I was in a 1-3, I had about $250 in front of me.


I’m UTG, I have AK.

I raise to $20, folds around to the LJ who 3 bets to 75, folds around to me.

This person just got to the table, I have no information about them.

At these relatively low stakes live games, do you feel like if you don’t know how they play it is safe to assume that they would only 3 bet with JJ+ AK and maybe sometimes AQ?

If this is the case, what is the long term profitable play in this situation? Should you shove given if they have JJ or below they may fold to you and when they call you are about a coin flip and when they have KK or AA you just accept that you are likely to lose your money? Should you fold to a 3 bet since you know nothing about them and wait to get more info? Should you flat and see a flop?

I would fold without reads. He 3! a very large UTG open. At higher stakes, it might be a push.

I like shoving, but I am not a fan of opening to $20. Are you opening a your hands to $20? Are you ever limping? Pick one size to open all hands to and stick to it. I think $10 is fine. Then if you get 3bet to $75 it is an easy fold, and you have more maneuverability if you get 3bet to 30 or 40. I also like playing with at least 100 BB, the more the better.

Yeah, I vary sizing sometimes, but when you make it 20 UTG, it looks strong, and you have a strong hand, so too much information. I understand you want to play AK with a bigger pot and fewer callers.

Once you do that and get 3!, I would fold, because you looked so strong and he didn't care.

I mean...we could jam AKs and maybe fold AKo, but even jamming AKo can't be terrible, with no reads, and at this stack depth, OOP.

Even when someone is new to the table, we might still try to start with some baseline expectations based on our experience with other players of similar demographics.

3!s are generally tight in a 1/3 game. I don't think he is 3!ing much we are ahead of versus $20 UTG.

At 1-2 I generally open to 15 though I may sometimes open for more. I don’t play 1-3 that often I’m not sure what a good bet amount might be.

The issue with opening to 10 at 1-2 or 1-3 is that you really aren’t going to isolate at all. You could get 5 or more callers at 10 dollars.

One thing I do not do is say always open 15 for AK, AA for 25 KK for 20 etc. obviously that would be highly exploitable.

Feels like a very straightforward jam now. You will get some folds from hands like AK and maybe JJ.

Yes make your open size 10-12 (and if you're going to make it 20 this shallow, then you're going to have to put your big boy pants on and stack off when you have a strong hand)

Without any further info, I would range this player at JJ+,AK and often it's just QQ+ in these games, as people really hate 3 betting, esp given your big open raise.
Thus I would not expect the player to fold for a shove of $175 more.
If you are getting some donkey vibes from the player then go ahead and shove, otherwise fold

a decent amount of assumptions made in this thread when we are in a situation with no reads. we have under 100bbs and a premium hand. we probably don't but might be able to get JJ, AK to fold and we are very rarely dominated here. simple shove preflop. we can consider different with a 200bb stack but folding here is a major leak unless we have that 100% read of the one OMC in the room who never ever ever 3bets.

some good points made about the preflop sizing as well.

There's no harm in folding, don't worry about it being too nitty.

I would also disagree regarding his range. I don't even think it includes JJ or AK. Looking at it on paper, a 20 dollar UTG raise followed by at 75 dollar 3bet from the blinds is usually AA or KK and maybe sometimes queens. Even a light 3bettor should tighten up his range facing a 7x UTG open here.

To reply directly to that question...

I grinded it out at 1/3 for years. It was definitely not my experience that 3B's are always JJ+ and AK/AQ. I've seen so many worse hands that I stopped being surprised when someone turned over ATo, A4s, or 99 after jamming or calling off a jam.

Unless you're at a very nitty / passive table, I wouldn't assume a 3B is always something that's either better or not much worse than AK. This is where the reads come in. Against a nitty OMC who otherwise limp-calls with every hand in his range, I'm folding. Against a young guy with a big stack, I'm 4B'ing.

