Planning my 3bet and 4bet Pots

[Evilpopcorn]

Ok so since moving up to 25NL i have being trying to get my 3bet % up in and out of position. In my attempts i believe i am spewing a lot and its mostly due to the lack of a good plan which is strongly related to my experience.

Question 1 - When to Start 3betting

When do u start 3betting players? What i am trying to say is do u wait for say at least 20 hands on the guy then start testing the waters with a 3bet? Lets say you have 5 hands on a villian he opens BTN and you got AQ in SB. Now against a villian who i know is opening a lot of BTNs this is an easy 3bet for me.

Basically what would the standard line vs an unknow when it comes to 3betting. Also how many hands is enough to adjust the standard line if needs be?

Question 2 - 3betting Ranges

At the moment i 3bet with a polarised range in and out of position. Below would be my standard ranges.

3betting for value hands like AQ+ JJ+ to the BTN/CO and if the villian is very aggressive then his MP opens.

I am flatting hands like AJ KQ 99-TT as they play well vs a wide open, but doesnt do to well against a villian continuing range when i 3bet.

Then 3betting suited connectors, one gappers and small PPs as bluffs

I have heard a lot of talk about 3betting Axs. Is that still polarised ? Also some general thought on 3betting this hands plz.

Is this a good standard strategy ?

Question 3 - Exploitation

So the 3bet stats i have on my HUD are Fold to 3bet%, 3bet% and fold to Cbet in 3bet pot %. I also have pfr by street to see how wide villian are opening. What are ranges for these numbers?

If a villian has a low fold to 3bet% what is the best way to exploit him? I would think to losen my value 3betting range a little to say add AQ and TT, as well as losen my flatting range to his opens say adding KJ and 88. Will tend to 3bet bluff this villian a lot less.

If villian has a high fold to 3bet% what is the best way to exploit him? I would think that i would prob move some of my standard value hands into my calling range and widen my bluffing range to take advantage of him folding too much.

Question 4 - Calling 3bets

I suspect that i fold to correctly sized 3bet a little too much. So what sort of ranges are we looking to call a 3bet with. Obviously position and his 3bet% would be the decidining factors. Here i have very little idea so am not even gonna venture a guess

Question 5 - 4betting

How important is 4betting at 25NL as a bluff ? Also when do we 4bet 2.5x or 4bet jam ?

My standard at 10NL was never to 4bet except against a drooler when i had AA/KK.

At what 3bet% must villian have for me to consider to start 4betting as a bluff?

EDIT

Question 5 : Playing postflop

Ok so the SPR in 3bet pots on flop is smaller so how does this effect our cbetting frequency?

For exmaple say we 3bet 79s out of the BB to a BTN who open 25% of his BTNs and fold to 3bet of only 30%. Flop comes 2 5 5. Are we c/f this flop as a large part of his range is PP's and AK AQ that might peel one given dynamic. If we gonna be c/f 3bet pot on the flop then we need to balance that with c/f some good hands as well correct ?

[Evilpopcorn]

*bump*

Yes yes i can be a little impatient.

I read these links so far :

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...he-t77410.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ax-t86181.html

[JKDS]

been waitin till i was awake enough to read through and answer this.

Question 1 - When to Start 3betting

When do u start 3betting players? What i am trying to say is do u wait for say at least 20 hands on the guy then start testing the waters with a 3bet? Lets say you have 5 hands on a villian he opens BTN and you got AQ in SB. Now against a villian who i know is opening a lot of BTNs this is an easy 3bet for me.

Basically what would the standard line vs an unknow when it comes to 3betting. Also how many hands is enough to adjust the standard line if needs be?

Ok first,

AQ isnt an easy 3b at all. if someones continuing range is {TT+,AQs+,KQs,AQo+,KQo} then AQ only has 43% equity and we're oop and had solid equity vs his opening range. If his continuing range is wider, ie {99+,AJs+,KJs+,QJs,AJo+,KJo+,QJo}, then we have 53% equity, but that generally isnt enough of an advantage to justify being oop in a big pot. He folds alot of his range to a 3b, ya, but we can exploit that by bluffing more with hands that are bluffs.

My standard line depending on info on villain changes based on if im doing it as a bluff or for value.

If im doing it for value, then i dont need much information on villain at all. A good estimation of a villain's continuing range is like {TT+, AQ+}, so if im ever ahead of that range ill usually 3b for value without thinking to much about villain. There are some villains who continue tighter than this and some that continue wider and figuring that out will be helpful in maximizing your "3b for value" value, but its pretty safe to just 3b a tight range at micros.

