Basic preflop multiway question

Not sure if it is theoretically correct, but in general I use the same 3b range as I would against the original raiser if he was the only one, but alter the sizing dependent on callers.

If I adjust it would be dependent on the callers profiles, e.g. if TT is in my typical 3 bet range against the EP but if the 3 people who called would likely call my 3b, I would probably change to flat, since I'm likely mostly going to be set mining especially oop.

0 callers I'm doing a lot of calling myself.
1-3 callers I'm doing almost no calling, squeezing (tight) or fold.
With 4+ callers in the middle, maybe 3 depending on my hand, I'll allow some speculative calls with a condensed - but still somewhat strong - range.

In any event facing an EP open, regardless of the number of callers my 3bet range will be extremely strong, it's how I deal with the rest of my range that changes depending on the number of callers.

For example with ATs I would call heads up. 1-2 callers in the middle I'd mostly fold, maybe the occasional squeeze. 3+ callers I'd probably call.

I believe theoretically we are supposed to tighten our 3betting range, not loosen it, when other people have called the raise. In practice, however, I just mostly keep it the same: it is extremely rare that any of the callers will be going for a backraise, which I think is a major contributor to the theory. (Remember, in theory, those callers are supposed to be aware that they do not close the action, could get squeezed, but are calling anyway. In practice most live villains don’t think on that level.)

Does anyone 3b KTs in OP’s scenario? What’s the bottom of your range here? Calling range?

The bottom of my range would depend a lot on the raiser’s tendencies but I don’t think KTs is in it. The original raiser should have a hand that is way ahead of KTs and I think it is playing with fire to 3bet here. This is especially true in many live lineups where we can get called by either the 3bettor or one of the people in the middle and have absolutely no idea whether we want to flop a K or T.

As far as calling, if I am going to play a big multi-way pot I want hands that can flop well against a large field, meaning pocket pairs, probably many suited connectors/1-gappers and suited aces as long as we’re deep enough, and if I really feel like the people in the pot are that bad and deep, I might take a flyer with an offsuit connector or 1-gapper too.

There's almost nothing that makes sense as a calling range here because of reverse implied odds. Maybe just some low suited Ax and low pocket pairs but even some of those become squeeze candidates. Because of the extra dead money from the capped limp behinders you are actually getting an extremely good price to 3bet iso EP. I think most of your speculative calls should be folds and top 10-15% of those should be 3bets. I probably 3bet 88+ 10/9s+ for suited connectors, and most suited Ax as well as KQo+ on the super premium side. ATo and AJo probably fold? Not sure about those 2.

The answer somewhat depends on the stakes, table dynamics, our reads, and the stack depths.

In heavily raked low-stakes games, if we know nothing about the EP raiser, my 3B'ing range from the BB is going to be pretty tight, and I'm mostly folding any hand that doesn't realize its equity very well when OOP and multi-way.

If we know the EP raiser is capable of getting out of line, I'll 3B more, with a wider, more linear/merged range. If the EP raiser is capable of getting out of line, AND the callers behind are generally weak, I'll 3B a more polarized range.

If the EP raise was somewhat small, and there are 2 weak callers, I'll 3B more for a large size, like 6x the open raise size, but once we get 3 or more callers, even if the original open size was a little small, the 3B sizes start to get dicey. We don't want to 3B a 4bb open to 24bb off a 200bb stack with a not-very-strong hand, and risk going to the flop with less than 3 SPR.

I agree with others that in practice you 3 bet the same range or even wider, not narrower, because the cold callers are mostly just dead money.

But there are a lot of factors. For example, i run into the situation where ill 3 bet from the BB to lets say 17 BB, and then PFR calls and some 25 BB shorty cold calls or shoves with random ace high or low PP and youre stuck with a dry sidepot

Generally yes, anything ATs+ KTs+ can be 3bet from any position. But there can be exceptions. If the opener has a very tight open raise range and/or he doesn't fold appropriately with hands like KQo, AQo, we may consider not 3betting KTs here. Also if some of the cold callers are going to go call/call with hands like TT, 99, AQs, etc we may not want to squeeze. But if we have fold equity then absolutely. If we go 4-4.5x the open raise +1x for each caller and have fold equity we are printing.

Our 3bet range should be constructed based on what we think our opponents range looks like and what they are doing with it. If they have fairly reasonable raise/folds, then we want to have a merged 3bet range out of the BB. Lots of our best pocket pairs, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs+, A5s, and mixing 3bet and call with our suited connectors like 54s+. The nice thing about 3betting suited connectors is that they tend to be less dominated against the range that calls a 3bet.

