Lately I've been having a hard time responding to 3-bets out of position with relatively strong hands (QQ, JJ, TT, AQs etc.)

I'm playing 1-2$ with a max bet of 100$ due to laws in the state of CO. I've already decided this is my last orbit of a winning session (started with 200$, up to 630$), and I wake up with QQ UTG+1. I made it 8$, I get called by 3 players, and then I get 3-bet to 40$.

3-bettor is a middle aged Asian man who I have not seen make a raise pre-flop since I've been at the table. He has 200$ behind, the player to my left telegraphs a call before I have acted, he has around 400$.

I hate this spot. Getting all in against this player for 120 BB's seems like a losing proposition, calling and playing out of position against these two guys this deep is also uncomfortable for me, being very content with my winnings and unsure of what to do I folded. Player to my left called.

Flop was K x x (two cards lower than a 7 and rainbow I don't remember them specifically)

Player to my left leads into the raiser, who folds..

I realize I folded the best hand pre-flop and so I'm not feeling great about that. I imagine he had JJ, but possibly he is more creative than I have given him credit for.

My question is not necessarily what to do in this hand in particular, although suggestions are more than welcome, but I'm hoping I can have some advice on constructing opening ranges this deep out of position. And then hopefully sound advice on narrowing that range facing a 3-bet ( which hands do you fold, call, and 4-bet).

Thanks for your time and advice!

Currently, my range looks something like this...

UTG and UTG+1 (88's +, KQs, AJs, AQ+, some infrequent suited connectors for balance maybe 8 combos). This table was fairly soft and was allowing me to limp additional hands like smaller pairs and suited aces/connectors uncontested.

The way I respond to 3-bets has been completely player dependent, and I decided to fold QQ vs this perceived pre-flop Nit. I dont know that I've ever folded QQ facing a 3-bet, but I decided to since I was planning to leave soon and didn't want to lose a big pot right before I left...

I've never played a max bet game so I'm not an expert here, but I think I'm 4b'ing to $100 here most of the time. Probably cbetting any flop assuming 4b is called.

How long had you played with villain? If a reasonable amount of time, fold is fine.

Not sure this has anything to do with responding to OOP threebets (and especially not deep stack, since villain has 120BB). It's just about not giving nits money.

1st tip: when you have decided you're ready to go, leave immediately. Don't play anymore hands, just rack up and leave. Playing every hand until your BB is not a requirement, especially if your play will be compromised moving forward by wanting to preserve a win.

2nd tip (in regards to the hand): you have QQ, the third best hand created. You opened, got 3 callers and the 4th person raised with a roughly 100bb stack. His raising range is 99+, ATs+, AQo+... Max raise that mofo, if someone behind you flats a Max 4 bet, well more power to them because they are way behind. More than likely, that guy itching to call the 40 ain't calling $140.

In regards to the above you specifically requested. Your opening range from UTG and UTG+1 looks fine. How to respond to 3 bets and 4 bets depends on numerous factors including player tendencies, amount of money at stake, position, etc. Hard to give blanket advice when do many factors can vary

I hadn't been playing at that table long enough I suppose. Only two hours, but I felt confident he had JJ+ or AK, (he might even flat AK). There is a weird tendency for the less aggressive older players to flat AK. But I agree I shouldn't make those assumptions not having played at that table all day, max bet was definitely the way to go in retrospect, and If I'm going try and preserve a win and not make the best play I'll just leave before I see the hand.

Maybe this isn't the best hand to illustrate how to respond to 3-bets, being out of position and deep stacked, but I'd like to discuss your guys's thoughts on strategies for that, as I find this to be a difficult situation to navigate.

So I have 630$ which is 300+ BB which I consider deep, villain was not, but I've been at tough tables with LAG players who have similar stacks and call me 4-5 ways to a flop when I make it 12$ or even 15$ with hands like the aforementioned QQ, I'm even groaning with AA in this spot, and I feel much better about a hand like 56s. I've read that as you get deeper it becomes more important to have a more deceptive range out of position. But I feel that at that stack depth, I'm less experienced than many of my opponents and tend to just play less hands out of position. This results in me having a very narrow range when I do wake up with a hand that I can't fold, and I feel I'm offering tremendous reverse implied odds in these situations.

Does this mean I should just increase my open size to compensate for a strong but transparent range? Should I suck it up and open with a larger amount of suited connectors for more deception? Should I limp more of my holdings?/ Limp- 4bet.

