Preflop Considerations; 66 on the button

6-max, 100BB effective stacks, folded to CO who makes it 4BB. I have 6-6 on the button.

Folding is out of the question. What parameters should I consider when I decide whether to 3-bet or call? Or is it always a clear 3-bet or always a clear call?

My own thoughts on it:

3-betting is never for value. It's true that I will often have the best hand in this situation, but it will usually be vs. two overcards, so I'm mostly a coinflip. Some of the time, those two overcards will be an overpair, in which case I'm a huge dog. So when I 3-bet, it's because I'm trying to accomplish one of two things:

1. Get fold equity from overcard hands that are actually coinflips vs. me. When they give up preflop, it's +EV for me.
2. Get fold equity on later streets. I will often win the pot with a follow-up continuation bet.

As an added bonus, the pot will be nicely padded the times I really do flop a set.

But all these nice things apart, it can't be always a clear 3-bet. Versus a nit, 3-betting accomplishes little except losing more and forfeiting equity when I'm forced to fold to a 4-bet. Versus an opponent who's very loose, raising is also probably not the best alternative, since I do not reap the benefit of fold equity, and so I'm really just cutting down my own implied odds. In fact, I think a pretty good argument could be made for forfeiting all fold equity in exchange for wanting to play him in position with a pocket pair, because I will get so heftily paid off when I hit a set that the 4BB I stand to win now are dwarfed in comparison.

So it seems my best case is to 3-bet a slightly careful regular type player. Someone who folds enough, but doesn't 4-bet bluff often.

By calling, though, I'm also opening myself up for being squeezed by the blinds, if either of them are aggressive. Also, I need to balance calling with pocket pairs by calling some other hands. What other hands? Suited connectors? Occasionally slowplaying AA to see if I can induce a squeeze by one of the blinds (I've never done that, but now that I think about it, it sounds like fun)?

Etc. Thoughts, please.

I have a lot of trouble in these situations.

I play a lot lower limits than most probably do and it seems like reraising doesn't get enough fold equity to the previous raiser, whether they are going to defend their raise with call or even 4-bet me it doesn't seem to be profitable unless I raise a very large amount to induce a fold. And when I get 4-bet or cold called I end up with a pot that is just too large in relation to my hand and post-flop playing abilities.

Just cold-calling is my usual line unless I know the person can fold. If I hit the set or sense weakness then I will make a move on the flop or later streets.

I don't even know if this is the right thing so i would definitely like to hear others tactics/opinions/insight as well.

I don't play 6-max but at FR I'm never (almost never) 3betting anything less than 99 because at least that way more than 1/2 of my opponents pairs are lower than mine. I realize 6-max is a lot more aggressive and the COs range here is likely huge, so against a decent player 3betting and getting the fold or initiative on the flop may make up for the times when we have to give up postflop.

I'll just post here instead of here & the AK thread since I think the ideas are related to a whole strategy thing.

I'm calling a raise in LP mostly with suited connectors, small pairs, marginal hands like KQ/AT when I'm up against more aggressive opponents, sometimes rags when I want to make a play, and to balance my play I have to call with AK/AQ/AJ and once in a blue moon I'll smooth call a big pair (esp if there's a squeezer behind). Just calling with your potential hands and marginal hands is easily exploitable since it narrows your range pretty bad.

I'm 3-betting basically my AK/AQ hands that I know are ahead, but I want FE with. I want to be able to scare out 99 on rag flop sometimes for ex. I'll 3-bet with my monsters obv. And finally I'll 3-bet light with KQ/AJ/JTs/67s/small pairs against aggressive opponents who steal a lot but who won't necessarily put in much of their stack postflop without a big hand (ie our implied odds aren't great).

So I'm rarely 3-betting with 66. It just wipes out all the value from the hand which comes from sets. If I want to make a move, I'll usually do it postflop (raise c-bet/float, bet turn/float, raise turn/bet if checked to/etc).

I don't play much 6-max either, but two comments, FP.

There's the affect on your image that comes if you chose to 3-bet 66. Like Chuck, I'm not often 3-betting 66, so if I did here then it has some bluff, or at least 3-betting-light elements to it for me. In other words, this is going to add some frequency to my 3-betting even if the hand doesn't get shown down, thereby at least hinting to my opposition that I'm 3-betting light just because of the frequency.

And you mention a nicely padded pot, but because someone has already raised the pot has been already padded. If the blinds fold you get 4 + 4 + 1 + .5 BBs = 9.5 on the flop, which isn't bad if you get a good flop. You still might need help from you opponent to get it all in, but don't you lose too many opponents by 3-betting?

