hey guys,

I am a bit lost here. I have almost always been the type to call a 3 bet if its not more than like a pot raise PF with a low or medium PP.. given that we both have full stacks of course. But lately, after seeing some videos and other "solid" players play, they seem to raise/fold these pairs PF mostly and everytime OOP. Which is correct here? I mean, i guess i could see calling these 3 bets could be a leak.. maybe, but folding them seems like more of a leak. It just seems that you are losing so much equity with them. Most money in NL comes from situations like hitting set vs top pair or over pair, etc. You completely take this option out of your arsenal. So, any thoughts and or comments and suggestions.
I just had my first losing month of my poker career so maybe i am just being paranoid.. but i gotta figure out whats going on. lol

No, most money in NL comes from people like you calling with garbage preflop hoping to hit a miracle flop.

You should probably post specific hands along with any reads you have on villain in those hands. I don't think situations are as cut and dry and you want to make them.

OOP i almost never call a 3bet with a small pair but in position i do occasionally. Heres something to think about. Being in position, would you rather call a 3bet from a player who has a very tight 3-bet range or a player who has a very wide 3bet range?

uhh dude.....

a) no need to be a dick
and
b) i been playing for a living for over 5 years now and always been a winning player with the exception of last month. And when i say playing for a living.. i mean supporting wife and kid, and new house, etc. So dont assume that me asking about 3bet pots with pairs in anyway reflects how good or bad I am.

But thanks for your insightful information

You are right my friend about this... which i have done before. I was mainly just asking whether or, generally speaking, calling 3 bets is a + or - ev play. I know some of these call/folds are going to change based on opponent, but for the most part.. most players i see either always call the 3 bet or always fold to it.
.. beats me.... lol

I think not calling OOP is good cause its hard to extract the value you need.
As far as your "something to think about": depends on the villain. But if its a tight range, you know you will be able to set mine and expect to get paid off big most the time by QQ+.
However, if its a wide range, your PP is going to be good frequently and you can play the pair itself for some value.

I find it hard to believe that someone who has been playing for five years and has just had his first losing month would struggle in situations such as this.

didn't say i was struggling with situations like this. I am simply asking what other players seem to think is best. I am way + in these situations. But i am seeing more and more people folding to 3 bets even IP which is interesting to me. I am simply trying to figure out if what i am seeing is widespread or just what i been seeing lately. Should never be content just being a winning player. Can always be looking for improvement and leaks, etc.

oh and furthermore, whether you believe that i am a winning player or not doens't change the fact that I am. So dont see how that is relevant.

I guess i dont see why there are so many people in this forum who think their **** doens't stink and they are the baddest asses on the planet. I see more attacking and ridiculing on these forums than I EVER see help or useful advice. Baffles me.

I really feel like vs a player with a very wide 3betting range your better off 4betting or folding. The reason for this is when you call a 3bet in pos w/ 66 and the flop comes 853. He bets you call and he ships any turn card what do you do? Now you have a huge guessing game for your stack and if you call he either has you crushed and your drawing to 2 outs or your right but he still has 6+ outs. I mean its really a spot where smart aggressive players are going to make you do a ton of guessing. and idk about you but id definitly rather be the one making them guess than me having to guess.

Also notice i said smart aggressive players not lagtards who dont asjust.

i agree with you and thank you very much for being respectable and insightful. I appreciate players who keep these threads what they are supposed to be.
When i said you can play your pairs for value agsaint a wide 3 betting rage.. thats what i meant. 4 betting is a good optn, so is folding. and against weak/tight players postflop, you can play for value that way as well. however, most playes 3 betting aren't weak tight postflop, but there are some. lol

I was just stating my opinion, sorry if you took it personal or it does not fit you reality.

200NL, full stacks vs unknown

You open MP to 7 w/44
BB raises to 24
It's 17 to you, giving you 2:1 immediately, with 10:1 implied odds, so you need to stack him ~70% of the time when you hit a set just to break even. It's pretty much impossible to do any further calculations, but if we're generous and say that the times you win the pot by bluffing/checking it down approximately cancel the times when you get all the money in but are either behind to top set or get sucked out on by a combo-draw/overpair/whatever. Bear in mind that raising a flop like J85hh as a bluff will require an unreasonable success rate when opponent is unknown to be profitable.

So you have to hope that 70% of the time you hit your set he has an overpair/TPTK/spazzes out, which he doesn't. Therefore you lose money.

Unless you are getting 3-bet constantly by the same person, it's not a problem to just fold these small pairs. If you are opening these pairs and feel like you are not doing so optimally, adjust. You ARE allowed to fold 33 UTG if you are OOP v tough players. You ARE allowed to min-raise the button then perhaps peel a flop if he raises to $13, as your implied odds are infinitely better. Against a confirmed lite 3-bettor these small pairs are reasonable hands to 4-bet big/call if he is also prone to 5-bet with AJ/whatever, or 4-bet small/fold if you feel his 5-bet is real strength.

