I think this is a pretty good guideline. I'm generally more inclined to 3 bet premium stuff -- 1010+ -- or more speculative hands -- 87s -- than something like AJo... hands that are easily reverse dominated and, assuming you flop TP / bet and are called, make it hard to figure out exactly where you stand.

3bet all of these hands all day and put villain on super tilt. If he's a decent tag HUDBOT he's going to see that you and the blinds, 3players to his left are folding all day so it's profitable for him to open raise atc from the CO. If he knows that, then you gotta know he knows that and stop him from having 2 buttons per orbit. That said, I like 3betting all these hands against the right villain here and there except for AJo. There are just going to be so few flops where you will be willing to felt this hand except for KQT

Grunch.....

3bet all of those.

And any two other cards I might have been dealt as well.


Edit: I might just call with like 88-TT sometimes and maybe a few other things to mix up my range but mostly yea what I said above until we develop history and adjustments need to be made.

a) JJ - 3 bet
b) 77 - call
c) AJo - fold
c) KQs - 3 bet
d) JTs - call
e) 87s - call

Thanks for all the responses. Some questions/comments:

If you are 3betting all of these hands assuming villain will usually fold, don't you mind that they are losing so much value from hands like JJ and KQs every time villain folds?

If you are 3betting these hands for value, how much do you like your JJ and KQs when a decent TAG calls your 3bet or 4bets? With either of these hands, we are behind any decent TAG's OOP 3bet calling/4betting range, and if we are happy to dump them to a 4bet, then we are slighty ahead of a reasonable 3bet calling range with JJ, and still pretty far behind a reasonable 3bet calling range with KQs. If I am 3betting JJ, I don't mind when villain calls, but think things could get ugly. If I am 3betting with KQs and get called, I am not happy.

I think most people are 3betting the lower end of the range they would play, which I think is clearly correct. These are hands we 3bet as semi-bluffs for image/balance, hope to take it down right away, and if we get called, have a chance to flop something we can win a big pot with.

i think i would 3bet all of these some %. in order of decreasing likelyhood of 3betting (note no comment about what i do when i don't rr):

JJ
77
87s
JTs
KQs
AJo

What's SPR?

Stack to pot ratio, ex: when you have cards wich flop TPTK or Overpair you want the biggest pot on the flop to go all-in faster => you aim at a low SPR, see "professional no limit hold'em" book.

JJ isn't a three bet against a solid tag, since it has a value against is opening range but not against his calling range.

back to the OP

JJ - Call 100% against such an opponent
77 - 3bet 50% call 50%
JJ - mostly call
77 - mostly call
AJo - 3bet 75% fold 25%
KQs - 3bet 50% fold 50%
JTs - 3bet 40% call 60%
87s - 3bet 50% call 50%

To all those saying '3 bet all of them'. What's wrong with playing postflop once in a while?

Granted, against weak players who never adjust then I see the merits of this, and at NL50 and lower it's probably +EV, but against a competent player I think you're going to start getting 4 bet light, or they will call and crai over your cbets if you're doing it with any regularity.

Given we all hope to be playing SSNL someday, I think it's a bad habit to just auto 3bet all these hands, as good players will punish us as we move up in stakes.
As Gregorio stated, 3 betting may be +EV, but calling in position may be even more +EV (obviously providing we're not just folding when me miss).

it doesn't really have to be a bigger +. i don't get why its so hard for people to understand how frequency plays into their hand ranges.

for instance, lets say that in this particular scenario, we want to 3bet our opponent 15% of the time, because we think that he'll fold so often that it will be extremely profitable at that frequency, even if the hand were to always end right there. why would i want to 3bet with the top 15% of my range when i can 3bet with the top 5% of my range, call profitably with the next 10% of my range, and 3bet profitably with the next 10% of my range? now i'm still folding the guy just as much, but i'm still also getting in some profitable calls. not only that, but the lower hands i'm 3betting with aren't really much more smashed by villains calling/raising range than the hands already listed.

i don't really assemble my ranges based on showdown equity, but you get what i mean.

Yeah I think I get what you mean, but you weren't advocating 3betting them all, just JJ and 87s, which is probably the same as me (I might add KQs). I'd be calling the rest, maybe ditching AJo, but I hate AJo.

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I enjoy playing postflop poker and trying to put my opponent on hands. All this relentless 3betting just reduces it to basic math and I find that about as interesting as playing a Sit'n'Go.

if you want to give up EV so that it's less about maths that's fine by me, but can we restrict the discussion to how to maximise our $EV, just for those of us who would like to play maximally winning poker?

