this one guy at 2-5 three bets really light. i have seen him show up with q9s, a7s, 54s and i have played probably like 5-6 hours with him in last couple days thats it.

the other day someone made it 15 and i flatted with the q-10 offsuit on the button. he precedes to make it 80 from the sb and my poker instinct were going off like crazy that this was a steal.

recently i was reading alex Fitzgerald book and he advocates just slightly adjust your game vs these guys maybe the bottom of your flatting range is qjs so flat the 10-js, maybe reraise with a-qs or jacks when you normally might flat. but he counseled against really fighting back vs them because they are used to.

his logic was kind of avon barksdale style "don't play those away games". They are used to it when people go crazy vs them, you aren't used to getting in 4 bet bluffing wars.

but like if his three bet range is really that wide how the hell is he defending it?

wouldn't a 4 bet bluff force him to fold so many of his junky hands that it would be immediately profitable?

what am i missing.

He's 3 betting hands like this one (and he will be lite sometimes) because he knows you have garbage if you only called a 3x raise on the button and didnt 3 bet yourself. He knows you can never call. It sounds to me like he may be a pretty good LAG (depending on how he plays post flop of course)

Your first correction is to stop calling raises with QT.

QTo should be the very bottom of your range for calling the first open. 4-betting with it would be spewy. Save the defending for when you at least have A-high.

QTo should never be call preflop

Ya, sounds like decent Lag doing his thing. Likely seen guy who opens to wide. With you also calling to wide on Button. So puts in 3 bet, and hopes for fold or good flop.

Occasionally 4b bluff and occasionally jam over a cbet on bad boards for his range. You might also flat the 3b with hands like QQ+ preflop if he's going to 3b and cbet a lot of boards.

This villain is over-bluffing, and so our fundamental adjustment should to be to over-defend.

First, dial back on our flatting range[1], if this character is yet to act. Getting squeezed and needing to fold has a significant negative impact on our bottom line, and getting squeezed and calling is generally worse.

Second, tighten up on our own raising range, and raise for smaller amounts. If the villain is three-betting a lot, so we are going to have to give up a noticeable fraction of our opens and raises, so sizing down a bit means we are losing less when we have to give up.

The next step is going to depend a lot on how this villain responds to re-aggression. Will they fold a lot of their three-bets to a four-bet, or are they tenacious or eager to shove it in preflop?

If they can fold their bluffs, then we should be four-betting a polarized range. We are going to have a solid value range, say {KK+, AKs} (16 combos), and we will want a fair number of bluffs to go with them. Without doing the math for an actual scenario of bet-sizing, the ratio of bluffs to value I am pulling out of my ass is 3:2, so we would want something like 24 combos of bluffs. Picking hands for our bluffs we want hands that are (a) almost but not quite good enough to flat-call the three-bet (because we are also going to have a flatting range between our bluffing and value 4-bet ranges), (b) blocks the best combos the villain can have, so that we are facing their strong value less than we might, (c) offer reasonably good board coverage to our range, and (d) has decent equity against their value range. So we want hands like AX and KX to block AA, KK, and AK, and hands like AQs and KQs are strong enough that we don't want to waste them on bluffing. Good possibilities are hands like ATs, A2s-A5s, KTs, and possibly something like 76s or 65s. I am not saying "use all of these," I am advising to draw from these combos and others like them a suitable number of bluff combos to balance our value hands.

If they seldom fold to re-aggression, either before or on the flop, then we do not want a polarized range, because bluffing is just throwing money away. Instead we will want a linear (or "merged") 4-betting range, definitely wider than {KK+, AKs}, but don't go overboard. Maybe something like JJ+ or QQ+, AQs+, maybe KQs. We may want to flat-call with more hands than we would against an ordinary three-bettor.

tl;dr: Open and iso-raise somewhat tighter, flat-call opens significantly tighter, but defend with a wider fraction of our open/iso and flatting ranges than we otherwise would. Whether or not to have a 4-bet bluffing range depends on whether or not this villain folds their worst 3-bet combos.

[1] QTo is a terrible hand with which to flat call on the button even a cutoff open. I wouldn't even describe it as at the bottom of our flatting range; it is sufficiently deep into our folding range that we can't even consider 3-bet bluffing with it.

Easy way to exploit light 3bettors:

1) Tighten up your opening range
2) 4bet more
3) Induce squeezes by flatting with premiums then backraising

Whoever is on your left is going to find it really tough to 3bet you lightly when you make these 3 adjustments.

Depending on how wide he is 3betting, you can go for a backraise with some hands you'd normally 3bet yourself. If he is really spewy, he may even try to 5bet bluff you. I have had people do this to me.

Yeah just read Alan’s post three times OP, that has all the info you need here.

something like KTs is enough equity vs his range to back raise, if he allows you to profitably 4 bet with QTo then this is going to be a great way to exploit him

I'm not quite sure if I'd flat with QTo, it can be fine to always fold the button with it, especially with a light 3bettor behind you

this is kind of iffy because the opener made it 15 and we probably 3bet a 15 raise with a big chunk of our range and when we flat we are telling the table we have a weakish hand that wants to play a pot IP

therefore i would tend to flat this raise a lot with my call to 15 range and try and fenagle pots out of him IP but I would toss QTo and play every other better hand and get to the 3bet first more often

QTo is just a little too weak to play here, so I'm probably folding when i know i am going to have to defend vs the SB often, or reraising myself to keep him out of the pot

Great post, Alan.

Focus on your fundamentals, especially preflop, before worrying about trying to exploit a LAG who 3-bets too much.

Gold here

1) Cold-call less hands, you're torching money esp with QTo and your speculative hands if he's squeezing you all the time and you have to fold

2) Related to #1, 3b or fold more hands. 99%+ of LAGs don't have the balls to over cold 4b bluff

3) Open a tighter range of hands

4) Don't backraise with premium, he'll know he's beat and he can easily fold. At least if he's a good LAG and has any hand reading skills, he'll know when to put the brakes on when you're showing enormous strength and you're basically trying to trap him (don't l/rr, don't backraise 4b).

5) Raise normally with your premiums and be ready to 4b gii w/ QQ+, AK.

6) If you want to play back at his 3bs, you should definitely 4b a lot more hands rather than defend vs a normal 3-bettor. Why? He's not very likely to be good enough/crazy enough to 5b shove light for value or as a bluff. His bluffs have a ton of equity against you and if you can fold it out, it's a huge win. It also protects your opening range and he won't be as likely to 3b you.

I know if someone is ready to play back at me with 4-bets, I'm less inclined to 3b. But that's just me. If I know someone defends all the time and hardly 4-bets but the nuts, I have an extremely wide 3-betting range IP because we get to overrealize equity.