3betting from the Blinds - Ranges & Villains

So I posted a hand in the HA thread where I got some constructive criticism about 3betting a villain with AJo from the SB.

The villain in question is a 24/20 who steals 35%, and folds to 3bets 65% (this differs a bit from my HA thread post as I am on my main computer and not laptop).

So the question I have for maybe some of the more advanced players (of course novice players chime in too) is what would your 3bet range be and what is your calling range be for these 2 situations:


- Villain in CO/BTN raises. Good TAG stats like 24/20 for 6max or 18/15 for FR, and he folds to 3bet 60-70% of the time.


- Villain in CO/BTN raises. Startling to look like a LAG player with stats like 28/24 for 6max or 21/18 for FR and folds to 3bet 55%.

These stats aren't anywhere near enough to give any real answers. How they play postflop is huge, as is our image, how light they stack, yadda yadda yadda.

Something to note is that against good players (ie: play well in 3bet pots, don't give up easily) in general we want to 3bet a polarized range in position, and a non-polarized range out of position (stolen from balugawhale). In other words we're only 3betting for value OOP since it's going to be a million times harder to bluff; villain can float us, raise our cbet tiny and just make our life hell. IP, we can now throw in those bluffs (67s, 22, J9s etc) because we have the power of position and can take it down more often, and we flat hands that we don't want to face a 4bet with, but that are ahead of villain's range (KQ/AJ for ex).

Against bad players who fold well to 3bets you can do polarized everywhere since they give up so easily you don't need to worry about position.

I guess I should take a more general approach to looking at this. Against the good players that play well in 3bet pots we're looking to totally avoid OOP 3bets unless we've got value hands.

Against the players that are generally "bad" (defined as fold a lot to 3bets like 70%+ as well as passive post-flop people) we have a nice range of bluffs and value hands we can 3bet with so we can be OOP (or IP) with this play.

When we have position (btn/co) we can open things up to include some bluffs because position can allow us to win the hand post-flop. If we have a hand we absolutely don't want to face a 4bet with but feel that we are ahead of their range, we flat and evaluate post-flop.

Gettin' this right?

'Good' and 'bad' are probably terms I shouldn't have used as they're pretty much just an incorrect blanket statement, but ya you've got it right.

Against ppl who fold well to 3bets and give up lots postflop:

IP and OOP: 3bet a ton of hands including bluffs. Side point: we may have to flat big pairs because they fold so often.

Against ppl who don't give up easily both preflop and/or postflop:

IP: 3bet some bluffs, and our value range, and flat our 'between' hands.

OOP: 3bet strictly for value.