Calling 3 bets

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Calling 3 bets

is it fine to call 3 bts with wk kings and middle run dwns tt78 ss etc also if oop should you flat with the top of your range or raise... which is most profitable

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ZenFish 11 years, 5 months ago

Your standard OOP should be to fold weak pairs to 3B 100 bb deep, and by weak i mean low and/or disconnected. KK72s and 9976ss kind of stuff. IP you have more options, but 100 bb deep you are still handcuffed by the mathematics of it all. Raggedy pairs don't flop well often, and you will have to fold a lot to c-bets or play guessing games in big pots against a strong range.

As for what hands to 4B or flat, you can think of it as two groups of hands (assuming you will not 4B and fold 100 bb deep):

1) Hands that have enough equity to 4B and stack off and/or shove most flops. Against a wide 3B range you can play good kings and Broadways  this way (AKKTds and AKQJds type of hands being the very best). You are not necessarily happy to get jammed on, but a wide 3B range will have to mostly call, and then you have set yourself up for jamming lots of flops with a good combination of fold equity + equity when called.

2) Hands that can't stack off profitably, but flop well. JT98ss is such a hand. 4-betting doesn't do much for you, since you are a clear underdog against the hands that 5B, and you don't do great against the hands that call either. But you have a "smooth" hand that often flops a little something, and you have pot-odds + implied odds to call and play flops. Note that you can sometimes 4B your very best rundowns (JT98ds and such) to balance out the stronger 4-bets and give you a 4B range that hits more flops hard.

As a rule of thumb, if you fold 20-30% to 3-bets overall in 100 bb 6-max games, you're probably doing fine. If you're looking to expand your defense ranges, begin with IP spots against wide 3B ranges. The deeper the better when you're IP, and reads help, too.



jimmyhat1000 11 years, 5 months ago

Zen - What's the go with bad kings to 3 bets 100bb deep OOP. Say we open KK74ss in the CO and BTN who 3 bets 12% OTB 3 bets us. Why are we folding and not 4 betting? Our hand plays basically the same as AA** against his 4 bet calling range. Do we fold because the times he has AA** we are in such bad shape? At what point do we 4 bet this hand, if villian is 3 betting 15%? 20%?


ZenFish 11 years, 5 months ago

You are doing bad versus the 5B range and not too great versus the calling range when you 4B bad kings. It does of course depends on how wide he 3-bets, but 4-betting bad, disconnected KKxx won't do you much good, unless he 3-bets super wide. You'll have to bet lots of flops with a bad overpair and few outs  (or check and give up a lot, which is also bad), and you risk committing yourself with very poor equity on the flop, even if you have some fold equity.

When you begin 4-betting KK vs a loose 3-bettor, start out with AKKx blocker hands. Now you run into AA much less often, and you have more good flops (you always flop at least TP/overpair). Note that KKxx without a blocker doesn't play the same as AA when he calls, since an ace can flop. If you shove those flops and get called, you could be drawing close to dead. 

As a rule of thumb (according to Tom Chambers' PLO theory teachings), 4-betting KK works ok when the 3B range is 12+%. 


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