thats very arbitrary, but not really supported /w facts. Easiest example is just durrrr vs jman; did they stop 3 betting each other when the game got deeper? obv not.

Do you know what arbitrary means? What DGAF isn't arbitrary at all. The value of position increases significantly, possibly slightly exponentially, as stack depth increases relative to blinds.

And lol at using jman as an example for how to play aggro OOP with deep stacks. Have you EVER seen one of his vids post Jan 2010? He plays everything extremely passively OOP and in most of his vids he adjusts his opening range drastically based on the people behind him and stack depth. Granted there is a difference in initiative b/w 3-betting and getting 3-bet but I guarantee jman would say that initiative is far less important than position and stack depth in 3-bet pots. On top of this he flats a large percentage (possibly a majority of hands) that he would 3b in position OOP. Although a lot of his vids are PLO, which is way, way different from holdem, the concept holds true in holdem for sure.

Regardless, the better the player you are OOP against and the deeper you get, the less you want to 3b unless you're going to 3b to an absurd size to where the SPR remains constant and you can't bet put in as tough situations by them defending speculative hands mega deep in position. I don't know how anyone who has ever played deep in their life can discount such an obvious fact and call it arbitrary.

If you don't understand this fact you should instantly leave the table any time you get over 200 BBs deep. I actually used to do this online when I first started because I would just get worked deep and didn't know how to play. Judging by the recent influx of playing deep stack threads where guys want to call off 600-1000 BBs with like 6th nuts where people basically never bluff, I think a lot of you have a ton of work to do on your deep stack theory and play because in live poker its going to come up a ton.

Pretty much this exactly.

Bloating pots OOP deep is a death sentence against a good player.

EDIT: In fact, two nights ago I was in a deep NL/PLO rotation game and was set to leave at 2AM. A thinking, aggro player sat down to my left at 1AM. He was a good player, with really only one leak: he opened way too many pots deep from early position.

After I bluffed him a few times, he started to berate me and said "you suck." I normally don't get mad at the poker table, but this time I did.

I seat changed to get position on him and proceeded to exploit the %$#$ out of him until he went on super monkey tilt and finally gave me all his money.

It was literally just a matter of time. Position + deep stacks let me call him very wide in NLHE, and with ATC in PLO. He never had a chance. In fact, if he narrowed his range noticeably, I could arguably call him EVEN WIDER because I would know my relative hand strength more often postflop.

I'm not posting this to brag, just to anecdotally back up DGAF's point with a real world example.

fyp

Everyone agrees that playing oop with a narrow range super super deep is a losing prop. The original discussion dealt with a 200bb stack though. So the question is at what stack sizes is it more optimal to 3bet a wide(ish) value range oop vs. flatting your entire range? I vote about 300bb.

nice

As much as we putting specific numbers down, the answer is "it depends." I think this is especially true for live play, where our opponents have dramatically different styles and skill levels. I just don't believe there's a formulaic answer.

Did our opponent open to 3BB or 7BB? How likely is he to stack off post-flop with draws? Are there any callers in the hand? Are we closing the action? Have we shown a squeeze? What's our perceived range? What's villain's calling range? What's villain's 4bet range? Exactly how deep are we? How do they play TPTK? TPGK? Flopped overpairs?

For me, it frequently boils down to manipulating the postflop SPR vs. the given opponent(s). If I can get someone to put in 1/10th their stack preflop while I'm holding AA, I'm pretty comfortable playing postflop OOP against anybody.

it's pretty basic poker fundamentals: play bigger pots (and wider) when in position, play smaller pots (and tighter) oop. look at button straddle games: it is a way to ensure that pots you play in position are bigger. in a game full of good players, the button straddle tends to kill the action, cuz nobody wants to play a big pot oop. obv its great when not everyone is doing it and/or people are still playing loose oop.

having played more plo this summer, the significance of position is magnified where in a button straddle game, i had literally 0 opening range from the blinds and UTG. also note that plo live games generally play pretty deep relative to nl.

this small analogy of how to play in a button straddle game translates to be relevant to supporting the theorem in this thread that 3 betting wide and aggressively oop when deep against a good player is not a good strategy.

This discussion has shifted a lot from the original scenario of someone opening 100% of their range and calling threebets with 100% of their range and the hero OOP being a very good postflop player. Never threebetting is just leaving so much money on the table.

The problematic part of this hand is Villain's opening bet amount of 3BB (small by live standards.) It makes it very hard for us to raise enough 200BB deep for Villain to make a mistake by calling with PP and SC type hands.

i doubt dgaf's 76 was suited btw. 90% he would 4 bang it if suited.

+1

How about flatting all our premium hands OOP versus a strong LAG who opens super wide in LP with deep stacks AND OCCASIONALLY 3-betting our very best speculative hands that we cannot profitably flat from the blinds against that strong LAG (top of our folding range)?

