Pre-flop play against weak MTT players. Part 2

Read Part I here.

What response do we expect?

Generally speaking, when faced with a 3bet, we should expect the bad player to call and the good player to fold or 4bet. Of course, this doesn't mean that weak players always just call, but it's important to have a plan ahead and ask yourself, what would normally happen?

When a player opens a lot and throws a lot of hands into 3bet, what cards you hold becomes less important, the real value comes from the fact that your opponent usually throws his cards out before the flop. However, when playing against a poor player who plays a lot of hands, opens often and calls 3bet, we need to be sure that other factors are in our favour (position, chip counts, players who will have the opportunity to act after us, chances of getting 4bet from the bluff, etc.) and only then act.

How many chips do players have?

The chip counts of the players should have a significant impact on your 3betting range. When players have fewer chips, you should choose the hands you 3bet with much more carefully. On the other hand, when both you and your opponents have chip castles, you can 3bet very widely and for so long before other opponents start to fold. Let's consider the example with 30bb:

Tournament, effective chip value 30bb.

The hero has As5c in BB,

CO raises 2.25bb, what should the hero do?

First, let's imagine that your opponent is playing aggressively, opening too many hands. Even though As5c is not a good hand, it is suitable for 3bet as a bluff. When we have an ace, the chances of the opponent having a good hand are reduced, so the chances of him folding are slightly higher.

Now let's imagine that we are playing against another weak player who plays more passively and opens less often. Whether he opens 10%, 20% or 30%, a 3bet is disastrous in this situation, because he may not discard the cards he should, so we will end up post-flop with a bad hand, and even if we catch an ace on the flop, there is a very good chance that we will lose a large part of the chips due to an inferior hand next to the ace. On the other hand, against such opponents, I sometimes like to 3bet single suited connectors like J9s, but I reduce the size of the 3bet a little (5bb to 2.25x opening), I don't think it would work well in the overall strategy, but let's remember that we are playing against a fish, so 3betting in this position with J9s has a lot of pluses:

• We will isolate the fish with a positional advantage and the initiative;
• We have a deceptive hand, so sometimes we'll catch something strong without expecting it;
• The J9s will not be as often the dominant hand as the A5o;
• If our opponent 4bet shoves, we won't be throwing away that much equity (mainly 40%).

Should we 3bet weak players with all monochrome connectors when we have 30bb? No, but when we want to isolate fish more often than others, we sometimes find ourselves in these situations and we have to take advantage of them, even though it may seem illogical at first to 3bet against fish. As long as you think intelligently about which hands to include in the 3bet range and which to exclude, it will be difficult to make big mistakes.

It's even easier when you have 100bb+. You don't have to worry about someone stacking all your chips, and you have much more room to play post-flop. Despite the fact that the more chips players have, the more complicated poker is, 3betting with a lot of chips is much easier.

Remember, weak players tend to make a lot of mistakes when playing post-flope. We'll talk more about post-flop play in the next section, but it's also important to mention here that one of the goals of good pre-flop play is to play post-flop for the biggest possible pot against the fish. This is especially important in the earlier levels of tournaments, as if you catch someone very strong on the flop, you can earn a huge bb count.

Whenever a weak player opens with more than just the best hands, you often want to 3bet him with hands that play well post-flop. (With the best hands, too).

When we have a lot of chips and are playing against a weak opening player, I like to limit my 3betting from SB and BB positions. Weak players make a lot of mistakes post-flop, but they rarely fold, and more often than not they respond with hands they shouldn't, so having an average hand against such an opponent can cause us a lot of problems, which is something we don't want to do when the pot is quite big.

Here's an example from level 1 (200bb)

The hero has AsJc in BB position.

Fish opens 3bb from CO, 2 players fold, hero 3bets to 11bb, fish calls.

Flop - Ac, 6h, 7h. (Banke 22.5bb).

The hero bets 7bb, the fish calls.

Turnas - 3rd (Banke 36,5bb).

Hero checks, fish bets 25bb.

This hand is starting to get annoying, the fish may have a worse ace, a buy into suit, 89, or something even more interesting 10, 9, or it may just be stupidly pressing buttons with 55. On the other hand, we can see some hands here that we shouldn't see in a normal player - A3, A6, A7, 54 or even AK. If we call here, we will usually get a huge bet on the river, which would put us in a very uncomfortable situation unless we see a J on the river. But if we fold, we will often just be played by a fish that has a weaker hand.

So what should we do in this situation? Probably call, and hope that the opponent checks the river, but we would avoid all this unpleasantness if we had just called before the flop.

When 3betting with less than perfect hands and the players at the table have a lot of bb, we always want to have a positional advantage over the fish. This way we can control the opponent and put ourselves in awkward situations. Without a positional advantage, we swell the pot for no good reason and risk being outplayed by an inferior player, even if the inferior player doesn't understand how to do it himself.

In SB position, things are a bit more complicated, and the 3bet has the added value of being able to force the BB out of the game (until they wake up with a sudden good hand). However, here again you may face the same problem as in the example above with BB, so the least you can do is to 3bet with good post-flop hands.

Where is the best place to play poker?

Let's take into account the history of playing against weak players

In 2017, we taught balanced strategy and fair play. But you still see players like Phill Hellmuth smashing it in live tournaments despite seemingly playing terribly. There are several reasons why players like him, who I don't think would be able to play winning poker in 10$ worth of tournaments online, are able to win WSOP bracelets these days. The thing that players like Hellmuth particularly appreciate is the attention to detail, even though it's very simple but stupid.

You have a limited amount of time when a fish is sitting at your table, so it's your job to get all of its chips before others have a chance to do so. They've come to play poker and they want action. The only thing they didn't really come here for is to throw every hand away. When someone forces them to throw their cards away over and over again, they start to get quiet, very quickly become stubborn and paranoid. This is the logic of the fish, which can be encapsulated in this line: "I will not let him bother me, next time I will fight back" - a mindset and behaviour that is typical of many recreational players.

It's hard to think of a more profitable scenario than when a fish thinks you're playing against him personally and gets nervous about it. Sometimes it takes very little, such as a single 3bet that knocks out the pot, or a winning pot with a completely unexpected hand, say 75s.

When playing against other regular players, you don't need to be so stressed about every hand. No matter what cards are turned up after a fight in a big 3bet pot, we can't jump to conclusions when both players are playing solidly. But with weak players it's a slightly different situation, if you've played the same fish before, sometimes they'll do anything to call your bets. You don't have to try to put a weak player in that psychological state, all you have to do is to continue to isolate such players and play standard poker on other streets.

What you really shouldn't do is to bluff recklessly and heavily in front of the fish, trying to create the image of a ruthless player. Nevertheless, you still want to attack a weak player, so do so using the tips discussed earlier in this article, and do so often.

A few isolations or 3bets against a fish without showing your questionable hand is enough to drive it crazy. That's why isolating is better than limp-dropping, and 3betting is a better choice than just calling. You are creating an overall story of your game that will definitely come in handy in the future.

Translated from https://www.upswingpoker.com/exploit-weak-players-preflop-mtts/