V is some regular middle-aged guy who keeps juicing up pots in LP so it's about time Hero pulls the trigger on him and starts re-stealing, so Hero goes ahead and 3bets pre in this hand. However, the plan backfires when there are 3 callers. SB is a tight rec-fish who comes to play regularly on weekends. Eff stacks are $300 for all.

1 limp, V raises to $10 in CO
Hero re-raises to $35 with KTo OTB
SB calls <<<<<<<< his range is weighted towards medium pairs, AK type hands based on reads
Limper calls
V calls

Flop ($140): T73r
Checks to Hero, Hero bets $65, SB calls, fold, fold

Turn ($270): 2
SB checks, Hero bets $100, SB calls <<<<<< not sure why I did this, but I thought he might have 99 fml

SB checks before river is dealt

River ($470): J
Hero checks behind

SB flips over JJ and scoops. Hero asks SB if he would fold if Hero bet $200 all-in OTT and he says "ofcourse". In retrospect, as played, is turn a shove?

I don't mind the preflop plan if our read is CO is raising often with junky hands, we have a nitty image, and table isn't ******edly loose. Simply an unlucky result.

Board is fairly dry, so I'm cool with just making a smallish bet to protect my possibly best (and vulnerable to overcards) hand and hoping that drags the pot. I'd probably just go $50. But even this will create a $240 HU pot with just $225 behind, but at this point I think my plan is to hopefully just check it down, especially against tight guy.

I would check back the turn. Tight guys shouldn't even have AT in there range nor 99 at this point. There's a decent chance he has QQ/JJ, but is he ever actually going to fold? So I don't turn my hand into a bluff. The tricky thing will be our river play; against a tight guy who should have no busted draws in his range, I think we can just safely fold if he bets and just hope our hand is good if he checks, although that is certainly difficult to do since we only have a ~PSB left.

Just read your river info, wish you wouldn't have posted that (it'll skew opinions). Bottom line in LLSNL poker: it is very difficult to get opponents to fold overpairs, let alone on non-scary boards.

GcluelessNLnoobG

stacks?

to 3 bet light: This hand is one of the worst.

I honestly might check back the flop.

Definitely checking turn.

You called it a tilt hand, and that's a pretty good assessment.

3bet pre is good. sizing is good. this is basically the best possible flop for you outside of flopping two pairs+ (flopping top pair with a king is not great because you're often outkicked). i would bet ~$70. if you bet too small it may induce bluffs or raises from worse pairs. as played check back turn and fold river if he's tight.

don't be results oriented. you dont even know for sure if he folds to a turn shove. not much point in betting turn though. it's all about putting him on a range. what is he calling flop with? even if 99 is in his range, its a tiny % of his range.

if you play nitty and never bluff, you will only make 4bb to 6bb an hour. to play optimal poker, you will have to bluff but this will allow you to make 10bb to 15bb an hour. also contrary to popular belief, playing nitty and never bluffing will actually give you higher variance since your winnings are solely dependent on you making big hands, you getting paid off, and your hand holding up. so when you go card dead or dont get paid off, you bleed chips.

practice makes perfect. experiment and you will get better and used to 3betting bluffing, etc

Right idea Pre. Bad hand selection (although in some cases ATC will do). But okay with it.

Flop bet I like. Folds out air. Gets value from small pairs. He has very few 10's in his range.

Turn is a check. Can't realley expect worse to call.

River is also a check. Although I am probably calling smallish bet. If he leads. (Assuming the turn went check/check)

SB always had JJ+ AK here if he's not a fish. I prob just give up after flop. Either that or shove and hope he folds JJ/QQ, which is doubtful

Unfortunately you posted results right from the get-go. I was going to say the SB flatting the 3-bet is TT-QQ & AK, skewed towards the upper end of the range. 99 is possible but highly unlikely. Based on that range, we are crushed by everything. Try to get to showdown as cheap as possible. Once you bet the flop you should be done with the hand unless we bink a T, K, or A (as a phantom out). Turn bet is pretty awful, because we don't get called by worse.

I hate this pre-flop 3bet. If I were going to 3-bet to mix-up my play, I'd do the following:

- Look for spots with a lot of dead money. for example:

5 limpers. Hero calls $2 in HJ with 88, Button raises to $12, 6 callers. Hero? There is $76 in pot and players with QQ+ had the opportunity to 3-bet and didn't. If you have a read on Button that he would have raised more with QQ+ ($12 was just a pot sweetener) then I like shoving all-in for $200 here with 88. Most likely everyone folds, you show the 88 and next time you do the same thing with KK+.