By using this strategy, we will be sandbagging AQ+/TT+ all the time to induce spew from the LAG in single-raised pots and occasionally 3-betting 76s/A2s from the blinds (often just folding) versus the described Villain. Villain will notice that we rarely 3-bet him, so he will probably assume that we are only 3-betting him with a strong value range of AK/JJ+. So, we might end up winning a huge 3-bet pot when we flop a deceptive hand where he expects us to have an overpair (or he tries to push us off our obvious AK-high).

As long as we are good at barreling in 3-bet pots to represent AK or JJ+ (depending on board), we can probably get away with the occasional 76s/A2s 3-bet from the blinds vs his LP open.

If the strong LAG 4-bets us, we have an easy decision: fold our speculative hand or 5-bet bluff. 76s hands are OK for 5-bet bluffs, and A2s hands are perfect for 5-bet bluffing.

By occasionally 3-betting 76s/A2s type hands, the good LAG will probably assume that we are NOT flatting all our premiums OOP versus his LP open...when we ACTUALLY ARE FLATTING ALL OUR PREMIUMS OOP versus his LP open. This gives us a lot of deception in single-raised pots our occasional 3-bets with speculative hands gives him the impression that we cannot have AK/JJ+ in single-raised pots where we defend our blind versus his LP open.

The only downside to this strategy comes when the good LAG starts seeing enough showdowns to realize that we are flatting all our premiums OOP and only 3-betting speculative hands every once in a while OOP. So, I guess we should take extra special care not to let him see any showdowns where we flat AA from SB/BB vs his BTN raise or 3-bet 76s vs his CO raise (easier said than done).

The old "FU, I'm taking that seat on your left and your night is over!" play. I like it!

To add, when I'm in the midst of a marathon spew session, the only time I ever perk up/get excited pre is when someone super deep 3-bets me oop. It's a big pair or AQ+ almost every time and I get to play the ever so fun game of "Do you want to stack off with that hand or not?" It's fairly cheap to find out in position and of course sometimes you get to bink. In this hand where I had 76, I bet 280 and my opponent shipped like 1875. I mean, how is that not a great situation no matter what I have? And we weren't even super deep. As jimmyvjv stated, it gets increasingly (possibly exponentially) more advantageous to be in position as stacks get deeper. And here's the kicker of the whole thing imo: my opponent in the 76 hand is a good player/one of the biggest long-term winners around...

I think 10% of stacks hu (more obv if it's multiway) is a good benchmark.

Is it possible that it's worse to 3-bet oop live vs online (for whatever reason)?

Also, it's a catch 22. The better you are at poker, the more you can play oop. However, one of things that makes you good at poker is that you don't play a lot oop.

twas not, flatting either way though obv

you can't play a lot OOP but that goes for flatting as well as threebetting. Given your assumptions that pots are likely to grow a lot, the overlay you get from the blinds is pretty negligible so in order to play the hand at all you need to think you have an advantage either in pure equity or from folding equity, implied odds, etc. I find it hard to believe that there are lots of hands that would be profitable to call with but unprofitable to threebet with, especially given the stipulation that villain is calling his whole range and rarely fourbetting.

That is obvious. However, this:
is arbitrary. There is no real evidence provided itt that ev of flatting is higher than 3betting

I took any2. Isildur works or he`s just a monkey?

I really do know how it works, but again I dont believe that while opponent defends superwide, flatting whole range is the most ev way of playing. While is common knowledge, that the deeper game runs, the position matters more, I think that the difference in equity (and postflop playability) will be big enough to compensate it - especially when DGAF states, that villain "doesn't even have to be a great player".
its like saying lets open 10x pre 100bb deep so they cannot setmine. And i dont believe that anyone decent folds pp & sc`s HU 111bb deep to average midstakes reg

It almost seems like you are trying to win a case or something (focusing on certain words instead of the overall message, spinning/flipping the jungleman thing, etc). Honestly, I would not be surprised at all if you had a legal background (and that is not meant as an insult- your post is very articulate/convincing on the surface imo)...

Not sure how to put this into an equation (given all the variables) to make it "fact" or "evidence", but here is some support for why I think flatting everything you want to continue with oop against a good (doesn't have to be great) aggressive opponent when stacks are deep is best/of greater ev than 3-betting:

*3-betting an unbalanced range is exploitable
*Balancing a 3-bet range is fundamentally bad--> you don't want to be playing a lot of big pots oop
*Having initiative is a negative (whatever you do on the flop is exploitable)
*Not being able to rep a lot/most boards against an opponent who can is a negative
*Bloating the pot without committing a significant % of stacks before the flop comes out is a neutral at best (even with AA)
*Discouraging barreling as a bluff or for thin value plugs your opponents two biggest leaks

Now what is the support for 3-betting? I think the obvious thing on most people's mind is value- get the money in while you have the best of it. As an early counter, isn't this diminished significantly by the necessity of pot controlling later? Anyways, looking forward to the argument for the other side, and I'm honestly more interested in coming up with the best play than I am in being right. Hope I didn't come off like a dick- that wasn't my intention at all...

