General Considerations playing 100bb Deep

In reacting to 3 bets, I generally look at the following factors in the following order to determine whether I will continue with the hand:

a. Villain’s 3 bet %. I honestly do not think you can come close to an effective strategy for reacting to 3 bets unless you display on your HUD and use the villain’s 3 bet% stat.

For example, last night I found myself out of position relative to

a LAg (he wound up the session at 24/16/3) unknown who sat and immediately started three betting most spots where there was a raise in front of him and he wanted to play the hand.

After 76 hands at the table, he had 3 bet 24% of his

opportunities. This stat was a bit misleading, though, because up to the point where we played this hand he had not flat called a single raise. he folded or 3 bet.

Based on this stat I knew that he had a wide range, and that a lot of it was going to be weak stuff that would not necessarily play well post flop. Here I called figuring I was flipping a huge part of his range and way behind a fairly small part of his range. I was not necessarily going to go away at the first sign of aggression. If villain has been paying attention, he knows I am running at about 13/10 on this table.

Hero (MP1): $68.15 MP2: $50.00

CO: $50.50 BTN: $49.40 SB: $42.25 BB: $50.00 UTG: $69.75 UTG+1: $73.75

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is MP1 with 7 7

2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, CO raises to $5.25, 3  folds, Hero calls $3.50

Flop: ($11.25) 8 6 A [color=blue](2 players)

This is a really good flop for me. I raised and called a 3  bet, so AK and maybe AQ are definitely in my perceived  range. Far from being concerned about the ace, it gives  me bluffing opportunities against a lot of his range. Also,  because the ace is not the ace of hearts, if he doesn’t  have it, he has to be concerned that I have it. If he does  have it, he’ll let me know.

Hero checks, CO bets $5.50, Hero calls $5.50

At this point, I feel pretty good about my prospects of  winning this hand. His bet size is the primary reason: a  half pot c-bet into a two-flushed flop lacks credibility. At 

this point, I assume that he is worried about the ace and  is “one and done”. I’m planning to fire any turn card to  pick up dead money; I may still have the best hand, but I  am certainly not beating anything he calls a bet with  (well, K Q non- , I guess, might call) so this is in no  way a value bet. I don’t check/raise because I want to  take a line that is credible both for the ace and for the  flush, in case the turn is a heart, and I think he will not  put the flush draws in my range if I check/raise.

Turn: ($22.25) J (2 players) Hero bets $13.50, CO folds Final Pot: $22.25

Hero wins $21.15 (Rake: $1.10)

Had he called the turn, I still would have had the option of shoving any non-heart river representing the flush. I probably would not have, but this is certainly an option. Had a 4th heart fallen, then I would definitely have made a small value-bet-looking bet, which I would be certain was a bluff.

This is just a standard call-bluff, all in a day’s work, but you have to be willing to do this sort of thing to be able to play your small and mid pockets profitably. The key is to not do it

indiscriminately, but, rather, to look for any sign of weakness;

in this case, it was the small c-bet.

I’m not going to lie to you--normally I fold pre-flop and if i do call preflop, I normally check/fold here. But here I had a villain with a wide range who showed weakness on the flop, and that made the hand look winnable.

b. Position

Obviously being in position is a good reason to call a 3 bet, but you have to be careful with this. When you are on a steal from the cut off or the button, your range is really weak, and most of the time you have to suck it up and fold, or occasionally 4 bet.

So, for instance, here is a hand I played when I was in the small blind against a solid TAg 15/12/6 3 bet 3.1% (5,5% in BB):

Hero (SB): $103.00 BB: $50.00

UTG: $142.95 UTG+1: $67.10 MP1: $50.00 MP2: $32.65 CO: $75.00 BTN: $100.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with 2 2

6 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, BB raises to $4.50, Hero raises to

$12, 1 fold Final Pot: $9.00 Hero wins $9.00

My thinking here is that even if I flop my set getting marginal set mining odds against his pretty wide 3 betting range, it is going to be hard to extract a profit out of position against a good player, so I can’t call. If I fold, i am folding the best hand a lot of the time, so folding is bad. When you can’t call and you shouldn’t fold, ldo, you raise.

On the button, though, I would be strongly tempted to flat call this smallish 3 bet from this player.

So out of position, while I sometimes do call, i am usually folding, but sometimes 4 bet bluffing.

