If your opponent is playing really loosely and aggressively against 3-bets, that just means you need to be expanding your value 3-betting range. If your opponent is opening close to 100%, and you do not expand your 3-betting range, you will get run over. All those extra air hands make a dramatic difference in the expectation of 3-betting wide. If all other frequencies are the same, it is much better to 3-bet an opponent who is opening 80%, than an opponent who is opening 40%. Opening range, the most important factor, has some amount of calculation involved in it in order to make optimal 3-betting decisions, but you can get most of the benefits by just having a good, general sense of the effect.

Let's talk about why they matter and how to think about them. Very often, when I ask a student, “why did you 3-bet there?”, I’ll get back an answer that has nothing to do with some or even a single one of these factors. Your perceived 3-betting range and your opponent’s willingness to adapt. The properties of the specific hand you've been dealt.Ĥ. How loose and aggressive your opponent is, both preflop and postflop.ģ. The expectation from 3-betting light comes down to four main factors, in order of importance:Ģ. While there is certainly room for different stylistic approaches to exploiting your opponent in poker, this type of static thinking tends to lead to less exploitation of your opponent’s frequencies, not more.

Try to avoid justifying these decisions by saying things like “it’s just my strategy to be from the big blind”. Similarly, when you fail to make a 3-bet bluff because you know it is sometimes good to play tight out of position, without figuring out if this is actually one of those situations, you throw away money. When you make a 3-bet bluff because you know it is sometimes good, without going through and figuring out if it is actually good in this particular situation, you throw away money. Optimal poker requires more analysis than that. They see J4s 40bb deep facing a minraise, and know that this is a good hand to make a light 3-bet with in general and they do it. Situational awareness can be one of the first things to go for a good player trying to put in volume to get out of a rough patch. However, it can get you into a decent amount of trouble if you ignore the fundamentals of what makes the play good or bad, so you need to make sure you understand when and how to step up the aggression out of position. 3-betting a wide range is a powerful tool to have at your disposal, especially if you like playing against conservative opponents. One leak that consistently comes up in my one-on-one coaching is light 3-bets with the wrong sorts of hands in the wrong sorts of situations.

Poker what does 3 bet mean