Reraising Light Preflop

phantom_lord

I've been thinking about this, and thought I'd post a thread on it, partly fueled by reading this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5615820&an=0&page=0&vc=1


I think my re-raising range is far too tight, and I want to open it up far more.

Just to get started:

What are good spots for doing this? What kinda players should this be used against? Isolating fish, pressuring weaker players, multi-tabling nits?

Should I be doing this a ton from the button/co?

Should it just be with hands I used to just call with, or should I mix in atc now and again?

What about in the blinds? facing a button/co/ep raise?

Should it follow through to re-raising light on the flop...turn? And from the blinds, leading/3 betting flops light?

My stats are something like 20/11/ should I aim for something like 20/15 moving towards 25-30/15-20?

Is this gonna be mostly -ev at a level like .5/1?

Hectorjelly

The first time to start doing it is when you think your hand is best. So if someone raises from the button and you have a decent hand, then reraise. Once you are comfortable doing that move on to reraising more and more preflop. Any time there is a raise and a call I would consider reraising. Obviously try not to get too carried away, and pick your targets. I really only reraise someone if I know they are capable of folding (many arent) and they have been raising recently. If im called I bet the flop something like 100% of the time.

I dont think it matters a whole lot where you do it from, unless you start actually seeing showdowns. I generally never see a showdown when I do this, they either fold preflop, fold the flop or I give up at some stage.

At 50 1 there is a level of total stupidity. Its not like poker at any other level, so a guy will raise, you reraise and he will call with Q7. If he hits any piece of this flop he will probably call you down. So at 50 1 I would tend to only really reraise with good hands.

[nicK]

Hectorjelly wrote:

At 50 1 there is a level of total stupidity. Its not like poker at any other level, so a guy will raise, you reraise and he will call with Q7. If he hits any piece of this flop he will probably call you down. So at 50 1 I would tend to only really reraise with good hands.

all the more reason to open up your reraising range..

if they're playing junk like q7 to reraises, more often than not they miss the flop and you pick up the pot with a contination bet..

Hectorjelly

no not at all, because they will also call with any pair any missed overcards. you wont make any money bluffing playing 50 1

pok3rplaya

Easy as...


***** Hand History for Game 5592251026 *****
$600 NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, January 17, 14:54:11 ET 2007
Table Table 125386 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 3
Seat 5: jigga_man6 ( $2895.79 )
Seat 6: BigRedClown ( $784.45 )
Seat 4: lolImAmerican ( $901 )
BigRedClown posts small blind [$3].
lolImAmerican posts big blind [$6].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to lolImAmerican [ Ah Qh ]
jigga_man6 raises [$24]
BigRedClown calls [$21]
lolImAmerican raises [$96]
jigga_man6 raises [$246]
BigRedClown folds
lolImAmerican is all-In [$799]
jigga_man6 folds

pok3rplaya

Nah seriously, this is a huge subject, you could literally write a book (at least a pamphlet) if you knew all there is to know about reraising preflop. IMO this skill is what gives the best players a good portion of their edge at 600NL - 2kNL. It's something I'm only coming to grips with myself and trying to get really good at. Anyway, bunch of random thoughts here.

It's not something I would advise trying to force at 100NLish stakes. A strategy which includes a lot of reraising needs a player type that can actually make some folds here and there because a lot of the time you are forced to put your stack on the line with very little in the way of real hands.

Because of this, you should also see an increace in variance when you employ a strategy like this. It basically inflates the sise of the pot dramatically in relation to your stack and even the fishies that read Sklansky know that ++pots and --stacks = mucho variance.

Another reason that reraising becomes more valuable as you move up to higher stakes is that image manipulation becomes a much bigger issue. When you play at hyper aggressive tables where there is lots of preflop raising you ogten find yourself in situations where you hold a good hand (like AA) and there is a raise in front of you. You are forced to reraise here a good percentage of the time. If you only reraise a tight range the good players will notice this and you will not get payed off. This sort of thing won't be such a problem at lower stakes because less players are paying attention and less people are raising preflop with a high frequency.

