1/3 NL 8 handed.

The SB is the effective stack with 250. He has been very aggressive pre open raising and raising over limps. He has been all over the place with his raises. He's raised to 6, 11, 15, 20 etc. I don't have a great read on his range. He puts in very big bets or jams on a lot post flops. This is the first 3 bet I've seen from him in two hours. He sees me as a tight player.

I open to 12 UTG with 99's, it's folded to SB who raises to 40, it's folded back to me. How do I categorize his raise? He has been very agro but not with 3 bets. He knows my range is tight from UTG. Also, I may face a large C bet or jam by him on the flop. The implied odds aren't great with his somewhat short stack but I suppose they aren't bad.

Just for the heck of it I'm gonna throw out a few holdings to see what you would do with them.

99
TT
JJ
AJs
KQs

Is there something in the description to make me believe this guy is a “thinking” LAG? As opposed to just someone who likes to blindly bully passive players but then gets out of the way against shows strength?

If this is his first 3bet all session, and he’s had ample opportunity to do so before and always just called or folded, I might cry-fold every single hand you listed. You raised UTG, and playing back against shows of strength may not be in this guy’s repertoire.

Probably fold or shove. Way more likely to shove 99 and fold AQs, but folding 99 and even TT fine too. Folding JJ is a bit much at this size, but it's not terrible.

folding 99

TT, JJ are closer, JJ especially wouldn't fold right away

Would rather call KQs than AJs personally

It's been 2 hours. What has V done previously in the blinds? If folded to opens: yeah, run away with 99, and tbh, all of those hands you listed.

If V has been rec-active out of them---lots of calls, then I'm 4! (which at this depth is a shove), 99-TT mix shove/call JJ/ AJs, mix fold/call KQs. Maybe fold 99?

If we call, pot's 80 or so, with 210 back. SPR 2.5 isn't that bad for a lot of those hands. We've position, and if V wants to play chicken, we can.

Mongidig,

I'm pretty sure the last time you posted a similar "What should I do here preflop", I recommended you get the free version of GTO-W and play with these scenarios yourself.

You're not going to improve if you're not willing to put in the work.

It may be the opposite. If V does a lot of calling when he plays a playable hand, he is going to be stronger when he 3bets. If he plays a 3bet-or-fold strategy, there’s a chance he is 3betting too much.

Great point. It's been 2 hours per OP. So 40-50 hands. With ~9-13 of those in the blinds. V hasn't been 3! anywhere, per OP, but has been raising first in/punishing limps a bunch. Kind of looks like V knows a little bit. If V is continuing to punish limps out of the blinds by opening big or simply folding, that leans me further towards "isn't dumb," but isn't playing a really aggro 3! or fold strat, and may just be card dead. If they're overcalling an open, other way around.

Ofc, small sample size/card dead/etc... If V is 3! only a 5% range from either blind, in 13 trials, about 1/2 would have 0 3!s, and 1/2 are 1 or more. With a 10% 3! range, about 60% of the time, V 3!s once or not at all. Makes it tough to pin down whether V is getting OOL or not.

Even when we determine if V actually has a 5-ish% 3! in the SB, is it polarized or merged? JJ is a slight fave vs 5% merged, TT is a slightly bigger dog, and so on. Jeez, looks like nearly a pure fold for most of these except JJ the first time around, right? Or if we shove, we're mainly relying on nit image and FE.

I'm glad I went through the additional work. Thanks for the prompt, Vernon.

First off, taking a random two hour sample of live play and deciding people have a 5% merged range is completely insane IMNSHO.


A (PPT) 5% merged range is (at pure weights, like humans at 1-3) AK,AQs,99+ and then either AJs or KQs.
Note that that's far from a modern solver's 5% 3bet range.


Note that AK at 45.6% vs. top 5% giving you -$7.7 on shoving (assuming no FE).
where TT at 42.2% vs. top 5% giving you -$24.89 on shoving (dito)

TT is losing more, but most people would say you have to shove AK and one of those reasons is so that people can't fold QQ/JJ vs. our AA/KK hands and shoving TT gives you some similar longer term benefits.


Also there's the random spew where they have K9s so your Equity/FE is way higher.

Agreed that we cannot determine V's 3! range from this small sample. I wasn't trying to claim they had a 5% range. I just used that a starting point for trying to answer, "How many 3!s should we have expected to see by now?" But a 10% 3! range doesn't have grossly different probable outcomes from only 13 hands. So we can't determine what is V's 3! range from the blinds, except for very obvious conclusions that they're likely not doing it every other time.