If im doing it as a bluff, i need enough hands to know that he'll fold to a 3b enough to make it profitable. if we do a potsized 3b which is usually like 3x or so...i beleive we need villain to fold like 67% of the time to breakeven (i forgot the actual number, but thats not really all that important to where im going with this). With some villains we dont really have this FE, so its just a bad idea. Like 4/2's for instance. So id say ud need enough hands to understand what type of villain villain is and then start 3betting as a bluff. This isnt to say you need 1000 hands on every villain though...because you can usually tell with a reasonable degree of accuracy weather a villain plays tight enough or loose enough or whatever to justify 3bet bluffing.

Question 2 - 3betting Ranges

At the moment i 3bet with a polarised range in and out of position. Below would be my standard ranges.

3betting for value hands like AQ+ JJ+ to the BTN/CO and if the villian is very aggressive then his MP opens.

I am flatting hands like AJ KQ 99-TT as they play well vs a wide open, but doesnt do to well against a villian continuing range when i 3bet.

Then 3betting suited connectors, one gappers and small PPs as bluffs

I have heard a lot of talk about 3betting Axs. Is that still polarised ? Also some general thought on 3betting this hands plz.

Is this a good standard strategy ?

3b for value range looks ok, just be careful with the bottom part because as ive told you before, many villains arent continuing enough.

flat range looks ok too, if you're paying attention at the table though (ie, have like paragraphs of notes on each player) then you can probably widen the shit out of this when ip with hands like JTs, QTs and other shit. generally...my smaller pocket pairs are in this range as well though and not in my bluff range because of set value and the occasional value i get when villain doesnt flop anything and i can position pwn him.

bluff range is ok too. id lean towards sc's more than one gappers obviously, but the difference isnt that great. the idea with 3betting these as bluffs is that when called, they have a larger amount of equity vs hands like AA where other hands are crushed. they also hit flops a standard continuing range wont and can be very deceptive. Reasoning for Axs is that it has some value from floping flush draws and an ace, contain blockers against the stronger part of villains range making it more likely that he has a hand he'll fold, and its a hand we dont have solid equity against a continuing range with because when we flop an ace we are gonna be in wa/wb situations pretty often which kinda sucks without initiative.

hands like J7s K4s and others that contain blockers against the top of villains range but dont fair too well against his opening range are also good candiadates for much the same reasons that Axs is.

and ya, of course its still polarized. our range is value and bluffs and there really isnt any inbetween even when 3betting like Axs. Only thing is to watch out how often u 3b. Theres alot of hands u can 3b as a bluff, but if you've 3b 4 hands in the last 6 orbits you arent getting near as much fold equity.

Question 3 - Exploitation

So the 3bet stats i have on my HUD are Fold to 3bet%, 3bet% and fold to Cbet in 3bet pot %. I also have pfr by street to see how wide villian are opening. What are ranges for these numbers?

If a villian has a low fold to 3bet% what is the best way to exploit him? I would think to losen my value 3betting range a little to say add AQ and TT, as well as losen my flatting range to his opens say adding KJ and 88. Will tend to 3bet bluff this villian a lot less.

If villian has a high fold to 3bet% what is the best way to exploit him? I would think that i would prob move some of my standard value hands into my calling range and widen my bluffing range to take advantage of him folding too much.

no clue to the first paragraph.

if villain has a low fold to 3bet %, then we dont have much fold equity. this means are bluffs no longer become immediately successful (if fold to cb in 3b pot is high we can still do it occasionally). However, if they are continuing fairly wide, we can usually widen our 3b for value range to take advantage of it. If villain doesnt fold often to 3bets though, i dont really see a reason to widen our calling range...it seems silly.

if he has a high fold to 3bet% we still want our value range to be 3betting because we want money in the pot and many villains arent folding their premiums regardless of how often they fold to 3bets. and ya, widen bluffing range is good...just dont make it obvious ur bluffing wider or youll get 4b more often.

Question 4 - Calling 3bets

I suspect that i fold to correctly sized 3bet a little too much. So what sort of ranges are we looking to call a 3bet with. Obviously position and his 3bet% would be the decidining factors. Here i have very little idea so am not even gonna venture a guess

even at 25nl, many villains arent 3betting as a bluff too often and are often doing it strictly for value with a tightish range. so we want to be calling with a range of hands that has good enough equity to continue against that range. Depending on how tight that value range is though depends on what hands are in our calling range. for instance, QQ can be a prime calling hand in some scnearios, while AJs might be on in others. and ya, position and 3bet% will factor into this.

