This is not a specific hand, but rather a general preflop scenario.

H opens SCs (say 54 to 98) from middle position to 3bb.
V1 (a decent/good TAGish) 3 bets to 9-10bb.
V2 (let's say unknown) flats from btn, or from BB.
Effective stacks are 200-250 bb between H and V1, V may be shallower.

Action is back to H. What do we do?

Standard play is most probably just folding, but I often struggle to let my SCs go in such spots...
Just curious to hear opinions, also depending on V2 stack or position.

What if a fourth player is also in the hand?

In general, scs play well HU against a 3!, but poorly multiway. If this is a 1/2 - 2/5, it might be better to open fold them. The raise gives you deception / board coverage, but you don't really want to play them multiway OOP. Would definitely open them from CO or later and probably call a 3!

My thinking: deep IP where SPR despite the 3b will still be large... call,

all else fold.

I dont really adjust MW vs HU. I also feel you have to be able to play big pots HU with third pair with them.

HH: I open 78dd from CO, TAG 3b from BTN, I call, Flop Td 4d 4c, I x he bets I raise he calls, Turn 7s I jam he calls with KJdd and turn bricks I win.

Also I should add Im more or less dumping T9s- from my 1/3 game. Ive decided SCs are just torching 15$ RFIs and its not compensated by the 1/50 times I hit a str8/flush/boat

Easy call.

Multiway it is always worse to call than heads-up.

98s is bad and probably should just be folded because a lot of hands that 3bet cooler you, block your draw from completing, and have strong made hands when you have draws.

65s is the best suited connector because it doesn't interact with as much of the 3betting range so you are more likely to make a strong hand and can actually cooler your opponent when they make the wheel and you make a higher straight. Lean towards calling this hand when deeper heads up or multiway.

76s is slightly better than 87s and 54s, but they are all pretty similar in strength. These hands are more indifferent to calling or folding. But they tend to be indifferent when villain is playing proper 3bet ranges that include hands like A5s, A4s, and suited connectors. When villains are 3betting more only rhe top of their range, I lean towards folding these hands.

I don't really understand why people are being so risk averse here. We are getting pretty huge pot odds to continue here.

What are the odds you're going to hit 2 pair or better on the flop? Once you know this, you'll understand why people are recommending to fold. Your fold equity is low with two other people in the hand.

It's not risk being risk averse. It's recognizing when a play is likely to be negative EV. Pot odds don't make up for the fact that we have to beat 2 players, not just 1. It helps if we can sometimes hit 1 pair and beat a high or k high or sometimes get a better hand to fold IE because we call flop with a draw, turn goes check check, and we bet river. Or we check raise and get A high to fold, etc. Vs two players winning is much harder because have to dodge up to 4 overcards as well as pocket pairs that can just get to showdown.

We are talking about hands that are already supposed to be about 0 EV when villains are 3betting GTO ranges that have A5s, A4s, suited connectors, and lots of A high and K high hands. Now consider that most live players are only 3betting the top of this range and we have to beat a 3rd player. It is fairly reasonable to think that calling is just going to be losing money.

suited connectors are one of the big leaks in llsnl, particularly when out of position. it's more often right to fold to one bet rather than to call a 3 bet. and even more so when you don't have the betting initiative. I'd prefer to 4 bet than call here. But it's a clear fold

you miss a ton of flops. you are obliged to call a lot more flops with 2nd or 3rd pair and runner runner possibilities so it becomes very expensive to realise your equity and it can also be difficult to get paid as much as you want when you do hit your draws because you're out of position. Plus you can get coolered on your flushes which becomes more of an issue when multiway

There is also a pretty good chance that the TAG 3bettor and the BTN cold call is are sharing cards. Maybe one of them has AK and the other has KQss.

If they are sometimes sharing cards, our equity with our SC will go up.

What are your adjustments when IP with respect to OOP, if any?
Thanks

Well it shouldn't be much different because when you get 3bet from OOP it is usually to a bigger size, which kind of offsets your positional advantage. Like if you get 3bet 3x from IP you probably defend similar ranges to when you get 3bet from OOP to 4x. But if you are getting 3bet from OOP to less than 4x you can call wider.

This is also what I tend to suppose when I talk myself into calling.
Not sure how statistically sound this is though, for the reasons explained above by other posters.

Yeh, maybe imagine the absolute best case for us and that means we are <checks notes> ...

ProPokerTools Odds Oracle Results (2.3 Professional)
Holdem, Generic syntax
PLAYER_1 AK
PLAYER_2 KxQx
PLAYER_3 7x6x
600000 trials (randomized)


All-in Equity

	Equity %	Wins Hi %	Ties Hi %	Wins Hi Count	Ties Hi Count
AK	40.6243%	40.1863%	0.9967%	241118	5980
KxQx	25.4569%	25.0190%	0.9967%	150114	5980
7x6x	33.9188%	33.7980%	0.3623%	202788	2174

...winning 0.6%. Cool. Cool.
At least we'll easily realize our equity though.


Probably don't want to change out either hand for JJ though, that looks like a bummer.

I don't get it. We opened 3bb. If the TAG 3bets to 10bb, then the BTN cold caller put in 10bb, then we are getting about 23.5bb/7bb (significantly BETTER than 3:1 pot odds).

If the 3bet is just 9bb, then our pot odds are even juicier than this (21.5bb/6bb which is exactly 3.5 to 1 pot odds). If the rake/time collection is favorable, then our pot odds are even even juicier.