How do you guys adjust as you approach 200+ 300+ BB's OOP at loose aggressive tables. I usually just leave once the tables start breaking and the tough players with deep stacks are consolidated.

from a guy who Hero has never even seen opening a pot so far? yeah, right.

I agree sauhund. His range was definately not this wide, maybe wider than what I put him on, but he seemed to enjoy flatting in position. I think he would have done so with AT-AQ suited variety or not, and 99's aswell. Maybe he has TT and decides he doesn't want to see over cards roll off, but I felt that he had JJ+. In that case I'm beating JJ but losing to AA and KK, and its not a good spot. Throw TT and AK in there and now I need to play in some form.

I would just call the 40 there. In my game, that's not even close to AA or KK when they do that. Indeed, most often it's AK or JJ.

If you're going to fold QQ to a 3bet, a good player is just going to abuse you by 3betting relentlessly, especially deep. It is an easy call in this situation with the 3rd best hand in poker.

In a 40 - 50 hand sample size, I'm not giving an asian male that much credit for hand strength. If you had played with him for 4 or 5 hours, then maybe I'd tighten up his 3 betting range some more. You can maybe/probably take ATs out of the equation, but I think the rest of the range is pretty accurate. I can definitely see him raising with AQ, 99, and TT (in addition to the other stronger hands) and with his position in the hand I think it's the right play to do so.

I play in a 1/2 NLHE game regularly at a card club that has a 75% max buy-in rule and the game is unraked. It's pretty common after a few hours to have 5-6 stacks at the table 400bb+ (I'd say 2-3 times a month, there is more than $15,000 on the table in play...at a 1/2 NL game.)

The deeper you get in a game, the more valuable position becomes. From late position, I'd recommend to start mixing in some light 3-betting with hands that can flop well or improve to the nuts. Especially against opponents that have shown that they play post-flop poorly. 78s - KQs, A2s -A5s are excellent 3-bet candidates. It puts the initial raiser in a tough spot and you're more likely to get to the flop HU or 3 ways which is better than seeing flops 5-6 handed +.

From early position (UTG - UTG+2), fold A9o, ATo, KJo, QTo, KTo...just fold these hands from early position, you'll lose much more than you will win the long run.

With Premium starting hands from Early position, you can experiment with the limp re-raise strategy. Positives: gets more $$ in preflop with premium hands, allows you to generally thin the field to HU or 3 ways at most. Cons: Virtually exposes your hand to your opponents, run the risk of getting into a 5+ way limped pot.

For the record, I've experimented with the Limp Re-Raise strategy in the past but I rarely do it anymore as I have gotten more comfortable playing in deepstack poker. I think it limits your profit potential, but it can also allow you to pick up some pots uncontested.

I don't have experience in max bet games either, but can you explain why you'd 4! here? I realize that the reads we have on V are weak, but if we are 4!ing what's it's purpose? Do we think this V is going to call with anything that we currently beat? I certainly don't think he's folding KK or AA so folding out better doesn't seem to be a valid justification either. I don't think there's anything wrong with calling here and seeing a flop.

I'd raise to get value from a range I'm ahead of. I easily see AK, AQs, JJ+ calling as well as all kinds of speculative hands. I'm not claiming to be great at this game, but I'm a consistent winner and one of basic rules is if I'm ahead of your range I'm shoveling chips in. I'm not MUBSy at all which sometimes hurts but that max value I get when I'm ahead more than covers the times I'm wrong. I'm not a maniac though, if he 5b's or lie tells say I'm beat I'll get out of the way.

I can see your point and I agree with it. I guess we're ranging this villain differently. I know we have a small sample size and this is LLSNL, but I have a hard time finding a range that V puts in 50% of his stack with that we aren't crushed by. I tend to put V's on too tight a range to begin with, which I guess may be the problem I'm having here?

This seems like a situation where we want to keep V's range as wide as possible. I think he has a better chance of betting something like JJ or TT when checked to on a flop than calling an UTG 4! pre.

Hero open QQ from early position, get 3 callers and a 4th player (in position) raises to $40 with roughly 100 BB's behind. SB & BB fold and action is back on Hero. First thing you need to do is construct a range in what the late position Asian male could be raising with. (IMO, 99+, AJs+ and AQo is a reasonable range for this player with no other reads). Then based off of that range evaluate between the 3 available options: Folding, Calling, or Raising.

Folding: Folding QQ to a single raise is extremely nitty. Against only the tightest of players should this raise fold out your QQ, or you'll be exploited in the long run.

