A few questions and some scenarios. What I'm trying to tease out is is the more MW a 3-bet pot more or less incentivizing to call a 3-bet with a hand you don't want to 4-bet. For the sake of simplicity lets say:

1/3 NLHE
9 handed
450 effective - not too deep not to shallow - everyone has 450.
Hero is in absolute position OTB
V is TAG player, competent and is in the BB.
Fish are losing loose passive players.

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Scenario 1: Two fish limp MP and LJ, Hero raises to 15$, folds to V who 3-bets to 50$, both fish limp/call. 165 out there, 35 for you to call.

How do you handle this spot with 99? ATs? QJs?

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Scenario 2: Two fish limp MP and LJ, Hero raises to 15$, folds to V who 3-bets to 50$, both fish fold. 65 out there, 35 for you to call.

How do you handle this spot with 99? ATs? QJs?

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Scenario 3: Now lets say the positions are reversed and you are OOP to the V. Two fish limp MP and LJ, Hero opens in CO to 15$, V 3-bets from BTN to 50$. both fish limp/call. 165 out there, 35 for you to call.

How do you handle this spot with 99? ATs? QJs?

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Scenario 4: Two fish limp MP and LJ, Hero opens in CO to 15$, V 3-bets from BTN to 50$. both fish fold. 65 out there, 35 for you to call.

How do you handle this spot with 99? ATs? QJs?


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I was reading somewhere that from the BB defend point of view preflop that the more players interested (say UTG opens and gets 3 callers) you actually have to defend tighter...but people think of pot odds and defend wider. So this point is counter-intuitive to me. We are getting better direct odds now, but have more players to beat?

You're asking good questions. A lot will depend on your read of V's.

Over-calling from the BTN with hands that play well post flop can't be too terrible. As you said, many V's will not adjust their 3Bing range correctly when the pot is multi-way.

If you think V in BB is capable of bluffing more into multiple opponents when OOP, and/or the limpers are sticky post flop, I'd be folding more, because it'll be harder for you to realize your equity. But if the V isn't going to bluff more, and / or the limpers are over-folding post flop, I think we can call more.

One thing that may help is to remember that defending the BTN is often preferable to defending the blinds, because we'll have position for the rest of the hand. So we're incentivized to defend the button wider.

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Id be okay flatting in all of those scenarios bc we have hands with good nut potential and fish can pay us off when we hit. Just have to proceed carefully when we flop just top pair type hands.

Too long and too many scenarios to reply to but think of it this way…

The more callers between the 3-bettor and you, the better your direct odds and the less you need to rely on implied odds. Furthermore, implied odds are better anyway with nut potential hands (suited A, suited Broadway, set-mining) given that there are more opponents to potentially cooler and stack. That being said, the RIO hands become more dangerous so as Yanasaur said, getting 5:1 you can nut peddle correctly and tread carefully when you make “strong” one pair hands.

Lastly, range your 3-betting opponent. If he/she 3-bets on the lighter side, we often have a profitable 4-bet squeeze with fish cold callers’ dead money.

Generally when the fish are involved we are incentivized to come along more, provided the BB isn't a total nit. JTs+ and basically any pocket pairs are decent. I would probably ship QQ+, AK, maybe JJ.

Villain made it small enough and we are deep enough that calling with pockets pairs is probably fine when fish fold. If fish fold, I am not a huge fan of QJs in particular as it is easily dominated. JTs is a little better. 65s is good in that it is also less dominated. Provided villain is 3betting wide, continuing with KTs+ and ATs+ is probably okay. These with A5s. Maybe A4s can mix calls and 4bets (if villain has 3bet folds).

KXs tend to function well as calls when villain is wide and when they are expected to cbet k high boards even when they don't have a king. AXs are similar. AQo is very cuspy. Maybe vs the small size and vs a loose villain, but I don't fault you for folding AQo or mixing 4bet and fold. KQo, AJo, etc is a snap fold.

Ok then by the same token, in a single raised pot where you are in the BB, are you defending more or less hands the more or less MW it goes?

V opens UTG, fish call MP and HJ, folds to you in BB.

vs.

V opens UTG, folds to you in BB.

What % of your range is continuing in each case here? By your logic above it seems we can call wider with the fish in and have to be tighter in the second case...but Ive seen the opposite of this argued online. With only one opponent the burden of defense is more on us and we should call wider.

I’m not a super expert on this but I think the place to start is to unpack the phrase “burden of defense.”

The idea of using the word “defense” is that if you do not call with some bad hands, your opponent can exploit you by stealing the blinds too much.

Does anyone, especially in a live game, open UTG with the intention of everyone folding? No, they’re opening with the intention of getting action from worse hands.

So the idea that you need to defend against the possibility of exploitive bluffs is silly. This might be different if the open came from LP where there’s a real chance they are widening their range, but when the open is from UTG I don’t think you need to care. The opener has to be worried about the rest of the field when they open, even if the rest of the field folds this time.

The more multiway it is the less we want to play. Yes, the burden of defense is less on us. But more importantly, it is harder to win myltiway pots and easier to get coolered, so even with better pot odds, we should fold more.

But with fish it is different. Against fish that will make huge mistakes postflop, we want to call more often than if we were just up against regs, even if the fish is the cold caller. You might think of fish being in the pot as canceling the multiway effect.

Where the exact thresholds are is ambiguous though and it depends a lot on open size and rake. Let's say at 1/3 with 10% rake up to $6 and facing a 3x open from LJ with no cold callers, 600 effective stack, I think 53s+, 54s+, AJo+, KJo+, J9s+, AXs+ and all pairs are all reasonable defends in the BB. The worst hands in this range, suited gappers, and KJo type hands are all fairly indifferent, and you could argue for defending QJo, JTo type hands as well. If LJ opened and CO and button call, KJo, AJo, are out. J9s, Q9s, K9s you could probably chuck as well. Suited aces still retain a lot of value multiway. Lower Suited gappers like 53s -75s actually still retain a lot of value as do 54s-87s, but they are probably indifferent. 98s is just a bad hand though because of range interaction. All pairs are in there still either way.

The difference is really much wider when the open size is smaller like 2x and rake is lower because there BB is supposed to defend extremely wide heads up and not as wide multiway. Like at 500NL vs 2x 100bb open you should defending vs LJ open with J4s, but if button cold calls, J6s is the cutoff. When open sizes and rake are greater, a lot of the most trashy hands like unconnected KXs-JXs and 2, 3, 4 gapper suited cards aren't defends anyways.

I think in all the spots I would call the 99 and ATs and fold the QJs. OOP I might fold some of the time especially when there's no fish.

I don't like QJs because it's doing really poorly vs the cold 3bet range and they hold most of the cards that make you a straight and you can get overflushed by AK and you have top two when AK makes a straight. And dominaated be even the "bluff" portions of their range when they have KQs, KJs, AQs, AJs.

So just poor interaction overall.

In general I will call a little wider with fish in and when I'm IP with suited Ax and some pockets. But the hands I choose IP HU will be stuff like 54s, 65s and some of the low pairs and not suited broadways.

We'd be defending wider in a SRP than a 3B pot.

SRP, facing an EP raise, we're defending tighter than when facing a LP raise.

SRP, facing an EP raise with multiple callers, our BB defense range should be hands that play well multi-way and aren't likely to get us coolered - suited wheel aces and mid-range suited connectors.

When the callers are loose-passive fish, we need to be careful about navigating post-flop, and mostly play straight-forward, ABC poker - donk-betting or check-raising our strongest value as seems appropriate, bluffing less, if at all, not chasing our draws without correct implied odds, and not calling too wide / loose.

ok thx everyone