When you have a range edge, the way to exploit that is to make the SPR as small as possible preflop. By calling and "playing postflop", you negate your edge because now you're playing guessing games against an undefined range, and that's when people make calling and folding mistakes. If you play a good solid, balanced strategy postflop OTOH, it'll be hard to make big mistakes in either direction in 3 bet pots in position.

I talk about this frequently w/ less experienced NL players and they always seem uncomfortable w/ three bet pots. I simply think this is a function of how it hurts more to lose an 80 bb pot than it does to lose a 30 bb pot. You exploit people who raise too loose and call 3 bets too lose by going for big value with a wider range of hands. Plain and simple.

Who says you have to play a big pot after 3betting preflop?
You’re in control of the pot

How is 1% of starting hands more than most 2/5 tables?
Most 3b are AA,KK only lol?

Then you say you watched a bunch of players burn cash 3b too wide? Which is it ?

point is anytime you allow your opponent to play near perfect vs your range you have effectively lost

We are talking about a 10-8-2 flop?

Your 3b range has no sets period
In fact your range is capped at one pair on many many board textures

Are you constantly stacking off with one pair? Cause that’s your capped range nearly every time you 3b preflop sir

OP, you need to spend time running sims.

First start with TT. What % of hands do they need to continue with for TT to be a value 3 bet?

Then AQ. Same drill.

Keep drilling down.

If someone is continuing with a range of:

22+, A5s, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s

Well, 88 has 52.3% equity against that. Heck, even 77 has 49.3% equity, so that equity + fold equity = profitable.

There's really only two good excuses to flat a preflop open. outside of closing the action in the bb:

1) You have a hand that can bust an opener if it hits (ex: 54s, 22, etc) and you're deep and in position.
2) You have a hand that is ahead of their opening range but behind their calling range to a point where seeing a flop is more profitable than potentially taking it down preflop.

that makes no sense, how would the villain know if my 3 bet range contained sets? Or whether my range is capped at one pair? Your drawing conclusions from material that I gave you about a 3 betting range I have. The villain does not have that.

Why would you 3 bet a pot to narrow the field and not make a continuation bet on one of the following streets? It's more likely than not the pot is going to get bigger considering the 3 bet pre. I rarely see a 3 bet pot get checked thru to the river after the preflop 3 bet.

Yes I have watched players 3 bet very wide and burn cash, that is why I 3 bet with the top of my value range only. And that is still more than the avg 3 betting I have seen at 2/5.

It would be nearly impossible to know if you allowed your opponent to play near perfect vs your range because you can only put him on a range and you dont know his holdings.

Can you go into more detail regarding this? What types of hands are calling with, like pocket pairs and suited connectors? And you would either fold or 3 bet KQ and AJ. Can you further explain your reasoning? Thanks.

Pocket pairs, suited connectors, suited gappers like J9s/T8s. Things like that.

Yes I fold or 3 bet AJ/KQ type hands. Calling raises with those hands is almost always a mistake. You're going to win a small pot or lose a big pot.

This assumes normal players. Against some people who will barrel away and bluff off their stack, you can call with those hands sometimes but getting in the habit of calling raises with broadway cards is a bad idea in general.

Thanks J! But at the expensive of putting a bunch of bets in pre flop and more when you continuation bet, correct?

Usually when you put in a 3 bet preflop for value, your hand is going to be ahead of your opponents range. So don't think of it as expensive. Think of it as risking more but winning more as a result.

And you don't always have to cbet. Sometimes the flop comes T76. You can just accept that this board isn't a board you represent well and cbet less. And balance it by checking strong hands like AA or TT sometimes too.


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Thanks for clarifying. Can you give me an idea of how you decide when to 3b and when to fold? I'm guessing it's based on position, player type. Like if a semi-loose PF player opens in MP you are more likely to 3b on the button but if a tight player opens from UTG you'd be more likely to fold? How do you handle these types of hands in the blinds vs a non-blind open where we would be OOP after the flop? I'm just getting back into poker after not having played for a while and I'm trying to wrap my head around basic strategy again. Planning to play mostly live. Thanks.

Yes, you mostly have it right. Id be much less likely to 3 bet a non value hand from the blinds unless it was pretty obvious that the guy was just making a late position raise. Some guys do it religiously and they overdo it. A 3 bet from the blinds needs to be bigger.

I wouldnt really call this basic strategy. You can win by never 3 betting anything but pure value.

Thanks again!

awesome read!

How big are you 3betting and why?

How much are you cbetting and why?

The decision isn't just yes/no 3bet.

Food for thought: It can be true that both a) villains never fold to 3bets and b) it's profitable to 3bet bluff.

If you are playing against players that play reasonably, once in a blue moon when there is a lot of money in the pot throw in a 3bet with complete garbage. Then when everyone folds show your 73off. BOOM...never have to worry about action again. Don't show when you have the Kings though! That's just advertising that you are a nit. Also, when you make moves with the 73off and someone has the audacity to call your 3bet the poker gods will generally reward you handsomely with 2 pair on the flop or the turn.

BTW, showing the 73o is not mandatory. If you want to continue to make 3bet steals as an additional revenue stream then don't show because showing makes each successive steal that much more difficult to pull off. It also makes bluffing more difficult in general because nobody ever folds to me...errr to the player that shows the 73o.

Regarding your JJ hand, don't try extracting thin value from players that are better than you. Just check the turn and hope he doesn't hit river. He shouldn't have KQ in his range tbh and shouldn't have many outs to improve to the best hand if he is behind so there is little need to protect your hand here.

I am 3 betting 3x villains raise size + 1 x for each person who called his raise. If villain opened to 20 and 2 guys called, I am raising to 100. I would add 1x if I was in the blinds.

I am 3 betting because villain is coming in for a raise with almost all hands he plays and I believe I am ahead of his opening range.


When I 3 bet I cbet 1/2 to 2/3 pot to take down the pot.

But why 3x +1 preflop? Is it because you want folds, because you want calls, because you want to balance with bluffs you might have, because of effective stacks?

Then when you cbet trying to take it down means you're always bluffing?

(I'm not trying to suggest your sizings are wrong, only thinking about reasons)

This is where my thinking is with my responses...
Why would you Cbet to get your opponent to fold when you are only 3betting a value range ? And the nose bleed 1% top value range?

You Cbet for value with the 3b range you are playing

Response to your earlier response

Any with a pulse can and will notice your nitty 3b range preflop
1% 3b is easy to spot

playing a 3b pot vs you is super easy and str8 forward

3x+1x per player?

You don’t want to have customers for your monsters preflop?
What are you hoping for ? AK+ to pay you off in cooler wars?

Your 3b bet sizing pre basically guarantees you only get top 1% range calls

Why would you want A10s for example to fold preflop to your nitty1% 3b range preflop? Answer is you don’t but your bet sizing says otherwise

Huge leak and your costing yourself EV the way you’re doing it now