Your image can also become a very importand weapon against those players who do happen to be paying attention. For example here's a hand where I reraised a TAG so much and my image became so bad that he was forced to begin to employ a shabby 4 betting strategy which allowed me to own him here:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ Hero (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

saw flop|saw showdown

Hero ($553.80)
UTG ($390.20)
MP ($402.57)
Button ($386)
SB ($92)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, J. SB posts a blind of $2.
2 folds, Villan raises to $16, SB calls, Hero raises $56, Villian raises $174, SB folds, Hero is All in $554, Villan calls.


Flop: ($6) 5, 9, T(5 players)

Turn: ($6) 9(5 players)

River: ($6) T(5 players)

Final Pot: $950

Results below:
Hero has Js Jh (two pair, jacks and tens).
Button has As Qc (two pair, tens and nines).
Outcome: Hero wins $950.


I agree with HJ's up there for the most part. The only thing I would disagree with is:

I dont think it matters a whole lot where you do it from, unless you start actually seeing showdowns. I generally never see a showdown when I do this, they either fold preflop, fold the flop or I give up at some stage.

I think position is a very important factor in reraisings situations. Obviously it is better to be in position when you reraise. It is just far easier to apply pressure from this position and force your opponent to a tough decision for his stack. The problem with this is that generally players raising ranges increace dramatically the later a position they are in. So if you are in the cutoff and a player raises in MP then his raising range from that position will stand to be comprised of much better hands then if you were the BB and he raised from the button. But a lot of the time your position will make up for this especially as stacks tend towards the deeper end of the spectrum.

Generally you should reraise a player more...

the looser his raising standards,
the more coldcallers between you and the initial raiser,
the more likely he is to fold to your raise preflop,
the deeper the effective stacks,
the tighter he is postflop,
the less you think he knows about bluffing lines in reraised pots,
when you are in position.

There's probably a buch of other simple reasons that should be here but they just aren't coming to me right now.

Finally, what hands should we reraise with? I don't like to reraise with TPGK kinda hands like ATo even against fairly wide raising ranges. I feel that we just leave ourselves open to too many marginal decisions later in the hand where we have to decide if our top pair is good. Hands like suited connectors ands Axs are good choices because of what I was referring to at the start. If we are going to be making large bets without much of a hand in an attempt to make another player fold, I would like to be doing it with hands that will a portion of the time have outs should things go wrong. Also obviously TT+ and AK are standard reraising hands. AQ is a marginal raise or fold "it depends" type of beast.


And ehh.... yeah looks like I'm done.

Gholimoli

pok3rplaya wrote:

I agree with HJ's up there for the most part. The only thing I would disagree with is:



I think position is a very important factor in reraisings situations. Obviously it is better to be in position when you reraise. It is just far easier to apply pressure from this position and force your opponent to a tough decision for his stack. The problem with this is that generally players raising ranges increace dramatically the later a position they are in. So if you are in the cutoff and a player raises in MP then his raising range from that position will stand to be comprised of much better hands then if you were the BB and he raised from the button. But a lot of the time your position will make up for this especially as stacks tend towards the deeper end of the spectrum.
.

I don’t think you fully understood what HJ was saying.
He said position does not really matter cuz he will not let the hand go as far as showdown. he is hoping to take the pot down pre-flop or bet the flop and take the pot and if it does not work he will give it up.
he is more than anything else counting on his FE and as such position is not really that important really what is important is the hand and the strength you are representing.

pok3rplaya wrote:

Finally, what hands should we reraise with? I don't like to reraise with TPGK kinda hands like ATo even against fairly wide raising ranges. I feel that we just leave ourselves open to too many marginal decisions later in the hand where we have to decide if our top pair is good. Hands like suited connectors ands Axs are good choices because of what I was referring to at the start. If we are going to be making large bets without much of a hand in an attempt to make another player fold, I would like to be doing it with hands that will a portion of the time have outs should things go wrong. Also obviously TT+ and AK are standard reraising hands. AQ is a marginal raise or fold "it depends" type of beast.


