Hi guys,

I'm looking to re-work my 3bet / 5bet for the SB and BB vs the BTN and I've got a questions on GTO vs exploitative, how wide my ranges should be etc etc. For reference: I currently play 25NL full ring.

To start, my current ranges: I built them without much knowledge of which hands make good 3b bluffs so they might suck.

For SBvBTN, I 3b AA-55,AKo-AJo,KQo,AKs-A8s,KQs (10.3%) and 5b AA-99,AKo,AKs-AQs,KQs (4.52%), so a linear 3b range. My thinking behind the linear range was that I'd just have a 3b range for the spot, no flatting range. I built the range by 1) taking my observation (from some herd analysis) of the reg population's 4b / stacking range for the spot, 2) making the worst hand(s) in that range around 0EV vs a 5b range and 3) adding some 3b bluffs in a quantity that avoids me being exploitable (e.g. I defend enough versus 4bets that villain can't 4bet any two cards profitable). I picked this method up from a video I'd watched and I'm not sure if I applied it correctly / fully understood it.

Some resources (such as Matthew Janda's Applications of NLHE) suggest 3betting a lot wider than this. For reference, his SBvBTN 3b range is AA-TT,55-33,AKo-ATo,KQo-KJo,AKs-ATs,A7s-A2s,KQs-KJs,K8s-K4s,Q9s-Q8s,J9s-J8s,T8s,98s-97s,87s-86s,76s-75s,65s-64s,54s, which is 18.4%. To defend that range to a 4b (by defending 40-50% of the time, as suggested in the book), I'd need to 5b > 7.36% of hands, which is a lot wider than my current range.

So, the question: If (like me) you're playing at the micro stakes and find that villains generally don't 4bet that much, does that mean that you're better off playing a more 'conservative' 3bet / 5bet range (like mine) where you're sure that all your 5bets will be +EV versus what you expect the villain's 4bet / stack off range to be? Or is the EV lost when you stack off with hands that perform poorly versus the villain's stackoff range more than compensated for by the extra folds you get / playing against a wide 3bet flatting range with the stronger range?

Cheers,

Rob