Absolutely. My point was that I think we may actually be giving up some EV by 3betting some of these hands 100% of the time, as well as making us easier to play against.

a) JJ - mostly call, sometimes raise
b) 77 - sometimes raise, sometimes call
c) AJo - sometimes fold, sometimes call, rarely raise
c) KQs, JTs, 87s - mostly raise/sometimes call/occasionally fold

I agree with the argument in favor of just calling JJ against this villain with a tight image, although I still 3-bet it sometimes.

I don't like playing 77 for just set odds with these stacks, so regardless of whether I call or raise I'm also looking for spots to exploit a tight image and take the pot away. If CO is pretty likely to c-bet and then give it up on the turn than I probably lean towards a call, otherwise I'd just raise and try to take it down preflop.

I'm only playing AJo here when I think I can take the pot away postflop, in which case it's similar to 77 in that I can either call/raise, but I call a lot less with AJo here, and fold a good part of the time.

I like 3-betting the suited connectors a lot with our image as stated, just expecting to take it down the majority of the time. I lumped them together because I don't really play KQs here for top pair value, so I don't really look at it much differently than 78s here. I'm either going to pick up the pot pre-flop or hope to flop a strong draw, otherwise I'm probably done with the hand unless CO is pretty predictable postflop, in which case I might float or bluff-raise a c-bet.

guys, this player is opening about 30% of hands here... he's opening Axs, most aces, lots of worse kings etc. basically he's going to be folding to your reraise 80%+ of the time, so you really need a good reason to advocate the passive line as being better in a vacuum. (i have some sympathy with what DaycareInferno is saying re. frequencies however - don't assume i am pumping these 100%.)

reraising JJ here most of the time is so obviously correct its not true, AJ and KQ are more marginal. people who think you average more than 5.5bb by calling with JJ, please explain how you break this down: on the 70% of flops where there is an overcard and he cbets, how much do you win on average? on the 30% of flops where you have an overpair, how much do you win on average?

There's nothing wrong with calling 77 or the suited connectors, as long as you realise you are playing them more for steal equity than implied odds. Personally I like 3betting with them to start with.

a) JJ - 3 bet
b) 77 - call
c) AJo - fold
c) KQs - 3 bet
d) JTs - call
e) 87s - fold

I don't think it's particularly passive to call JJ here. A lot of it just has to do with being in position, for me. If I'm OOP I'm calling much less frequently with any of these, just 3-betting or folding.

Part of my assumption here is that even on the 70% of flops with an overcard I can float or raise a c-bet and have a large chance of taking the pot, just because of position. If this assumption doesn't hold (or I think villain is too good to let me get away this enough) than I agree that 3-betting becomes a lot better.

Edit: As a caveat, I guess I don't have much experience in this spot with exactly this image. If I manage to get seated to the immediate left of this player most of the time I am giving him a pretty good reason to think I'm 3-betting light because of all the other unlisted hands I'm 3-betting him with, so I just 3-bet JJ too expecting he'll call much lighter. But as I'm imagining this spot I like a call. It depends a lot on how you are assuming this player plays postflop though, and how he sees you.

A few points.

3betting JJ is not obviously better, and I am still waiting for someone to tell me why they think it is or at least acknowledge the points I made when I tried to show why calling is better.

I can not imagine how 3betting all of these hands (or even JJ) maximizes our value, since 3betting means we don't get to play post flop most of the time, so most of the time we are winning the absoulte minimum. I agree with well-named's post above. If your opponent is way better than you are post flop, then 3betting is okay, but assuming you can play post-flop at least as good as the co, then, your post-flop skill+the strength of your hand+your position value=$$$.

Someone with 30% asb is not opening 30% of their hands from CO. They are opening 30% of their hands from co/button/sb. I would be surprised if they are open 25% of the hands from CO, and would guess it would be more like 20%. My asb is around 35, and I open a ton more hands from the button than I do from the CO.

Sorry I messed up with my first post saying JJ is 100% call here on my way to shop I understood how wrong that is, and that because I was putting villian on a tight range.If Villian would raise max 20% of hands it would be 100% call.
Here it really depends if its 20% its clearly a call if its over 25 its more like a fifty/fifty and on 30% 3bet seems to be the best solution.

In general I would like to add something on 3betting since I was in a hurry when I made my first post.

You usually would 3bet here for value - monster hands QQ, AK, for a reason that certain hands play bad post flop those are small pocket pairs, for a bluff those are sc, weaker aces and AJ, AT, those hnds won't just stand a cold call.

