Thanks Adam!

In ante games against players who aren't 3-betting aggressively, it's easy for someone to show a profit opening near any two from the button (a lot of assumptions built into this statement, so don't assume it's universally true).  From the CO, they won't be able to open that wide, but can still get away with quite a bit.

When someone opens the button with 84o to 2.5bb, and you defend with T7o in the BB.  They have now invested 2.5bb into a pot of 5.5bb, and they get to see a flop with position.  They probably are getting most, if not all, of that 2.5bb back in EV.  That means that when you defend the BB, they don't lose much by opening weak.  If you fold the BB at a high frequency, and they make 1.5bb every time you both fold, they do okay.

Now, add antes and things change a lot.

Let's say the antes add up to 1bb.  Now they open for 3bb, let's say.  When you both fold they win 2.5bb, which is a much better return than the 2.5 to win 1.5 scenario in a non ante game.  

More importantly, they do much better in single raised pots!  They raise to 3bb and you defend.  They've invested 3bb into a pot of 7.5bb, and they still have position.  It's not hard to pull a good chunk of their 3bb back out of the pot with even the weakest of hands.

So, calling doesn't make them much less happy with their opens.  The way you make their opens less profitable is by 3-betting.

If they open 84o for 3bb, when they get 3-bet they have to fold (or make a bad call).  They lose all 3bb!

So, the antes incentivize more stealing.  Even if they have to fold to some 3-bets they may still have very profitable opens with rags.  Now you adjust by 3-betting more aggressively.  If they fold their weaker hands to your 3- bets (and they have a lot of weaker hands), you have good incentive to 3-bet a lot with all the dead money in the pot.

Now they need to start defending wider against your 3-bets (and opening less), and being ready to call down more lightly.  This means your "value" 3-bet range can open up quite a bit.  

Eventually you settle on frequencies that make sense and keep each other in check.  In a non-ante game, these will be frequencies most people consider "reasonable," but in ante games, especially if there are some weak players at the table, I believe the frequencies should settle around some pretty aggressive numbers.

When you look at it this way, it's easy to see 3-bets as different than "bluffs" and "value."

A 3-bet is just a 3-bet. You raise to build pots and deny equity from your opponent with a range that is stronger than his opening range.  So when you're 3-betting with ATo in an ante game, sure you are not "bluffing" by getting better hands to fold, but you do force him to fold hands with equity that would've preferred to have you just call your AT so that he could see a flop.

Phil, Thank you for response, it makes me learn more!

Giving him a range of (AA,JJ,KK,AK,A3,KQ-KT,QT-Q9,Ax4x,Kx9x-Kx8x,Tx9x,cc) I have us at 45.5% equity.  

This may be generous, so if we take out T9, take out Q9o and add AJ, it takes us down to 38.8%.  Still enough to call I think getting over 2:1, with a teeny bit of implied odds in our favor.

Hey Sean.  I'll keep that in mind, thank you.  I don't love playing smaller at non-zoom mostly because the table adjusts and reacts to the fact that they know I'm making a video.  I'll do some though eventually.

You make a good point, Simon.  I'm basically looking for 2 aces (preferably the non heart ace) or for the low cards to pair, or for an offsuit 5 or 7.  The problem, as you pointed out, is only one of these outs is clean.

I'm getting 4:1, so I need 20% equity, which I'm sure I have in hot and cold eq...  I'm not sure.

If seems like the turn can get checked through a fair amount of the time, which lets me realize my equity.  I have near no implied odds as I won't be able to bet/raise at any point, so I guess it might be a fold.

I'm assuming I have over 25% equity here on the flop against the half-pot lead and the call.  Hmm.  I don't think I have a definitive answer for you, other than to say you're right that it's an ugly spot.

Carmen,

Very good question and post!

There's no sample on the villain so we don't have stats.  I'm used to playing with players who have looser BB ranges, but you're right that players in this pool will be tighter.

I still don't think we get a ton of flop folds, and I do worry about facing some x/r's.  All of your points are excellent though, and I think you're right that betting is better. 

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the content here.

I usually have standardized raise sizes and I choose it no matter my hand.  I adjust based on the player pool and sometimes on position but not on the strength of my hand.

If he's potting it, I feel fine letting him win.  Against a smaller raise I would probably call if I felt he is capable of bluffing.  I have okay equity against any non-set.  Turns will get very tricky but in addition to the ability to improve, I may be able to turn my hand into a bluff on some turn/river combos when he checks back.

I think betting may be the highest EV vacuum play, but betting near 100% of hands here is very bad for your range.

If you are going to choose hands to check back with, it's good to start with some hands that have reasonable showdown equity.  That way you make some money when you both give up.  We get so many folds on this board that I would prefer betting a hand with no equity to betting AKQ5, since the no equity hand is much lower EV as a checkback but both are fairly similar EV as a bet.

Excellent post, Steve.

To dig into that question properly, we'd probably need a whole video, so I'll be answering without running too much math.

My first thoughts are that the main benefit to having hands like 44c in our flop and/or turn betting range is that if gives us something to bluff with when the draws come in (how can we have air!).

My concern is that his x/c range on flop and turn will contain so many pair+gutter and pair+oesd hands that I don't really want to bluff on an offsuit Jack or Ace river with my 44.

We run into some issues here because theory and practice diverge quite about against your common opponent, who will have AK/AQ/AT/KJ make up the majority of his checking range, and may actually bet with all of his flush draws.  He may also have a range that is folding <8% of the time to a flop bet and <20% to a turn 2nd barrel.

So, in practice, I definitely don't want to choose this hand to bluff with against an unknown at 1/2 zoom.

In theory, yes we have a lot of value combos but something to keep in mind is that he usually has a substantial (meaning far from 0) amount of equity against our value range.  Because of this, we won't have to add as many bluff hands as it feels like we might.

I suspect that we'll have enough (or near enough) JT, cc and Axs hands to bluff with so that we can balance our our value range given the above considerations.  To be sure of it, we'd need to dig very deep though.  

Let me know if you have some more thoughts!

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