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Preflop 3-Betting in Micro Stakes Cash Games

Friday, December 19th, 2008 by Phil

Now it’s pretty standard to 3-bet someone when you’ve got a monster, it’s those times when you have a decent hand in position against an EP who opens the pot pre-flop. So what do you do?

Everyone who’s played poker has been in this situation. You’re in position against a loose/aggressive player with small or mid PP or a big Ace. He opens the pot aggressively. What do you do?

The answer is simple you 3-bet him. Aggressively.

You have to play back at him or else he’s going to run you over and you don’t want that. By 3-betting the bandit, you’re putting yourself in control of the pot and the hand. Most likely he’ll flat call and then you play the flop accordingly but the key is that you’re the aggressor in this hand and you have position on him during the hand, which gives you pot control.

The reason why you 3-bet is because you can’t allow a loose/aggressive player to see a cheap flop and hit with his marginal holdings. By showing you’re not afraid of his aggression PF, he’s least likely to fool around with you during the rest of the session. The one thing I know is that an overly aggressive bully does not like to be punched back.  I guarantee that you take a big hand off this bully and soon he’ll be showing you some major respect. Which then allows you to 3-bet bluff him. This will eventually lead to him leaving the table and looking for a softer game but not after you’ve taken a substantial amount of his stack.

The 3-bet against an aggro player should be bigger than your normal raise. You can’t 3-bet soft against this player because it won’t work. He’s most likely going to call anyway if he’s super loose, so don’t be afraid to make a bigger than normal 3-bet with a strong hand.

Against a loose/aggro player you’re better off 3-betting with only premium hands like 88-AA, AK, AQ in that range. If he’s really loose you can expand your range to include A/Js,A/10s or K/Qs.

If you’re up against a chronic blind stealer then 3-betting should definitely be in your arsenal. If I’ve just joined a table and I notice after 50 hands or so that the player to my right is constantly trying to steal my blinds, then I have to play back at him. I usually give the benefit of the doubt in the beginning but if the bandit is stealing your blinds at more than 30% of the time, then I would classify him as a chronic stealer. Your starting hand requirements doesn’t even have to be that strong most of the time to 3-bet a blind thief. Hands such as K/10, Q/J, Q/10s, J/10s in the SB or BB are usually good enough against his range to put in a 3-bet. Before long he’ll think twice about trying to steal your blinds again.

Your 3-bet against a chronic blind stealer should also be a tad bigger than your normal raise. You have to punish them for trying to steal your blinds and a soft bet just isn’t going to cut it.

Against weak/tight, passive/tight, or nuetral players then I’d watch very closely as who is constantly folding to pressure after their initial raise. It’s these players that you can slowly build your stack against. Eventually they’ll play back at you with some kind of marginal hand which you can expolit when you actually have a monster. These are the trickiest type of players though because they’ll often just flat call your 3-bet with strong hands such as A/K, QQ, JJ, 1010 or even KK and AA.

These players are so weak and tight that they’re not going to battle with you unless they have something really strong, so I’d 3-bet them with marginal hands that can crack a big hand such as suited connectors and big suited cards A/x or K/x even. Most often they’ll fold but when they do call and you hit the flop just right you can take down a nice pot because these guys can’t lay down a big pair when they’re beat. Again, you have to be fairly certain that they’ll fold to a 3-bet because if they’re too passive they’re going to call you down and you don’t want that if you’re 3-bet bluffing or semi-bluffing PF. They have to be just tight enough where you can exploit that leak in their game and 3-bet with impunity.

Lastly, one of the most important reasons to 3-bet is to gain fold equity against weak/tight & loose/aggros players who are loose enough to open pots with marginal holdings such as K/J, Q/10 or Ax etc. but tight enough to fold to pressure. This is the best player to 3-bet against.

If you’re new to a table I’d start with 3-betting large (say in 25NL, the villain opens with a standard .75 cent raise, then I’d raise it to $2) with strong hands for the first few times against a player that you’ve targeted just to see where their threshold is. If they’re constantly folding to your pressure then you can open up your range and continue to 3-bet until he adjusts. If they can’t then it’s open season.

This is just a general guideline for 3-betting but if you can target specific players to whom you’re going to 3-bet aggressively, you’ll find that this can be a profitble play in the long run.