As Confucius said, 'If you fold 30% of your pot-sized opens but take the blinds with 70%, you are breaking even.'

very nice. and that does make sense to me. I would still consider calling these 3bets way more IP however as it easier to stack them or get good value. You did lose me on needing to stack them 70% of the time though.. how did you get that. Sorry, i am tired as hell and really should be in bed by now. thanks again...

Just fold in these spots dude. Your trying to outplay people in the wrong spots.

well in these spots i am really not trying to outplay them much. i am more looking to set up on flop and stack em for a big pot. Is this the wrong approach?

But.. you do make a good point, i do try to outplay a bit too much in other spots however.. lol And you are right, i shouldn't

if he 3b light, and you play fit or fold on flop with low pp, he is going to own you since he wont get it in near as often to make it profitable.

you are all right. I just miss good ole days when i could play on party poker... where there, you all would be wrong. haha. Easiest games in the world there and you could get their stack every time with a set. anywyas, i appreciate it guys. thanks a lot.

for just 100BB stacks and against a very frequent 3better (say co vs bu or bu vs bb situations) i like to just jam them in
i dont like 4bet bluffing with 100BB stacks (as once ur opponent is only slightly capable of 5bet shoving light, ull often make mistakes in folding) so i jam kinda light (obv my monsters, too)
ull have good fold equity and flip against like 50% of their range (combination wise) (and suck out on the rest )

edit: and calling ip/oop with 100BB and a small pp hoping to hit a set / outplay them is kinda -ev imo
this all changes when stacks get deeper!

The odds of hitting a set are ~8:1, so you need to make 8x the amount you have to call everytime you hit your set to cancel out the 8 times you call, miss and fold. Generally speaking he's either going to put all his stack or very little of it in post-flop, because the stackot ratio is so small.

So if we stack him everytime we hit a set, and lose our 17 everytime we don't, we make:

(208 (stack+SB+our raise) - 8 x 17) / 9 = $8 on average every hand. And this is the best case scenario.

But we only stack him F of the time, so the equation is:

(208 x F - 8 x 17)/9 = 0 for breakeven.

We find F = 65%, so I was a tiny bit off.

So it's hard to make a substantial profit, but easy to lose money unless your opponent is a monkey/likely to stack off with less than TP. If he has AK, if you hit your set then he'll only make a pair like 20% of the time. Granted he will often put a c-bet into the pot even if he doesn't intend to stack off, but it is still unlikely that he will come close to stacking off nearly often enough to make a call profitable.

And even though he's not going to want to stack off very often, it's still going to be very difficult to bluff him profitably, as you will have 2 outs at most when called, and you will have to be very precise when picking your spots, which is not easy/possible against an unknown. You don't know how much bluff equity you have, and it will often be very little against a tight range.

You can't play these pairs for value because you can never really bet to protect them and therefore have to give any random hand 5 cards to hit a pair that beats you.

Not many opponents are even slightly capable of 5-bet bluffing, and it's not really an assumption you can ever make. But it still can be better to 4-bet shove rather than raise/fold if it makes them fold hands like AQs, 99 that they may otherwise have shipped it in with themselves.

If you shove small PPs and AK then this is a balanced enough range, you can still 4-b/fold with bluffs and 4-b/call w/QQ+. If you have AK in your range then they can no longer call with AT knowing that they'll be flipping, or 22 knowing that they'll be flipping.

its not really necessary for them to 5bet "bluff" (ie 45o) but to widen their range to sth like 88+ AJ+ KQ (because they know i 4bet "lighter"/bluff against them, and most light 3 bettors will know that tbh)

quote from the leggo forums:
[...]they would rather 4bet bluff by shoving against people who will fold 77/AJ as opposed to 4bet small and open themselves up to a 5bet bluff.

The most profitable play comes down to which is larger, the opponent's shoving range if you 4bet, or your opponent's calling range if you 4bet shove. Then you have to take into consideration pot odds and frequencies.[...]

meh ok... i know this forum is for like 1/2 etc but lets assume NL25 or NL50 for a minute. These players for the most part are just incapable of 4 betting and 5 betting etc. SO back to small and medium PPs now. Are you still suggestion calling raises with these pairs is a bad ideas against these players. OR, just calling 3 bets is a bad idea.
Furthermore, if i am IP should i be flatting with these pairs against these players or 3 betting them. I just dont like 3 betting risking they come bck over the top and i have to let it go. Then i misses any chance to win a big pot from these goofs.

When you guys are making calculations on how often you have to stack the other guy, remember that even when you get all the money in w/ a set vs AA you lose about 10% of the time.

Board: 5h 2d 9c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 10.505% 10.51% 00.00% 1872 0.00 { AA }
Hand 1: 89.495% 89.49% 00.00% 15948 0.00 { 55 }

With 100bbs stacks it is -ev to call a pot size 3bet with NO intentions of bluffing when you miss.

If you are playing fit/fold... then fold.

As stacks get deeper you can play these and vs players that have a small 3bet % it gets even better.

The trick is that just because a player 3bets allot it makes it worse to call pre. It then becomes better to 4bet/fold.

I grew up playing the deep games (200bbs) and I call any PS3bet in any position.

100bbs is different/