Hello fellas, I'm new to the forum and "relatively" new to the game. I started reading Mersenneary's e-book a couple of days ago and I'm a bit confused on what he means with some terms, so if someone could clarify I'd be grateful.
Here's the part which I'm a bit confused about:
Hands like J4s can work much better in your 3-bet-bluffing range because you get credit on all the
ace-high and king-high flops, you can flop good equity on some more middling flops, and your expectation from
just calling preflop is often mediocre. When you 3-bet light for value, it’s best to do it with hands like KT/QJ/QTs,
because those hands dominate a lot of the calling range and play much better on a greater variety of flops, not a
hand like A7o.
My questions:
1) What exactly does he mean 3-bet bluffing range? That if I 3-bet with J4s, I'm essentially bluffing? Therefore J4s is in my 3-bet bluffing range?
2) 3-bet light for Value. What exactly does it mean to 3-bet light for "value"? I'm a bit confused here. If I'm 3-betting light, its the same as saying I'm 3-betting a wide range if I'm not mistaken, which is the same thing as saying I'm 3-betting loosely (probably because my opponent is opening a wide range himself). Assuming my previous sentence is correct, my followup question would be: How can I bet for value when I'm betting with a wide range? Should I be assuming that a hand such as KT has value against a certain opponent based off his opening range/frequency of opening the pot/likeliness of him flatting me with a hand I'm likely ahead of such as K9/K8/T9/T8s etc?
Thats it for now! Sorry if the phrasing is confusing, I'd be glad to accept constructive criticism on that too if someone has got the time.
Hi spoggos i try to answer the first question you made:
with 3-bet bluffing range mersenneary mean all those hands which we want to 3-bet because is our best option (better than flatting and better than folding) but also we hope that our opponent fold (this is why we called it bluffing range)!!
when we have J4 in the BB and oppo raise mersenneary said that the best option (with this kind of opponent) is to 3 bet and hope he folds , but when he calls our 3bet we can easily win the pot post flop for example when an Ah board runs out.. another reason because J4 work better in a 3bet bluff is also beacause we have the J which block some combos in our opponent calling range (hands like J8s,J9s,JTs,JQs,KJs are probably in our opponent calling range and because we have 1 J in our hand is less probably that oppo has another one in his hand)
I think you've pretty much got it. J4s is a bluff basically in that situation, rather than a value hand. We want a lot of folds, either preflop, or when cbetting high card flops (such as A hi, since our 3bet range has a lot of A hi in it, we hope our opponent gives us credit for top pair in that spot and folds to the cbet).
As far as value betting light, I think he means getting value out of a wider/weaker range of hands. KT can be a value 3bet if your opponent is calling with many weaker hands. Mersenneary's main point there is that besides your premium 3bet range (say AK type hands), if/when you decide to widen it for value, you should think about the types of hands your opponent calls with, and what hands you should be 3betting with in order to extract value from your opponent.
His A7 example is mostly "your opponent is more likely to be calling with weaker Tx, Kx type hands, and weaker drawing type hands around KT, and you make better pairs on average with KT, get less credit when you make them than with an ace, and you're dominated less... so KT is probably better to 3bet for wide value than A7 vs most opponents"
I see, thanks to both replies, they made a lot of sense. Cheers guys!