And ehh.... yeah looks like I'm done.

i thought we were talking about pre-flop raising and not post-flop play.
if we are talking about pre-flop raising then how can we have TPGK or anything like that.
also as HJ said at lower stakes i think cuz of lack of FE and people going to far with their hands ,there is no need to reraise as a steal and you should just stick to reraising your good hands for value.
but its important to understand the concept behind it and why you choose to do it or not to do it.

pok3rplaya

Gholimoli wrote:

I don’t think you fully understood what HJ was saying.
He said position does not really matter cuz he will not let the hand go as far as showdown. he is hoping to take the pot down pre-flop or bet the flop and take the pot and if it does not work he will give it up.
he is more than anything else counting on his FE and as such position is not really that important really what is important is the hand and the strength you are representing.

That is what I understood. My point still stands. It is easier to use the leaverage of FE when we have position. Which of there hands would you rather play?

1) raise in MP, we reraise on the button, he calls. Flop comes. He checks and we bet..

2) raise in the CO, we reraise in the SB, he calls. We bet..

The advantage of position becomes even more magnified when we are seeing the turn in reraised pots with roughly a pot sized bet behind. This will happen often when you play a loose reraising game against players who are trying to adapt.

Gholimoli wrote:

i thought we were talking about pre-flop raising and not post-flop play.
if we are talking about pre-flop raising then how can we have TPGK or anything like that.

Do you really think that we should choose our reraising range with zero thought to the types of ways that the hands in our range might improve on the flop? Cmon...

Edit: incase this is a language thing, when I say "TPGK kinda hands like ATo" I mean hands that are likely to make TPGK on the flop. Obviously I don't mean that we are reraising preflop with TPGK.

Rnger

pok3rplaya wrote:

That is what I understood. My point still stands. It is easier to use the leaverage of FE when we have position. Which of there hands would you rather play?

1) raise in MP, we reraise on the button, he calls. Flop comes. He checks and we bet..

2) raise in the CO, we reraise in the SB, he calls. We bet..

Reraising out of the SB looks much stronger and you have more FE in that situation. People reraise lightly in position far more often than out of position.

robinlacey

good posts by hector and pok3rplaya

few points though-first of all,i don't really think there's much point starting to 3 bet light at .50/1,you could maybe start it a little bit at 1/2 and 2/4,but its really more useful the higher up the stakes you go,once you get to 5/10 almost everyone there,including some of the fish,will be much better than even the good players at .50/1 and 1/2,so you have to start 3 betting more simply because you won't get payed off playing like a nit,and also most of the players don't make really basic mistakes,so you have to start trying to force mistakes a bit more.

to start off,just try and add in a few extra hands that you reraise with.i would usually reraise to about 3x their raise in position,and about 4x out of position.you need to gradually add hands because the dynamics of 3 bet pots are tricky to get the hang of,so you need to take things slow.

be aware of some of the changes you should make to postflop play-first of all,you don't need to bet as much.especially at midstakes,a lot of people will call the 3bet preflop with rubbish,and fold almost any flop.in a 3bet pot,you don't need to bet the full pot,they're almost always going to either fold or raise to any reasonable bet,so you can get away with betting less (don't go too far with this though...

secondly,once you get into games where there is a lot of 3 betting going on,you should try and almost never flat call a reraise preflop,except with JJ-
AA,ocassionaly AKs (AKo should be 4bet most of the time)

i know that that boosted j guy never folds to a reraise preflop or something,but for mere mortals its a bad idea to be calling 3bets light,its just going to put you in so many crappy situations.

also,the main money to be made at mid-high stakes (3/6,5/10) is from exploiting the mistakes otherwise good players make in 3bet pots,and most of those mistakes are made by the player who is doing the calling.

one thing to realise also is that literally everyone who plays 3/6 and up has read that post linked to at the top of this thread,it was a great post,but everyone knows about it,and the games have changed a lot since it,because of it.

in the games these days,everyone is going 3bet crazy,and most people have really taken the concept and ran with it without really thinking things through at all,everyone now knows that they're meant to be 3betting all the time,and most of them do it badly-some of the mistakes i've seen regular party 5/10 players make in 3bet pots have been shocking (and i'm sure i've made a few howlers myself!)