- Wait until everyone has had a chance to act.

Limp and then 3-bet. This way all of the blinds have had a chance to act and are less likely to wake up with monsters.

- 3-bet stronger

Raising a $10 bet to $35 is not a good bluffing 3-bet. You gotta go bigger. Minimum of $50.

- Limp, 3-bet your strongest hands

My last session the player to my right straddled to $7 UTG. I flat-called with K K UTG+1. HJ raises to $21. Two callers and it's back to me. Now there is $70 in the pot with $200 effective stacks which is exactly what I want with my hand. When I 3-bet to $75 it also makes it look like I'm trying to steal the dead money in the pot.

Summary

You are fighting back against this player the wrong way. You also want to be on his right, not his left. Let him juice the pot up for you pre-flop and then move all-in (if you are too deep for this, buy in short). When you are all-in, post-flop position doesn't matter and you have relative position on the LAG (you are last to act after he bets).

Does anyone wanna talk pre? I don't really mind the 3! assuming you are doing it because you have a read that V opens light and you are IP. It is super easy to get away from if you get 4!, and should be relatively easy to play post-flop as in insta-c-bet if checked to.

Calling is obviously terrible, but I think a 70/30 fold/3! strategy with these trouble hands IP is an effective way to get some value out of them when the moment calls for it. You're essentially treating it as a bluff but the hand retains decent equity.

^^^^ This. We have a decent amount of fold equity as well if our image is solid. Given our 3! is large enough, we can deny set miners proper odds to draw while folding them out.

This is such a ridiculously specific example that almost never comes up. The situation OP described will happen at least once every two orbits if a player is opening too loose from MP.

I disagree (partially). If V is a weak fit or fold type, than you want him to call the $35 which you then blow him off on the flop with a $45-50 c-bet when he checks to you.

I think there are a lot of ways to tackle this type of player and while I see some merit in your methods, they aren't my first choice.

flop bet is wayyy to small and turn bet after. if you had QQ+ you would be betting more Im fairly certain of it.

I would rather bet a decent sized flop bet like 90-100 instead and then look for a cheap showdown.

risk:reward ratio is too high if we 3bet to $50. we have position and assuming villain is fit or fold and straightforward, im 3betting all broadways against a loose open all day. now if he's bluffy, stubborn, etc, then just 3bet for value with like AJ+, 88+. but here we can 3bet something like JT+, 77+ all day

Not if you sit to his right. If he raises 40% of the time pre-flop and the rest of the table does not 3-bet much and calls a lot (this describes most 1/2 games) you'll have action to you with 2-5 callers on 20-30% of hands.

Hardly "never coming up". But again, the key is to sit to the right of the LAG.

Now if you start 3-betting him about once every orbit, the other players should adjust by flat-calling his raises with hands that are strong enough to call your all-in with. That's why I'd very rarely do it as a complete bluff and typically do it a hand that is either a monster (QQ+, AK+) or a hand that has showdown value against the types of hands you'll be up against (77+ with some KQs / ATs+)

True if we are immediately to his left - so don't 3-bet to isolate him.

That's why I'd wait until there are callers before I 3-bet to $50. If he raises to $10 and 2 players call, a 3-bet to $50 is simply a pot size bet.

$40 in the pot, $40 raise.

Grunch.

Yeah... our whole plan kinda goes down the drain when the tight reg flats from the blinds. I think you are right about his range. Therefore we should probably check the turn. I wouldn't turn my hand into a bluff here OTT either. Flop is fine IMO.

Thanks for starting a fascinating, helpful thread ...

I have a couple questions:

1. If I am already enjoying a moderate win rate at $1/$3 from playing mostly value-based poker without getting out of line too much, being disciplined with my starting hand ranges and playing for value (because I try to table select with bad/spewy villians), how often should I be trying more complex plays like the 3-bet above?


2. If KTo is a bad hand to 3-bet here, what types of hands do I want in a 3-bet range for a re-steal? ATC? suited connectors? any Ace?


