Advanced Poker 3 Betting Strategy

The poker strategy in this article is designed for cash game situations, specifically 100 big blind deep. If you create deeper or shallower stacks the ranges and concepts talked about in this article become invalid.

In a previous article I talked about the polarization of 3-bets, since then I have made some subtle changes to my 3 betting strategy and they are mainly influenced by position. The first realization I made is that a correct 3 bet strategy in cash games relies on polarizing your 3 betting range when in position and merging it when out of position. Obviously there are some exceptions and caveats to this, which I will talk about later, however, lets get into the basic philosophy.

First of all, I believe an optimal 3 bet percentage is roughly the same in position and out of position. Some people say you should 3-bet more in position than out  of position and for a while I agreed and you could perhaps skew your ranges slightly in this direction, however, in today's games, where everyone is aware of everyone's 3-bet percentage from each position, if you 3-bet too much from the BTN or CO, you will get exploited.

I also believe the optimal 3-bet percentage is roughly 7% overall, But definitely in the 6-9% range. My thoughts are that the 6-9% range is not too tight that you wont get action when you have big hands, and its also not too loose so that your 3 betting range is too weak IE people can combat you easily and profitably by 4-betting or flatting and bluffraising flops. So the percentage of hands that I want to 3 bet will not change much depending on position, what will change in general is the type of hands I will be 3 betting. If you were playing a table full of regulars and a table full of fish my 3-betting range would vary dramatically table to table. Its important to remember you need balance when playing against players who will exploit unbalanced ranges, if your playing against fish who wont, you can skew your ranges which ever way you want to best exploit your opponents.

The main reason I believe you should merge instead of polarize when you 3 bet from the blinds is because I have figured that people are more likely to call your 3 bet when they have position, and inversely, more likely to 4 bet or fold when out of position. The reason for this is obvious, most players believe that position allows them to profitably play more hands, which is  true. What is important is that we modify the hands we 3 bet so we can best counter this strategy.

Lets take a standard regular, its not uncommon for him to fold to a 3bet 65% of the time when 3 bet from the blinds vs his CO raise. However, take the same player and you are CO and he is UTG+1, he is likely to fold 75-85% of the time to your 3-bet. And the times when he does play back, he is most likely 4 betting for value/bluff and flatting a very small percentage of the time. For that reason, I believe you should be 3-betting a range consisting of hands you want to get allin preflop, in this spot it might be JJ+ AK+ for example and a range of hands that you cannot flat profitable so decide to 3 bet.

Another thing I have adjusted in my game is changing the hands which are “bluff” hands that represent the hands i'm not 3-betting. Previously, I advocated using hands like offsuit connectors which you cannot flat profitably, for example 56o. Now I advocate just using the best hands you cannot flat profitably, so for example if you cannot flat hands as strong as QJo and ATo in position, add those to your bluff 3-betting range, they will have more postflop equity than hands like offsuit connectors, even if they are dominated a portion of the time, we are not looking to 3-bet JQo or ATo and automatically stack off when we make a pair in position, most likely our hand will fall into the medium strength category and we will be looking to pot control depending on board and likely get 1-2 streets of value. As a comparison, to say 89o, I cannot flat it profitably but a hand like k8s I cannot flat profitably either, and k8s will have more equity in a 3-bet pot than 89o, so I choose the k8s type hands. However, in game, things are a bit more situational and I may actually decide to 3-bet 89o and k8s based on my opponent and his figured playback range. IE everything changes in poker, some players may be 4 bet happy and some may fold to 3 bets alot, against the player who folds to alot of 3 bets 'im more likely to be 3 betting 10%+ in position and the player who is 4 bet happy i'm more likely to 3 bet 5%. Obviously, everything depends in poker and these rough guidelines should be taken as a pinch of salt.

Out of position from the blinds, I will frequently 3-bets hands like AJ+ KQ+ whereas im more likely to flat the AJ and KQ type hands in position because villains will frequently 4-bet or fold out of position, so the value of AJ becomes worthless if your opponent is never flatting and your planning on folding to a 4-bet. However, out of position, as previously stated, your opponents calling range will increase, now you can definitely 3-bet hands like AJ and be happy bet bet shoving it on an ace flop because your opponents calling range to your blind 3-bet is every Axs. Same applies for KQ on a Q high flop, your opponent will be calling hands such as QJ QTs and even Q9s preflop, so you essentially have the second nuts most of the time.

All of the advice and strategy above applies to regulars, everything changes when it comes to fish, the reason you should not polarize when playing fish is because in general, they will call alot more 3-bets, even out of position. Basically, what you need to do now is just open up your value 3-betting range and never 3-bet with “bluff” hands. Basically, what you are doing is getting to the fish before the other players can, IE you are isolating the fish with your AT QJ KJ KQ AJ (Basically anytwo broadway) instead of flatting and allowing another player to do the same. You can also play with 3-betting them to a smaller amount to induce even more calls from weaker hands out of position.