Is it reasonable to use your expected hand equity against villains range as a starting point to see what hands you should 3-bet with and what hands you should call with pre-flop?

I know that there are 3 streets to come, so you have to think about whether you will realise your equity, but is it a rough guide or lower bound to the equity you should have?


Example, villain raises to 5, I 3-bet to 16, both blinds fold. So I have bet 16 to win 8 (1+2+5) if he folds and have a pot of 35 (1+2+5+16+11) if he calls.

Assuming that he folds 30%to 3-bet, my math says that I need at least 36% equity to do this (ignoring the later streets).

If the roles were reversed I would need about 31% to call his 3-bet.

So I am thinking take hands with good playability and equity of 36%+fudgeFactor, and 3-bet them. Bad idea?

I know there are good 3-bet charts, but I am trying to understand the math behind them.

Remember that you can be 4-bet and not realize your equity (or cold 4 from another player). You need 36% pot capture vs. his entire continuing strategy.

You seem to know this but just looking at equity will indicate some hands as being better than they are, and some as worse, for example offsuit aces are horrible post despite generally having decent preflop equity. Just something to keep in mind when building ranges.

Thanks for the response. I think I only semi-understand playability and realisation of equity.

I think many people would say 76s has good playabaility, you know if you're on a straight or flush draw from the flop and most other times you can fold to aggression. However, often you will end up with a gutshot straight draw and have to fold to a large bet, and never realise the equity of that gutshot.

Agree with you about offsuit aces, I hate having to call down with those when the flop has an ace and I have something bad like A9o

Another 3-betting question as this seems to be a big leak for me right now.

When considering whether to call a RFI or 3-bet, you consider the players position. UTG has tighter range than button etc. However, when considering how to respond to a 3-bet, do we just consider only our position, or do we need to consider theirs, and which takes precedence?

For example, I raise from UTG, everyone folds and Button 3-bets. Now, he should know my range is strong and chosen his 3-bets based on that. So how much does it matter where he is sitting when he is choosing his range based on my range? Instinctively I think it matters a bit based on play, but any advice?

For context, I am in the micros playing zoom. So there are some quite tight ranges for 3-betting, and if it gets to 4-bet or all-in, and you call, you are running into AA, KK, or someone on tilt. But usually the first two.