I'm a little clueless as to how to face the min 3 bet. I think my main problem is I don't understand why people do it. Often there is plenty of room to 3 bet normal, cbet and fold, but some people insist on 3 betting small. If anyone does this, used to do this or understands why people do this, I'd love to know what the thoughts behind it are.
Firstly, I went through HEM to look at what people showed down. I didn't see AA, but did see other big pairs, and AK/AQ type hands. There were also some smaller pairs and Ax and Kx suited hands, like K3s, but I didn't see any real garbage. There were probably quite a lot that didn't show down where I folded pre flop or on the flop. Given it's not a loose range, I don't like 4 betting light, but I'd be happy to hear how people go with that if they have tried it.
Second thing I noticed is that by just calling, I've given up initiative, so this really reduces my EV. I have position and plenty of room to move sometimes, but again like I mentioned earlier their range isn't that loose, so I feel like I'm really playing fit or fold if I'm calling this, and I hate the idea of playing fit or fold poker in heads up. Perhaps lower flops are good ones to bluff at, as most of the time I'm seeing people do this with at least one high card, and they could definitely put you on a low PP or SC when they get a call.
Also our implied odds might be a lot shorter than their full stack. For example, if I call with 33 with the aim to fold to any non set flop, then am I really going to make the implied odds enough when I do flop the 3? It doesn't seem like it. They do cbet a lot, so this is probably a pretty good example of when to call, but I'm still not happy insta folding 33 when I miss, and really don't like turning it into a bluff either.
Then reverse implied odds are also a concern. If I call with K7 or A5, am I really happy to hit top pair? It might seem like you are getting such a cheap price to hit an ace, but how often will you get money in the pot and be good when that ace flops? If he folds to your raise of his cbet when you hit top pair, then you might have just as easily called with 98s or 33 and bluffed at the ace/king high flops, because he was probably going to show up with better than A5 the vast majority of the time he doesn't fold. But, since an ace or king makes up a big part of his range, bluffing there would be silly. So I assume, A5o type hands are instant mucks in this case?
I don't know, I'm feeling pretty lost about how to play againt this weird bet, mainly because I don't really understand why someone would do it. Does that mean I should start looking at using it myself to force people into fit or fold situations too? I'm not sure I've seen too many good players use this bet, but I really don't know what to make of it, so it's possible other good players won't know either.
Sorry to ramble, I'd appreciate any thoughts on this subject.
I will small 3-bet from the BB facing an opponent who opens very wide but is not a maniac if I have a hand that I don't mind getting 4-bet with - either I'm glad to get it in or happy to fold. Hands like big pairs or suited connectors. With the suited connectors stacks need to be such that the pre flop action + my flop donk bet won't commit my opponent or be too costly if I have to give up. And with the big pairs stacks need to be short enough that I'm not setting myself up too badly on coordinated flops. Most solid opponents will call with a lot of hands pre flop because of odds & then fold if they miss the flop. But they have to very able to fold or it's a bad play in my opinion with anything but big pairs & fairly short stacks.You mentioned players small 3-betting you with big A hands. Personally I would not do that. If my stack is around 10 times opponents bet I just shove those hands. With a larger stack I mostly flat call & play trappy fit or fold.
I think the general topic of playing tough out of position vs a standard decent player is a good one. For me I play low limit & don't really need to go there yet but I suspect that's a good thing to be able to do against better players.
I talked to a huge fish a couple of months ago who did a lot of min-3betting also minbetting and min-checkraising post-flop - he played in a bar on his laptop and was very convinced of his strategy, a lot of people were watching him play and he explained his "expert strategy" (I looked him up on SS later that day and he had some two-digit nevative ROI over a few thousand matches).
After seeing him min-3bet a few times with hands like big Ax's and high facecards like QJo, I asked him why he's not 3-betting "a normal amount" and he replied that he wants to see a flop and is afraid that his opponent would shove over him if he 3-bet any higher. I asked why he's 3-betting these hands at all, and he said that he doesn't believe has opponent has a hand because he's opening so often, so he wanted to so something against that. Post-Flop he took very weird lines with these hands, like check/call flop, mindonk-call turn, check-minraise river.
This guy also wasn't afraid of getting 4-bet, he simply wanted to see a flop, so any raise which left him enough chips to "continue playing if he misses the flop" was ok for him - so I assume trying to bluff 4-bet these guys isn't such a good idea ;-)
He also min-3bet with big pairs - and here we was afraid his opponent may fold to a larger raise. Post-Flop he always took very tricky lines "to trap his opponents" with these hands - even on very drawy boards - and overbet-shoved the river if any draw hit "to make them fold".
Well, the guy was really a huge donkey - my feeling was he didn't know how to 3-bet properly, got annoyed because his opponents were opening so many buttons against him and he had no idea how to react. Another funny thing was, one of the other fish who were watching this asked "if it's wrong to min-3bet, then why does the poker client offer a button to do that ? I see three buttons, fold call and raise, so clicking on raise can't be wrong".
@sbarber
you have a few misconceptions in your post, you're saying you have to play fit or fold postflop, also you say that your implied odds are a lot shorter than their fullstack, wich means there is room to bluf! Also your saying that giving up the initiative is really reducing your EV, I disagree for the most part, your right in the sense that your giving up your opportunity to Cbet, but you can float most opponents who arent really 2 and 3 barreling a lot very profitable. Also the ability to controll the pot gives you a nice edge in a pretty big pot.
I really wouldnt advice 4betting light since most opponents arent gonna fold very often, but when the stacks are deep you should flatcall with any 2.
Radeh wrote a good article about calling min3bets so I suggest to read that to find a more detailed explanation on the subject, you can find it in the article section.
Thanks guys, that helped fill in some gaps, and cheers Trippy, I just started following HUSNG tweets, and noticed the link to the article so I did just read it. I guess I've just been running bad to these min 3 bets, because I've hardly won any of them in my history (probably small sample), and win small pots when I do win.
I do have to look at floating these cbets more I think.
HU SNG noob