Easy flat pre.

Vs. a standard 3x open, pre can be close. 3-betting is better vs. some people imo. My default would be to flat.

However, vs. a min open, I think I'd always 3-bet.

Problem is with AJ (and AQ) is what happens if villain 4bets? That's why I prefer to flat pre here.

If he 4 bets i would probably fold given that from my experience at these stacks most players don't 4bet bluff a lot so they do it with QQ+, AQ+ and against that range i would be a big dog. Do you think this is correct? If i was opening on the button and if one of the blinds 3bets me and has a high re-steal% i'm 4betting most of my Ax( especially s) given that i have the ace blocker, and also pairs 88+ since i believe i can take the pot down preflop enough to make it profitable and this type of mid pairs can put you on some trouble postflop. What do you think of this strategy?

3be pre is fine vs 2bb at these stakes, reasoning

"I think 3betting pre is the best solution here, i prefer to take the pot right away with AJo than to play possibly a big pot with it"

If you think about it for a second is completely backwards

river's just a call.

If buying HHs is cheating then everyone you play against is cheating against you, GL.

buying hhs is defo cheating
people get banned from stars for that stuff
its just difficult to prove

Not really. When we 3b with AJo we're playing small pot poker. We want to win the hand now or take it down on the flop since we expect c/f a lot of the time.

This thread is awesome.

[] Poker is dead.

lol no

So what you're saying is, we should cheat because other people cheat?

When poker does die, it certainly won't be because everybody playing is too good at the game.

amen to that.

But also the fact that there's still so much bad advice and ideas circulating perpetuated by people who claim to know what they're talking about on the biggest strat forum is really encouraging with regards the depth of good players around these days.

Sounds douchy I know... But for anyone who really wants to get somewhere in this game they can take huge encouragment from this.

This makes no sense bro

Just because a villain might 4bet doesn't mean you don't 3bet a hand

Do you only 3bet hands you 5bet shove if villain 4bets you? What's your 3bet range then? AA,KK?

You need to think about your 3betting range as a whole as well and not just on a hand to hand basis

Lol, ironic for you to say that when your first post in this thread says this:

"3betting AJ preflop then thinking you're not able to value bet that flop seems pretty silly to me. unless pre was a bluff, which again is silly when you can call comfortably."

This is awful advice and just flat out wrong.

Care to explain whats wrong with my statement? We're just abusing position and scooping easy money since our hand is super easy to play IP and we can rob equity from his middle strength hands. Its pretty obvious AJo isn't a hand we're playing for stacks with...?

ok... go ahead and tell us why that is wrong boss.

only reason I'd be 3betting this is if SB was a fish or a reg opening 100% of SB

It's a really good hand to just flat pre.

Flop is fine to x back and call turns/rivers.... folding river is bad.

Disagree quite strongly with the bolded part.

The thing is just because he's opening a lot of hands from the sb doesn't mean he's calling a lot of 3bets. Most regs know it's tough to make money flatting 3bets OOP and are going to be playing a 4bet or fold game with most of their range. So all you're doing by 3betting this is letting him fold out all his dominated stuff and making you fold to 4bets with a mixture of value and bluffs. Very few hands, if any, in his range he should be flatting which you're dominating. It's much better to flat in that case even if he is opening 100%.

If he's opening 100% he needs to defend 40%. It's hard to 4bet 40%, and I believe it's exploitable. So he needs to flat some of these 40%.

If we're 3betting with enough frequency that he needs to defend 40% we're also massively exploitable unless you make the correct adjustments.

But lets get real, no reg is going to keep opening 100% once he knows you're playing back at him anyway.

No, we can unexploitably exploit him, because opening 100% of SBs is so ****ing exploitable.

We could valueship AJo for example.

Uhm... no. If villain doesn't defend enough, we have an immediate profit every time we 3-bet. That doesn't say anything about our 3-betting frequency.

As a default against 3-4bb SB open I would flat this. I'm only 3 betting bluffs (hands I can't flat with) and hands I can shove over a 4 bet with. AJo belongs to neither category. If I knew villain likes to defend against 3 bets by flatting OOP with a wide range, then AJo becomes a value 3 bet. Similarly if villain is 4 betting and calling 5 bets really really wide, then AJo might become a 3b/5b hand. But the latter happens almost never.

But against a 2bb open I think we can 3 bet for value. Especially when we 3 bet only to 6bb. It's much more likely that the villain flats when he has to call only 4bb, than when he opens 3 or 3,5bb and we 3 bet to 9-11 bb. Also it letting him see a flop with just 1,5bb investment when we have a decent hands annoys me. Flatting might still be at least as good, but at least it's not as clear cut a flat than if the villain had opened to 3bb.

Anyways I would cbet this for value. Keeps our range wider also. I check back with AA, underpairs, baby Ax and some air. AJo is not the same as A5.

He doesn't need to defend with 40% range because sometimes you fold pre, or just don't 3bet.

With standard sizing of 3bb to 9bb, the actual number is closer to 33%, but that is not the point.

If one is trying to play unexploitably, you simply cannot allow your opponent to profitably 3-bet any two cards. If you are not defending 33% of your opening range to a 3-bet (will vary depending on sizing), you are doing just that.

This doesn't mean that the BB has to literally 3-bet any two cards to exploit you, but every time you open, you are giving him the opportunity to do so. It is just an inherent leak.