Hmm, but then I guess it depends on your existing image too. If they already read you as aggressive/3-betting light then this is a more useful approach.

F Paulsson said:

Occasionally slowplaying AA to see if I can induce a squeeze by one of the blinds (I've never done that, but now that I think about it, it sounds like fun)?

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i have this play in my arsenal, and let me tell you, it is the best thing of all time (not just AA, but KK, AK, QQ as well)

I think a lot of it depends on your mettle as a player. Are you going to play the pair of sixes legitimately and be able to fend off future bets by unimproved unpaired cards? Or are you more likely to play it from a set farming perspective? I don't think the set farming would be very profitable here, because of the heads up situation and the moderate stack sizes, although the position helps a little bit. Therefore, I think you have to be willing to really play these sixes with some guts (balance on the edge of a knife, so to speak) to make calling a good option.

Reads on the player would be immensely useful, but I'm guessing they're omitted because there are none. What about the stakes? .50/1? By that point moving up the stakes, players start to get a bit tight and the fold equity gets pretty strong. Keep in mind I'm normally a full ring player, so I'm used to getting crazy fold equity from a 3-bet, including several overpairs up to and maybe including JJ. Also, I'm a maniac, so... RAISE RAISE RAISE HAHAHAHAHA!

For the record, I think that just calling can be a good play, but it gets tricky after the flop to make it worthwhile.

Someone explain to me why "folding is out of the question". Is it just for discussion's sake? Or is it really smart to play 66 for a 4BB raise or even 3-betting it? I won't babble about all the reasons to fold here unless I see an answer that doesn't suffice.

Folding is out of the question to me because stacks are deep enough that we have good implied odds to set mine if nothing else. The only way I would ever fold here is if I knew, for sure, that one of the blinds was going to 3bet and deny me good implied odds. Now 3betting 66 is a different animal and really the crux of the question is should we ever be 3betting our small pockets.

At 2$ NL, my edge postflop is so huge and players just want to see the flop so badly, that it makes little sense to 3-bet hands for fold equity. I'm almost never 3-betting this spot, unless I'm up against a good laggy player who steals a lot.

WVHillbilly said:

Folding is out of the question to me because stacks are deep enough that we have good implied odds to set mine if nothing else.

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i wouldn't really say we have "good implied odds to set mine" here. if you're calling with 66 here, it's got to be to play it for its showdown value on a lot of different favorable (and some not so favorable) boards when your hand doesn't improve. the raise comes from the CO in 6max, no indication he has a remotely big hand. when you flop your set you're actually not going to win a large pot very often at all, let alone stack him.

it's much different when the raise comes UTG, weighing their hand more towards overpairs and hands that can make TPTK. there your hand relies largely on its set value whereas here it relies slightly more on its actual value as a pair of sixes -- it's probably the best hand, and will be the best hand after 5 cards a reasonable amount of the time

combuboom said:

i wouldn't really say we have "good implied odds to set mine" here. if you're calling with 66 here, it's got to be to play it for its showdown value on a lot of different favorable (and some not so favorable) boards when your hand doesn't improve. the raise comes from the CO in 6max, no indication he has a remotely big hand. when you flop your set you're actually not going to win a large pot very often at all, let alone stack him.

it's much different when the raise comes UTG, weighing their hand more towards overpairs and hands that can make TPTK. there your hand relies largely on its set value whereas here it relies slightly more on its actual value as a pair of sixes -- it's probably the best hand, and will be the best hand after 5 cards a reasonable amount of the time

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Very interesting. I like it. I never thought to consider the position the raise was coming from.

The odds aren't that great for set mining imo. As said before, this is shorthanded and folded to CO, so there will probably only be 2 players in the pot. It isn't like FR where you not only get decent pot odds to call but very good implied odds in a multiway pot where some1 is more likely to hit somewhat of a hand. In this case your pot odds are terrible and your implied odds might not be that good either. Being deep doesn't matter if CO is likely to raise with something like QTs then lay it down to resistance. Deep stack does not = high implied odds.

Can't answer the question without stats at all. If CO is a fairly "normal" player and has a high fold to 3 bet %/fairly high steal% then 3 betting is probably best because you have position and can represent a much bigger hand. If CO is tight with low pfr/steal% then i'd probably call this and just set mine because you are more likely to be up against an overpair/TPTK and as such have much better implied odds. Same vs a maniac/LAG, since you can't really compete in the aggressiveness department vs these players and 3 betting is probably just increasing the size of the pot you are going to lose without increasing your implied odds by much at all.