I also don't think that we will have a tough time playing postflop with the best RELATIVE POSITION. It should be fairly obvious to us if we flop a small pair whether we are beat or not like flopping a pair on a low boar and facing heavy action from a likely overpair.

As far as when we flop really well, it is very easy for us to get big implied odds on our hand. I wouldn't worry about reverse implied odds much bc we won't be facing flush/overflush scenarios much with our SCs against these TAG 3bet and BTN cold caller ranges because they skew towards mostly high offsuit cards and mid to big pairs.

As stacks get deeper, our implied odds get better too. Therefore, I am even more likely to defend to the 3bet in this setup when we have deep stacks.

On another note, most live players (even decent to good TAGs) struggle to 3bet enough in live poker against other good players.

If we are perceived to be a good player by the TAG, he might be flatting a lot versus 3betting his Axs and good Broadway suited hands to keep in the bad players behind him. He will often figure that there is no point 3betting AJs/KQs/KJs/QJs/ATs/A5s/A4s to play heads-up versus a good player when he could entice bad players to overcall behind him.

This dynamic will make it unlikely that we will get overflushed by the TAG.

On top of that, a lot of live players (even decent to good TAGs) are risk averse in terms of 3betting preflop. Even if we are not perceived to be a good player, there are plenty of TAGs who 3bet very tight ranges against an MP open because they don't like the variance of 3betting aggressively with solver-type 3bet ranges.

As the last cherry on top, let's consider that the "unknown" cold caller to the 3bet is very likely to be a fish or a a whale because good players almost never have a cold call to 3bet range here from the BTN or the BB. A good player would typically play cold 4bet or fold there.

So if we are getting good pot odds and good RELATIVE POSITION to see a flop, I like gambling here at stacking the cold caller and maybe even the TAG. Our risk/reward ratio is pretty favorable.

The cold caller might make ******ed postflop decisions. At deeper stacks, this potential for the cold caller to make ******ed decisions makes this spot even more enticing.

Good point of discussion and agree with folding pre reasons in the thread. Personally, one of the biggest leaks I have closed.

I'd just add if the goal is to move up in stakes, start implementing solid strategies to combat more 3-betting that will occur in bigger games.

When the BB flat calls, it's more likely we're sharing cards with him, than it is that he's sharing cards with the 3B'er.

So, when the action goes open-3B-4B, we fold.

When it goes open-3B-call, we should mostly be folding. We can occasionally call with some of the more GTO-approved SC's, especially when we have a skill advantage or the stacks are deep, but otherwise, we should lean towards folding these hands when we're OOP.

I disagree. Most bad live players cold 4bet a very tight range like AKs/KK+/some QQ. That means that his range is often AKo/some AKs/some QQ/AQs/88+JJ. And maybe some AJs/KQs if he is a fish.

Maybe he is a whale and has a lot of weaker suited hands than AJs/KQs. But we are treating him like an unknown so far.

Most of those combos that cold call a 3bet don't share cards with us. Only the small percentage of 88/99 share cards with our medium SCs. And none of them share cards with us when we have the low SCs like 76s-54s

We're into a lot of hypotheticals, without knowing the stakes, no reads, and talking about a multi-way pot in which someone is cold-calling a 3B from either the BTN or the BB.

Whether or not that cold-caller is more likely to share cards with us or with the 3B'er really depends on having more specifics. But, in general, the BTN and BB cold-calling ranges are probably wide enough to include a lot of cards that we share.

The BTN is incentivized to call wider because he's going to have position on future streets. The BB is likely to think he's getting good pot odds to call wider when he's closing the action. Think about it - if the BTN or BB had a stronger hand, he'd be more likely to 4B than to flat call.

Good players don't really have much of a 3B cold-calling range, so what does a bad player's cold-calling 3B range look like? It probably has more middling SC's - 76s to JTs - than it should. Our best SC's like 65s aren't doing great against 76s-JTs.

Maybe he's getting in there with some AJo or ATs, and he's going to lose a lot of money, but when that happens, he'll be losing it to the 3B'er with better AX holdings, not to us with 54s-98s.

Either way, whether he's sharing cards with the 3B'er or us, we're going to have trouble realizing our equity post-flop. When we connect, we're going to end up with the 2nd best hand a lot, and even when we have the best hand, our opponents aren't likely to pay us off in a big way.

Let's say we've got 65s, on a flop of 765, or 876. His 98 has us crushed. On 987, his JT has us crushed, and his 98 isn't likely to go broke often enough for us to have the correct implied odds to call with 65s pre, because he's likely to be worried about us having JTs. We're basically hoping to cooler someone playing too wide and who's too stubborn to fold.

The pre-flop 3B'er isn't as likely to c-bet the boards that favors our pre-flop flatting range when it's multi-way. The cold-caller also isn't very likely to bet those boards either, unless he has a piece and is betting for value.

To maximize our value, we're either going to have to donk lead, which is mostly going to fold out worse hands, or check-raise, which is also going to fold out worse hands, or check-call, hoping that we're good and one or the other of our opponents keeps betting. And when the cold-caller is doing the betting, we could often be toast.

It would be different if we were over-calling in a SRP from the BTN or the BB. I don't have a problem over-calling with more suited connectors in that case. But when we open EP-MP, get 3B, and there's a cold-call from the BTN or the blinds, we're going to be in no-man's land a lot when we over-call.

In most 1-2 or 1-3 games I've played I'd assume that's too wide.