Question 5 - 4betting

How important is 4betting at 25NL as a bluff ? Also when do we 4bet 2.5x or 4bet jam ?

My standard at 10NL was never to 4bet except against a drooler when i had AA/KK.

At what 3bet% must villian have for me to consider to start 4betting as a bluff?

since most villains arent really 3betting bluff monkeys yet, 4betting as a bluff is kind of stupid at 25nl. when it is usefull, it should only be done rarely anyway so its not that important.

he needs to be 3betting and folding to a 4b alot for it to be profitable at all. what percent is a guess, like...there isnt really a standard "if his 3b% is 6 u should 4b bluff" or anything...id guess that 10% is reasonable over a LARGE number of hands though.

EDIT

Question 5 : Playing postflop

Ok so the SPR in 3bet pots on flop is smaller so how does this effect our cbetting frequency?

For exmaple say we 3bet 79s out of the BB to a BTN who open 25% of his BTNs and fold to 3bet of only 30%. Flop comes 2 5 5. Are we c/f this flop as a large part of his range is PP's and AK AQ that might peel one given dynamic. If we gonna be c/f 3bet pot on the flop then we need to balance that with c/f some good hands as well correct ?

someone who folds to a 3b of only 30% is a pretty shitty candidate to be 3b bluffing. we need them to fold alot more than that to get immediate value pre. if he folds to cbets alot then we might be able to justify this...but otherwise its a standard fold pre. and if hes folding only 30%, then his continuing range is like 17.5% of hands, which is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY wider than AK, AQ and pocketpairs.

how does c/f good hands balance c/f bad ones? the idea of balance is to make us harder to exploit so we want to make it so villain doesnt just go "lol u check i bet". By c/f'ing more hands we make it easier for him to exploit us...but by c/r'ing some hands...then we make it a bit harder and are appropriately balancing.


ok, that was alot. gl

[JKDS]

btw, everything i said is under the impression that you play FR. if you dont, then some assumptions regarding what villain's value and bluffing ranges are might not apply...the idea of how to adjust to them is still valid though.

pretty sure if someone has 3b in the double digits over a large sample you would probably profit by 4b shoving any pp if their calling range is AK,JJ+
which is why for those people it's important to adjust their call-off ranges to something like AQ+/TT+ if they want to keep 3bing 15% of the time or something

[Evilpopcorn]

Really appreciate all the effort JKDS, if you ever in South Africa let me know and your beer is sponsored by me

Yeah i play only 6 max.

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Question 3 - Exploitation

So the 3bet stats i have on my HUD are Fold to 3bet%, 3bet% and fold to Cbet in 3bet pot %. I also have pfr by street to see how wide villian are opening. What are ranges for these numbers?

If a villian has a low fold to 3bet% what is the best way to exploit him? I would think to losen my value 3betting range a little to say add AQ and TT, as well as losen my flatting range to his opens say adding KJ and 88. Will tend to 3bet bluff this villian a lot less.

If villian has a high fold to 3bet% what is the best way to exploit him? I would think that i would prob move some of my standard value hands into my calling range and widen my bluffing range to take advantage of him folding too much.


no clue to the first paragraph.

if villain has a low fold to 3bet %, then we dont have much fold equity. this means are bluffs no longer become immediately successful (if fold to cb in 3b pot is high we can still do it occasionally). However, if they are continuing fairly wide, we can usually widen our 3b for value range to take advantage of it. If villain doesnt fold often to 3bets though, i dont really see a reason to widen our calling range...it seems silly.

if he has a high fold to 3bet% we still want our value range to be 3betting because we want money in the pot and many villains arent folding their premiums regardless of how often they fold to 3bets. and ya, widen bluffing range is good...just dont make it obvious ur bluffing wider or youll get 4b more often.

Concerning the villian with low fold to 3bet. So then best would just be to move some of our standard calling hands into our value range and just have a smaller calling range of the hand that remain? For example move AQ AJs TT-JJ into the value range. Obviously the default ranges are based on what % he open from that position. Then these are adjusted based on his fold to 3bet.

