3betting pairs OOP

[radubalaj]

In the preflop charts full ring, 44-99 are a 3bet bluff from the SB against CO open, while 22-99 are a 3bet bluff from the SB against a BTN open.

My questions are:

1. Why are these a 3bet bluff from the SB but not any other position? There is no use of middle to small pairs from any other position. 3bet bluffs are typically low suited As and low-medium suited connectors.
2. Would it be a mistake to remove most of them (22-66) and replace them with lower suited one-gappers?

OR

3. Is it OK to 3bet them as a bluff, but then put these pairs in your check-fold range for the most part?

The problem I run into is that these are very tough to play postflop. You very rarely flop anything great, then what? You don't block any big cards, you don't even get to have a backdoor flush draw to go on.
I can cbet if villain has a high cbet fold percentage, but that is about it.

Thoughts?

[kkep]

My thinking is because the Co and Bu have the widest opening ranges so we would rather 3-bet with those and take the pot down which we will probably about 40% or so of the time, we can fold to a 4-bet unless we are still getting a good price to set mine.

Plus whenever our 3-bet gets called we can sometimes c-bet our range to win with the worst hand or hit a set they often will never put us on.

However vs a tight opening range say a nitty type player that will almost always have a hand they aren't going to fold we can probably just call as long as the BB mostly just calls too.

At least this is how I understand it...

[reeeeeeper]

Make sure your 3B size is >3x so you have fold equity preflop. The difference between the small pairs and the suited gappers is that the former always have some showdown value. When you're getting heads-up against a wide opening range that has more value than implied odds hands. Calling out of the SB should rarely be done since you're giving the BB great odds to call and then you're 3way OOP heading to a flop potentially against 4 overcards. Those pairs are too good to fold in those spots, so you pretty much have to 3b them.

[radubalaj]

Great point regarding showdown value, I did not think of that, thanks.

[RealJPB]

Another important thing to remember is that the charts assume our opponents are playing optimally from the CO and BTN. I think the conventional wisdom at the stakes I play (live 1/2 and 1/3, live tourneys $100-$400) is that the population opens too wide from early position and too tight from late position. If the players in your games are playing tighter than they should be, you don't have to 3b them as wide as the charts suggest.

Also, as reeeeeeper mentioned, if you just flat you're giving the BB great odds to call, but sometimes that's a good thing. Is the BB terrible and likely to pay you off when you hit your set? Then I want him in the pot.

[Paul Khoo]

radubalaj

why using all this hand in sb vs cut off and button, is because button and cut off tend to have the widest range , and they also going to defend and fold quite a big number.lets say pocket 2 vs 78s we are still not really behind compare we 3 bet A4s , opponent defend with AT, we are getting dominated .

we can of course 3 bet pre flop, and check fold and mix with some check raise flop. who say after when we 3 bet we must c bet every flop.

just make sure you dont over fold , or over check raise those small pocket pair every thing will be fine.

[radubalaj]

Thank you all for the explanations, they all make sense.

What about the postflop play? You should be range betting big cards as this is what your range mostly consists of. But it's also what the villain most likely sticks with.

[kkep]

c-betting gets tricky because the V as you said presumably as the same *strong* range. So I tend to only c-bet as we normally would play our range.

I've learned to put in my mind that I was bluffing pre-flop, I got called so lets not get crazy trying to win at all costs. Sometimes that just means I'm going to check fold.
However our bluffing range is constructed to have decent board coverage so we will get to bet and or check call enough flops to not just be losing (giving up) every time we get called and go to the flop.

I mean if we have 66 and the flop is 9TQ what's the point in betting, that flop pretty much smashed the Bu defending range. I don't know how all of you would play AA or AQ there but I'm probably check calling just about every time.

What is really nice is when we smash are bluffing range and the V gets a piece of the flop too. That usually ends up winning us a nice pot.

Take all of that with a grain of salt tho as I'm barely above a novice....