Polarized vs Linear 3B'ing from villain

ISF wrote in an HSNL thread that

"If someone is 3betting polarized (from the blinds) you would be more inclined to 4bet pre (On the button with AA). If they are 3betting linearly you'd be more inclined to flat."

I am assuming this is b/c if someone is 3B'ing a polarized range we do not want them to get there with their garbage postflop. But then I thought it might not be that bad of an idea if they are habitually c-betting their polarized range OOP or if they were spewy, so wouldn't a lot depend on that?

Also if someone is 3B'ing linearly doesn't that mean their range is strong and we should aim to be getting more money into the pot where our 4Bet range is theoretically at our weakest (ie- OTB) even if in fact we are obv at the top of our range with this hand?

excuse the stupidity, but whats a linear range?

im retardeded with this also

Originally Posted by rpm

excuse the stupidity, but whats a linear range?

Well I took it to mean the opposite of polarized which would mean that the villain is 3-betting only strong hands as opposed to adding weaker hands to balance...

I wish I understood this well enough to reply...

I would have thought that if someone is 3betting a mostly strong range (ie. adding hands like 99) that this would be done with the intention of shoving wide over a 4bet. Whether this is called a linear range or not idk and the conclusions I reach are the exact opposite of ISF, which is a bad sign...

adding hands like 99 is widening their value 3b range, probably still means they 3b stuff like 56s or w/e. But I believe linear means they also 3b stuff like AT, JTs, along with the 99. And those hands wont 5b over our 4b too often, so we call with our hands that dominate all their 3b instead of making them fold those.

3 betting linearly means 3 betting strong hands for value only such as AJ+, 99+, KQs, etc.. with no hands like 65s or A5s. I believe the reason to flat call with AA against this type of player is we want them to hit dominated one pair hands. If we flat a 3b with AA against AQ and the flop is Q high, we can win a lot.

However, against polarized 3 bettors, (QQ+, AK, 45s-98s, A5s, etc..) they won't put a lot of money into the pot postflop with their 'garbage' unless they hit it hard, so we are unlikely to win a big pot. And if they have a hand at the top of their range, might as well get it in pre with AA. I think thats what he meant.

well I'm still kind of confused because in my experience players who are 3 betting "linearly" are likely doing so with the intention of shoving light. It's a fairly basic adjustment when players are 4bet bluffing too much.

I guess for this to be correct, we have to have established that we are calling 3bets very wide (and not often 4betting/ almost never 4bet bluffing) so villain 3bets/folds strong hands like AJ. In this exact scenario I completely agree with calling with AA and anything else is a pretty big mistake. Perhaps it is just my image and the fact that I don't usually call 3bets all that often in FR, meaning that I rarely find myself in that spot and find the advice confusing.

Why don't we just say polar and non-polar?