Logic behind light 3-bets
I want to ask a general question as I've started widening my 3-betting range at my local 1/3 and my winrate has gone up. Not sure if its just short term luck or some exploit. I wanted to ask the logic specifically on suited KX as I've been adding K9s-K6s and even K5s and K4s in as 3-bets pre.
Tendancies of my game:
1. people call too often pre and call 3-bets too much
2. people open too wide and cbet too wide
3. people use large sizing pre and post
4. people have no bet/fold button, if they open they'll often just go with it, even if they've only put in 40$ they'll put in the remaining 260$.
Observations: Its putting me in some wild spots postflop where I have gutshots, weak 1-pair and K-high FDs. Because Vs ranges are so wide, I don't often know where I am in the hand against their whole range. Like K7s on a K-8-4r, unlike AK where I'd be way ahead of almost all their range. This leads me to do more checking to get to showdown cheap.
Also wondering if K2s K3s are better 3-bets than K8s K7s because they unblock some middling hands V will call with like 77,88,78 etc.
HH for example. V is semi-competent loose passive that over values hands and value bets way too wide. A3o on a A-Q-7-7-T board is a three street value bet for him. Never folds AA no matter the runout.
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H opens K♠ 6♠ from CO over 1 limp, V calls BTN, all else fold...not ideal.
Flop - Q♠ 8♦ 5♥
H cbets almost full pot, V calls
Turn - K♦
H barrells 3/4 pot getting a live vibe that V doesnt like this card, V calls saying "you're just gonna bluff off all your chips to me?"
River - 9♦
H jams for about 3/4 pot....
The speech play probably means he has a monster but if you got a live vibe that he hates the king, why would you bet so much? hp would be fine.
We 3bet light when we know someone's opening wide. When we know they fold to 3bets mostly (and/or call then fold to a cbet), then we can widen our light 3bet range as low as K7s. I prefer to do this with junk hands that we don't mind folding to a 4bet, unlike hands like JTs, KJs, etc. and vs people who know we have light 3bets in our arsenal.
Might have been better to post a sample HH of a hand where you actually 3bet?
If you 3bet a wide range against people who open a wide range and don't fold much against 3bets, that obviously leads to lots of post flop spots where you have a wide range and they have a wide range. So your K6s might be up against their K9o. If stacks are deep enough the way you play hands like that post flop might be pretty much the same as playing them a single raised pot.
madlex has a good point you need to post HH's with 3bets or potential 3bets because every situation is different, otherwise you end up doing what most of the every day "pro's" do and do it blindly even when someone opens from UTG who should have a narrow range because it can very quickly and easily become button pressing/FPS, unless you're taking everything into consideration.
Vs players who call too much and never 4bet bluff we use a linear, not polarized, 3bettting range. Vs players who defend aggressively we use a polarized range to maximize our value hands and avoid having to fold medium-strength hands to a 4bet.
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Logic is the more you 3! Bluff the lighter you get called which makes your value range widen from AA to AA AK KK QQ
This is really bad at 1/3. The main purpose of bluff 3-bets is opponents can't put us on huge hands with the 3-bet. Since people at 1/3 call anyway, you don't need to bluff 3-bet. They rarely 4!, so you can 3! weaker value hands. If you are going to 3! light, I would do it with hands close to strong enough to call that play well postflop, such as suited connectors or suited broadway. Just fold Kxs at low stakes cash games. It is sometimes used as a 3! bluff, but with very different dynamics.
ive experimented with light 3betting. it usually doesnt work out well at 1/3. i think its overrated. often i end up punting or bluffing in spots that dont make sense.
the money in these games comes from value not bluffs.
i think Ed Miller says in the course that the only light 3bets should be with wheel Axs hands. and then only vs. certain player types that are capable of folding and when you're deep. tbh if you never even did that i doubt it would matter much.
I've also thought about it from a post flop sample size point of view.
Logic train:
Vs are worse at navigating post-flop than us ---> we should want to get into more spots with them post flop ---> we only get so many value/premium hands to play per hour (very few at hold'em) ---> if we expand our range to include middling hands that are still quite playable in position we will end up in more spots where we can outplay Vs.
With the addendum being:
ideally we would like these post flop spots to be heads up which almost never happens in a SRP ---> ergo we could 3-bet more middling stuff light value to mediocre parts of our range IP to get it heads up and outplay Vs. ---> this should still be +EV
For instance there's a lot of people at my game that will open hands like 44, JTo, 78s from early to mid-positions and then get stubborn when 3-bet and call OOP. So K7s isn't actually doing so bad against these types of hands. Obviously need to take a lot of free cards. And if they 4-bet spazz you just snap fold pre.
Are you sure your winrate hasn’t gone up simply because you're hitting some miracle rivers? In live poker, it's often just sunrunning that is responsible for your winrate going up short term, at least in my experience. Especially if you're gonna be putting yourself in all kinds of difficult spots, as you seem prone to do.
I want to ask a general question as I've started widening my 3-betting range at my local 1/3 and my winrate has gone up. Not sure if its just short term luck or some exploit. I wanted to ask the logic specifically on suited KX as I've been adding K9s-K6s and even K5s and K4s in as 3-bets pre.
