PokerStars - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (MP+2): 206 BB
CO: 104 BB (VPIP: 24.68, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 77)
BTN: 198 BB (VPIP: 19.12, PFR: 14.71, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 68)
SB: 100.5 BB (VPIP: 10.16, PFR: 5.88, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 188)
BB: 104.5 BB (VPIP: 17.86, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 3.33, Hands: 84)
UTG: 105.5 BB (VPIP: 20.59, PFR: 10.29, 3Bet Preflop: 3.33, Hands: 70)
UTG+1: 38.5 BB (VPIP: 21.88, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 65)
MP: 134.5 BB (VPIP: 15.52, PFR: 12.93, 3Bet Preflop: 10.20, Hands: 117)
MP+1: 112.5 BB (VPIP: 25.88, PFR: 20.29, 3Bet Preflop: 7.61, Hands: 491)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

fold, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, SB raises to 10 BB, fold, fold, fold

SB wins 8 BB


Like the title said, villain is 10.16/5.88/0 over 188 hands.
This is the first time he has 3bet in 188 hands.

Is this an easy fold?

Firstly your raise is too small. I think at 2nl you can use the 4BB + 1BB for each limper rule when sizing your preflop bets (if you're just stealing the blinds from the button go for 3BB).
As played, is this an easy fold? No, no it's not. There are 2 reasons:

1. 188 hands isn't a large enough sample to decipher someone's 3bet range. There are 169 different hold card combinations so who knows, perhaps the villain has just been getting unusually bad cards. The fact that he has 0 after 169 could mean that given a large enough sample the true value there is anywhere from 0 to 3, 4 or even 5. In this case you're only afraid of two values AA and KK which would represent a 3bet of 1%. You don't have enough of a sample size to deduce that those are his only possible holdings. But even if you could.....

2. If he really can only have AA or KK here then it's still correct to call. Here's why: You're being asked to call 7 into a pot of 15.5. That's express odds of just over 2/1. However given that in the assumption villain is a nit if you hit your set then you'll quite likely get his stack. He has another 90 behind. So that means that your 7 could win you 106. That means your implied odds are as much as 15/1. Your odds of flopping the set are 7.5/1. So theoretically you can call the 3bet with the intention of folding when you don't hit a set and still be making a +EV play here.

There's actually a thread on opening sizes in the Theory Forum:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...-past-1674524/

I started out raising to 4x, but then changed to 3x
3x feeld more natural and gives me more action, it also decreases the 3bet sizing
I play try to play a bit looser than the average 2NL player so I like my 3x opening size.
Open to arguments why 4x is better though.

I think I even could open 4x or 5x with great hands and 3x with steals and no one would probably notice ...


I again agree with your theoretical standpoint, but I'm working with the information I have, that information is saying this guy does not 3bet anything. So yeah, I'm putting him on KK+, even if that's not correct, it's likely and it's what the current evidence suggests.

Should've still called to setmine though, didn't even consider that with QQ!

Thx for the great reply!

So if you look through those you can basically see that in the past it was standard to raise 4xBB because the players were so much worse. The thing is those articles were based at higher limits (lets say 25nl and up).

You can still get away with it at 2nl for all the same reasons that you could get away with at at the higher levels 10 years ago.

For what it's worth I found personally that I could bet 4BB+1 per limper at
2nl, 5nl and 10nl but above that I had to reduce it.

Exactly! Nobody is paying attention so you can get away with all sorts of stuff that would be exploitable at higher limits, e.g.:

• limp-calling all your pocket pairs lower than 9-9 with the intention of folding them if you don't hit sets
• overbetting preflop with JJ+
• betting half the pot for your c-bet bluffs but betting the pot for all your c-bets where you've flopped TPTK or higher

Pop at 2nl is such that 10/5 over 188 hands will usually be 3bing tight and might not include ak every time but I would probably call pre to set mine ip or win if he has ak that misses.

This isn't an open tho, this is an iso, so should be 4x'ing.