so to play these games,sure you need to start getting on the 3bet bandwagon,to some extent,it is certainly a huge part of the modern game.

however,you also need to think about the next step that will take place in these games,where will they go from here now that everyone is 3betting everyone else.

there are two opposite directions,both of which it is becoming more important to think about.first,there is 4betting light-this is becoming a bit more common,and you need to know how to do it,and how to deal with it.one good thing about 4betting is that it looks so strong,and if done right it can be quite cheap.say you raise in a 5/10 game to 35,1k stacks,guy in position who is tight,solid,has read that twoplustwo post,makes it 110 or whatever-now you need to be 4betting him some of the time,and you don't need to push,which a lot of people do.if you just make it 260 or so,it doesnt matter that its nearly a minraise,he still should fold the vast majority of his 3betting range,and he might be less inclined to 3bet you light in future.

the other thing that is becoming more important in these games is knowing when to flat call.i used to never flat call,and often tell people who are learning to play that they should almost always raise or fold-this is good advice and everyone should get their standard game to the point where they rarely flat call.however,in these games,with 3bets,squeezes,and 4-bets going on,you need to start flat calling a bit more,taking back the post flop edge that all the reraising can sometimes nullify,and also for deception purposes,for example at 10/20 and up,the players are very agressive,so flat calling with AA and KK preflop is usually a good idea,since someone will almost always try to squeeze.obviously you have to flat call with other hands too to balance things,but this is often handy enough since sometimes its better to just flat call and hope to play a flop with KJs,etc and if you mix things up enough the army of 3bettors will be taken out of what has now become their comfort zone.

i think the things i mentioned in the last few paragraphs are going to become more and more important over the next few months,but its hard to tell,its astonishing how quickly the games change,stuff that was only whispered about as the most advanced strategy in the high stakes forums a year ago is now standard across the board from 3/6 and up,god knows what the game will be like this time next year!

robinlacey

btw about reraising in position/out of position:

one of the reasons to reraise out of position is that the fact that your 3bet preflop works to nullify some of the advantages of position,since when you reraise from the blinds,you now have the initiative,and the chance to bet first,which in a 3bet pot is a big deal.position is so much less important in a 3bet pot since the pot is already swollen,and there is much less room for manouever.a lot of people don't realise this and call far too many 3bets in position,thinking that they have the advantage,wheras in fact they usually dont.

Gholimoli

pok3rplaya wrote:

That is what I understood. My point still stands. It is easier to use the leaverage of FE when we have position. Which of there hands would you rather play?

1) raise in MP, we reraise on the button, he calls. Flop comes. He checks and we bet..

2) raise in the CO, we reraise in the SB, he calls. We bet..

The advantage of position becomes even more magnified when we are seeing the turn in reraised pots with roughly a pot sized bet behind. This will happen often when you play a loose reraising game against players who are trying to adapt.





Do you really think that we should choose our reraising range with zero thought to the types of ways that the hands in our range might improve on the flop? Cmon...

Edit: incase this is a language thing, when I say "TPGK kinda hands like ATo" I mean hands that are likely to make TPGK on the flop. Obviously I don't mean that we are reraising preflop with TPGK.

If im reraising because I think my image allows me to steal the pot or because I think the original raiser is a nit who folds too much or I think I can take the pot down on the flop then I think doing from SB and getting the first bet in actually works much better here so I choose your second option.
Again im not trying to play post flop poker against an opponent who I think plays badly post flop or anything like that,im just stealing cuz I think the pot is steal able either pre-flop or on the flop.
As for hand selection I think these are two different subjects, what we are discussing here is reraising to steal and situations that it can be profitable to do so.
We are talking situations here so yeah that means regardless of your cards so I don’t think it’s correct to discuss your holdings here.

robinlacey

pok3rplaya wrote:

Also obviously TT+ and AK are standard reraising hands. AQ is a marginal raise or fold "it depends" type of beast.

