What response do we expect?
Generally speaking, when we face a 3-bet, we should expect a bad player to call and a good player to fold or 4-bet. 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 should typically happen?
When a player opens a lot and folds a lot to 3-bets, the cards you hold become less important; the real value comes from the fact that the opponent often folds pre-flop. However, when playing against a bad player who plays a lot of hands, opens often, and calls 3-bets, we need to be sure that other factors are favorable to us (position, stack sizes, players who will have the opportunity to act after us, chances of getting 4-bet bluffed, etc.) and only then take action.
How many chips do the players have?
The chip stacks of the players should strongly influence your 3-betting range. When players have fewer chips, you should select the hands you 3-bet with much more carefully. On the other hand, when both you and your opponents have large stacks, you can 3-bet very widely and continue until other opponents start playing back. Let's discuss an example with 30bb:
Tournament, effective stack size – 30bb.
Hero in BB position has As5c,
CO raises to 2.25bb, what should the hero do?
First, let's imagine the opponent is playing aggressively, opening too many hands. Despite As5c not being a good hand, it fits as a 3-bet bluff. When we have an ace, the chances of the opponent having a strong hand decrease, so the chances of them folding are slightly higher.
Now let's imagine we're playing against another weak player who plays more passively and opens less frequently. Whether they open 10%, 20%, or 30%, a 3-bet here is disastrous because such a player might not fold hands they should, leading us to a post-flop situation with a weak hand, and even if we hit an ace on the flop, there's a high chance we'll lose a large portion of our chips due to a weaker kicker. On the other hand, against such opponents, I sometimes like to 3-bet suited connectors like J9s but reduce the 3-bet size slightly (5bb into a 2.25x open). I don't think this works well in a general strategy, but remember, we're playing against a fish, so a 3-bet here with J9s has many advantages:
- We isolate the fish with a positional advantage and initiative;
- We have a deceptive hand, so sometimes we'll hit something strong unexpectedly;
- J9s won't be dominated as often as A5o;
- If our opponent 4-bet shoves, we won't lose as much equity (mostly 40%).
Should we 3-bet weak players with all suited connectors when we have 30bb? No, but when we want to isolate fish more often than others, we sometimes find ourselves in such situations and need to exploit them, even if it initially seems illogical to 3-bet bluff against fish. As long as you think wisely about which hands to include in your 3-bet range and which not to, it will be difficult to make big mistakes.
It's even simpler when you have 100bb+. You don't have to worry about someone shoving all-in, and you have much more room to play post-flop. Despite the fact that the more chips players have, the more complex poker becomes, 3-betting with a lot of chips is much easier.
Remember, weak players tend to make many mistakes playing post-flop. We'll talk more about post-flop play in the next part, but it's important to mention here that one of the goals of good pre-flop play is to play for as large a pot as possible against fish post-flop. This is especially important in the early stages of tournaments when you catch something very strong on the flop, you can earn a huge number of bb.
Whenever a weak player opens not only with the best hands, you often want to 3-bet them with hands that play well post-flop. (With the best hands as well).
When we have a lot of chips and play against a weak player's open, I like to limit my 3-bets from the SB and BB positions. Weak players make many mistakes post-flop, but they rarely fold, more often calling with hands they shouldn't, so having a medium hand against such an opponent can cause many problems, which we wouldn't want when the pot is quite large.
Here's an example from the first tournament level (200bb)
Hero has AsJc in the BB position.
The fish opens 3bb from CO, 2 players fold, hero 3-bets to 11bb, the fish calls.
Flop – Ac, 6h, 7h. (Pot 22.5bb).
Hero bets 7bb, the fish calls.
Turn – 3d. (Pot 36.5bb).
Hero checks, the fish bets 25bb.
This hand starts to get annoying; the fish could have a worse ace, a flush draw, 89, or something else interesting like 10, 9, or could just be pressing buttons foolishly with 55. On the other hand, we could also see hands here that we wouldn't expect from a normal player – A3, A6, A7, 54, or even AK. If we call here, we will often face a huge bet on the river, putting us in a very uncomfortable situation unless we see a J on the river. But if we fold, we will often be outplayed by a fish with a weaker hand.
So what should we do in such a situation? Probably call and hope the opponent checks the river, but we could avoid all these unpleasant situations if we had just called pre-flop.
When we 3-bet with not the best hands and 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 them in uncomfortable situations. Without a positional advantage, we unnecessarily inflate the pot and risk being outplayed by a worse player, even when they don't understand how they do it.
Playing from the SB position is a bit more complicated; a 3-bet has additional value because we can push the BB out of the game (until they unexpectedly wake up with a good hand). However, you might face the same problem as in the BB example, so the least you can do is 3-bet with hands that play well post-flop.
Where is the best place to play poker?
Consider the history of playing against weak players
In 2017, we taught balanced strategy and correct play. However, you still see players like Phil Hellmuth crushing live tournaments despite seemingly playing terribly. There are several reasons why players like him, who I believe wouldn't be able to play winning poker in $10 online tournaments, manage to win WSOP bracelets these days. One thing that players like Hellmuth highly value is paying great attention, even though it's very simple but foolish.
You have a limited amount of time when a fish is at your table, so your job is to take all their chips before others do. They came to play poker and want action. The only thing they definitely didn't come for is to fold every hand. When someone forces them to fold again and again, they start to tilt, quickly becoming persistent and paranoid. This is fish logic, which can be summed up in this line: “I won't let him crush me, next time I'll call” – this is the thinking and behavior typical of many recreational players.
It's hard to come up with a more profitable scenario than when a fish thinks you're playing personally against them and gets nervous because of it. Sometimes it takes very little, like one 3-bet that knocks them out of the pot or a won pot with a completely unexpected hand, say 75s.
When playing against other regular players, you don't need to overemphasize every hand. No matter what cards are revealed after a battle in a big 3-bet pot, we can't make hasty conclusions when both players play solidly. But with weak players, it's a different situation; if you outplay the same fish before, sometimes they will do everything to call all your bets. You don't have to try to put a weak player in such a psychological state; all you need to do is continue isolating such players and play standard poker on other streets.
What you definitely shouldn't do is bluff recklessly and strongly against fish, trying to create a ruthless player image. Despite this, you still want to attack the weak player, so do it using the tips discussed earlier in this article, and do it often.
A few isolations or 3-bets against a fish without showing your dubious hand – that's enough for them to start going crazy. That's why isolating is better than limping behind, and 3-betting is a better choice than just calling. You are creating the overall history of your game, which will definitely come in handy in the future.
Translated from https://www.upswingpoker.com/exploit-weak-players-preflop-mtts/