Wouldn't 3betting when stacks are really deep be more likely to encourage a lag to spew on later streets? For his calls with sc, etc. to be correct he has to bluff a certain % of the time. Factor in that as the pot grows so does a lag's desire to win it by any means necessary and I think we are giving him ample chances to hang himself.

One huge reason to 3bet oop when stacks are really really deep is that the 3bet will still be a small % of stacks. So feeling like you must stack off or "being in no man's land" is not as much of a problem. It's really not so different from flatting wrt being able to release a big hand on certain boards. Except for three main advantages:

Your hand won't be underreped nearly as much which I think is a good thing oop.

You can raise a wider value range to protect yourself on a variety of boards without having to fear putting in 10% of your stack and folding/being lost otf. This also discourages the lag from opening atc ip, and/or forces him to establish a 4betting range which we can then adjust to and exploit. If the lag doesn't 4bet well/optimally we may be able to win big pots without even seeing a flop or avoid nasty spots without having to see a flop. I think this is especially pertinent live where a lot of good lags do not have much experience dealing with 5bet ranges.

You give yourself a chance to win a massive pot those times you cooler the lag. And the cooler won't go both ways nearly as often since we will be 3betting hands that make the nuts/don't make second best very often and the lag will be calling with "trouble hands" with a higher frequency. We don't have to get lucky and cooler the lag often with super deep stacks to show a huge profit.
If we flat AA pre and cooler a lag on an A77 flop when he has 67 we will have a very hard time getting a lot of our stack in. Having a narrower range actually helps us here (assuming the lag thinks we can bluff as well), not to mention the fact that by the time the lag is ready to dump the hand the pot will be much bigger and he may feel committed.

A lot of these points are directly contradictory, especially the first two. Balancing your range by definition means to make it unexploitable and fundamentally solid.

There's a reason you don't see any winning passive players of any type. The player who gets to choose the size of every pot he plays has to be a complete idiot in order to lose in the long run. Flatting all your hands and then just check-calling/guessing isn't even giving yourself a chance.

When you flat pre, you almost always get a c-bet out of your opponent. Also, because your range isn't nearly as strong as when you 3-bet, your opponent is more likely to fire a second (and sometimes third) barrel on a variety of boards as you might be calling with a small pair or a draw (or just as a float). Because your range isn't all that strong your opponent will also ofc try to take you to value town a lot lighter than had you 3-bet.

Even though the pot will be bigger and more desirable when you 3-bet, you are probably only going to get bluffed/barreled on bad boards for overpairs (if you have proven to be not-scared money). You will get semi-bluffed on the flop a lot though and your opponent will be able to decide if he wants to take a free card on the turn or continue barreling (3-betting flop or executing a stop n go against a good opponent is pretty spewy/transparent/exploitable IMO). Also, your opponent's v-towning range will start at 2 pair (not 1) when you put that 3rd bet in pre...

Why is being underrepped a negative?

Why again does your opponent need to start 4-betting? (And if he/she does it with a polarized range like most do, gl exploiting it oop IMO...)

I kind of get the cooler thing, though that seems kind of exceptional, and in your example I'm def going to have a tougher time giving you AA when you flat pre (as opposed to when you 3-bet and that's the first hand I think of).

Good discussion. Your turn now. I'm coming after soah later ...

DGAF,

I like your argument for flatting premiums in blinds versus a strong LAG's LP open-raise. Could you please tell me what you think of VERY OCCASIONALLY 3-betting 76s/A2s (usually folding) in blinds versus that same strong LAG's LP open-raise to disguise our preflop range?

I think that doing so will give us a small 3-bet % that may deceive Villain into thinking that we 3-bet a narrow value range from the blinds vs his LP opens. Therefore, he will not realize that we are actually flatting 100% of our premiums from the blinds against his LP opens. Additionally, he will try to play for implied odds against our perceived AK/JJ+ in the occasional 3-bet pot where we are merely rep-bluff-barreling AK/JJ+ with our speculative 76s/A2s OR possibly flopping gin in a spot where he plays back at us/overplays his hands because he never expects us to have anything bigger than one pair.

Second question:

If we are flatting all our premiums in the blinds versus the strong LAG's LP open-raise, how should we play our premiums in the CO/BTN versus his MP/HJ raises? Additionally, how do we construct a good 3-betting range CO/BTN versus his MP/HJ range?

I tend to believe that we should still flat premiums a large % of the time to under-represent our hand AND to induce light squeezes behind us (because it will be tempting for someone to try to scoop up that dead money). At the same time, it is good to abuse a wide MP opener by 3-betting the CO/BTN liberally against him. How do we best achieve both objectives?

1. I think doing anything "very occasionally" is fine as long as you are likely to play with your opponent/the other people at the table a bunch more. I think AT+ suited is a great candidate for this super deep as you can bluff-catch when you flop an A (repping JJ-KK) and ofc you have a hand that makes the cooler nuts as easy as any.

2. How to play in position vs a LAG is for a different thread that I hope never gets made .