Hello everyone,

As the tile says, what do you think would be optimal play in this spot vs open raise from Btn/Cutoff from solid players who open 30/40% from those spots?

10 NL, no huds site (so I don't have stats),

Currently I'm 3betting about 30% of the time with those hands (especially when suited) looking for a fold, but I'm not sure if this is good..
Calling also doesn't seem ok as I'm generally calling against worst here.

So..?

Those hands are worse than a 40% range?

No, I mean that I am calling here (not raising) against worse hands. They are better.

3-betting is standard, planning to fold to a 4-bet. You don't really want to be flatting anything in the SB vs CO or BTN, except maybe some set-mining hands in very soft games.

The issue I'm having with this is that I'm being called a lot when 3-betting (>50%) and at a loss when playing post flop against a range so wide out of position

If someone is calling your 3 bets half the time after raising 40% assume they have a range of the top 20%ish and go from there.

Visualise the calling range. Work out what it does on a few different flops and turns. With your light 3-bets, you should often either check-fold bad boards (middling cards that smack hands like JTs/99), or commit to bluffing two barrels on boards that are better for your range (Axx, Kxx, Qxx). When you're bluffing (e.g. AT on K85), you're trying to get villain off middle pairs and AQ/AJ, because they almost always call with middle pairs on the flop, but fold to the second barrel. If you actually flop top pair with AJ/KQ on Axx or Kxx, checking the flop tends to work better, as you can catch bluffs, and won't go broke when villain has you crushed.

The key point to remember is that a 3-bet pot is just a pot. It's just that ranges are narrower, so go and put some flops and ranges into Equilab and try and work out which boards give you the most equity or fold equity. If you think it will be profitable to bluff, do so. If you don't think bluffing will maximise EV, just give it up as a resteal gone wrong. Against players that fold to 3-bets about 60%+, you'll make enough from picking up dead money with the 3-bets pre-flop that you don't have to win every hand that sees a flop, so it's OK to give up some of the time when you get called.