$10 NLHE 6-max: 3bet pot all middle cards, can I barrel with 99?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CaptainKout
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this is why im confused. wheres the massive prostrat that says 3b can be good that im missing?

99 is an autocall, unless villain is playing a laughably wide range and never folding to 3bs, in which case we can for value. i really dont see how theres anything more to it. not that any of this is remotely applicable to a 16/15 tag in which case its always a call and never a 3b
 
acky100 said:
Yes jc, we will always get one. Thread is totally laughable to be honest, 99 is such a good hand to have in our calling range, zomg wont hit set gotta turn it into a bluff. good game CC
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Strong analysis here. Based on facts and experience. (Seriously, did you say anything in that post that meant ANYTHING?)

In the past few months, I've been meaning to make a big thread explaining in detail why Acky's philosophy on 3-betting (using lots of blockers, relying too much on preflop equity) is exceptionally wrong. Mostly because I've been a dick everytime you post some silly 3-betting advice, and I should probably back it up with more info. But then you guys make posts like this, and I'm just like "why the **** should I explain anything to these guys?"

Here's the short version:

1) Postflop playability matters far more than combinatorics and equity preflop when you're 3-betting, especially out of position. You are going to get called very frequently OOP, and it is much easier to play a hand like 67s than A4o in a 3-bet pot, even though A4o has more preflop equity and will get a few more folds. If you're 4-bet bluffing, fine, use tons of blockers and don't give a shit about how your hand plays postflop. But in a 3-bet pot, you're going to be called often, and how your hand plays matters a lot. There are still 170ish bb's to be won or lost after a 3-bet.

2) By flatting 99, you're assuming that you can make more from playing 2nd pair OOP than by 3-betting & fit/folding, getting his admittedly TAG range to ship you the pot a majority of the time. It just seems crazy that anyone would think they can play 2nd pair profitably in a spot like this. Run a filter for 2nd pair at showdown and see what your winrate is. It ain't good. My hold'em manager is long past installed, but it should be a pretty simple filter to run.

3) This spot is exceedingly easy to play when you 3-bet. If called, you assume a strong range. You don't stack flops where you have an overpair, you ship sets, and you c-bet the usual dry boards and stay away from the KQX type stuff.

So yeah, we're arguing over 2 plans for the hand:

A) My plan. 3-bet, give up easily unless you flop a set.

B) Your plan. Flat, planning to blindly call down on any flop where we have 2nd pair or better, and hope they're bluffing as much or more money than they're value betting. Hope that flopping sets can even out the times that you have to check/fold.

Yeah, which plan do you like?
 
I don't hate either line to be honest and don't think there that much difference in EV.
The problem with flating is if flop is Kxx flop goes b/c turn your just c/f anything excluding all draws villain my have and or floating.
 
tbh, i was being rather open minded about your opinion but now youre just being condescending and im not sure why.
below is a graph, with stats for winnings and BB/100 for me playing 99 in the SB or BB, vs 1 raiser.

i guess you could 'lolsamplesize' this, but really i dont expect 3bing in these spots to be better.

EDIT:

1) Postflop playability matters far more than combinatorics and equity preflop when you're 3-betting, especially out of position. You are going to get called very frequently OOP, and it is much easier to play a hand like 67s than A4o in a 3-bet pot, even though A4o has more preflop equity and will get a few more folds. If you're 4-bet bluffing, fine, use tons of blockers and don't give a shit about how your hand plays postflop. But in a 3-bet pot, you're going to be called often, and how your hand plays matters a lot. There are still 170ish bb's to be won or lost after a 3-bet

^ this i agree with, but why not do it with 22/66 because they DONT play well postlflop. 99 plays like shit in a 3b pot if you 3b a tight opponent and he calls you, conversely, it crushes his LP open range if we just call and dont cut it down massively by 3bing
 

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3betting 99 here is horrible, why turn one of the strongest hands in our flatting range in to a bluff. How many flops are we going to see we're comfortable getting it in on.

I don't like postflop either tbh, I'm having a really hard time seeing what worse hands call when we bet this turn. Even the flop is a little thin considering we don't know if villain floats.

I flat pre.
I check/call flop.
Betting flop and check/calling turn isn't bad either.
 
Can i just ask what the plan is when we 3b 99 and get 4b and just hate our life so much its silly
 
Ducky7 said:
Can i just ask what the plan is when we 3b 99 and get 4b and just hate our life so much its silly
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Same plans as when we 3bet A4s and get 4bet.
 
Feels kinda silly or is that just me? Bit wasteful of hands at the top of the range, especially if the villain can 4b light we just lose a ton of value
 
he'd been 3bet 6 times, 4bet twice, called twice, folded twice.

what makes you think he can't 4bet light?

+ this is a BTN/BL scenario, are you serious of course has light 4 bets here.
 
Campbell92 said:
he'd been 3bet 6 times, 4bet twice, called twice, folded twice.

what makes you think he can't 4bet light?

+ this is a BTN/BL scenario, are you serious of course has light 4 bets here.
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What?

OP says "has folded to every three bet thus far".
 