If villains are very stationy preflop, then we want to be more linear and top heavy with our 3bet range from the BB. TT+, AJs+, AQo+, KQs+, give or take a few pips. It's kind of a disaster to ebet KTs and get called by KQo. But at the same time, if the call KQo facing a 3bet, then all of our Ax is ahead. But then you have to worry about 3betting ATs and getting called by AJo, AQo.

It's a constant back and forth of adjustments depending on your opponents.

Our hand loses playability OOP so that’s why we are supposed to 3bet larger in those positions. The size of our 3 bet should depend on denying equity and folding out some made hands like low PPs that can’t call a big raise and even some better hands that can only flat pre IP vs EP opens like some suited aces or suited Kx.

In low stakes I try play these squeeze bets carefully according to the action and player images, like if I’ve been isolating and 3betting a lot I won’t take an opportunity to squeeze for a bit to give a bit of respect to some of the other players so they don’t get tilted and start calling. The worst situation is when we have to play a bloated pot vs them with a small SPR.

This situation happened to me yesterday, 15 called 4 ways to BU, hero 3b! AxQd from SB to 100. Old asian gentleman calls from CO. Flop is J74dd draw. Villain has like 100 behind and hero shoves and loses vs. AKo no pair. This spot I should have just tried stabbing flop small, but my point is that these spots with low SPRs vs. tilted OMCs just don’t work out good unless you have the nuts, so proceed with caution.

Those OMC call, call types are definitely something to be wary of here. I had a similar situation 2 days a go where I straddled $10 in a 1/2 and isod a Q6o after 3 limpers. An old man limp called 80, I stab flop of 993dd, he calls, turn K, I jam for a little more than half pot, 155, as I had a read he was weak, and I get snapped by AJo for ace high no draw. I was targeting exactly the kind of hand he had to fold.

My logic was very few people are limping 10 and then calling an $80 iso. Usually I don't make this play but here I thought it would be profitable. I was definitely way out of line, probably should at least have something suited and preferably with an A or K blocker.

Also when a flush draw is out there, I think old men are more likely to call with A high at lower SPR.

I don't really fault your play though when the SPR is that low. Even if you are only folding hands you beat for the most part, I'd rather deny equity. Occasionally I have gotten called off by worse high card hands in spots like this. And you actually had a good hand to squeeze pre unlike my hand.

Some times old guys just out their foot down.

Old guys put their foot down and randomly decide they are gonna 3 bet you with T6o or call down with A high, and thats fine, they still overfold and under bluffnand its still profitable, they show me something like that and if anything im inclined to just bluff more because they did their 1 calldown/3 bet bluff.

yeah I would in a heart beat (as long as the original raiser's range justifies it). I always prefer sweeping up all the money from the side walk rather than playing fit or fold hoping to flop the 2nd nut FD. We block kings and AK which is a plu. If he's known to be tight or if I don't know him flattings fine too but we're gonna fold around 84% of the time otf. For beginning players or over their head players just flat.

Yeah man, some people just play loose pre-flop but will snap fold post-flop facing any kind of aggression, so it's super important to be observant of how opponents are playing.

I would have ISO'd to way less than 80 pre-flop vs. 3 limps. If this is a 1/2 game you're essentially playing 20bb effective so I think a jam is what you want to do next time.

I was sitting with 2k and some of the players in the hand were sitting on stacks of 500-1.5k, so I'm not going to just rip it. This guy happened to be shorter. The guy was 325 deep anyways so that's more like 33bb.

Your 3! frequency is pretty stable as you get more callers in between, but your range composition becomes much more linear. So if EP opens 15%, maybe you 3! 5% of the time if it folds to you, and your range has a narrow range of nutted hands, a 50/50 mix of a bunch of good hands just below that and a small mix of some hands from the middle-to-bottom of your range. As more players call, you still 3! ~5%, but your pure value range expands and your mixes lower in the range evaporate until eventually you’re literally just 3!ing the top 5% of your range.

To put it in plainer terms, 54s stops mixing in 3!s because 5-high sucks sh*t OOP in a low SPR in a spot where you rarely scoop preflop and are often multiway with bottom pair and some backdoor nonsense. With sufficiently tight ranges and enough callers, even KTs starts to flat or fold.

Your calling range also dissipates and becomes more condensed around obvious hands that like to play bingo, as the stronger part of the range stops mixing in calls and the more speculative parts of the range just fold.

Your calling range can probably deviate from GTO (ie: play more bingo against bad players with bad ranges) more than your raising range, as I think the war stories above illustrate.