I've been thinking about 3-bet pots recently and would love to see some hands from your databases that have given you trouble.

Filter and post away!

I have some trouble in playing 3-bet bluff hands when I get a call and hit a small piece of the flop.

Ie, the opponent folds to 3-bets 80% of times, 1000 hand sample. I 3-bet A7o as a blocker bluff. Flop is 237. Do I cbet this, when the opponent often has me beat when he calls with a hand like 88-QQ. Do I check-call OOP or check in position? How about the turn, if it goes check-check on the flop and I don't improve further on turn and the opponent bets to me?

I get what you are asking, but can you see if you recently played a specific hand which highlights this? I would like to know more details before commenting.

So this was played on anon tables so assume whats our plan if we assume villain is an unknown reggy looking guy. Pretty weird line and sizing in this hand I thought.

Microgaming - €0.20 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

BB: €39.42
UTG: €23.04
CO: €42.96
Hero (BTN): €20.00
SB: €20.63

SB posts SB €0.10, BB posts BB €0.20

Pre Flop: (€0.30) Hero has A Q

fold, fold, Hero raises to €0.60, fold, BB raises to €1.80, Hero calls €1.20

Flop: (€3.70, 2 players) 3 Q 8
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (€3.70, 2 players) 8
BB bets €2.50, Hero calls €2.50

River: (€8.70, 2 players) 7
BB bets €5.50, Hero...

What was your plan preflop when you called?

I wouldn't call that 3bet Vs an unknown, even if is is reggy looking.
Played it fine otherwise imo

Id love to watch a good video on 3b pots specifically aimed at post flop play. Ive watched pretty much every vid out there and these spots may crop up once per video, so its really a very common spot with very little information out there .It would be nice to see someones thought process dealing with these spots in many varying situations vs different villain types and differing stack sizes. In all cases ive seen the video maker will talk about the hand and situation in play without going into many other variables about what he/she would do in the same hand if a different action occurred on differing streets or at a different depth. I think when talking about a 3b pot our specific hand doesn't matter but rather the situation,and id like to see it analyzed from the perspective of having different hands in that spot or different stack sizes and how they would change there thought process/play given those changes.

when we 3b
__________
(who) do we continue against if we miss the flop/turn with board textures
(What) do we do if called on the flop on varying boards/depths.
(where) best to check/fold/bluff catch
(when) should we shove or take a call line if played back at on the flop/turn
(Why) do we take any of these actions in varying spots vs differing villains

When they 3b
____________
(who) can we call lighter against
(what) do we do with tp when they keep up aggression
(where) best to bluff catch
(when)should we shove /call/fold if we hit tp/miss but hit mp or draw
(why) do we take the lines we take.


I know most people these days seem to think 3b pots are strait forward stack offs pretty much no matter the depth or villain type but that doesn't seem to be very well thought out poker.

Thanks.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

My problem in 3bet pots is probably purely mathematical, for example when facing a 3bet from an extremely tight 3better with QQ vs a range of AA/KK/AK. Do we always fold our overpair to alot of aggression? Are we calling for set value and just to get one cbet from AK high?
Also the ratio between villains 3betting range and when implied odds are good enough to call with small pairs and connectors interests me.

I wish I would've seen the thread earlier. ANYWAY ... here's a hand from my last session :

Villain : 36/31
3b : 23.5% ( 28.6 % from CO&SB&BTN )
Flop cbet/Turn cbet : 100/0
Hands : 38

I find myself into a lot of spots like this , villain is relative unknown , well he is a bit more aggro than a usual reg but that could be just running hot . Well so what's the best line here :

[converted_hand][hand_history]Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #13847642

BB: $5.05 (101 bb)
MP: $8.17 (163.4 bb)
Hero (CO): $5.92 (118.4 bb)
BTN: $6.56 (131.2 bb)
SB: $7.60 (152 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with J J
MP folds, Hero raises to $0.15, 2 folds, BB raises to $0.47, Hero ???


I've forgot to mention , I was pretty much card dead atm and I was running super nitty 10/10 .

Well, let's see. If you have 1000 hands on someone, you should have an idea of their overall tendencies. More importantly postflop.

The factors that determine our postflop play are pretty vast.

We need to know how aware he is. How positionally aware he is. How he views us. Have we got any history? How has the table been running? How do the games we are both regular's in usually play?

Let's say we have a smaller sample to simplify things. If you 3b someone with 80% FT3b with A7o, it depends on where you 3b from and where he opened from and how agro he is postflop.

