ways of combating 3 betting

toots babos · Oct 16, 2015

so recently i've jumped up in the limits and it seems players have a much better ability of utilizing 3 bets properly whereas in $3.30 and below games the players were totally clueless as to why, when or how to 3 bet correctly.

so what are ways of effectively combating 3 betting?

so far i've tried just folding alot of hands but that seems to be just bleeding chips and makes me wonder whether or not i should be 2-betting them in the first place and rather than doing that maybe just go into a fishy limp call mode preflop with those hands as calling an iso raise will be alot cheaper than potentially calling a 3 bet but it feels like that is totally weak.

another option seems to be 4 betting properly to weed out the 3-bet bullsh***ers but then should we get 5 bet we get put in even trickier spots whether to continue with the hand or not or if we get flat called we have to play a massively bloated pot on the flop which could get tricky vs some competent players.

i've also tried to just 4 bet jam vs these active 3 bettors although when doing so i know i'm just letting myself take a flip if they call so it seems like a very high variance route, one that will work from time to time but one that will also cost you alot of $$$ in bust outs when you lose the flip.

what are others thoughts into dealing with 3 betting effectively? this is an area of my game at this time that i'd like to look rather deeply into so that i can store it in the back of my head and progress on to something else.

thanks for taking the time to read this and looking forward to your responses

razzor94 · Oct 16, 2015

One thing i did when i jumped limits is thightening my range and getting rid of marginal hands from OOP. Regs at these limits especially on pokerstars have huds and they see your fold to 3bet stat which i think based on what you wrote is about 75%-85% which is way to high. Your fold to 3bet should be around 50-65% depending on the limits and the player types. Higher the limit more likely is that the opponents are gonna 3bet you lightly. So i would advize tightening your opening range, playing your position more and calling more 3bets in position. Position is a huge advantage in a 3bet pot. Check out some opening hand range chars on the internet that might help you out too.
EX:
You are on the button and you raise J9s which is a standard open. Your opponent who is a REG has 3Bet you 10 out of 50 hands you raised on the button. Thats 20%. You should probably call here or even consider a 4Bet.
They will wake up with a hand sometimes but in the long run you are gonna win much more times than lose. GL on the tables.

WiZZiM · Oct 16, 2015

raising smaller to offset losses.

realizing that if you open more you will be 3bet more, but it doesn't mean your open alone is not profitable, it just makes it less profitable.

realizing that it's a great way to get paid off for our good hands, and it's a good way to set people up.

If you are in the SB vs a known 3better try limping to see how he reacts, alot of them will be very passive vs limps, so it's a great way to attack them with passivity. This also opens up the door of being able to limp/raise his raise or jam over his raise if you are short enough.

4betting is a good way of attacking his loose 3betting, and it's also a good way to send a message you won't be messed with, but loose 3betters rarely listen to waht you are saying, so it usually turns into a big spew fest, however in MTT's spewing chips really isn't that big of a deal, so taking flips for big stacks ain't really a problem, it's more of a problem if you are on the same table for an hour blinding away achieving nothing. You wanna do it polarized vs a loose 3better, so 4bet only your very good hands, and complete bottom of range hands, you want to be flatting most of the others since there will be a good chance of taking the pot postflop and having him dominated. what ranges you use totally depend on what ranges your opponent is playing.

vs extreme maniacs folding out more of our range and playing a much stronger range is a really good idea. sometimes you just have to accept you are in a bad spot on a bad table and wait to pick him off, but be aware of your stack size and shove back with an appropriately wide range of hands.

toots babos · Oct 16, 2015

razzor94 said:
One thing i did when i jumped limits is thightening my range and getting rid of marginal hands from OOP. Regs at these limits especially on pokerstars have huds and they see your fold to 3bet stat which i think based on what you wrote is about 75%-85% which is way to high. Your fold to 3bet should be around 50-65% depending on the limits and the player types. Higher the limit more likely is that the opponents are gonna 3bet you lightly. So i would advize tightening your opening range, playing your position more and calling more 3bets in position. Position is a huge advantage in a 3bet pot. Check out some opening hand range chars on the internet that might help you out too.
EX:
You are on the button and you raise J9s which is a standard open. Your opponent who is a REG has 3Bet you 10 out of 50 hands you raised on the button. Thats 20%. You should probably call here or even consider a 4Bet.
They will wake up with a hand sometimes but in the long run you are gonna win much more times than lose. GL on the tables.

