Against anyone with a reasonably wide SB opening range I would suggest make yourself horrible to play against SB v BB and 3b ~ 35% of your hands. People will stop trying to mess with you, you have position, can crush them, it is heads up, with what should be a lot of money behind to play. Your options are all open. You can bluff, value bet, semi-bluff, peel, call with air and raise turns... There is so much you can do. This will also give you a significant opportunity to improve hand reading and how you play in spots where both players are lighter. If 35% is too wide then roll it back to 28%, 22% etc.

Make people not want to play against you.... Hammer them into a corner they are too concerned to step out of it unless they have QQ+. This will also improve your overall play as people respond poorly in 3b pots. Having position is crucial as you can decide how every hand plays out by closing the action postflop. If they respond eventually with 4 betting you with hands like ATo you have them in a terrible spot. They are effectively 4b bluffing with a value hand (against your 3b range) as you 5b shoving has ATo in the crap, or calling and they are playing something that connects ok in a 4b pot out of position against someone (you) who will have a hand that flops ok a lot too, and when you both miss which will happen often enough, all is in your favor as you can bluff and pressure them. How many streets will they call down ace high? Or second pair? Your 3b is so wide it can connect with any flop... Are they betting once on 96Q2r? You can be calling T8s here to peel for pairs gutters flushdraws and they have to check fold a lot or start 2 and 3 barrelling. So you have them bluffing off stacks / chunks of stacks and you have position. T8s is dominated by ATo so you take a hand they have you crushed with and with position leverage them out of a pot they are favored to win.

I have played short handed games where the guy on my left is 3 betting ~ 30. It is not fun. Open A4s and get 3b I 4b he jams meh. Open AJo get 3b and there are no good options - call and check fold a lot, 4b and get called, 4b and face a 5b .... You can make someone incredibly uncomfortable playing the bottom portions of the top of their ranges.

Thank you very much for making such an effort for me, this will be a huge help! Many kudos points in the post.

ooooooo theyz in trouble now!

I was just reading about this in a book last night. It was in a section about putting bad regs and recreational players on tilt. It didn't specifically advise this in BvB but just as a general way to get people to tilt by making them incredibly uncomfortable. It did, however, recommend doing it when you would have position, so this is a perfect spot. Once they start to adjust to a point where it is working against you, then you can adjust too by going back t your mormal range or tightening up even further. Like josh suggests, they will be in 3 and 4bet pots with very light holdings. The cherry on top is that when you start 3betting so light, when you do show up with a premium hand they give you no credit and you can start taking stacks from them.

On anon tables this part won't apply, but if you play reg tables this "image" will carry over and you can use that to your advantage.

When people 3bet that much, or don't fold much in BB vs me in SB, I just limp like 80% of my range (even AA). So I'll play even more against you eventually.

But yeah, vs minraise you gotta defend close to 100% (I fold 82o anyway), and therefore gotta expand that 3bet range as well.

I know nothing in poker is standard, but what is a decent guideline in constructing ranges. Like if your continuance range is X. What percentage of X would be a good starting point to be 3bets and what is a good ratio of value to bluffs.

Like I said, I know nothing is standard and you can't do poker in a box, but in a vacuum say, against unknowns, where would you start.

@MilfGrinder , ye but you're good! Thank you though, it's a good point for me to remember.

@fawltyfelix , thank you as well. Yes, I should think if I get that busy bvb my image could easily cause villains to feel uncomfortable, which is precisely why I'm looking to do it.

Why do you fold ~50% against 3x openraise and defend 100% against 2x openraise?

Against 2x openraise you can fold some hands, garbage like 82o 72o stuff ~5-10%, the advantage ---> villain will see you fold sometimes and may think he do something right with his sizing. Furthermore you need 25% Equity to call +EV, you have around 30% raw equity with 72o but I think it is not enough because you never realize 100% of equity, even in position, with a hand like that.

From math view: Villain need 50% FE for autoprofit with minraise, right? I hope so^^ If you tend to call very often, I think he'll need around 35%-40% foldequity but for that potodds you maybe can and should defend around 90% of your hands.

Constructing good 3bet ranges isn't easy against 2bb imo, because if you make it 6bb against 2bb, your stack to pot ratio is ~8 (100bb stacks preflop), thats a good SPR for low suited hands, suited aces and mabye mid and low pockets but not very good for TPTK-types but mabye it is compensated by your positional advantage. The stack to pot ratio and the ability to call a lot against 4bets (because enough stack left and position) leads into the thesis that all playabable hands are +EV 3bet regardless of villains behavior against 3bets because you'll make the pot bigger in case you win and deny equity (lol 1-1 words of Mathew Janda, sorry for that).

But if you start 3betting 30% or more now, it is easy to exploit and lol mabye you become the tilter if villain starts to adjust by 4betting recklessly.

If constructing 3betting ranges become tricky you should mix it up with a lot of hands but thats hard to implement. Mabye you start 3betting more for value, like 88+ KQo and KQs + some suited connector, boardway, onegapper stuff and hands that works well with SPR 8. I am honest, I have no straightforeward plan with pure strategy in that situation. Calling very wide and 3bet more suited connectors and the same bluffs like against 3bb seems okaish.


Your range against 3bb:

First, we have to calculate the anytwo-EV for the SB against your approach to find out whether we can openraise any two or not against you:

EV(OR 32o) = %(fold)*(1,5bb) + %(call)(6*adjusted Equity - 2,5bb) + %(3bet)(-2,5bb).

Realization with 32o: Tough to say, we often want to check/fold when preflop steal in vacuum is +EV, mabye 70% realization? Against your callrange 32o has 31,24% raw equity and 21,9% adjusted equity if 32o realize 70%.


EV(32o) = 0,507*1,5bb + 0,341*(6*0,219 - 2,5bb) * 0,152*(-2,5bb)

= 0,7605 - 0,4044 - 0,38

= -0,0239bb

Alright, any two is not possible, but Villain can openraise a hand like Q6o against your range and you dont want that someone can profitably openraise Q6o in the SB against you in BB

But with your range you have another problem. Imagine:

I sit in the SB and openraise my 70% range (because I can profitably openraise Q6o against you), you 3bet 9bb and I have a random hand, knowing that you are super polarized and 4bet 22bb (19bb additional investment) to win 12bb in the pot. Means, that you have to fold ~61% of the time for a +EV any2 4bet.

And well, if you fold all your bluffs (67% of your hands), I can do it...

It is okay to have junkhands in your range for 3bets, but I think you should add some combos which are good 3bet/calls like KQs, JTs, 67s or something like that and call low suited hands instead of 3bet or just adjust your 3bet range in a way that you dont have to fold against 4bets that much.

@eroticjesus , I'm going to have to read that a few times to get some idea of how to procede with it, but I think I love you anyway.

such good posts guys, thanks a huge amount, seriously.

I think that here it does not import very much the range, here it imports more our game preflop, It is very difficult for a beginner to defend more from 50%, rarely it is going to connect something in the flop and we will lose in the long term, then, more a range preflop, i think that it is better to plan the game according to the flops that may come, example if flop is very dry, some time i like call CB and re-raise turn, o maybe re-raise direct in flop, in this situation the ranges are very wide, then we can play very aggressive flops that connect to our range

In fact, I like to do more 3bet, this way we have initiative and play against ranges more polarized, in case the villain is very aggressive in 4b, I use the first option

GL!

Ty @juanoell , good to have you around mate, nice thoughts.