Let's say we 3b his BTN steal in the BB with our A7o (which I would probably never do because this hand is so horribly bad) and he calls.

In this spot, his preflop calling range is at it's widest. You need decent standard assumptions of certain player types to start figuring out what to do. Guys with super high FTcb will tend to still have a relatively wide flatting range BTN vs BLINDS because it is a popular restealing spot, as apposed to say CO/BTN (when we are BTN) because they are OOP and probably are scared of playing 3b pots OOP like a lot of people.

Something like KQ/AJ/88-JJ, QQ half the time and most players just 4b KK+ but can (and correctly) occasionally flat to trap you if you are aggressive postflop.

If you hit the 723r (rainbow I am assuming) there are a number of things you can do.

You can cbet and fold out anything that missed, which would be the easier line to take but might not yield the highest profit. Although it should generally show a profit as long as they aren't floating us. If they are we need to fire 2 barrels or check to induce on the turn otherwise they are making money floating us and in turn we are losing money because they are floating us and we aren't adjusting correctly.

What is more likely to yield a higher profit assuming you can play reasonable postflop poker, is to check/call and re-evaluate later streets.

Sometimes people stab AJ/AQ, which we have crushed, they basically always stab KQ, which only has 6 outs vs us and of course the PP's in his range have us crushed.

When we XC flop ,we rep SDV, since most regular's expect us to bet our air on such a dry flop and this makes people hesitant to fire multiple barrels. Also people dont really take bet/check/bet lines as a bluff, so when they check behind turn we are almost always going to SD vs hands we beat and not worried about being bluffed.

So it's decent to just XC a bet and see if they slow down. Most players will just bet once and give up or try to GTSD with ace hi plus sometimes they might check back overpairs trying to induce a bluff and let you spike a 5 outer.


But there is a lot more to it than that and I am not very good so I dont want to be filling your heads with strange standard lines and you go off trying them and it doesn't work out and you get frustrated lol

I watched "Turning the Corner" on DC by sthief09 and this took my 3b game to the next level so I highly recommend it if you are serious in improving in 3b pots.




standard call/call for me.

villain could have any suited Qx here that decided to check flop for pot control and is now trying to play 2 streets against your mid pairs.

sometimes he can have JJ/TT himself trying to get called by small pairs like 66-99 and sometimes he can have Kd/Ad or something that took a stupid line as a bluff.

sometimes you see AA/KK that went for flop check raise and sometimes 8x but w/e, can't fold toptop after checking behind otf in a 3b pot.

@darthmaul 1

call and trap this idiot

I've thought about that , the things is that my hand is ok vs his range preflop but once the flop is dealt , it would be pretty tough to play it , since the chances of an overcard being dealt on the flop are pretty high .

+I dont know how often he would cbet and give up , or if he is willing to 2barrel a lot if villain shows weakness .

If I was dealt AA/KK I would def flat .

OR maybe like most of the time I'm just leveling myself and in no time I will loose my bankroll , lol .




EDIT : Kaos what would be your postflop plan ??

What i mean is any time ive watched or read any type of hand analyses the focus is directly on that specific hand and situation.For example hero cbets and gets called the hand moves onto the turn rather than looking at all the possibilities that could of happened on the flop in that spot and how we would of proceeded vs all of those actions. And vs what villains do we think its ok to take a different line than what we took in that situation and how differing stack sizes may change how we dealt with a spot.

Take the above AQ hand for example we can explain what we would/should do in that specific spot but what could we do vs the same villain if the stacks were deeper and how would we want to proceed post flop then ? What if we had AK instead of AQ how would we then play that vs the same/differing villains at different stack sizes,vs what villains do we think its profitable to call against and does stack sizes change that vs different villains.Hope you understand what im trying to get at.

Thanks.

Also if we take the JJ hand as an example we can ask when is it correct to call/shove/fold vs different villains and at what stack sizes do our decisions change aswell as asking what do we do in this specific spot.

What if we had 88 99 TT AJ AQ here how could we play those. What if we had AA KK QQ do we think those are better to trap in this spot and JJ better to 4b ? If we think calling QQ+ or even JJ here to trap is best when do we think calling may become a mistake with those hands vs this villain given differing stack sizes.

Not sure if what im saying makes any sense or if its best to just look at each spot on its own merits. I just always find my self in any given situation asking the question " ye but what if ".