My philosophy on 3-betting

[swolfe]

in general, don't do it. i've been seeing a lot of posts lately where Hero is asking, "should i have folded my set/AA/TPTK when he pushed to my re-re-re-minraise?!?"

putting in more than a single reraise gives away your hand and will generally only be called when you're behind. if you think that you're ahead, a better line is either the stop-and-go or check-raise from OOP, or letting them lead into you on the next street if you're IP.

if i do 3-bet, it's almost always an all-in bet. i'll do this in the following cases:
- i have a hand that i want to raise and an all-in is a PSB or less
- i have a very strong hand (set, straight) and EXPECT A CALL
- i have a very strong draw (overs plus nut flush, OESFD) and EXPECT A FOLD

examples:

i have 8/images/graemlins/club.gif8/images/graemlins/spade.gif in a limped pot and the flop is A/images/graemlins/club.gif8/images/graemlins/heart.gif2/images/graemlins/spade.gif. i lead and an MP player raises. if i can't get it all in with a raise here, the best play would be to call and check-raise the turn.

same situation except the flop is J/images/graemlins/heart.gif8/images/graemlins/heart.gif2/images/graemlins/spade.gif. i lead and an LP player raises. here i'd call and lead the turn (any turn).

if i were in position and someone check-raised me in either of the above scenarios, i'd call and let them lead the turn, either smooth-calling or raising all-in depending on stacks.

i have A/images/graemlins/club.gifK/images/graemlins/club.gif in the BB. a tight player raises preflop, i call and we see a flop heads up. it comes 2/images/graemlins/club.gif6/images/graemlins/heart.gif9/images/graemlins/club.gif and i lead. they raise and i push expecting to be over 50% with a QQ and have enough fold equity with AA/KK to make pushing here +EV.

[jkkkk]

Good post.

[DoomSlice]

It is very very very very easy to tell when to or when not to 3-bet. Here it goes: if you are going to be put to a "tough" decision if you are 4-bet, then don't make the 3rd bet.

In very simple terms, only do it with extremely strong hands, and extremely weak hands that you can easily fold.

[soah]

At SSNL this is good because it's very rare to see a semibluff raise. Against tougher opponents this no longer holds true. You're gonna puke when someone just tries to make a move on the pot with a gutshot and he ends up cracking your top set for your entire stack. Against opponents that are routinely raising you heads up on the flop you can also sometimes come back over the top without much of a hand as a resteal (hopefully with some nut outs or a hand that might already be good). Giving up control of the betting to someone who may not have made their hand yet can be very dangerous from a reverse implied odds standpoint.