Once the 4B/5B'ing starts, then we can assume the ranges are very tight.

Stack depth matters. I would rarely sit and play 1/3 with less than the max buy-in in front of me ($500 in the rooms I play). I'd top off constantly to make sure I always had enough to maneuver. If we had $500 to start this hand, we could be sneaky - flat call and see a flop OOP with an under-repped hand.

At your $250 starting stack depth, opening $20 UTG is a little large, considering what your 4B size might be, if you get 3B, or if you even can 4B. You really don't have much if any 4B-fold range, but that's often the case at 1/3, where the opens are typically $12-$15, the 3B's are $45-$60, and a 4B is just a jam, because we're not 4B'ing $150-$200 and folding for another $200-$300.

This is why I said we might jam AKs and fold AKo, but even jamming AKo against a completely unknown opponent without any reads can't be terrible, as it will get some folds from some big PP's, and more often than not, if we get called, we'll be flipping. We're only in really bad shape against AA, which we block. If nothing else, we'll get to see all five cards, rather than possibly having to fold flop or turn.

If we just want a baseline for going with our hand when we're not deep enough to call a 3B from an unknown, I might say QQ+ / AKs are the hands I'm going with, but I'm pitching JJ- / AKo.

Getting back to the pre-flop sizing - when I was playing 1/3, if I found myself at a table where my EP opens were getting multiple callers, but not many 3B's, and especially if there were any aggro players in LP, I would start limping EP with AA/KK/AK, and A5s, so I could put in a back-raise 3B squeeze over an LP raise, with lots of dead money in the pot.

It would typically go 3-4 limps, MP/LP open to a larger size, like $25-$30, the BTN or BB calls, I 3B to $125-$150, and they all fold.

Occasionally the original raiser would wake up with a hand and want to 4B me, but with only $500 effective, a 4B jam is risking $470-$475 to win about $200 or less, in a spot where my EP limp-RR range looks super-strong. If he flat called, I'd c-bet 100 for 1/4 pot, and take it down >80% of the time.

At your $250 stack depth, in a game with a standard $20 open, I might limp-jam AK from UTG, if there are any aggro, squeeze-happy players on the BTN or in the blinds.

The 3! is not necessarily a huge hand. However, when you open large UTG and get 3!, with no reads on the 3!or, I would fold AK. It definitely would be a push against some players or if we had raised normally from mp.

Turbo fold

If I have no reads on the player this is a pretty easy jam for me with 83bbs. I am happy to block AA/KK and only be up against 3 possible combos of each. If you aren’t 4bet jamming AK what do you 4-bet? Just AA/KK/AKs?

It's an easy GTO shove, and folding almost everything is exploitable. However, without reads in a 1/3 game, I would assume 3!s are strong. We opened large UTG, and that didn't bother him.

GTO will tell you to 4! a lot, but you don't want to do it much in a 1/3 game or whatever when the 3! range may be KK+ or QQ+/AK or something like that. There are some people who 3! light. It is possible this villain didn't notice it was a large raise UTG indicating strength, which is quite possible at these stakes. However, it might not be a good spot.

if he's under 50 shove if old man fold

I really can't emphasize enough how important the live reads are in spots like this.

In my most 2/5 recent session, I 4B jammed AKo a couple times, and got folds from young grinders. I would have insta-folded my hand if I opened and got 3B from someone who didn't look like they were capable of having a 3B-folding range.

A lot of 1/3 players aren't good enough to understand the difference between a UTG open for 6x and an MP open for 4x. Many of them will 3B with the upper 2/3 of their LP opening range, no matter where the open came from or what size it was, which is to say they'll 3B much lighter than they should.

Even a good 1/3 grinder is going to have some hands in their 3B range that can fold to a 4B. By some, I don't mean just A5s. Especially when they see an opportunity to isolate dead money from flat-callers, they'll have some TT, KQs, AJs, and AQo often enough to make jamming with AKo the correct play.