thanks for your response. i see what you are saying but with most of the new regs i am facing now not alot of them would have much HUD info on me as i don't have alot of HUD info on them

alot of these 3 bettors are doing this IP on me and 90% of the time i'm holding something fairly decent anyway, usually pairs or an AK,AQ,AJ hand so it puts me a tricky situation altogether when i just feel like they are on a re-steal the majority of the time but when i 4 bet and they call unless i hit a decent flop im a bit lost and feel like i've made a total -EV play

my current stats that i have gotten from my HUD says, 18k hands, 21/13/6.1 with a F3B of 32 which is extremely low as i've been playing with absolute fools $2.20 and below mtt's for all this time.

maybe i should get a larger sample of games in vs these regs so that their HUDs level out and see if they still are reacting the same towards me or whether i have the ability to spook them and throw them off their game to the point where i will be able to walk all over them

there's always hope

TeUnit · Oct 16, 2015

just look at the villans fold to 3b and adjust your range accordingly

maybe try adjusting the raise size if you think they wont notice

toots babos · Oct 16, 2015

WiZZiM said:
raising smaller to offset losses. yeah i've been doing this alot anyway by usually raising 2-2.15 BB's from EP, 2.5-2.6 in MP and 2.85 in LP, most of the time the 3 bets come from my MP raises, perhaps i could lower that raise a little bit to save chips in the long run?

realizing that if you open more you will be 3bet more, but it doesn't mean your open alone is not profitable, it just makes it less profitable. i used to open up alot of pots in the lower limits to frustrate players into 3 betting lightly so that when i had the hand i could stack them so maybe for these levels given the fact that i'm being 3 bet alot anyway i wouldn't need to open as many pots although by not opening as many hands they will see i'm playing a nit range and i won't get any action when i do have it, a bit of a catch 22 type of situation

realizing that it's a great way to get paid off for our good hands, and it's a good way to set people up. i suppose this is one good positive but how strong are we willing to flat and let them triple barrel and what's so strong or even "strong but easily beaten" that we must put a 4 bet out there with

If you are in the SB vs a known 3better try limping to see how he reacts, alot of them will be very passive vs limps, so it's a great way to attack them with passivity. This also opens up the door of being able to limp/raise his raise or jam over his raise if you are short enough. i couldn't agree more with this statement here, i use it fairly regularly vs known agressors and it works so well in a few ways, sometimes they have garbage and fold anyway so it's profit, other times they call you and you have them dominated providing you're doing it with a decent hand and then there's the odd time they have you dominated but you still have equity in winning the pot which happens from time to time.

4betting is a good way of attacking his loose 3betting, and it's also a good way to send a message you won't be messed with, but loose 3betters rarely listen to waht you are saying, so it usually turns into a big spew fest, however in MTT's spewing chips really isn't that big of a deal, so taking flips for big stacks ain't really a problem, it's more of a problem if you are on the same table for an hour blinding away achieving nothing. You wanna do it polarized vs a loose 3better, so 4bet only your very good hands, and complete bottom of range hands, you want to be flatting most of the others since there will be a good chance of taking the pot postflop and having him dominated. what ranges you use totally depend on what ranges your opponent is playing. ok so when we are deciding to flat our loose 3 bettors 3 bet would we ever be doing this OOP or should most hands OOP turn into either a 4-bet or fold scenario?

vs extreme maniacs folding out more of our range and playing a much stronger range is a really good idea. sometimes you just have to accept you are in a bad spot on a bad table and wait to pick him off, but be aware of your stack size and shove back with an appropriately wide range of hands. sounds like a good plan

bolded ^^^ thanks

WiZZiM · Oct 16, 2015

OOP you are much better off folding, but calling is still fine, but i would just do it with a tighter range in general, folding more, calling less and maybe 4betting a little more often, but we're talking small tweaks in the range here not huge jumps.

Latamgrinder · Oct 17, 2015

Only 2 ways for effectivly fight against an aggresive 3bettor is to either flat call him more often and/or to increase our "light" 4bet ranges, but selecting between one or the other will also depends on you postflop skills and the 3bettor postflop tendencies.

bprpm · Oct 23, 2015

I use a 3 bet... but in some cases I 3 bet light when i'm in positiion.... Positon it's very important when someone 3-bets us... In position normally we can call with hands more weak, like OJ suited, AT suited, but when we have premium we can 4 bet... But out a position we need to fold the almost hands, unless is premium, AQ suited and pairs.... For example i'm utg I open JJ, the button 3 bets i just call, but i have AK, QQ or better I'll 4 bet... For me when someone 3 bet me the first thing that i'm see is my position... remember good fold helps us to win some tournaments...
bprpm

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