We’ve already established that you shouldn’t have a cold-calling range, but what hands should you 3-Bet to 8BB? You want to build your range around big cards, and mainly suited ones here. In a 50NL ZOOM game, a regular opens to 2.5BB UTG and you find yourself in the CO after the HJ folds. In these cases, it can be fine to flat a marginal hand that might normally constitute the bottom of your 3-Betting range. Sometimes there will be weaker players left to act, whom you want to coax into the pot. Therefore, coming into the pot for a smallish 3-Bet is the way to go from micro-stakes all the way up to around 100NL or 200NL ZOOM. Secondly, when there are still multiple people left to act, most of the hands that are good enough to call a raise with also want to deter multi-way pots to retain high equity. Firstly, when we win by making our opponent fold pre-flop, we get to keep 100% of our winnings since only pots that go to the flop get raked. Recent research has led to the conclusion that in games where the rake is meaningful – which is pretty much everywhere but the very highest stakes – calling from HJ, CO, or BU yields a lower expectation than 3-Betting. Why Not Cold Call?Ĭold calling is a thing of the past.

By tailoring our 3-Bet range around hands with one or more high card, we can use blockers to maximize folds and reduce the number of 4-bets we’ll face. This article will focus on playing a ‘3-Bet or Fold’ strategy from the HJ, CO, and BTN that is linear in structure and favours big cards. Linear 3-Betting means building a 3-Bet range from the top down. Starting with AA, we 3-Bet hands in a continuous procession down to the weakest hand we deem good enough to 3-Bet.

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