For beginner poker players, 3-betting can be a hard concept to grasp, both in theory and application. This is because it’s not nearly as simple as following a standard preflop hand chart. We need to be able to think beyond the basics. This includes determining the situation, realizing your position, assessing hand strength values, and knowing how to exploit certain tendencies to assure our 3-bet is a profitable play. There’s obviously more advanced concepts but the purpose of this lesson is to provide a general framework for knowing when to 3-bet, the range of hands to do it with, and why.
WHAT IS A 3-BET?
Let’s first define what a 3-bet is for anyone completely new to the subject. In Hold’em, the blinds posted are considered the first bet. Any subsequent limps are considered calls since it’s calling the minimum bet of the posted big blind (or straddle). When a player puts in a bet larger than minimum bet, it’s called a raise and considered the second bet, or 2-bet for short. Therefore, the third bet is called a 3-bet, the fourth bet is a 4-bet, and so on and so forth. In short, a 3-bet occurs when a player re-raises the preflop open raiser.
WHY 3-BET?
The answer is the same for any time we decide to bet. We’re either betting for value, which means we want a worse hand to call, or we’re betting as a bluff, meaning we want a better hand to fold. Furthermore, there are hands that are entirely way too valuable to simply call a preflop raise, such as AA or KK. With our premium hands, we want to start building the pot now so it’s easier to get all the money in postflop. Obviously, a 3-bet with these hands is for value. Conversely, hands like A3s, KTo, or 97s aren’t good enough to call a preflop raise but are possible candidates to 3-bet as a bluff. More on this in the sections below.
LINEAR VS POLARIZED RANGES
When 3-betting preflop, we’ve already established that we can do so for value or as a bluff. From this, we can categorize our range of hands as linear 3-bets and polarized 3-bets. A linear 3-bet range is made up entirely of value hands. For example, we can 3-bet TT-AA, AJs+, AQo for value as a standard linear range. On the other hand, a polarized 3-bet range is made up of both value hands as well as bluffs. The reasoning behind this is that with a polarized 3-bet range, we get more action with our value hands occasionally picking up pots with some bluffs. An example of a polarized 3-bet range looks something like TT-AA, AJs+, AQo for value and A2s-A5s, 87s, 65s, 22-55 as a bluff.
So when to use one range over the other? Well that depends heavily on our opponents’ tendencies. If villain rarely folds, 3-betting as a bluff isn’t the smartest play. In general, we should only be 3-betting with a polarized range of hands (the bluff hands) if the villain is folding often enough to 3-bets. If they aren’t folding to 3-bets, then we’re unnecessarily spewing money preflop when re-raising with weak hands. Of course if they’re folding at a high frequency, our 3-bet bluffs become very profitable. So when deciding to 3-bet as a bluff, we should have a general idea of our fold equity before pulling the trigger. If fold equity is low, or we just don’t have enough information yet, we should stick with a linear 3-bet range of hands.
WIDENING OUR 3-BET VALUE RANGE
Knowing when to increase the hands in which we can 3-bet for value also depends heavily on our opponents. When 3-betting for value, we need to consider their calling range as well as the frequency at which they 4-bet. Obviously sometimes villains will occasionally call with slightly better hands but our long term expectation here is to have villains call our 3-bet with worse hands. As an example, if a certain villain open raises but folds to 3-bets like 93% of the time, it really does us no good to 3-bet with much of anything. We’ll show more profit by calling their raise and instead, increasing our bluff 3-bet range to take advantage of his extremely high fold frequency. Conversely, if we’re facing an open raise from a villain who rarely folds to 3-bets, then we can certainly begin widening our range of hands to 3-bet for value.
Another thing to consider is the range of hands the villain is opening with himself. If someone only raises 5% of their hands and never folds to 3-bets, we shouldn’t be widening our value range here. But if a player is raising 20% or more preflop, well then this is a much better situation for us to think about 3-betting for value or as a bluff. Here are the main points to remember when 3-betting for value.
- Keep your 3-bet value range fluid depending on how your opponent reacts to 3-bets
- Always consider your opponent’s continuing range, whether it be calling or 4-betting
- The less your opponent is folding to 3-bets, the wider you can 3-bet for value
- Always consider fold equity in terms of low versus high
HOW TO SIZE YOUR 3-BETS
Some villain’s have different reactions to varying 3-bet sizing. An extreme example would be 3-betting 12x or more the initial open raise when you have AA. Most people are going to fold unless they have KK or similar so making it that big does us no good. But only 3-betting 2x the initial raise gives our opponent great odds to call with pretty much anything. As a standard, I recommend a 3x the initial raise when in position and slightly larger when out of position, say 3.5x to 4x, to make up of our positional disadvantage. Sometimes we can even go a tad less (like 2.5-2.75x the initial raise) when in position depending on our opponent’s continuing range versus 3-bets.
SUMMARY
While this lesson is far from a comprehensive 3-betting guide, it should help beginners to start thinking beyond the basics. Reading through this is not enough however, as it’s just theory. You now have to put what you’ve learned in to practice and know that it’s a work in progress. Then be sure to review your 3-bet hands away from the table to make sure your decisions are inline with this lesson. As always, feel free to leave me a comment or question below and good luck!