sorry but i disagree with this,i try to avoid 3betting TT and JJ where possible,if you think through situations where you 3bet with these hands,nine times out of ten you're going to be left in a **** situation on the turn.they are really not the sort of hands you want to play in a 3bet pot most of the time,obviously i will reraise them sometimes,but i think you are destroying a lot of the value of these hands by forcing them to play in 3bet pots.also calling with TT and JJ balances the times you want to call with AA and KK.
in general i try not to 3bet TT or JJ unless i'd be happy getting it all in (which i suppose i often would be at full tilt 10/20 ,but not in most other games)

also, i think AQo is usually a reraise,often AJo as well,presuming the original raiser didn't raise from utg.these are the type of hands you want to be reraising,hands that are probably ahead of a standard raising range,but annoying to play postflop in a multiway pot,hands that are better off winning by sheer brute force than by any finessse or tricky postflop decisions.if they are suited i would be much more inclined to just call,although i will often 3 bet with them as well.

pok3rplaya

super posts robin, I shall continue this later on. I gotta go do something right now.

jimbling

most interesting thread in a while. Quality post there robin.

cooker3

Hmmmmn this is interesting. I play .10/.25 and actually do it a fair bit and I find it has worked pretty successfully. I love doing it against people who play such like myself as in tight aggressive, have a PF AF of 16% or above. In my experience people rarely call with Q7o etc. I hear Full Tilt is lot tighter but surely the differance between it and other sites can't be that dramatic.

ianmc38

I played some .50/1 and 1/2 on FT recently and the games there have some fish but are generally much much tougher.. The amount of times I got 3 bet when squeezing preflop was unnatural. On Tribeca, it's same as always...

cooker3

ianmc38 wrote:

I played some .50/1 and 1/2 on FT recently and the games there have some fish but are generally much much tougher.. The amount of times I got 3 bet when squeezing preflop was unnatural. On Tribeca, it's same as always...

Hmmmn, I haven't played cash games on tribecca as of yet, sounds like I should make the switch!

ianmc38

cooker3 wrote:

Hmmmn, I haven't played cash games on tribecca as of yet, sounds like I should make the switch!

Just be aware there are only certain days the software will allow you to win. It's like online blackjack only slightly less rigged.

Marq

Does anyone know at what point reraising was incorrectly renamed "3-betting"? This is just about my biggest pet peeve with 2+2ers.

DeadParrot

ianmc38 wrote:

Just be aware there are only certain days the software will allow you to win. It's like online blackjack only slightly less rigged.

QFT....though less at higher levels

Goodluck2me

Marq wrote:

Does anyone know at what point reraising was incorrectly renamed "3-betting"? This is just about my biggest pet peeve with 2+2ers.

move up levels

its the 3rd raise i.e 3bet

Gholimoli

Marq wrote:

Does anyone know at what point reraising was incorrectly renamed "3-betting"? This is just about my biggest pet peeve with 2+2ers.

oh man i thought it was only me ,it was killing me...
thank you Marq .

robinlacey

its a limit thing

pok3rplaya

Man I've been waiting for a thread like this on boards for ages. Thanks for the post.

robinlacey wrote:

be aware of some of the changes you should make to postflop play-first of all,you don't need to bet as much.especially at midstakes,a lot of people will call the 3bet preflop with rubbish,and fold almost any flop.in a 3bet pot,you don't need to bet the full pot,they're almost always going to either fold or raise to any reasonable bet,so you can get away with betting less (don't go too far with this though...

Agreed. It does run deeper then this I feel though. There is definitly some sort of a relationship between the size of your bet and the frequency with which you get reraised. Theoretically smaller bets are fine but there is a very player dependant psychological element too. On the other side of the coin, a smaller bet does leave the stack sizes awkward for an opponent to push over us so whatever, maybe it's neutral.

robinlacey wrote:

secondly,once you get into games where there is a lot of 3 betting going on,you should try and almost never flat call a reraise preflop,except with JJ-
AA,ocassionaly AKs (AKo should be 4bet most of the time)

This one I have trouble with. This is a tight calling range and leaves us very open to exploitation IMO. I mean going by this it would be profitable to 3bet my button raises with any two. The only solutions for me is to tighten up my raising requirements, implement a 4 betting strategy or start calling reraises and bluffing postflop. I know thats an extreme example I describe but there has to be a reraise frequencey value above which we have to start playing back with a wider range. I believe with certain players in the Party 1kNL game the necessary conditions are reached. What are your thoughts on how to combat this?

robinlacey wrote:

if you just make it 260 or so,it doesnt matter that its nearly a minraise,he still should fold the vast majority of his 3betting range,and he might be less inclined to 3bet you light in future.