Tendancies of my game:
1. people call too often pre and call 3-bets too much
2. people open too wide and cbet too wide
3. people use large sizing pre and post
4. people have no bet/fold button, if they open they
Look into the differences between polarized and linear 3-bet ranges
You 3! To piss people off so they pay you when you have AA
what positions and why are you 3betting these hands? the only times i really see solver do this is very fractional amounts for board coverage / balance (neither of which i think are much of a concern in your games), k9ss excluded. honestly id just skip it and 3bet linearly based on how you're describing the opponents - too loose opening and continuing.
i think the hand in the op, while not a 3b pot, is a large overplay particularly on that river
you're never really going to play enough hands live to have any idea of what your true winrate is both because of sample size concerns and how drastically different game conditions can be, particularly for a strategy adjustment like this you'd really need to play a very large sample of hands (not even sure how many this would be) to get some idea. my guess would be if ratchets up variance while lowering your winrate slightly, but maybe 3betting more is just a good adjustment vs loose passive population (debatable hand choice and you probably need to be better at hand reading)
There is no need to 3! Kxs. If you want to 3! more, try 3-betting AQ or TT or something or maybe suited broadway. It can be tricky too when you 3! AQ and get flat called by AK or QQ, so you can lose a big pot. The problem is low stakes players don't seem to care you might have AA, so you are mostly just building the pot, so you want at least a hand you would call a raise with, not junk.
You can also just 3! QQ+ or JJ+/AK or something like that, and you often wild up with a 3-way pot and they don't want to fold top pair.
You don't need to be creative at 1/3. You can play sort of OMC but better. Just 3! QQ+/AK or something like that. Just raise and call raises with strong hands. You can limp behind or fold marginal hands. You can play a lot looser than that, but playing real solid is profitable and lower variance.
The two common mistakes of LLSNL players—too loose preflop and too tight post-flop—both combine to tell you exactly why you should 3-bet bluff frequently. They’ll call your preflop 3-bets every time (cuz they are too loose pre) and then fold unless they smash the flop (cuz they’re too tight post-). You can just win pot after pot after pot by 3-betting and c-betting. When they finally DO hit you’ll lose, but you’ll be up from the pots you’ve stolen previously, it don’t matter.
A HH from yesterday: V opens from MP to $6, Button calls, we 3-bet to $28 in the SB with Kc2s. MP calls (he tells me afterwards it’s with 85dd.) Flop AhQc3s. We downbet to $15, he folds.
We win 18 big blinds without a showdown and without a hand.
They will just keep handing you their money if you let them.
The two common mistakes of LLSNL players—too loose preflop and too tight post-flop—both combine to tell you exactly why you should 3-bet bluff frequently. They’ll call your preflop 3-bets every time (cuz they are too loose pre) and then fold unless they smash the flop (cuz they’re too tight post-). You can just win pot after pot after pot by 3-betting and c-betting. When they finally DO hit you’ll lose, but you’ll be up from the pots you’ve stolen previously, it don’t matter.
A HH from yesterday
If you can get it HU and take it with a cbet, that is great. I can see on that board, he might think he was always behind with a good part of his range. I am not crazy about running big multistreet bluffs for most of stacks. I can see pouncing on the small raise, but what is this with Kx? It would be a lot better to have a playable hand in case you cbet doesn't get through.
One of the player types I target for light 3! - has a bullet proof vest... that's good for exactly one bullet. But on the turn it's as thin as toilet paper.
The light 3! tactic appears to be easier for players online with a HUD as you can see the fold to cbet% on the turn. But if you are committed to observing the opponents, then you should be able to recognize the opportunity when presented.
To answer your main questions:
1) 3!ing this polarized doesn't really accomplish anything in the game you described. You "exploit" them by 3!ing more linearly (eg: AJs, TT). (I put exploit in quotes because 3!ing those sorts of hands is theoretically sound in most FR preflop spots anyway).
2) You're betting too large--and if this sample HH is any indication, WAY too often and too thin--which is why you're sensing that you're better off checking than betting (at these sizes).
I think its fair to say at 1/3 games fish play too many hands, call down too light, call 3 bets too light, etc. The counter to this is 3bet a wider value range, bluff less postflop, value bet thinner, etc. I would not 3bet say K8s but certainly would 3bet KQ/KJ vs an opponent like this. That's really what low stakes is about - just value betting and bluffing less. When you start running big bluffs in a game where your opponent doesn't understand what you're representing and just clicks call with top pair you're going to be burning money.
At low stakes, I wouldn't be 3B'ing with King-rag suited, except maybe in blind-vs-blind situations, where the SB doesn't chop, and we have a suited Kx in the BB. There are just too many better hands to 3B against loose-passive players who call 3B's too wide. My 3B'ing range is generally going to be more linear and weighted towards hands with better post-flop playability and lower risk of reverse implied odds.
One thing I'll point out. I'm not polarizing. I'm just widening my 3bet range as wide as K7s etc. I'm also 3betting A9s, ATo, K9s, KJo on and on. I'm literally never calling pre.
Yoooo, you cannot be 3!ing that wide and betting this large and this wide post. So many LAggs on a heater have been down that path and there be dragons frfr
(Speaking for a friend of course)