Is villain going to be calling with loads of 67s A8s sort of hands? If not what does this 3bet achieve that a 3bet with 22 doesn;t when villains range rarely holds weaker pairs to get value from?
How much value are we going to get even when these pairs are present when we're almost certainly going to see overcards.
We lose our chance to hit sets against villains premium hands.
We remove the hands of villains we dominate such as 33/56s etc.

Sure villain folds alot to 3bets so it's +EV to 3bet bluff. That doesn't mean we do it with 99! We have plenty of mediocre hands that aren't strong enough to call to do that with.

Super strong hands 3bet for value : AK/QQ
Fairly striong hands flat to crush villains opening range: 99/AJ
Mediocre hands 3bet bluff: KJo/Q9s
 
Yeah not quite the same as when we get 4b while we have A4o. That we snapfold and go hmm, nh. 99 we cringe and go FML why did I 3b
 
Why would we cringe and say fml when we know we're 3betting 99 as a bluff? It might as well A4o...
 
Errrr because we realise that turning the top end of our flatting range which crushes vils LP opening range into a bluff is stupid when we can do this this other 75% of the time with cards that are shit?

A4o plays like shit in a 3b pot or in a pot you called OOP- unlike 99. This guy is a preflop nit, so like deco said, our 3b range should be polarised w value hands and air hands, not merged. And again, also like deco just said, we say FML cos when vil 4bs we just lost our chance to stack villains premiums cos we have to now fold

EDIT: I enjoy how nobody on the 3b 99 side has made any comment towards my graph which clearly illustrates the benefits of flatting 99 in this spot
 
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Ducky7 said:
coz why do we waste one of our premium hands as a bluff
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I liked my longer more explanatory version better 😛
But srsly. This is getting way out of hand lol
 
WVHillbilly said:
What?

OP says "has folded to every three bet thus far".
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mixed up the HH with something else, if he folds everything doesn't this make it even more of a flat?

lol sighaments.
 
2 items for discusion:

1) Why does it matter if this is the top end of our flatting range? How is this relevant to the most profitable way to play it? Does your arguement still apply to AA if I flat that? Now I shouldn't 3-bet AA because its at the top of my flat range?

2) JChoop's graph at least adds something to the discussion. It proves he can play this profitably flatting pre. But this includes too many scenarios. At least filter it to take out spots where you three bet, and where you're facing a button or CO raise.

Edit: Also, would it be a bad thing if our flatting range was nothing? Why do we need a flatting range?
 
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Completely 100% agree with flatting 99 here, it's a huge hand to have in our flatting range. I flat JJ a ton of time too against most opponents.
 
c9h13no3 said:
2 items for discusion:

1) Why does it matter if this is the top end of our flatting range? How is this relevant to the most profitable way to play it? Does your arguement still apply to AA if I flat that? Now I shouldn't 3-bet AA because its at the top of my flat range?

Edit: Also, would it be a bad thing if our flatting range was nothing? Why do we need a flatting range?
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We can flat AA profitably of course, but it's more +EV to 3bet it as we can do that for value also.


There's arguments for having no flatting range. My flatting range is pretty tight, KJs KQ 77-JJ. I think they're all hands we can play profitably even OOP in a single raised pot and I'm not really comfortable 3betting any of them except for JJ.
 
c9h13no3 said:
2 items for discusion:

1) Why does it matter if this is the top end of our flatting range? How is this relevant to the most profitable way to play it? Does your arguement still apply to AA if I flat that? Now I shouldn't 3-bet AA because its at the top of my flat range?

yes my argument still applies, i can flat AA profitably therefore we CAN NOT 3bet it as a bluff ONLY for value, pretty simple logic, unless we're super retarded we can also call 99 and easily profit and use anything we cant call profitably to 3bet bluff with, and hence make money with more of our overall range (cause he folds to a lot of 3bets we use 86s or whatever or 22 because we cant actually make money calling them.)
2) JChoop's graph at least adds something to the discussion. It proves he can play this profitably flatting pre. But this includes too many scenarios. At least filter it to take out spots where you three bet, and where you're facing a button or CO raise.
If this isn't already filtered to CO/BTN spots then it's only going to get even more profitable as ranges get wider, its really not hard to play profitably vs someone opening 40%++++ of hands.

Edit: Also, would it be a bad thing if our flatting range was nothing? Why do we need a flatting range?
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Having a flatting range makes it a million times easier to not get bent over and exploited by the stealer and also makes us more money like this whole thing is about, yeah we can 3bet bluff it and make money cause he folds the right amount of time whatever whatever, but we can call and show more profit. Its just obviously more +EV to flat. Why it makes it easier in a non exploitable perspective is that we have to defend say 40% or so to button steals otherwise a guy can open any two and just x/f when he misses and print money of us. 3betting a 40% range is pretty ridiculous but flatting very playable hands maybe 20% and 3betting a polarised 20% range makes it a shit ton easier. In practise we're all probably exploitable a bit due to multitabling, so we dont need to worry about not defending enough, but its obviously easier and more profitable to have a flatting range.
 
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