I'm a new member and regularly play the 55s on Stars and wanted to see what people's thoughts are on reacting to 3-bets. What type of hands are best to call them with, and how often? I like to call occasionally with my suited connectors and smaller pairs as well as KQ and AJ and some other suited or connected hands if I'm getting a good price and implied odds. I make sure to avoid calling with dominated hands if I perceive my opponent's 3-betting range to be mostly value-based. I normally 4-bet my AQ+ and 88+, but I sometimes do with 22-77. Is this a mistake? It's definitely opponent dependent, but I'm not too sure of the best move to make with these hands pre-flop. Thanks everyone
I depends on a lot of different things.
Calling small pairs against a small 3-bet may have the implied odds for flopping a set.
Shoving small pair may have fold equitity aswell, depends on the size of the 3-bet and the frequency.
if u feel ur opponent running over u with this, I I sometimes call with conectors early in the match ... small pairs Ax etc... but if i don 't hit and lose over 30% of my stack I start shovin with Ax and small pairs .......simple as that... we have to deal with it cause 3bet oop with air is the new trend !
I've written about this here: <snip>
Thanks guys :)
Risk,
"First, if you have a pocket pair, this is where most people can make some crucial mistakes. It's definitely bad to 4bet 22-77. If you've gotten into a situation where 4bet > call > fold, then you've done something wrong."
This is from your article. What if you're playing really aggressive player that 3-bets super wide? Wouldn't 4-betting all-in with 22-77 be profitable assuming his 3bets aren't min3bets or really small since you're likely ahead of his range, taking advantage of fold equity, and not getting involved in a raised pot with such difficult hands to play post-flop?
Even if he's 3betting super wide, you're not ahead of his range. All you can hope for is a flip since there's almost nothing in his range that you're dominating.
"Even if he's 3betting super wide, you're not ahead of his range. All you can hope for is a flip since there's almost nothing in his range that you're dominating."
How wide do you consider "super wide"? I've played plenty of players that will 3bet any ace, any pp, any suited connector allllll the way down to 23s. With hands like these in their 3betting range how can 4betting 22-77 still not be OK? Not to mention when he 3bets QTo, A8o, or 89s something like that and folds to our 4bet (hands that we'd be essentially flipping with.) In these cases, we're either flipping, or he folds and we win a nice pot pre-flop. I understand that sometimes we'll run into the top of his range and he'll have an overpair, but with a 3betting range that wide wouldn't 4betting 22-77 still be +EV if he's folding a decent amount of hands to our 4bet? That's just how I see it, but feel free to rip this apart if you don't agree :)
Folding 22-77 vs an aggressively 3bettor, especially shorter stacked, is not good.
Reacting to 3-bets is very opponent dependent.
"If you've gotten into a situation where 4bet > call > fold, then you've done something wrong."
This is too general of a statement to make. There are plenty of aggressive players where you're opening 22 and shoving over a 3bet and it's clearly the best play to make.
In order to answer a specific question, you should put an opponent on a range, calculate the % of the range that they are folding (fold equity) and figure out your equity vs their hands that do call. From that you can arrive at a specific and accurate conclusion in any 4bet or fold situation.
Calling 3-bets is a bit different. Saje's advice on flatting strong but not premium hands as being a big leak from many good players is solid. When you're deeper you can makeup for that (Stars regular speeds, as an example) but if you're doing that sort of stuff without clear postflop superiority in a structure such as FTP turbos, you'll be leaking pretty badly.
How deep would you consider calling a basic 3bet with 22-77? Again, opponent dependent, but in general? Could you give an estimation.
Also, about those weird min 3bettors. Would you call with any 2 even with shallow stacks. And do you ever use the min3bet yourself?
Deep, I would often fold low PPs like 22-55 to a 3 bet. If I'm playing a player that is passive, or is very exploitable preflop (somebody I can steal from or hand read extremely well) I'd consider calling with any PP.
If the 3bet is small, then I'll call purely for set value, but that's not generally a good enough reason when facing a regular 3x size 3 bet.
Min 3bettors I'll call with just about any two if we're deep.
As we get shallower, if I don't have good postflop reads/comfort, I'm more inclined to fold, espeically if it's 15-20bbs deep, in those areas you're usually best off folding with a hand such as J2s, even with the great direct odds.
I don't often use the min 3bet myself.
A few very creative players, Spamzor and Skates come to mind, have used it with success. I think it's probably something more useful against a player you know well or know thinks a certain way, but I'm sure both of those players would argue to the contrary, at least to an extent.
Just want to say, if you call a 3-bet with a small pocket pair and flop a set you can often take their whole stack. I know I've lost a lot of chips with monster hands vs small pockets pairs that hit a set. Very hard for villian to fold with a pair of aces or kings in such a large pot.
I know that If I havnt done any 3-bets yet and I happen across QQ,KK,AA then I'll min 3-bet becuase I don't want my opponent to fold and I'm guaranteed my hand will be ok to play post flop out of position. So If I call min-3-bets I keep the idea that they have big pocket pairs in the back of my mind. I don't think you should fold to a min-3-bet though unless the effective stack is very short.
Most people call too often when you make a regular sized 3bet with QQ-AA anyways.
I know what you're trying to do, but deep stacked, doing a min 3bet is a little too small. You can make it 150 or so instead of 100 and I bet you get called 90% as often.
What % of stack do you think you can profitably call with almost any two, that your raised with in position, to a weak player
In HU where there is lots of weak 3 bets what do you consider set value?
Joe
Im pretty new to HU sng (I come from a 6m history) but generally I think the same concepts still apply. I see a lot of people playing too much FoF in 3b pots in HU SNG which I think is a big mistake. People tend to take the wrong mindset of trying to flop something good instead of battling back
"Repetition is the mother of all skill"
"Repetition is the mother of all skill"
I think the last two questions are actually very closely related.
I'll work backwards, it should work better for the post:
ABOMB,
I agree with what you're saying and I think it's often overlooked. Some opponents play so poorly in 3-bet pots and just look to hit a hand, that they completely overlook your ranges in these pots and fail to do anything but fold when they miss, when they should likely call/raise given your range.
How does this relate to the question before that? Well, the more exploitable your opponent is in 3bet pots, the looser you're going to play against them. It's very dependent to me on how bad my opponent is in 3-bet pots. Players that are otherwise loose can often become much tighter and have a "play to hit" mentality in these pots.
If you're playing a good player, an aggressive player, one who can pressure you and doesn't take completely transparent lines (or his transparency consists of wide/loose ranges) you likely won't be able to play as many hands or call as many smaller 3-bets light.
On the flip side, you can pretty much call ATC against some of the weaker players when they make smaller 3-bets. Utilize postflop reads from raised pots to help you decide early on, before you've had much action in 3-bet pots.
A general rule of thumb: If you don't have a clear plan, nor do you see a clear edge, you shouldn't be calling 3-bets very light unless they are extremely small (such as a min 3-bet) and you have some stack to play with (a min 3-bet 12bb deep shouldn't be snap called vs all players, while a min 3-bet 75bb deep is almost always called by any two cards vs any random player).