3. In the scenario described in this hand (3-betting to isolate a bad "LAG"), how often can we expect it to work?

(I feel like most times I step outside of my standard approach and try beat a bad-LAG with aggression, I get called anyway, whiff flops and end up folding... that's why I'm more comfortable with my straight-forward, value-based style & moderate (not high) win rate).

But knowing this, I'll never graduate to "crushing the game" if I don't eventually break out of my shell.

Any pointers here? Thanks

What's the purpose of a large flop bet? Are we thinking a large flop bet will fold an overpair? Or are we thinking we're going to get called by worse, so this is for pure value?

If not, then the only point of the flop bet is to protect against overcards (i.e. AK/AQs/etc.), and overcards are unlikely to call any "reasonable" bet, so might as well make it small, imo (I wouldn't have gone more than $50 myself).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Being creative to steal pots is most profitable when:
- No one has some much strength
- The only players that have shown some strength are able to make a fold
- There is a lot of money in the pot

Here's an example from a hand I play the other day:

1/2 $200 eff stacks

CO straddles to $4, Button calls, SB calls, BB calls, 3 more players calls, CO raises to $19, Button calls, SB folds, BB calls, 2 more players call

Flop ($99): Q Q 2
4 checks to the button who bets $20. BB?

If you are the BB with any two cards, you should consider raising here and then shutting down if anyone calls. Why? Because a you can throw $100 into the pot and have an over 50% chance of taking down $119. The button's bet looks really fishy and the board missed most hands. By repping a Queen, the only way you generally won't take down the pot is if a player has a Queen.

Summary

Look for pots that nobody really wants and take them down. Before you bluff, estimate the percentage chance that the bluff works and verify that it's a +EV play. (i.e. I bluff $100 to win $119 60% of time = +EV of $31.40, bonus points if you have a pocket pair that might either be the best hand already or improve to a boat on the turn if called). Log how often your bluffs work with other notes about the hand and regularly tally up your log to see which bluffs you aren't doing enough of and which bluffs didn't work nearly as often as you expected.

This is so bad. Not to mention incredibly high variance. May work on Whales and maniacs. But any decent lag is gonna crush you in the end.

Gonna be playing massive pots out of position. With a polarized range against aggressive player. No, thanks!!!!!

Thanks for the hand example, and that all makes sense (I need to break out of my shell & do it more).... and thanks for the advice on creating a "bluff log" - that would help me immensely.

More specifically, should I be / how often should I be 3-bet bluffing PreF? And what hand ranges?

Or, is this skill just not that necessary to beat $1/$3 live? (and rather, save my bluff equity/tight image for spots like the QQx hand you just posted?)

Agreed. If a LAG is directly to my left I am . . .

a) Looking to seat change ASAP

b) Turtling up and looking to call the guy down much lighter than normal with one pair/top pair hands while letting him to the heavy lifting until he realizes what you are doing and changes his strategy or tilts and donks away his stack

I am definitely not going to intentionally play 3! pots with him OOP with anything less than premiums PF.

There is a reason the age old adage doesn't read,

"The only certainties in life are death, taxes and 3! preflop bluffing strategies."

It is entirely table and villain dependent, and while it is something I would like to employ, it's not something that seems to come up often enough to worry about most of the time. There is definitely a difference between 3! light and 3! bluffing however, and I don't really see any reason to ever 3! bluff in a cash game.

I would encourage OP and paperboy both to read the CoTM on relative position. Some crazy notions flying around this thread. Be careful about the advice you heed OP. it's not all good.

I'm not sure you are reading my advice correctly. I actually play very conservatively. My advice is all about what you should do if you decide that you need to play back at an out of control LAG.

Since I don't have CoTM to read it, maybe you could summarize what you are trying to say.

Here's the summary of what I'm trying to say:

- Steal the Dead Money When there is significant dead money in the pot, both your bluffs and value raises can turn from -EV to +EV because of the dead money out there to steal.

- Relative position can outweigh absolute position If the LAG sits to your left, you have relative position if the rest of the table is just flatting him. Relative position in this case is actually more valuable than being on the button - plus you have this relative position every single hand.

- Relative position = sit to the right Sitting to the right of the LAG can maximize your opportunities to play pots with huge amounts of dead money in the middle.

- Go all-in If you are worried about being out of position against the LAG, look for opportunities where it is +EV to go all-in pre-flop. Once you are all-in, you have eliminated post-flop position.

~108