Situation: My regular game is played in a small town casino that allows match-the-stack (only offers 1/2), and often that means 5+ players with $500 - $1500. Lately, and at the risk of oversimplifying, I am finding 2 player types: the fish, who sometimes get big stacks and have no clue how to play them (often over-valuing their hand) and the regs, who aren't necessarily great players but feast on stacking these fish in what the fish probably view as a "cooler" (e.g., overpair gets beat by set).

So many of these regs play the same way. They buy in as deep as possible, try to see as many hands as possible, almost never open-limp, and won't put in serious money unless they can beat TPTK. But this means I often see them raising hands like KTo and 75s in early position.

While I could just feast on the fish like these regs, it has gotten harder as the reg-fish ratio has moved in the wrong direction, but I've noticed that if I 3! these regs, they often call the 3! but play fit or fold post flop as they are super wide pre-flop, narrow considerably after a flop bet, and narrow even more dramatically after a turn barrel.

Here is my question. Traditionally a leak of mine was that I avoided variance more than I should, and even when the situation was right I almost never 3! hands outside of TT+, AQs+, and AK. Now as I am trying to get better and see these ripe situations, what type of hands should I add to my 3! range? Traditionally, people used to say Axs and Kxs type of hands (because of the blockers), but then lately I have heard people also champion a "depolarized" or "merged" range where we take 88/99 and AJs/KQs/KJs type of hands. Even more recently, I heard that 3! Axs and Kxs has been shown to be faulty.

What are you guys currently doing in your similarly deep stacked low limit games? Any thoughts appreciated.

My games have been getting pretty deep lately too. I wouldn't make huge adjustments to the range you stated, maybe just throw in AJs, AQo, KQs, and 98s 87s hands at a half or quarter of the time frequency. IDK exact best strategy but something like that seems natural. I avoid hands like QJs, KJs because you start getting dominated a lot more often by the oop calling range, and it gets to be a bit too much 3betting.

3betting them doesn't need to be your only trick, try raising them postflop. It's a lot harder to call those raises when they have a lot behind to play for, especially if their preflop ranges are weak.

There's a lot that goes into putting together 3-bet ranges. Stack size, PFR's range, position(s), how they continue against a 3-bet are some of the big factors.

Against this kind of field, with the deep stacks, regs raising wide preflop, and continuing wide to a 3bet, you're probably best off with a somewhat wide "merged" range to 3-bet with, which will maximize your equity against their calling range going into the flop. Adding to your current range 99, AQo, and some of those strong suited broadways is definitely a good way to start. Add a few more hands if the PFR is in mid/late position as well.

If an opponent is unlikely to continue against a 3bet, it makes sense to use a more polarized 3bet range. The weaker hands in our "merged" range aren't performing as well against a tighter continuing range, and while they may still be profitable 3-bets, there's a chance of them being equally/more profitable as a call. In this type of scenario, it makes more sense to use suited Ax as a bluff 3-bet, since it retains good equity against the opponent's calling range & reduces the chances of them having a continuing hand. These reasons are also why you shouldn't 3-bet small Ax suited in your game; removal effects don't mean much when the continuing ranges are wide.

Since they never fold to your 3 bets we want to be linear and just 3 bet strong hands that block their strong value/4 bet range. Start 3 betting a ton of AT-AJs, KQs and mix in some AJo, KQo, KJs 99 etc. In general I’ve had a lot more success in live poker 3 betting linear rather than poled and in that type of game I’m definitely going linear.

Since they are fit or fold, cbet small size (eg 1/3 pot) at a very high frequency on most boards, sometimes size up on more dynamic textures where you have a good hand or draw, and then if you think it’s a good spot to continue on turn, size up to 3/4 pot or more.

I'd just go for pure value in 3betting. To start off, I'd look for hands that have a 60/40 edge against their raising range. No need to be balanced since they are so out of balance with the calls pf and folds on the flop. This will also stop you from getting unbalanced yourself as people adjust. As your post flop play improves, you can start shading it down to 55/45.

IP.

BB vs BTN

BB vs SB

SB vs BTN/CO

ofc vs the right players

Not always but a lot of times beyond that is going to lead to major major spew at lower stakes/midstakes, especially if you’re choosing very poor bluff hand selections. Pick your spots carefully and dont just 3b because it “looks like a good spot”. Having solid reasons to 3b wider than normal helps you from not donking off stacks

Pretty much this. Half of the workload is getting good at pinpointing appropriate light 3 bet spots. Who is opening wide, who is tilting and thus possible opening even wider than normal, what are the ongoing dynamics on the table, sizingtells so you can attack a weak capped range and thus be basically bulletproof (gold),who defends to 3 bets, who folds alot to them so you can abuse until they adjust or play back++.

I have worked alot on this topic (widening my 3 bet range and overall aggression pre) over the last year. Compared to my game earlier, my game have become alot more dangerous in the sense that i am alot harder to range pre when i 3 bet- wich sets my opponents up to potenially making more and bigger mistakes against me. Couple of weeks back a whalereg 4 bet spazzshoved 150 blinds pre against me with 5-6 off, because he was getting sick of me 3 betting him over and over. These things didnt happen to me before.

My 3 bet range is kind of fluid like water, and constantly evolving from game to game- wich i think is a decent approach. If i am in a tight kind of bad game where nobody is getting too out of line with their preflop opens i basically just 3 bet the basic 1010+ and AK. Other games i can have a very wide 3 bet range to exploit whales/fishes that is raising too many hands pre and cant really stand facing 3 bets with that weak range. A nice sidebonus of having a constantly changing range is that people can make huge mistakes against you, because they think that just because they saw you 3 bet K10 off once that you are capable of having that hand in every 3 bet spot. You also need kind of fingerspitzgefuhl to gauge when people have had enough of you 3 betting and is ready to pile on you/fight back. Its an art that i am still working to master to make sure you are on the top of your range ready to play for stacks when that is happenning.

Almost every time I read one of your posts, I feel like you read my mind and then posted what I was going to say. Its very creepy actually.

Here are some stats someone might find interesting. About 2500 hours ago I started keeping stats on my lite 3 bets to track whether or not they were profitable.

This is only 2/5

My lite 3 bets get called 46% of the time. I take it down preflop 54% of the time.

When I take it down preflop I avg 7.5 BBs/hand profit
When I get called I avg 1.0 BB/hand profit

Clearly the profit comes from 2 things. Making them fold when they raised lite (or they are weak tight and fold too much). More 3 bets getting you more action when 3 betting premiums.

Haha Its often the same thing other way around too when i read some of your posts, been like that for a pretty long time actually. I guess we are on kind of the same road/same point in our developement as players. We share alot of the same views though, thats for sure.

Bolded is what I am most looking forward to as I find more and more spots to 3bet.

Really good thoughts in this thread for me to ponder.

This +1.

Like this kind of stuff is great for your AJs. They'll peel you preflop with their KJo crap and give you 2 streets when you flop a Jack, or just fold if you both miss. Or they'll have like 44 and fold on T63

At this point, most of the comments ITT seem geared toward a situation in which there are no callers in between. This has been great and given me a lot to chew on.

Does any of the advice change when we have 2-4 callers in between? Would you open your 3bet range up even more (and perhaps linearly)?