisions, F/C/R. It's likely he's going to fold the majority of his hands, let's say KT</AT</and other random connectors and small pairs. So what has happened to our postflop game? We've won money a decent amount of the time preflop, but only 3 BBs. When we're called, however, we have a good hand, but we're now up against a much stronger range than we were before, and while we have aggression, we don't have position, meaning check/folding often and bet/moaning often as well.

We gave the villain the opportunity to dump hands that we dominate, thereby hurting our chances to get lots of value postflop. I'd also like to point out that there are other hands in this category, but KQ is the most obvious (QJ/AJ/KJ are 3 others, albeit you must be more cognizant of whether or not these hands are as far ahead of the openers range as KQ will be).

While many will suggest that this is much too passive of a play with a hand like KQ, I strongly disagree, as our hand is strong and underrepped we can make hands like KJ/KT/K9/QJ/QT all willingly go way too far with their top pair hands.

Then one can make the argument, that if we're doing this with KQ, why not with AK/AQ? Because essentially every hand that calls our 3-bet now will be dominated, and we'll have absolutely no problem getting it ai on a TP flop against an unkown.

Now, having said all of this, it's also important to point out that against good players, you will have to get to the point where you CAN 3-bet KQ for value and get it in happily on a K/Q high flop. Most people have a hard time understanding how to do that.

First off, it requires the right villain to be in the right frame of mind. You always have to be looking to see what the villain is doing. If the villain is rarely raising his button, then you know what...don't bother repopping him, there's not point. He's not stealing, his range is already pretty narrow preflop, just let it go. But if he's restealing literally every time, then start going ahead and restealing...but resteal with playable hands. Pockets pairs, suited connetors, (Not KQ!), and of course your legitimate AK/AQ/JJ+ hands. If, after repopping a few times successfully, and villain hasn't stopped, you can open up your range even more. Poker is a game of seeing how much you can get away with...then doing it over and over and over again. Then, of course, villain will adjust again, either by calling too lightly or 4-betting. THIS is when you can start 3-betting your KQ, but not until you get to this point, and you have to really know you've gotten there.

That's about it...have a great week.

-C

Bookmarked for later review

nice post!

well i think the good point of reraising kq is that it does ok against a calling range of our 3 bet by an agressive button. ak/aq might reraise, so we dont lose any more on average than by flat calling against these hands (if you get rr). i think there is a point when the button is raising so many hands that you should usually reraise with kq as you said . if he rereraises more hands we probably want a more polarized reraising range that can call a push more often.

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Surf

duuuude wtf.

The problem is if we're calling KQ is much more difficult to play OOP imho. Nice post though.

yea nice post. I generally prefer to 3bet these kind of hands (KJ/KQ) when IP (ldo) and choose a much more polarized range when 3betting from OOP. I think that is pretty standard, but it surprises me how many regs in my game fail to understand this concept, and insist on 3betting just for the sake of 3betting.

good post.

wheres that bobbo post your referring to?
thaaanks

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ght=bobbofitos

Good post

i liek this post a lot but i dont know about the k q point. It has some merit and def should be flatted in this situatyion sometimes vrs observant opponents. The first time though with no history its a pretty good hand to 3 bet your opponents. usuaally its a profitable play on its own risking like 11 bb's to win 4-5 1/2 blinds (i know this is in a vaccum). usually you know exactly where your at on the flop since people usually would 4 bet a k w/ no history as a standard and maybe a q but probably not, theyll definitely fold A Q oop i think most of the time if they have no history. If hes not a donk or a huge station and at lease semi competent flopping top pair in this situation and getting all in will be profitable with about 4-5 PSB's like unless someone was a complete set miner, in that case your c bets have more leverage and you win more medium size pots. Also what makes you think that well get action on k high flops and q high flops when we have no history with the villian? im assuming that if the flop is k 3 2 and we c/r or c/c the flop hell put us on what we have or a set, a dynamic has to be set imo for him to be stupid **** like that on the flop when we cold call k q. If you have some kinda read that hes really passive yopu can try and pot control or even bet fold if hes not good enough to make this kind of play exploitable. on the other hand if you have history with a villian and hes 4 bet you before what are you gunna do if he 4 bets this time? its a pretty tough spot. Although if hes passive (preflop) and is only calling like you said 3 betting for value is extremely superior. other than that i really liked and agreed with everything else esp about playing to lag preflop and how things shouldnt be always analyzed in a vacuum. good post

I play alot of hu and some 6-max, and I 3-bet alot because it's extremely profitable. But, the more and more I examine it the only reason it's profitable is because people adjust so bad to it.

Take hu for instance, when 3-betting loose out of the bb, I inflate pots with a weak range out of position. If my opponent counters well, this cannot be profitable.

However, until my opponents figure this out, I'm going to keep 3-betting and keep profiting.