Picking raises in 3 bet pots
Posted by Stayinschool
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Stayinschool
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Mid Stakes
Picking raises in 3 bet pots
Say we open in MP, SB 3 bets and we call and see a JT5 flop with a FD. What are our raises here? Value hands would be JJ, TT, 55, JTs. However should we raise all of them or trap some JJ hands? What about semi bluffs, (This is where I struggle most)? We have plenty of straight and flush draws to choose from. If you were to raise a SD do you prefer KQ or 89. What about a FD, do you prefer the nut FD or something like 67s. What do you do with a big combo draw like KQ, Q9, 89 with a FD. I really struggle picking semi bluffs here. obviously should do some mix of calling and raising with them but not sure how to put each one into each category
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I could be wrong, but I don't think this is actually a board IP should be raising often.
Some type of strategy involving raising top two, maybe KQ with a backdoor flush draw, 98cc, but flatting most of your range. Some of this depends on how often you're flatting AK, I believe. If you have AK here more often, I think a wider raising strategy may become more tenable?
As always, so much depends on how you build everyone's ranges and bet sizing on the flop. Stack sizes too :).
In before smarter people than I respond ;)...
The best thing you can do for your growth (which is more important than this hand) is to clarify what's causing you to ask this type of question. If it's b/c you're attempting to play balanced (just my best guess), your epiphany is probably going to come from realizing that your environment is not incentivizing you to play nearly as balanced as you think. This can help point you in the best overall direction, since your goal should really be to make the most +EV decision with every hand in your range. In order to get real answers, you likely need better vision over your environment.
I mostly play in the bovada zone games ATM so being balanced is going to be important.
How do you figure?
... we don't know if we are vs a fish or a nit so we have to maintain some balance.
This is actually not true, Bovada Zone is ripe for exploitative play. It doesn't matter if you dont know if this guy is a nit or a fish. You can study the player pool figure out what the average player is doing - figure out how to exploit the average player and go nuts. You can get away w/ so much because no one can get a read on you, not even session reads. The key is to study the pool and pay attention to stack size reads, and bet size reads, which again comes down to study your hands. If you play primarily zone then you have a good amount of hands (or soon will) use them. Don't try to play balanced in a notoriously unbalanced environment.
sup bruh :D Nick comes out and friends follow! :D
I'm not sure if it supports bovada HHs, but hand2note is the nuts for studying population tendencies. It has a function called range search that puts together all hands from players that match filters you choose to one alias. It's very easy to find the population's range construction with different bet sizing etc with the software. Hand2note is also 10x faster than HM2, so even doing work with larger databases works flawlessly and is very quick.
Obviously we can adjust to the player pool I said that, however, the pool is still diverse enough that we still have to be balanced in some spots, like I said i'm not balanced everywhere and usually do things like under bluff. However I still maintain some balance. For instance if I 3 bet and go bet bet shove, I mostly have value on bovada exploitably, but I still have some bluffs.
I also assumed that @ zone balance was key, my results suffered for that assumption.
I mean not total balance, you should adjust to the player pool. I'm sure I under bluff from GTO and take some exploitable value lines.
However, in this situation, when we raise flop we are going to get folds, maybe not as many folds as we should but when people are still folding a decent amount I want to have some bluffs.
Im interested in your guys thoughts on the actual question, I think it is a pretty good one.
I do agree with you about playing exploitative poker tho and using pp reads to find were the best exploits are.
Personally I hate this variant of poker, maybe played two zone sessions in my life. To fast for me, no time bank, only pp reads and stack size reads, and a very low ceiling as were you can progress too. So when you are grinding 200nl zone your building bad habits for moving up to 400nl by rushing through spots with no time bank. Obv my opinion....
As far as Op's question, we can defend our FD's very nicely IP by calling. Will keep the SpR higher for turn and we can always bet them when checked too on later streets.
We only really rep 8 combos (sets/TwoP) in our value region, 55 I fold allot you might not...
Not to mention OP three bettor has the range advantage and uncapped range here.
If I was going to raise FD's it would be the ones with no SD value; if board was JdTc5d AdQd, KdQd, AdTd all seem fine they are close to a slight underdog vs AA.
I also think AK with the a diamond would work very nicely as well. The super strong hands are more like value hand vs bluffs, were never folding a hand like AdQd AdTd etc if we get raised right?
I think it still boils down to a strictly population read, for me the only reason to approach balance if the population is playing very well in a certain spot; so I would ask myself, are they folding too much vs a raise? If the answer is yes, they I am going to raise a ton of bluffs and very few value combos (maybe zero value combos in zone, because again they can't know I have zero value). If the answer is no, then I ask Do they call too much? If the answer is yes then I will raise very few bluffs (again @ zone maybe zero bluffs) and a ton of strong hands and thinner value hands. If they answer is they defend very reasonable with strong frequencies then I will try to approach balance. But even then it might be unnecessary because you need to see how they respond on future streets, if they call a solid frequency on the flop but fold too much OTT then you can still go very bluff heavy. I would bet my house on the fact that the average bovada zone player is never playing balanced enough across all 3 streets in any spot to incentivize you to play balanced flop strategies.
If your bound and determined to be balanced anyways because you don't think it's true that you can exploit a complete unknown single player by using average player tendencies then I think there are tons of videos and tons of posts about building a balanced range, you just think of your value hands and then bluff some of your weaker showdown draws to balance that out (or at least that is what I would do).
I think it is a pretty scary decision to decide to step on a full exploit train and actually fire away and know what it means, basically if a guy is over folding by a non-marginal % then you can raise or bet ALL your bluffs, every single one of them and print money until he realizes it and adjusts. Bovada zone......they can not realize it or adjust, they have a hard time recognizing it @ Bovada regular tables @ Zone its impossible.
Full disclosure: I still have a hard time always following through on the exploits I know (or at least think I know) to be good and true @ all times. When running bad I often fall back into the balance trap.
@arizona that is very interesting!
I'm still getting the hang of things with Zone, but there are a couple of aspects that I find conflicting.
PP seems to overfold on early streets, but equally unbluffable on later streets.
This sort of makes sense if they're folding so much on flops that their turn range is very strong.
So basically, when they call we can shut down with our air and keep v-betting our nuts?
At times the pool seems unbluffable, but I guess that makes sense if I'm bluffing into stronger ranges.
I dont think the pool is unbluffable on later streets although if you bet too big on the flop you sometimes narrow their range down too much, and "let them off the hook" on later streets because now their range is much more natural. I would say if you feel their range is too strong OTT/OTR after you cbet flop start checking much more often OOP (some might say to always check OOP in a SRP) and cbetting for a smaller size IP which will force them to call w/ hands they are not used to defending thus making their range OTT/OTR uncomfortable. If they don't call more hands vs the smaller sizing then that is good news too because your bluffs do way better and now you can bet much more frequently.
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