Quote:
Originally Posted by WillMurderface
Is it a limit specific advise or are you really never 3b bluff BBvEP/MP?
One more question. Do you think A2s-A8s should be calls in this spots?
Not limit specific. My strat stuff is mainly drawn from Snowie and looking at a few solver spots, although I've not done much studying recently, so I'm a bit rusty.
I think there are very few hands that want to 3b and stack off in BBvUTG (the range is a little wider vs MP), and your "bluffing" range is correspondingly small. Your 3bet/folds are mostly strong hands with blockers to villain's very strongest hands.
e.g. I think JJ, AQs and AKo (along with AJs, KQs at some frequency) are actually 3b/folds, because UTG's 4-bet range should be heavily weighted towards AA (with some KK and AKs). UTG is mostly flatting in position (with setmines, and suited Broadways, suited aces and AQ, but even KK can just call vs a 3-bet by BB).
If you're 3-betting in the BB and UTG is flatting QQ-88 and JTs+, A5s is in pretty bad shape, because villain never makes a worse top pair, and doesn't have many combos you can overflush. You ideally need two overcards (like AQs) to his set-mining hands if you want some real equity against what he flats.
It's a very different spot to SB or BB vs BTN, as the button has so much more junk in his continuance range. UTG doesn't even start with junk, so his continuance range is
very strong.
All this said, bad players at microstakes will tend to do one of two things:
Fold too often vs the 3-bet, because they think "Villain is 3-betting my UTG open, he must have QQ+" (which would mean A5s might become more profitable as a 3-bet than a call due to fold equity), or they call too often. If it's the latter, A5s will either play very badly, or fairly well, depending on villain's post-flop tendencies. (Some people will never fold a pair of tens on K42xx, even though you rep AK+ so hard, while others can't wait to fold their underpairs as failed set-mines).
On my charts, I've got A9s-A2s as calls in the BB vs UTG 3x opens, but none of these hands are very profitable. (You could just fold stuff like A2s and A6s). Very few hands are +EV vs an UTG range, because you've got the twin advantages of being up against a very strong range, and being OOP. You just have to try and get back 2bb from a 6.5bb pot to break even.
EDIT: I just had to refresh my memory on what Snowie does in BB vs a 3x open at 100NL (it would be much tighter in the micros), and it actually flats AKo most of the time. It
does actually 3-bet A5s at 10% frequency (mostly calls), but when I built my default ranges I stuck with the more "obvious" 3-bets like JJ+, AK, AQs.
Note: I wouldn't call with all the suited gappers (like 53s) at 10NL or lower, the rake is too high to be seeing the flop very often with very weak hands.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alci
A5s flops one of the best hands it could hope for and it's folded OTT getting ~3:1
This is a pretty bad flop for A5hh, given villain's range. The good flops for this combo (apart from the obvious 432 or A55) are those with two hearts, a five, or some kind of gutter. Your equity with A5s vs UTG comes from making flushes/straights and trip fives, not from making a dominated top pair on a board where villain has all the sets, two pairs and the nut straight in his range.
This is like the "ultimate" flop for UTG. It's a terrible flop for BB's range. BB prefers stuff like 753 or 986 which miss UTG's Broadway-heavy range.