I've heard this a couple times now;
If we are relatively deep (~ 300bb for instance) facing an open raise from a skilled player who opens from some non blind position and we are in one of the blinds we should simply not 3 bet any hands.

The argument seems to be something like;
We can't manipulate the SPR in a way that diminishes our positional disadvantage. Having a linear 3 bet range caps our flatting range and turns our 3 bet range too face up. Having a polarized 3 bet range causes us to have too many bluffs in a bloated pot OOP, deep stacked, against a player likely to call and make life hard on us. We also have to fear our deep stacked and skilled opponents ability to 4 bet us very effectively because of our positions and stack sizes..
So just call your entire continue range.


This strikes me as incomplete.

I can't exactly put my finger on it but this wreaks in the same way the "stop n go" play always wreaked to me. Just intuitively it strikes me as some sort of magic trick or sleight of hand/sleight of mind.

Is this the current consensus?
Is it debatable/controversial?

Could this apparent problem (our inability to 3 bet ANYTHING sufficiently deep and OOP) hint at something more profound or more fundamental that might be missing from our current ideas on deep stacked NLH strategy?

thoughts?

I am wondering if what this truly illustrates is just how big a problem it is to play at all OOP with very deep stacks.

Might it be that either;

We should use 3 bet sizings that are more relative to effective stack sizes than the pot size based on just the blinds?

Could it just be the case that we can't afford to play poker OOP vs a skilled player when stacks are very deep? That we should only ever play an EXTREEMELY strong range in this situation? If we are playing a super tight range could it actually even make sense to 3 bet our entire continuing range but do so with a preflop over bet?

If two equally skilled players were something like 300bb deep and one opens the button for 3xbb against the other player in the bb, what stops the bb from only continuing with hands that are very strong and have very good nut potential like Axs where x is 10-K and pocket pairs that are maybe 88+ ballpark and, therefore, unlikely to get set over set coolered, and maybe the big blind 3 bets to something like 15bb with his entire range to deny the button good immediate odds and use his range construction to tip implied odds more in his own favor?

Maybe hands like AJo, KQo, and 22 just won't be profitable to play against a good player able to wield the combination of skill, depth, and position like a war hammer if stacks are sufficiently deep?

I'd even guess that a hand like AKo loses some of its value and may even get surpassed by a, typically mediocre, hand like ATs or 88, maybe even JTs.

I don't know quite what it is but my bull**** detector seems to get flagged when I think about the statement "you should NEVER 3 bet deep stacked and OOP against a strong player.

Maybe it's a situation that calls for some flatting and some 3 bets of varying (maybe wildly varying) raise sizes. Maybe we could flat some of our AA, KK, and AKs combos to uncapp our flatting range and make huge 3 bets w hands that play well in more pedestrian 3 bet spots, hands that get much of there value from dominating other strong hands, maybe we should shift our sights to hands with great versatility, nut potential, and synergy rather than keep hold of our typical "100bb starting hand rankings".

Okay I'm def rambling but I believe this is where NLH is moving.

Once the bots crack the ~ 100bb NLH game wide open this 300bb+ version of NLH seems to be the next place for us humans to explore so maybe it's worth thinking about a bit differently??

Just 3bet a linear top x% range and cbet flops very polarized at a low frequency. Depending on how aggressive he is you might want to close some gaps in your range but this weakens it so it's a trade off. Take advantage of your range having better showdown value by actually taking it to showdown and let pots stay smaller and check the top/second pairs to use as bluff catchers and bet bluffs/2P+ to create the big pots.

Mine too. I think you should definitely have a 3-betting range. It's just that the deeper you are, the more important it is to have nut-making potential or dominating draws in your range. Suited aces and suited Broadways are the obvious choices as balancers for the big pairs.
I presume that offsuit hands will be much more troublesome OOP in high SPR pots than they are when stacks are shallower. e.g. You might have AQo in your OOP 3-betting range when 100bb deep, but be less inclined to have it in your OOP 3b range 300bb deep.

No, and no because its not remotely close to being true. You're mostly looking at a mix of true but severely overvalued concepts and circular reasoning. For example its true that as stack size increases the positioned player's advantage increases. As your more marginal hands become lesser and lesser EV as effective stacks get deeper they should be gradually removed from your 3bet range. But its highly unlikely that at just 300bb *all* your hands should be removed from your 3bet range, and its probably true that there's a limit at some point from hands being removed.

Also its true that as stacks get deeper tough players will call more often because they feel they have implied odds. However, even though the result is the same this is a completely different type of call than calling to bluffcatch vs a wide 3bet range. If your opponent is calling 22 or 67s in order to crack aces in a 300bb pot, it usually means he's folding close to automatically when he doesn't hit. So even though you're garbage 3bet pre is being called often, you can also profitably barrel away extremely easily. This type of play will sometimes lead people of out their comfort zone. Most people would much rather be auto-stacking off with aces on any given board and just make one cbet or two with their trash, then have to occasionally fold aces to aggression and barrel multiple streets with trash. And that discomfort is somewhat understandable since, with a bad read, folding aces or barrelling trash can be massively -EV. Still, the point is that the discomfort of 3betting pre super deep, whether its facing flop raises when you have AA, preflop 4bets when you have QQ, or other, doesn't directly translate to a loss of EV. Playing deep OOP vs a tough player is simply tough. By just calling pre, which actually makes you deeper, you aren't making any of your decisions any easier, just less important.

this, and some other ideas depending on your strategy

just 3bet bigger.

There is a limit to how big you can three bet effectively in this spot without simply laying too big a price, along with suffering a positional disadvantage

Pretend the stacks are 1000 bb and this is easy to see

Great post NMcNasty.

I actually think this makes a lot of sense.

If someone says (and I've heard this on different podcasts and discussed it with a friend who has a well known poker coach who told him the exact same thing) "You should not have a 3 bet range extremely deep OOP vs a decent player" they have plenty of good reasons and rationales to justify this position.

I think making larger 3 bets with your 3 bet range effectively solves many of the problems the people in this school worry about regarding 3 betting.

If we just assume that a player is going to have incentive to call 3 bets in position when stacks are deep (and that seems fairly uncontroversial) then what can we do to disincentive them from calling?

We can use a stronger range (especially one with a lot of nut potential). And we can make our 3 bets larger than normal. Surely this will give the player in position less incentive to flat call 3 bets. However, the players who subscribe to the "no 3 betting deep and OOP" school of thought might reply; "Ok, sure, but what does that do to our flat calling range? If we only ever 3 bet stronger hands with more nut potential and we use larger sizings then what hands do we flat call with?

And I think this is a very good point.

So what do we think about 3 betting larger with our entire continue vs 3 bet range when deep and OOP?

What can villain do to stop us from flatting nothing and just 3 betting a linear range and using a relatively large sizing?

I guess he could 4 bet us a lot. But I think that is probably getting closer to a GTO solution for this situation. And if villains best response is just to 4 bet us a lot then it diminishes his positional advantage a lot right? And isn't that what we should aim to do?

It seems intuitive to me (when very deep) that we ought to 3 bet more hands and villain ought to 4 bet more hands and then we will no longer be in this "super deep high SPR sucks to be us OOP situation" and (depending on actual bet sizings and stack sizes) we may have hands we can flat call (not many/and maybe none) and hands that we can 5 bet and fold to a jam and some other hands that five bet to call a jam.

Thoughts on this?