My poker buddies and I have been having a debate on what constitutes a solid 3! calling range HU when OTB against an unknown 3! from the blinds (in a vacuum)

My argument stems more from a gto perspective, where I feel we should be folding to 3!s at least 68% of the time if not more, and since most live villains are generally incapable of 3! light- and will usually have AA-TT AK AQs in spots like this, we should probably be exploitatively folding 80-90%+

One of my buddies argues that we should be defending wider since we have position, we are often getting direct odds to call, and we can make several +ev decisions after the flop since we have a skill advantage over our opponent. He argues for defending most of his opening range preflop, including sgs like 75s+.



Lets say we open to $30in a $5-$10game otb, unknown villian 3! blinds to $90
and we have $1000 effective starting stacks.
What does your 3! call range look like here?


How does it change for $1500 effective stacks?

This would be true if the hand ended preflop and you're implementing a strict 4bet or fold strategy. However when you just call the 3bet there's postflop play involved which gives an opportunity for the 3bettor to win some of his money back postflop. As a rough conceptual example, if you assume the 3bettor will win the pot half the time postflop, then he's getting a freeroll on any of your preflop folds.

Rather than thinking about what % of hands to defend with you should be thinking about what hands the opponent is 3betting with and what his tendencies are and use those factors to determine what hands will be profitable to defend with. Against a 3bet range of AA-TT, AQs, AKo 200bb deep you can profitably set mine with small pocket pairs even though they don't fall into the 10-20% defending range. If you're playing against a weak opponent that gives off sizing tells or gives up on the turn too much or gives off physical tells or whatever then you can widen the defending range to suited gappers and other more speculative hands.

1) how deep?

2) will V overbet flop and turn?

3) can we get V to stack off with n overpair?

Why should we care whether Villain will over bet flop and turn?

FWIW, the very best regs don't overbet much in 3bet pots except maybe in good over bet bluff spots against capped ranges, so I don't know why a rec player who habitually mashed the pot or 1.5x pot button with over pairs would give us a hard time.

For example, if I were set mining against his 3bet with a small/mid pair, I would be extremely happy if he habitually bet 1.5x pot post flop with overpairs.

At 100bbs, there isn't much room for creativity/maneuverability/leverage, so you should play tight against a tight 3bet range.

At deeper stacks, you can play looser ranges if you have a skill advantage over the 3bettor by using your skill set to magnify your positional advantage to put play Villain postflop.

For someone who is one of the more solid regs in the LLSNL forum, you seem to have a hard time relating to low-limit poker.

Tho OP is asking about 5/T, this is the 2/5 and below world. Here, a large fraction of players panic when they 3b, and drop bombs otf.

So, yeah cool, you open from HJ T9s to 6bb, and unknown V1 from the BB makes it 15BB, with 250BB effective.

9BB to call, seems OK. About 25:1.

But rarely are we going to flop a made hand (I'm sure the math can be done). So we need some reasonable expectation that we will get a good price to see the turn, and maybe the river.

So if V1 is gonna get froggy OTF and drop a 50BB bomb...

Ah ****... I've lost my train of thought. What was I saying?

If we are against a very tight 3! range pre, i'd be more inclined to call with hands like suited connectors/gappers and fold things like AJo, KQ, etc. the reason being that we'll know exactly where we are in the hand, our decision making is a lot easier postflop, and we are more likely to stack off opponent when we hit a monster on what he considers to be a dry board.

Taken to the logical conclusion, if an idiot is overbet shoving flop for 5x pot with overpairs, then it is easy to fold all non premium hands except for pocket pairs where we will have super easy set mines when we open pocket 22 BTN for 3bbs and then call 7bbs more versus a 10bb BB 3bet and only put money in post flop against ****** 5x pot overbet shiver when we flop a set to stack Villain for 100bbs.

If we are deeper like 300bbs, then we can flat T9s and other SCs for 7bbs more (assuming 3bb BTN open and 10bb BB 3bet), and just stick money in post flop against ******ed 5xpot overbettor when we flop 2pair+ or a 15+out draw to stack ****** for 300bbs.

While we will be losing most pots, we are only risking 7bbs more for the occasional chance to stack the ******ed overbettor for 300bbs.

You are also ignoring the fact that TT+ (or even QQ+) doesn't always flop an overpair. ******s who habitually overbet overpairs are also easy to bluff off under pairs when flop comes high like Axx or Kxx. We won't be facing over bets on those boards where ****** overpaid is scared of overcard(s), so we can realize our equity just fine in those situations.

Given Hero has SC or S1C...

What percentage of flops will Hero flop 2p+?

