In the Micro and Lo PLO8 games on WSOP it's fairly easy to isolate to 1 or 2 opponents preflop by raising/3B. (Of course, sometimes there are just too many fish in the game and they all end up calling!)

Three factors are taken into account:

1. Position - Obv it's easier and advantageous to iso from position.

2. Opponents - If possible, I prefer to iso vs opponents who are easy to outplay postflop. Vs opponents who are better than me postflop, I tend to still isolate but play more fit or fold post.

3. Cards - Assuming conditions 1 and 2 are met, I try to iso with the following range of starters:
- 4 boadway cards lead by a suited A or K: (KT)JQ+
- Single or double suited aces w non-6 7 8 9 side cards: (A4)AT+
- Big pairs (JJ+) w at least single suited straightening side cards: (KJ)J9+

Comments?

Esp on #3: is this range really the best starters with which to isolate?

my quick read and count of your range in #3 adds to like 2% of hands. ( am I wrong?)
with you saying you must also consider your factors #1 and #2, i wonder why you are concerning yourself and us with a circumstance that accounts for maybe 1 hand in every 100?

more generally, i'd suggest you share and then discuss with the forum "why isolate" rather then 'when'. i think 'why' precedes 'when'.

and for good measure and my concluding thought, if you are set on 'when' i would think an additional factor for consideration would be effective stack sizes.

1) it's usually more advantageous to 3-bet OOP, since lower SPR mitigates the relevance of position. When close to 200bb deep you could start 3-betting wide IP.

2) sounds like an adjustment that is just increasing their skill advantage over you.

3) many high hands play very well as a flat. If you want to 3-bet non-premium hands you should try to find hands that play good HU but less good multiway. Like lets say 2357ds. Anyway, mostly you should be 3-betting for value with hands like A2xxds, AK2xs and last but certainly not the least, AAxx.

this is the only game i could play with pros on

amok is right on point. I play almost all the plo8 games on wsop and i agree.

Well I mean if you’re still interested, your ranges in #3 are waaaaaay off. Addressing another reply, 2357ds should be flatting at most stack depths and only potting if really deep and against fish.

The only time you squeeze with a high-only hand is when you can get in a significant portion of stack with AAxx. Squeezing with any type of KJJ9 type hands is burning money and would be highly exploited by decent players that catch onto it. That’s when they start 4 betting 2345r and exploiting the fact that you inevitably have to fold more than 80% of flops.

I’m going to keep this short, but squeeze hands that realize equity really well on flops. A2 hands with suits as well as connectivity. If you squeeze AQ92r, this is way -ev. A345ds is a good squeezing hand.

I'd also include hands like KK$W$W into our 3 bet range. That's going to do much better HU than MW.

High only hands are not good for heads up, and therefore for isolation. However high cards are otherwise good for heads up. Keep in mind that A2 hands are mostly multiway hands since you want good pot odds for a hand you're most likely going to be drawing to for half the pot. So for heads up I would prefer A3KQr over As236. The latter hand is better with 5 people in the pot since you'll be looking at the less likely nut flush to go with it. Heads up you don't need the nut flush to win the high, just a pair of kings might do. Isolate players who themselves raise questionable hands in early position, such as junk A2 hands or questionable low rundowns like 2346. With a hand like A2QT against such players your hand crushes, but at the same time if you're wrong you still have a strong multiway hand as well. 23KK is a good hand heads up as jdr says, but if you get called now, this is not a good hand to 3-bet if it's going 5 ways.

Do you call 4b with that holding ?

Depends what the wheel cards are, the size, the stacks. IOW: it depends. Usually folding since our hand isn't very good on flops without two wheel cards (one of which is an A) or a K. And when it seems likely 2 of the aces live in the other guy's hand, and we're just going to be doing too much flop folding. Plus even a hand as strong as KK32ds has just 34% versus Aces with any wheel card.

That all makes KKww a poor 3-bet in many situations.

Only against tight ranges IMO. KKww double suited is a favorite vs a 15% open range and really benefits from getting A2 and A3 trash out behind. This being said, this probably should not be in our 3 bet vs EMP or earlier ranges.

Not sure if it gains that much from getting trashier A2/A3 out, since opener most of the time has a decent A2. Also obv stack size matters a ton, it's very different 50bb deep vs 100bb deep.

Opener can have other things too. Plus we still benefit from the additional fold equity postflop.

The big reason why I wouldn't three bet is if the opener 4 bets all of his AA combos. Then we're kind of wasting our hand and have to fold out all of our equity.

I also like 3 betting this more when deep (200+ bb) because it's somewhat suicidal to 4 bet non-mega premiums from the PFR's POV.


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Sure, obv depending on the player and on the position.
In my experience, most people do exactly that, at least 100bb deep.
Agreed, assuming we are IP (and I guess that's what we've been discussing).