Hadn't thought of that raise size. Good point.

robinlacey wrote:

the other thing that is becoming more important in these games is knowing when to flat call.i used to never flat call,and often tell people who are learning to play that they should almost always raise or fold-this is good advice and everyone should get their standard game to the point where they rarely flat call.however,in these games,with 3bets,squeezes,and 4-bets going on,you need to start flat calling a bit more,taking back the post flop edge that all the reraising can sometimes nullify,and also for deception purposes,for example at 10/20 and up,the players are very agressive,so flat calling with AA and KK preflop is usually a good idea,since someone will almost always try to squeeze.obviously you have to flat call with other hands too to balance things,but this is often handy enough since sometimes its better to just flat call and hope to play a flop with KJs,etc and if you mix things up enough the army of 3bettors will be taken out of what has now become their comfort zone.

Very valid. Good paragraph. I've been realising this recently myself.

Hand I played the other day, maybe it was idiotic but anyway:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

BB ($1348)
UTG ($4482)
MP ($2325.50)
CO ($1032)
Button ($1496.50)
Hero ($1117)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, A. Hero posts a blind of $5.
2 folds, CO raises to $35, 1 fold, Hero (poster) calls $30, BB raises to $140, CO calls $115, Hero calls $1112 (All-In), BB folds, CO calls $1032 (All-In).

DeadParrot

wait, what?
Im guessing there are bits missing there?

pok3rplaya

robinlacey wrote:

btw about reraising in position/out of position:

one of the reasons to reraise out of position is that the fact that your 3bet preflop works to nullify some of the advantages of position,since when you reraise from the blinds,you now have the initiative,and the chance to bet first,which in a 3bet pot is a big deal.position is so much less important in a 3bet pot since the pot is already swollen,and there is much less room for manouever.a lot of people don't realise this and call far too many 3bets in position,thinking that they have the advantage,wheras in fact they usually dont.

Ok I concede. Thinking about it like this makes me feel a lot better about reraising button and CO raises light from the blinds. I always had major problems reraising people IP simply because people hand ranges tend to be so much tighter in EP.

However, I do think you are over-looking the frequency with which people float flops in RR pots in position. So often I end up folding AK/AQ/AJ/KQ on rag flops when I reraised from the blinds because I get floated by solid players who know I have jack s*** a good proportion of the time. How do we combat this? What do you think of push bluffing a certain % of blank turns?


I know I'm asking for a lot in trying to get you to reply to all this but seriously being able to discuss this stuff is worth it's weight in gold to me. Any of the other guys who have experience with this want to chime in? HJ, Fuzz, Valour, NFR, Pillow etc...

robinlacey

pok3rplaya wrote:

]

This one I have trouble with. This is a tight calling range and leaves us very open to exploitation IMO. I mean going by this it would be profitable to 3bet my button raises with any two. The only solutions for me is to tighten up my raising requirements, implement a 4 betting strategy or start calling reraises and bluffing postflop. I know thats an extreme example I describe but there has to be a reraise frequencey value above which we have to start playing back with a wider range. I believe with certain players in the Party 1kNL game the necessary conditions are reached. What are your thoughts on how to combat this?

.

well i think 4betting is becoming increasingly important,and should be a big part of how to deal with all the 3bets.also,i will generally call any 3bets if we are 150bbs+ deep,this will usually give me a lot more room to manouever.once it gets to the stage where you are both 200bbs or more deep,i will call 3bets with almost anything if i have position,since you are now deep enough that the advantage of having position has been restored,even more so in fact because people are more likely to be worried about making a mistake in a deep,reraised pot.