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Question 4 - Calling 3bets

I suspect that i fold to correctly sized 3bet a little too much. So what sort of ranges are we looking to call a 3bet with. Obviously position and his 3bet% would be the decidining factors. Here i have very little idea so am not even gonna venture a guess


even at 25nl, many villains arent 3betting as a bluff too often and are often doing it strictly for value with a tightish range. so we want to be calling with a range of hands that has good enough equity to continue against that range. Depending on how tight that value range is though depends on what hands are in our calling range. for instance, QQ can be a prime calling hand in some scnearios, while AJs might be on in others. and ya, position and 3bet% will factor into this.

What about small pairs ? Letss assume we start the hand 100bb deep. Now i understand that we are a 7 to 1 dog to flop a set so from 10 to 1 on the stack factoring in implied odds we can call just to set mine. I think 10 to 1 is the bare minimum in position and out of position i would want more like 15 to 1.

The thing is that assumes that we are ONLY set mining with our small PPs. If we could win that hands in another way other than flopping a set then it would allow more calls. Say you know this 3bet% is quite big and he also is a one bullet monkey giving up on the turn when he hasnt hit. If you got that read then u can start also 3bet/calling with AJ AT suited connectors etc. All this assumes a high 3bet and the read he gives up on turn.

Example villina has 3bet% of say 7% and we have the postflop read that he is a one bullet monkey. You raise 22 on the BTN he 3bets to 3x and you are getting 9 to 1 on his stack. Is this now a call ?

Now does this mean that without the read we cannot assume this and have to be pretty tight in our 3bet/call range even if we know he is 3betting a wide range, but we don't have the postlop read.

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Question 4 - Calling 3bets

I suspect that i fold to correctly sized 3bet a little too much. So what sort of ranges are we looking to call a 3bet with. Obviously position and his 3bet% would be the decidining factors. Here i have very little idea so am not even gonna venture a guess


even at 25nl, many villains arent 3betting as a bluff too often and are often doing it strictly for value with a tightish range. so we want to be calling with a range of hands that has good enough equity to continue against that range. Depending on how tight that value range is though depends on what hands are in our calling range. for instance, QQ can be a prime calling hand in some scnearios, while AJs might be on in others. and ya, position and 3bet% will factor into this.

Yeah agree about using 4bet sparsingly at 25NL. Still i would like some thought when a 4bet small is good and a 4bet jam?

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EDIT

Question 5 : Playing postflop

Ok so the SPR in 3bet pots on flop is smaller so how does this effect our cbetting frequency?

For exmaple say we 3bet 79s out of the BB to a BTN who open 25% of his BTNs and fold to 3bet of only 30%. Flop comes 2 5 5. Are we c/f this flop as a large part of his range is PP's and AK AQ that might peel one given dynamic. If we gonna be c/f 3bet pot on the flop then we need to balance that with c/f some good hands as well correct ?

LOL sorry i mean to type c/r when i was talking of balance.

What i was also trying to get is our cbet in 3bet pot frequency gonna be higher than in normaly 2bet pots ?

[Kijjo]

since most villains arent really 3betting bluff monkeys yet, 4betting as a bluff is kind of stupid at 25nl

I haven'T MAStered 3Betting yet, so this has been an interesting thread for me. The above quote is the spot on for my experience @ 25NL. I play FR as well tho, so it might be different in 6m, but I haven't seen someone at 25NL that's capable of folding to a 4bet a reasonable amount of the time (this includes watching folks while I'm not in the hand. Typically the ones who should be considering it (the ones 3betting like a maniac) will just call with crap (SO YOU'd LIke to haVE A HAND) and most of the others have a strong enough hand you're going to expect a flip OR cooLER siTUATION.

***Please ignore the caps, my keyboard is on crack THIS morning.

[Evilpopcorn]

Ok so just cleared 25K hands at 25NL and i have come across a few regs who have 3bets of 7-10%. I practice table selection religiously so will never play a table with them in one of the two seats on my left.

So yes these sort of players really in the minmum at 25NL and i avoid them mostly, but lets say i wana challenge myself and give myself some experience in a very aggreesive preflop dynamic. This topic has covered 3betting very well, but still hasnt addressed 4betting for me.

So when finding the rare occasion at 25NL where a solid reg is getting out of line with 3betting what sort of hands are we 4betting (2.5x or jam?),and calling the 3bet with? What is our plan for post flop if we 2.5x it and get flatted ?

[Evilpopcorn]

Also when it comes to our flatting range OOP to a wide BTN/CO opener does it change if say there is a limper or two making the BTN/CO an isolation raise.

eg. UTG limps, aggressive BTN isolates and we got AJo in BB ? Do we play this as if the limper wasnt there and flat mostly.