Calling: with QQ, you have the 3rd best hand to start with in NLHE. If you call in this spot, you are potentially allowing 3 other players to come into the pot making this a 5 way pot with QQ out of position. By calling here, you are effectively set mining with QQ...the 3rd best starting hand in NLHE. Against the range that a late position Asian Male is raising with and all the potential callers in between, that is not the most profitable way to play QQ.

Raising: If I understand the rules correctly, you are allowed to raise up to $100 more on top of the bet ($140 in this case), not just to $100 total. I'd bet the max to discourage other players from tagging along hoping to isolate the main Villain HU. A raise here will almost always lead the pot to HU, which is more ideal compared to playing a 5 way pot with QQ out of position is not the worst case scenario. Stack to pot ratio of less than 1 also moving forward which simplifies post flop play. Raising the max here with QQ will create 3 typical scenarios:
1) everybody folds, Hero Scoops 30+ BB's
2) Villain calls, creating a 150+BB pot, with an effective stack of 50 BB's. Also, if main villain flat calls you are almost always ahead and will stack off on non over card board.
3) Main villain ships all in, Hero calls. Against the above range, Hero has 57% equity, a desirable spot to be in an AIPF situation.

All 3 of those scenarios are much more profitable than folding or flatting PF. In the rare case that one of the non-raising players flats your $140 before action gets back to villain, you're ahead and will have to rely on your post flop skills moving forward.

I don't think playing in a max bet game changes the dynamics too much in this particular scenario.

In live poker you've never seen someone stack off (or double up) getting slightly over 100 BB's in with AQ, JJ, TT, or 99? I surely have. Especially if "they've been card dead and that was the best hand I've seen in 2 hours."

Sure I have, I'm just not understanding why we're considering giving V the option to get away from those hands. The other part of the equation is what do you put the other V on after he called your UTG raise and auto called a 3!? I would think that a lot of the hands you assigned to B's range are also in V2's range which means they should probably be discounted a bit from the Button. I appreciate the responsiveness and this is the type of discourse that makes the forum so valuable. I wish there was more of it.

The other V who wants to Auto Call the $40 before Hero acts probably has some sort of middling pair or a suited/Non-suited type of Broadway hand. Raising the $40 is not even an option to him, so you can discount any super strong hands (AA - QQ), and he probably does not have AK either although that's not a guarantee. That's why you Raise again instead of flatting, Hero's QQ is ahead of the 3 initial callers almost 100% of the time. If they for sure want to see a flop, make them put the max in while they are behind.

That would definitely be something I'd consider if there were any evidence we were up against a good player.

I will say, with only 2 hours with this player, I think folding is pretty borderline. If you had like 4 hours of him not raising preflop, then I think fold is clear.

I agree. I'm not folding to an unknown Asian though.

Cmon, villain doesnt know you folded QQ, it's lowest stakes live in a $100 max game so I doubt there's that many observant players who will ever exploit anything, and at maybe 35 hands per hour on a good day it's unlikely anyone will have enough time to recognize how often you're folding to 3bets. Besides, if hero's opening range from UTG is around QQ, he'll stop folding pretty soon and those 3bet bluffs will stop paying off.

Just responding to the title of your thread:

4bet more than you'd think
Fold more than you'd think
Call less than you'd think

Also, open smaller than you'd think.

3rd best hand in holdem. I´m offended.

Not too many players 3 bet light, in 1/2 and 1/3 games. Way to be looking left when you noticed the player telegraphing the 3 bet call. I think I would be more worried about him than the player that 3 bet. Looking left is a very overlooked strategy. Knowing that this is your final orbit, and you have already booked a win for the day, fold, knowing that you are way behind, rack up and smile with your $600, wish everyone good luck, and go home. How many times have you had a good win going and saying this is my last orbit, and loose a huge hand, to only break even or go home with a loss. Folding QQ to a 3 bet and looking left to see someone else snap calling, is never a good position to be in, but the decision to fold, is the correct decision in this spot. I am guessing that I would be up against AA, KK or AK. I think being agains JJ is a possibility depending on the experience of the players.. that would be the only hand you are beating...

The only person that could have AA or KK in this instance is the Asian Male who raised to $40. No way at a 1/2 NL game is a guy flatting an $8 open with AA or KK, and then re-flatting a raise to $40 from another player. That guy has a middle pair or 2 unpaired face cards, would bet a lot of $$ on that