The How and Why of preflop 3-betting; when to do it and when not to do it in the micr

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MakeUcryalot

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So I havent posted here in a very long time, but I wanted to post a general strategy/theory on 3-betting. In an earlier post I mentioned that I have a friend that is a pro poker player who has finished top 100 in the wsop main event and that everything I know about poker I've learned from him. So here is my entire philsophy on 3-betting at the micros or any stake.

1) what is a 3-bet and how much should it be?
A 3-bet as I'm sure you know is the third bet of any betting round. So say utg raises to 3bbs and hj reraises, that is a 3-bet. There are two reasons to 3-bet; for value or for a bluff. Ill go into this more later but it is important to note. The typically accepted formula for a 3-bet is size of the pot x2, sometimes a bit more of sometimes less (based on various factors such as player types, players at the table, position, stack sizes, the cards in your hand and the actions of the villains before you). As an example;
6 handed cash .2/4 game, in btn position you wake up to KAs. Utg raises 3 bbs and folds to you making the pot. .18 cents. A good 3-bet would be between .32 cents and .40 cents. Id personally lean closer to .40 cents owing to the value of the hand.

A lot of people in this position would 3-bet maybe 18 cents or less. Best case in that scenario is it folds to utg with pot being .36 cents giving them great odds to call with a lot of hands they could be raising from utg. Worst case scenario is that everyone else who also has good odds to call limp in. This is how bingo happens. You dont get to complain about bingo when you can kick them out of the hand completely.

2) when to 3-bet; specific examples of correct situations to value or bluff 3-bet:
Value- you should always 3-bet with premium hands unless you have a SPECIFIC REASON why you shouldnt:
e.g. it folds to a lag fish in sb and you're in bb, you have KK and he raises 2.5 bbs. While this would normally be a 3-betting situation, if you believed that he was likely to raise into you every street it might make more sense to flat here instead.

A typical 3-bet value range is traditionally AA, KK, KAo ane KAs at a 9 handed table. At 6 handed all of those are included, in addition to (depending on position, player type, stacks, etc) QQ, JJ, AQs, KQs and maybe even TT and 99 (in certain situations).

Bluff 3-betting- this is a tricky one to understand and you really need to know and understand how to use observations, such as;
-identifying and knowing how to play against the different player types
-having enough data to know how often that particular player has folded to 3-bets in similar situations
-knowing which players you should fold a 4-bet to, with which hands, and which ones you should call
-knowing the players likely range based on position and past hands. Any other data you can observe or receive (information = power)
-Stack sizes (you should hopefully have at least 90 bbs, and so should the villain you are trying to bluff; if villain is a LAG fish with less than 40 bbs theyre more likely to shove their stack, which is a good reason not to bluff)
-YOUR table image. Never try to bluff in micros if you look fishy
-POSITION!!!! I literally cant say this enough. Position and knowledge of the hands that could be played from them should be the first thing you learn and the first thing you master.
You need to know and learn to master all of these things in unison to know how to do anything I'm even talking about.

When I 3-bet bluff i do it to punish the villain for being in position. What i mean when i say this is, lets look at a common spot we find ourselves in;
6 or 9 handed cash game folds to player in btn position who raises 3 bbs. Sb folds to you at bb and you look down at A4o. Knowing that the hands you can play from btn position are usually weaker hands like suiter connectors, ace rag off, 22, 33, k9s, etc we know that villain likely isnt too attached to their hand (unless they are a maniac, at which point you probably shouldnt be trying to bluff them). A disciplined player wont usually call a 3-bet with the hands that they raise from btn for a steal, thus giving us an oppurtunity to steal the dead money that the btn and sb put on the table. Example:

.5/10 cent 6 handed table folds to TAG reg at btn who raises to 2.5 bbs (.25 cents). Sb folds and you have 67s. Pot is now .40 cents. If villain knows you are a TAG or at least doesnt know you're a fish, a .73-.85 cent raise might make villain fold entirely, earning you 4 bbs in dead money. The idea is to bet more chips out of position to punish the villain in position for calling.

I tend to 3-bet bluff with hands like suited connectors (rarely and only if villain is proven exploitable), and especially hands where its pretty likely you have the best hand preflop such as btn range v.s. A2o+, 22+, K9s+, JTs, etc. The range is polarized based off of the climate of the table and becomes wider for tight tables and tighter for loose tables. Never forget that collecting dead money is an essential part of poker

I hope that I helped some people maybe understand a bit more about 3-betting and in what situations to do it in. As always I'm fully open to criticism from anyone, and I'll do my best to get back to you. I hope you enjoyed reading.
 
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sarniack

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Nice post. I have one thing that I want to discuss though. You wrote that you 3bet bluff based on many factors. So while strong reads on player patterns should be a factor in some cases, I tend to think about 3betting range as range that balances my value 3bet range. Don't you think that when you almost always value 3bet with very good hands in certain spot, but then you choose bluff 3bet hands based on your analysis of a player more than on balanced range, it will be hard to have a good balance?
 
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braveslice

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I think that an argument can be made that being balanced has no meaning in nanos and balanced enough play follows IF villain adabts to your style and you counter that. Second level or something like that. It's good to practise balance a bit anyways, maybe needed in NL16+

Also because 3bet value ranges sometimes are stupidly tight there is so few hands used for balancing that you would lose ev compared to larger amount of bluff heavy range.
 
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sarniack

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I think that an argument can be made that being balanced has no meaning in nanos and balanced enough play follows IF villain adabts to your style and you counter that. Second level or something like that. It's good to practise balance a bit anyways, maybe needed in NL16+

Also because 3bet value ranges sometimes are stupidly tight there is so few hands used for balancing that you would lose ev compared to larger amount of bluff heavy range.

Good point ;). BTW. I am of course not saying that you should 3bet bluff any villain for the balance, even if for instance you know that villain will always call. Stack and positions are of course key factors to consider as well. I was just wondering what should be more significant: player reading or balance.

Can't wait for other opinions :)
 
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