(incidentally,i am also much more reluctant to 3bet myself once the stacks are deeper,for the above reasons.)

i just think 100bbs is too shallow to be calling 3bets,i usually try to just fold or 4bet,and although there are some players who play so badly in reraised pots it can be worth calling their 3bets sometimes,they are the exception and even then i try not to call too often.

robinlacey

pok3rplaya wrote:

Hand I played the other day, maybe it was idiotic but anyway:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

BB ($1348)
UTG ($4482)
MP ($2325.50)
CO ($1032)
Button ($1496.50)
Hero ($1117)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, A. Hero posts a blind of $5.
2 folds, CO raises to $35, 1 fold, Hero (poster) calls $30, BB raises to $140, CO calls $115, Hero calls $1112 (All-In), BB folds, CO calls $1032 (All-In).

this is perfect,the sort of thing i'm talking about in terms of taking advantage of todays 3bet happy games.
of course you should be doing this with AA and KK too,but even in isolation its a good play

Hectorjelly

I almost never call threebets either, ive been pretty much pushing or folding. Id probably be better off reraising though

robinlacey

pok3rplaya wrote:

However, I do think you are over-looking the frequency with which people float flops in RR pots in position. So often I end up folding AK/AQ/AJ/KQ on rag flops when I reraised from the blinds because I get floated by solid players who know I have jack s*** a good proportion of the time. How do we combat this? What do you think of push bluffing a certain % of blank turns?

.

first of all i don't think people do float that often in reraised pots,maybe thats just my experience but i find most decisions are made on the flop,but ignoring that for a minute,lets presume 100bb stacks.as i mentioned elsewhere in this thread,i try and raise about 4x when i'm oop,more if there's more than one player potentially involved.

so at 5/10,someone makes it 35/40,and i make it 150-80.

i really don't think that there are enough (any?) people at 5/10 who have enough of an edge postflop in a reraised pot to make up for the fact that they've put in an eight of their stack preflop with 79s or whatever,even if they are playing total retards.combined with the fact that i am often at least trying to play better than a total retard,i think that almost always when someone calls my 3bet preflop with 100bb stacks,they are making a mistake.

as for the specific mechanics of the flop and turn play with whiffed high cards that you mentioned,i think check raising the flop/turn with a combination of any draw,overcards,and overpairs should deal with this to some extent,i don't think the answer is to bet the flop and push the turn though,in general once i bet the flop and they call i give up,though obviously there are some situations which are different for various reasons.

robinlacey

just realised that 160 of 1000 is a closer to a sixth than an eight!
maths was never my strong point...
all the more reason why i think calling three bets is too big a mistake to be made up for post flop.

cardshark202

Great posting robin, keep it up.

MrPillowTalk

Robin stop talking about 4 betting its basically the only uncovered topic in nl pre flop theory.

Good posts though, Im starting to think we must play nearly the exact same game.

jimbling

MrPillowTalk wrote:

Robin stop talking about 4 betting its basically the only uncovered topic in nl pre flop theory.

Good posts though, Im starting to think we must play nearly the exact same game.

now now.... don't be greedy

anyway, as robin says, just as one strategy becomes commonplace, then others begin to surface... it's the way of poker.

pok3rplaya

robinlacey wrote:

sorry but i disagree with this,i try to avoid 3betting TT and JJ where possible,if you think through situations where you 3bet with these hands,nine times out of ten you're going to be left in a **** situation on the turn.they are really not the sort of hands you want to play in a 3bet pot most of the time,obviously i will reraise them sometimes,but i think you are destroying a lot of the value of these hands by forcing them to play in 3bet pots.also calling with TT and JJ balances the times you want to call with AA and KK.
in general i try not to 3bet TT or JJ unless i'd be happy getting it all in (which i suppose i often would be at full tilt 10/20 ,but not in most other games).

This is very true now that I think of it. Just running true flops in my mind, there's almost no flops where JJ can recieve action and not be put to a tough decision. Not reraising TT/JJ also lessens the profitably of c/r push bluffing our flop bets which is another thing that high stakes players have become trigger happy about.

robinlacey wrote:

also, i think AQo is usually a reraise,often AJo as well,presuming the original raiser didn't raise from utg.these are the type of hands you want to be reraising,hands that are probably ahead of a standard raising range,but annoying to play postflop in a multiway pot,hands that are better off winning by sheer brute force than by any finessse or tricky postflop decisions.if they are suited i would be much more inclined to just call,although i will often 3 bet with them as well.