When I play on the button, or any time I am going to be in position relative to the 3 bettor, I am willing to call with a very wide range, but not all of my stealing range, obviously. I’ll call with all pocket pairs that have a decent chance of flopping as an overpair, and semi-set mine, or I will call a very tight 3 bet range with any pocket pair and set mine, and, of course, I will call with suited connectors some of the time, intending to shove most of my good to very good draws:

UTG+2: $106.65 MP1: $97.20 MP2: $54.25 CO: $124.45

Hero (BTN): $100.00 SB: $76.15

BB: $40.00 UTG: $41.45 UTG+1: $50.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is BTN with 9 8

6 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, 1 fold, BB raises to $5.50, Hero calls $4

Flop: ($11.25) 3 K 2 (2 players)

BB bets $7.50, Hero raises to $94.50, BB folds Final Pot: $26.25

Hero wins $24.95 (Rake: $1.30)

Villain in this hand was a little short at 80bb, and that fact probably makes this a preflop fold. I probably failed to glance at his stack size before I made my decision. But villain in the hand had a 3 bet % of 5.3% (8% out of the BB), so maybe I was just calling planning to try to take it away.

c. History with the Villain

Sometimes, for whatever reason, we find ourselves the target of a villain, or we find ourselves targeting a specific villain, and a dynamic gets created between the two of you that is way outside of the norm. There are quite a few players at $50 with whom I have an ongoing feud, and who I know are looking to outplay me simply because of our history.

In this hand, the villain is a a solid reg at $50 (14/9/4 ATS 4%

Edit: this is his 3 bet%). he had position on me, but I didn’t want to leave the table because there was a 76/32 or

something that we had position on. The solid reg had 3 bet a couple of my iso-plays against the donkey, leaving me no choice but to fold like a lawn chair.

When he branched out into defending his button, I knew I had to make a stand. And, because he would notice that this was the first time I made a stand, I figured he’d give me credit for a hand.

BB: $106.85 UTG: $202.00

UTG+1: $105.10 MP1: $44.20 MP2: $53.30

Hero (CO): $100.25 BTN: $97.50

SB: $96.15

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with 6 5

4 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, BTN raises to $5.25, 2 folds, Hero calls $3.75 I called rather than 4 bet because no good  comes of a 4 bet here. He may have a premium hand, in  which case I’ve got a lot of money in really bad, or he  may be pretty light but read the 4 bet as a tilty bluff and  look me up anyway, or he may just assume that I have a  monster, quietly fold, and go back to the business of 3  betting my iso-plays. In a way, what I am really looking  to do here is just send the message that i will call a three  bet, so he needs to make sure that he has a hand when  he 3 bets me. Actually winning this hand is a somewhat  secondary consideration--I just need to show him that  my fold to 3 bet % is less than 100.

Flop: ($11.25) K 6 9 (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN bets $7.00, Hero calls $7 Here i am  basically just floating him oop; I’m planning to check/

fold most turns, if I catch I am going to check/shove,  and if a diamond comes I am probably going to bluff the  turn and the river.

Turn: ($25.25) 7 (2 players)

The turn is really interesting because I pick up 4 probably clean outs, giving me a total of 9 all of which are probably clean. So now I have a situation where:

i. I will improve to the best hand about 20% of the time;

ii. A lot of his range is king-free, so I have decent fold equity;

iii. A not insignificant amount of the time I have the best hand (AQ, AJ, randomness he is “outplaying” me with).

I decide to split the difference between a blocking bet and a value-bet looking bet which may be a value bet but which may also be a semi-bluff. I’ll fold to a shove. Feel free to quibble with the bet size, just understand that my intent was to make a

bet that was a little high to be a blocking bet, and a little low to be a value bet. This wasn’t the best size for anything; it was a compromise bet size that could look like either.

Hero bets $13.50, BTN folds Final Pot: $25.25

Hero wins $24.00 (Rake: $1.25) d. My Image

Meh, in a way I have already covered this. Probably all of you think of me as a nit, and it is easy to jump to that conclusion when you see me at the table playing 11/8 in a big sample, or a card dead 8/6 in a small sample.

This gives me quite a bit of freedom to make plays like some of the ones I have shown here, and to get credit for them. I use this most frequently by 4 bet bluffing with marginal or trash hands from mid and late position when a call would leave me out of position and the 3 bettor is likely light.