Agreed also that if they are 3! a small range like 5%, along with your observation of "what do we mean by 5%?", H isn't doing well with most of the hands OP cited. Especially 99.

A comment, and I think we're agreeing again, about PPT etc's classification of range vs a stereotypical LLSNL player's: most players would far prefer to raise something like AQo vs TT/99. Is this your experience as well? Despite PPT ranking AQo below those pairs.

So, what should OP do with all of this? Besides go buy a version of GTO software already and play around with it. ("Physician, heal thyself," in this case. Though WASM is sort of interesting and free.)

First, if we're non-deep I'd attempt to sit as close to this player's right as possible (which fits well with my limp/raisey method). So here we could have overlimped in 99 in LP, see him do his raise and get a bunch of calls, and then limp/reraised to go after all the dead money.

As played, I would just limp in and evaluate.

As played, I would now make a nitty fold. Our setmining odds are pretty horrible. Dood who probably knows exactly what is going on who hasn't 3bet just 3bet a tight player opening from UTG. Honestly, I'd probably fold all the hands you listed (JJ being the most borderline hand); they're not playing back at us.

Gthey'renotplayingbackatusG

Questions...

1. Is V up or down on the session? Does he have a short-term winning image, or a losing image?
2. Are you up or down on the session? Do you have a short-term winning image, or a losing image?
3. Does he seem to be playing 3B-or-fold out of the SB, or does he have some flat calls of EP raises?
4. How often is he c-betting the flop from OOP as the PFR, and what sort of sizing does he usually take, large, or small?
5. Do you think he has a 3B-fold range here?

If he's LAG, and thinks you're TAG, and he's playing 3B or fold from the SB, and you have a generally winning image, and he has a 3B-fold range, and he c-bets big, at a high frequency, I might 4B-jam here.

If he's LAG, but winning, and has some flats in the SB, and will frequently c-bet large when he 3B's pre, I might just fold.

If he's LAG, and losing, and has some flats in the SB, but will play the flop as a check from OOP more often than not, or c-bet small when he's OOP, I could go either way, but might flat call and see what happens on the flop.

Facing this action, I'd be more likely to 4B-jam the bigger our PP is, more likely to fold the smaller our PP is, and more likely to call with AJs / KQs.

I sort of treat 99, TT, and JJ the same, because if we jam and get called, we're probably behind or flipping vs two overs.

With AJs / KQs, it's dicey to jam, because we're getting snapped off by AA/KK/AK, and just flipping at best vs TT, assuming V even calls a jam that light. I'd prefer to play those hands as a call pre, and continue when we flop TP+ or a draw to the nuts.

That V has been RFIing as well "punishing" limpers at a high frequency doesn't mean he has a wide 3bet range, as others have noted, so I don't mind a fold with 99 here. You can call IP if you've noticed some sizing tells post flop, which probably would still correlate with those in a 3bet pot.

If no one else has been RFIing much, which can happen if OMCs dominate the table, then it's possible V could be light. If V's range is light, then I don't mind 4betting TT-JJ for value, but at this stack depth of 80bb obv you have to be prepared to 4bet/call.

Also I'd be taking notes on this player if he's a regular. While the term LAG is likely redundant in 2025, players who play a ton of hands and like to "captain" the table are providing you with more information than others, so I'd make a point of ensuring you witness all showdowns.

I mean, info on a few showdowns in 3bet pots for this V would help a great deal in analysing this particular hand.

Folding all of these hands is fine at 1/3. I dont get 3bet in 6 hour sessions sometimes.

I shouldn't have put the "thinking" description in the title. I realize that description has different meaning to different people. What I meant was he took the time to think about each decision. He even mentioned that he was trying to go back over the sequence of the hand. He took his time when making decisions but I didn't know how good of a player he was.

I've attempted to use GW but it hurts my brain. I'll probably try again sometime. Is there a tutorial on how to use it? I get it this is probably a leak but I just can't seem to get into it.

There has been some great discussion in this post and others which is helping me to get better. I read a lot of articles and watch instructional videos. I've gone from clueless to a winning player without the deep dive into GTO. I'll eventually add that to my study habits as I move up.

FWIW, you can win at LLSNL without any knowledge whatsoever of GTO. There's many ways to skin a cat, use whatever method works for you.

Gnothatin',justsayin'G

He doesn't need to learn GTO. He just needs to learn how to use the very basic preflop range analysis on the free version of GTO-W. Reading "a lot of articles and watching videos" isn't going to give him answers to his range questions.