At 5/10 yes AQ is a reraise. Not at stakes like 200NL though. AJ is n obvious reraise from the blinds when the CO/Button raises, simply because we are way ahead of his range. Only thing I've realised though is that we are probably way behind the range with which he calls our reraises. Obviously this has conatations for how we play on the flop if he calls, I'm not really sure how yet though. I guess we're in a cbet and give up situation on basically any flop.

sikes

Marq wrote:

Does anyone know at what point reraising was incorrectly renamed "3-betting"? This is just about my biggest pet peeve with 2+2ers.

surely the definition of a blind is a forced bet. a raise is obviously a second bet hence, re-raising being referred to as 3-betting.

also im bumping a great thread.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

robinlacey

lol,this thread was only six weeks ago,but already i've been three betting a lot less than i used to,which i think i mentioned i was starting to do upthread.

its amazing/scary how fast the games are changing-i keep telling myself that it'll be great practice for when they legalise online poker in america and the floodgates open up again,but if this turns out to be wishful thinking its going to keep getting harder and harder to make money at this game.

Macspower

had forgotten how good this thred was at the time........
I've noticed of late that 1/2 has become 3 bet happy with players opening up their RR range. I rarely call a 3 bet (if thats what we've decided to call em now?) unless I have a specific read or my own hand is very strong but I find that nits at 1/2 will call very light (any A or suited broadway cards) leaving my Js and 10s in bother to an overcard.
If I 3 bet I always bet the flop about 2/3 of the pot and if I'm called I really have to play that hand very carefully from there on as he really should be able to beat AA or KK at this stage.. (not always the case at lower levels though).
Most of my 3 betting is done from the blinds and ususally against a LP raiser. If I have 2 suited broadway cards in the blinds I will either fold them to a raise or 3 bet them. I rarely call with them if ever.
I find that the profitable place to 3 bet light is where an EP or MP raiser has raised and there is at least one caller. I will RR with a much wider range here. The original raiser is afraid to call as he's got a player behind him and the caller rarely has a big hand or he would have 3 bet.... I usually pick up these pots there and then which makes it a profitable play. If i don't pick them up there and then, I have another chance on the flop to take down the pot.Naturaly I'll try not to attempt this against loose opposition...

Just some of my thoughts on 3 betting (which we called RR and playing back for the last 15 years) and some of what works for me at lower levels. I'm no expert on the matter like the previous posters (very interesting and impressive) but just a few rambling thoughts from a mulitabling 1/2 nit.

Feel free to comment...

Mac

phantom_lord

wow. funny how quickly things have changed. When I stated the thread I hadn't got a clue about this topic at all.

Thanks to robin and david's post, and a good bit of experimenting it's become a good part of my game


This is now pretty standard:


*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to phantom_lord [4h 7d]
A: Raise $8.00
B: Call $8.00
phantom_lord: Raise $25.00
: Fold
: Fold
: Fold
: Fold
: Fold

and occasionally,

Dealt to phantom_lord [Ac 4c]
phantom_lord: Raise $8.00
A: Call $8.00
villain: Raise $28.00
B: Fold
C: Fold
Fold
phantom_lord: Raise $80.00
A: Fold
villain: Fold



I think this thread's good enough for the sticky btw.

robinlacey

i'd usually still try and have a hand with some potential while squeezing,i think 47o might be pushing it,although i know hectorjelly for one disagrees with this.

phantom_lord

robinlacey wrote:

i'd usually still try and have a hand with some potential while squeezing,i think 47o might be pushing it,although i know hectorjelly for one disagrees with this.

I usually do too, but that just happened to be really sweet spot to do it


funny u should say that tho, there was a hand where I folded 74o to a raise without thinking about it and hj pointed out how it was a perfect spot for a sqeeze, really opened my eyes to how often I could do it.

pok3rplaya

74o is the frunckin nugtd,

cooker3

pok3rplaya wrote:

74o is the frunckin nugtd,

good night hey