say you are playing a person who you view as an average TAG. he doesn't value bet that thin, hes not really tricky, he might 3 bet you with 65s every now and then (but he also TRIES to balance and have a nonpolarized range) and cbets an average amount. he thinks you call AND bluff too much but hes not as good at adapting to this as he should be. theres no important dynamic, but feel free to add conditionals to your answer.

you are 150bb deep, you open to 3x on the button, he makes it 11 from the BB (we are HU). do you call with J5s? 86o? A7o? disregard the possibility of 4 betting. do your answers change if you are 200 deep?

this is something that everyone can answer i think because it doesnt really give up too much about your game.

Depends on if he is polarizing his 3betting range from the blinds (ie not 3betting 1010 etc, but bluffing a lot) and if he can double barrel effectively in 3bet pots.

I run into this situation a lot and I've found that the vast majority of the time its better to fold or bluff 4bet. I do, however, do something non-standard once in awhile so I get noted so that no one ever folds an overpair to me in a 3bet pot 200bb+ deep.

Calling seems terrible. Obviously you should be folding to 3 bets a with a certain frequency and that frequency should be dictated by your hands with ****ty equity. You should also 4 bet bluff and 4 bet value bet with certain frequency and these hands are perfectly fine for some 4 bet bluffs. Especially since it makes a 5 bet shove awkwardly large for them. Why flat with 86o when you can wait to flat with 86s if flatting there is a big part of your game. (And conversely, why waste the equity of 86s)

if im on slight tilt i call J5ss

decent tilt ill call 86o

raging tilt ill call A7o

u shouldnt if u make a profit by calling, which was the question op posed. when will this fad of spouting nonsense about GTO that isnt remotely applicable to the question end?

On a scale of 1-10 how big of a level is this?

call with 58o and get it to showdown to mess with his head obv

not a level at all. dont be a prick

it depends who has the match flow in their favor. With the flow in my favor i call with J5s and 86o a decent amount. A7o not really ever.

If the flow is against me and we have no history, i try to tighten up, though its usually a losing battle between my right hand vs my brain in a "call button civil war"

sauce and irock-
how would calling with 86o ever be better than calling with A7o?

EDIT: didnt see stack sizes. i think the deeper you get the better 86o is compared w/ A7.

I disagree w/this

why? A7 has a bigger RIO problem, no?

how so cowpig? seems like 86 has way more implied odds and would be better in a deeperstacked spot and A7 has way more reverse implied odds and would be better in a shorterstacked spot.

I don't find that's so much of a problem when you're better than villain postflop. Plus, 86o doesn't play well postflop at all imo. For example, hitting 2pr with A7o is much more likely to make you mucho dinero than hitting 2pr with 86o.

edit: I think the RIO problem A7 has only applies a lot in the 100bbs-ish range.

never call with J5ss and prolly call too often with 86

Ok. Fold, fold, fold.

yeah, im pretty content to fold/fold/fold and i defend vs 3bets more often then most. i'd probably 4bet a decent % with A7 though.

on the other hand, you can make straights with 86o, and trip 8s or 6s is a lot better of a hand deep against villain's 3betting range than trip aces. domination by bigger aces is a big problem regardless of stack sizes, and imo, contributes to 86o actually playing better deep IP than A7o. we make fewer mistakes with it, and have better disguised hands.

all that said, i'd have to be deeper to consider defending these hands to a 3bet... probably at least 200bbs deep

Like you might know how to play poker, and you might be good, but you really don't understand it.

Obviously if you profit by calling, you should call. That's a tautology in poker.

Why would you be profitable? Because your range matches up well against his range.

How do you evaluate if your range matches up well? By understanding your opponents range.

How do you evaluate your opponents range? By understanding what he thinks about your range, and what he is likely to do in response.

Balancing your range allows you to best take advantage of your opponent, and gives him the least opportunity to take advantage of your range. And where do you think the concept of a balanced range comes from? Game theory. It doesn't mean that you are trying to play GTO or should play GTO. I don't think I used the term GTO. But game theory is the fundamental idea behind balancing your range and if you don't understand that, you don't understand poker.

Also, game theory is more important in preflop situations than anywhere else because you're in preflop spots so often that balance becomes that much more important.

Fold,fold,fold. Immediate odds are there but RIO is making calling bad.

agree with this


I'd only call light if I knew where my edge would come from in a 3bet pot.

im not sure u can really answer this question any better than sauce has.

nah, its really just basic poker knowledge thats been around forever. People read these books about game theory and think they've discovered some strategic revelation but its pretty much what everyone half-decent has already been doing.

Game theory is merely the study of games. Its not some new and specific strategy that can be used in itself.