What percentage of flops will Hero flop 12+ outs?

What's Hero's equity when he flops 2p vs. an overpair?

If V is going to make a 100-150% pot size bet OTF and OTT, are we ever getting our $$$ in good enough to justify calling the extra few bb pre?

IMO, no. Not unless at least 300bb deep.

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The "bread and butter" of LLSNL is making huge overbets and having folks call with poor odds. Having an overpair and dropping bombs OTF and OTT, is how you print money.

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Obviously, Hero can setmine effectively against V who panic and overbet flop and turn.

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Not sure that in 2/5NL and below, unknown Vs 3b JJ- from the blinds often enough to bother worrying about it...

No, that's not right.

I'm 100% certain that in 2/5NL and below, unknown Vs do not 3b JJ- from the blinds often enough to worry about it.

FYI, a SC like 76s flops 2pair+ 5.6% of the time and flops 15+out draw 1.6% of the time.

Let's just say that the SC binks huge for a monster that is on average 85% favorite versus Villain 6% of the time.

So, you bleed 7bbs on a pre flop call where you have to fold flop 19 out of 20 times. But 1 out of 20 times, you will be 85% favorite to stack ****** overbettor Villain for 300bbs.The negative value of bleeding 7bbs 19 times is -133bbs, but the positive value of 85% favorite to stack Villain 1 time is (70% of 300bbs) +210bbs. Overall EV is very positive... Even when we aren't taking into account high Axx/Kxx boards where Villain will get scared with TT-QQ and will either get bluffed out or will allow us to realize our equity.

well put.

OP was talking about a Villain who 3bets AK/AQs/TT+ BB versus BTN, so it is irrelevant to discuss what you think live 2/5 NL BB vs BTN 3bet ranges are.

OP is talking about 5/T.

So I suppose this whole conversation is irrelevant...

Maybe we should have the mods move this thread?

Uh... wait, wat?

Flopped 2p has about 75% equity against an overpair.

Flopping a straight or flush happens about 1% each.

So about 2% of the time, Hero will flop the effective nuts.

Another 2% of the time, Hero flops a hand with 75% equity (2p).

That's 1 time in 25, Hero flops a hand that has 75% equity or more.

(And we haven't even talked about whether V, is going to stack off.

E.g... 1.4% of the time H flops trips and we have to get V to put in another 200bb+...)

BTW, we can do similar math to show that SC can call 7bbs more at 200bbs effective and still show pra small profit even if SC has to fold 19 out of 20 flops against a ****** overbettor.

When you add in the times where Villain gets scared with an underpair on Axx/Kxx boards where you can bluff Villain off his picture pair and/or realize your equity easily because Villain is scared of overcards...

It is pretty obvious that you are happy to play against ****** Villains to over bet post flop with over pairs for no good reason.

If you average out the times that a SC flops 2pair (75% equity versus overpair) versus trips (91% equity) versus boat/quads (92% equity- versus straight (99% equity) versus flush (85% equity)...flopped 2pair+ for a SC has an average of about 85% favorite versus an overpair.

this is assuming villian always stacks off that 1/20 times for 200bbs though- which is quite optimistic IMO

I'm happy to play against generally bad opponents... is that news?

All I'm saying is that V's post flop aggression/tendencies are an important consideration when deciding to call with SC, S1C, etc.

it is pretty easy if Villain is over betting 5xpot.

Of course, most reasonable Villains aren't dumb enough to be over betting over pairs postflop.

Lapidator has some dumb fixation on Villains who over bet post flop after 3bet pre...He thinks that they are preventing us from profiting from our hands. While we may have to fold more flops to their overbets, their dumb over betting tendencies make it much easier/trivisl for us to stack them for deep stacks when we bink hard with a flopped set (or flopped 2pair+ in case of a SC).

Back to the main discussion, I think playing tight against a typical Villain at 100bbs is correct. When stacks are 200bb+, then you have room to get creative with more speculative hands if you happen to have a good skill advantage over Villain 3bettor.

Where did I say 5x pot?

If a idiot can give us a problem by overbetting 1.5x pot, then him over betting 5x pot would give us even more problems, right?

Just wanted to confirm that what you're talking about has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

Thought I was the one going crazy there for a moment...

Where are you getting this 68% fold number?

It seems to me that if someone is 3betting $90 from the BB at 5/10 NL over your $30 BTN open... Then he only needs you to fold 64% of the time for him to profit 3betting ATC.

Minor quibble...

Think 68% was based on a 3.5xbb raise-

Anyways my question is...


In a vacuum against an unknown who we DONT know tendencies of, should we be flatting with hands like say J9dd? (100bb stacks)