We won't 3bet and will call with hands that play too well post flop and which we can't bet for value.
Those are middle pairs(including jacks) by raising those hands your destroying their value by calling you are so ahead of villians range that you can make here profitably more than you can by 3betting.
High suited cards: AJs, ATs, KJs, QTs and all others.Those hands are good enough to warrant a call here, but if you call with those hands you gotta take some stabs at pots and make moves.I include AQ off suite into this category too.

JJ - 3 bet for value

77 - Call 2/3, raise 1/3 - has set value, still beats villain's range and is often still good w/out a set especially in position. Easier to lay down without a set than JJ in a small pot.

AJo - 3 bet 3/4, fold 1/4 - Slightly profitable 3 bet with position but you really don't want a call. If called you will still win a 25bb pot often (profit of 12.5 bb), but if you get called and lose, you will end up losing around 60bb or more (loss of 30bb with just a 3 bet preflop and a cb on the flop). You won't often win more than 25bb when you win. Still, I hate just calling since it's so hard to know where you're at.

KQs - 3 bet 3/4, call 1/4 - Same reasons as AJo except this time a call is profitable since you now have much more draw potential.

JTs - fold

87s - fold

With these last two you are really just hoping to flop a draw in position. JTs has some reasonable pair potential but nothing you can really extract value from. I'd 3 bet these against overly aggressive players but with no reads I just fold.

Is this too tight?

its bad to value 3bet JJ here, you can call and your ahead if you bet here and he calls your behind.

i believe that JJ is far from an auto 3bet. I'd call with kqs mostly too given description of the villain. The rest are almost auto 3bets. ajo or ato being the bottom of my range from the button.

I think that JJ isn't really a great hand to 3bet just because hands like JJ and TT are so hard to play post flop, especially in 3bet pots. While you may think this is giving up EV just to make the hand easier to play, it's actually gaining EV because you are avoiding putting yourself in a position where you are more likely to make a mistake for stacks.

a) JJ - 3-betting. I probably have the best hand and wanna build the pot. Plus, I'd look at how often they fold when you raise on the flop. If they're gonna fire the flop and turn, call rags and let him bluff some more.

b) 77 - I don't usually 3-bet below TT, unless it's a ridiculously bad player, but I'm open to suggestions to do so. I'm calling and playing postflop based on reads. Floating most flops (i.e. no A-K-Q, not straight-flush on flop).

c) AJo - depends on my mood. I'm calling most of the time, but sometimes, I just fold because I worry about domination. It depends on what I think his actual range is. If I think he's as likely to have SC, low pair, <=AT, then I'm calling, and maybe raising.

c2) KQs - calling. I'm playing this cautiously based on board texture. QJx, see his reaction, float flop, see how turn plays. KQ - calling and raising turn if he's gonna bet again.

d) JTs - calling. I'm not very aggressive with my SC's. I hardly ever 3-bet with them. I think I'm gonna start experimenting. I'll raise limpers, and open raise in the hijack or later, but otherwise, I'm calling a raise in position.

e) 87s - see JTs discussion.

I disagree. If you raise and he re-raises you, I'd put him on QQ+, AK. Make a decision on pot odds if you can continue. If you raise and he calls, I'd put him more on 77-TT (discounting JJ since you hold two), AJ+. You have fold equity.

So, pot is 5.5BB, you raise to 12. There's a 28% chance he has something that you're 65%+ to beat (i.e. Ax - x<J, SC, lower PP, junk), 2% chance that you're 35% against his range. I'd say he'll fold 5-10% of the time you re-raise. So the equity equation is roughly:

.05(5.5) + (.23)(.65)(25.5) + (.02)(.35)(25.5) - (.02)(.5)(12) - (.23)(.35)(25.5) - (.02)(.5)(.65)(25.5)
=
.28 + 3.81 + .18 - .12 - 2.05 - .17
= 1.93BB average win.

That's 5% of the time, he folds and you win a 5.5 BB pot. 23% of the time, he calls, and you win 25.5 BB 65% of that time, 2% of the time, he calls, you win 25.5BB 35% of the time, 2% of the time, he has a monster, re-raises 50% of the time, you lose 12BB, 23% of the time he calls, you win 25.5BB 35% of the time, and 2% of the time, he calls you with a monster 50% of the time, you lose 25.5 BB 65% of the time.

So, you're netting almost 2BB by raising, and folding to a shove, and seeing a flop when he calls. If he does anything BUT call or min-raise, you've got to be done with this hand, because of how shallow the stacks are. Otherwise, you're at the commitment level, and that's an ugly place to be with JJ when you're facing a range of QQ+,AK.