[Micro2Macro]

Calling and c/r'ing flop if they auto-cbet in 3bet pots (which every regfish does) is always an option.

What type of hands do you think would be good to do this with?

[spoonitnow]

For exmaple say we 3bet 79s out of the BB to a BTN who open 25% of his BTNs and fold to 3bet of only 30%.

lol wat

[JKDS]

Concerning the villian with low fold to 3bet. So then best would just be to move some of our standard calling hands into our value range and just have a smaller calling range of the hand that remain?

yup. if he'll call a 3b wide then we can 3b for value with a weaker range. for example, if someone continues with {AK, QQ+}, then we only have more than 50% equity with KK+. but if someone continues with {AJ+, TT+, KQ+} then we have more than 50% equity with {AQ+, JJ+}. (this ignores pot equity and any postflop advantage/disadvantage and also assumes villain only calls etc)

Example villina has 3bet% of say 7% and we have the postflop read that he is a one bullet monkey. You raise 22 on the BTN he 3bets to 3x and you are getting 9 to 1 on his stack. Is this now a call ?

Now does this mean that without the read we cannot assume this and have to be pretty tight in our 3bet/call range even if we know he is 3betting a wide range, but we don't have the postlop read.

with position, we can often widen our calling range because of reads like this, but id avoid it oop. with other reads we can widen a calling range too though.

Yeah agree about using 4bet sparsingly at 25NL. Still i would like some thought when a 4bet small is good and a 4bet jam?

its the same as a 3b really, just ranges are alot tighter and easier to work with. like, suppose villain 3bets, if he only 3bets QQ+ and he stacks off with his entire range, why not 4b shove AA? but if he folds QQ,KK to a shove, then its probably better to just call or 4b a bit smaller. deciding our bet size here is mainly about maximizing what we can get and determining how he plays a range is what id give biggest consideration too.

What i was also trying to get is our cbet in 3bet pot frequency gonna be higher than in normaly 2bet pots ?

depends what he calls a 3b with and what he'll bet out with and if we bet for value or as a bluff etc.

So when finding the rare occasion at 25NL where a solid reg is getting out of line with 3betting what sort of hands are we 4betting (2.5x or jam?),and calling the 3bet with? What is our plan for post flop if we 2.5x it and get flatted ?

well...it depends again. key thing is that 3betting and 4betting are practically the same. everything u consider when 3betting is true for 4betting, its just that 3bet ranges are typically more straight forward. if he 3bs {AQ+, TT+, KQ+} but continues to a 4b with {AK, QQ+} does he fold enough to make a 4b profitable with something like A2s? how does that change if we hold 45s instead? spoonitnow recently made a irc 3b thread which shows some of the ev calculations for this and its in muzzard's thread as well.

For exmaple say we 3bet 79s out of the BB to a BTN who open 25% of his BTNs and fold to 3bet of only 30%.

ya, spoon is getting at the fact that we are going to be oop, and that the btn isnt folding enough to make this +ev by itself.

[Evilpopcorn]

Ok so feels like i am beating this topic to death with a stick but i am still a bit fuzzy on 4betting.

When i have AA/KK to 4bet or not to 4betting is easy. If i think he as lots of bluff in his range i call instead of 4betting. If i think he has a very tight range then i am more likely to 4bet 2.5x.

What i battle with is when to 4bet as a bluff and how to size it. Should you have a mix of 4bet jamming and 2.5x 4bets, or just be jamming or small 4betting ?

[Evilpopcorn]

*bump*

umm but if he has a lot of bluffs in his range, sometimes 4bing is better because he'll shove over your 4b as a bluff

[Evilpopcorn]

yeah sure vs the right villian that makes sense.

I am still not sure how i should be thinking when i 4bet as a bluff tho. Sizing and player/table conditions etc

yeah sure vs the right villian that makes sense.

I am still not sure how i should be thinking when i 4bet as a bluff tho. Sizing and player/table conditions etc

sizing: if villain doesn't fold to small 4bs and flats them, then just shove all in
if villain never flats 4bs, make them as small as possible before they start flatting

hell, 10->18 is a possible size if villain is never flatting a 4b and always jams/folds
and if you're IP that might not be bad either because they'll sometimes fold to a 1/3 pot gaybet on the flop
failing that, 1/3 gaybet on the turn
failing that, 1/2 shove on the river

(not every time, but against people who really want to put you on aces this is the strongest line)

[Evilpopcorn]

Ok great !

Now what hands should you 4bet bluff with ? Axs ? suited connectors ?