La fe heroica del Buen Ladrón

Unpredictability

Based on your analysis of your opponents’ ranges and profiles, the key idea to re-stealing and 4-betting is to be very unpredictable. For example, 4-betting a decent amount by coming over the top of a raise and a re-raise is a very strong move from almost any position, especially from the small blind, since late-position re-raises have a higher probability of being a re-steal themselves. However, for you to make this move profitably, you must account for all the history at your table and have your opponents identified correctly so you pick the right spot. Here’s a quick example to illustrate the idea:

A weak player (A) limps from early position. Right behind him, a good and aggressive player (B) raises to isolate the limper, a move he’s been making frequently. Then, in late position, another aggressive player (C) re-raises, aware of what player B is trying to do. If you 4-bet from the SB, you’ll often make everyone fold pre-flop and take down a nice pot, unless, of course, one of them is actually holding a monster.

Even if player B has a big hand such as TT or JJ, it’ll be extremely difficult for him to shove. Let’s say he has 80 BB. Player A limps and player B isolates to 3.5 BB. Player C 3-bets to 9 BB and you 4-bet to 24 BB. Player B, with TT or JJ or even AK, now has a very difficult decision to make; should he move in, he knows he’ll never get called by a worse hand, and 2 players are still left to act behind him.

Ranges to Re-Steal and 4-Bet

Versus an early-position (EP) raise, re-raising the EP raiser when both players are above 30 BB is a very strong move that you can make with a wide range of hands. Quite often, the EP raiser will fold many hands in that spot, even strong ones. We like making this play with suited connectors the best, because they have flop equity when your opponent flat-calls your 3-bet. In any case, it will put your opponent to a very tough decision, unless he has JJ+ or AK.

It’s also a strong move, because a current trend is to open raise from EP with a very wide range. Therefore, you’ll often get value out of a 3- bet bluff in such a situation.

Additionally, it will greatly freeze the action for the players left to act who need a truly enormous hand to play against your re-raise. For example, if the player UTG raises and you 3-bet him from UTG+2, a player in the SB will almost certainly fold TT in that spot. In the event that the EP raiser or a player behind you has a strong hand, your 3-bet will help elicit that information, since you’ll likely get re-raised and get out of the hand fairly cheaply, rather than having to guess post-flop had you just called the initial raise. Make this play versus players you’ve seen opening UTG more frequently than expected. Avoid doing this against tight players who rarely raise UTG, such as old-school live players whose UTG opening range may be limited to 99+, AQs, and AK.

may 4-bet all-in over your 3-bet with a much wider range than if they were making a decision with a 40 BB or greater stack. Below is an example where ElkY made just such a mistake, because he didn’t pay attention to the stack sizes of the players left to act.

WPT Fiesta Al Lago 2008, Day 2

The effective stacks for ElkY and JC Alvarado are above 100 BB; Theo Tran has 15 BB. ElkY holds 4♦3♦ in the cutoff and has a very good table image. Opponent JC Alvarado is an aggressive young pro player. Pre-flop, UTG folds and Alvarado raises from UTG+1 to 2.5 BB. It folds to ElkY on the CO, who re-raises to 6.5 BB, and Theo Tran on the button moves-in for 15 BB. Alvarado folds and ElkY is forced to make the call due to pot odds and loses to Theo Tran’s pocket tens. In addition to losing 15 BB from his stack, the move also has a negative impact on his image. After the table has seen him re-raising such cards, he now has to readjust his play very quickly in order to build up a tighter image again.

When above 100 BB effective, you can 3-bet very wide in position, everything from suited connectors to big pairs (AA, KK) and AK. The idea is to either have a speculative hand or to strongly dominate your opponent with a big pair or AK. To 3-bet correctly, you also need to consider what your position says about your hand.

For example, if the player UTG opens with a raise and you 3-bet UTG+1 with AA or KK, you’re communicating a lot of information about the strength of your hand. This is why we also recommend mixing up your play by smooth-calling these spots sometimes, in order to disguise your hand and induce mistakes from your opponents. Conversely, if you smooth-call a raise in position with KK or AA and the action ends up being 3 or 4 way to the flop, you need to be ready to release your hand quickly on dangerous boards when facing substantial action.

ElkY is particularly fond of 3-betting suited connectors on the button, because his hand is hidden and deceptive when he hits the flop. It’s fine to 3-bet with air if you know you’ll fold to a 4-bet. However, when you have a marginal but playable hand, such as medium pairs, T♠9♠, A♠J♠, A♠Q♠, or KQo, it’s often better to smooth-call; a 3-bet may make you lose the flop value in the event that your opponent re-raises and you’re forced to fold, thereby wasting the value of your hand. With more marginal hands, we recommend varying your play based on your table image. If you hold ATo and haven’t been active for some time, you can incorporate things like 3-betting on the button, particularly in a multi-way pot, depending on the strength of your opponents. If you face the same situation holding KQ, we recommend that you re-raise about 10%-20% of the time and smooth-call around 80%-90% of the time. This is because KQ has better potential on the flop than AT.

Let’s say you 3-bet light against an aggressive raiser when stacks are 35 BB effective, and your opponent calls your re-raise in position. Your plan should be to lead out with a small bet on the vast majority of A- and K-high flops. This is because few players smooth-call with AK or any other big A, having the perfect stack size to 4-bet all-in pre-flop. Most of their calling range will be hands such as TT, 99, 88, KQ, QJs, KJs, and JTs. You can often get away with a small flop bet, in the area of a third of the pot, and you should have the intention of giving up on the turn if you’re called. If you get a J-T-8 flop or something similar in the same situation, it’s best just to check and fold.

When you hold TT, JJ, or QQ, 3-betting may put you in a tough spot against an early-position raiser who could 4-bet you. The raiser may come over the top with a premium hand or air (which happens surprisingly often these days), and it can be difficult to decipher which he’s holding. Also, if you 3-bet and induce a fold, you may lose some value if the flop comes T high and your opponent makes top pair. For medium pairs, your decision whether to 3-bet pre-flop should depend on how often you’ll be in a multi-way pot post-flop. Generally, we advise that you smooth-call more often with such holdings. If you take that route, it protects your smooth-calls when holding smaller pairs as well.

AQ can also be a tricky hand to 3-bet with in position. If you don’t take the pot with your re-raise and your opponent calls, you’ll be facing a range that often has you in bad shape. The open raiser is likely to fold all suited aces up to AQ, meaning that, in many cases, you’re at best in a coin-flip situation, and will often be dominated by hands such as AK, KK, and AA. Therefore, even if an A comes on the flop, you’ll have to be very cautious with your play, which won’t enable you to win a big pot in most of these situations.

As a result, we advise that you mostly smooth-call with AQ unless, based on stack sizes or history, you feel comfortable getting that hand in against an all-in from your opponent pre-flop. This will put you in the enviable situation of having position with a disguised, relatively strong hand.

However, as previously mentioned, AQ can also be a good hand to 3-bet with when you know one of the players in the blinds is “squeeze happy,” and especially when stacks are fairly deep (50+BB), because your AQ will often be ahead of the squeezer’s range. Once again, make sure the stacks are appropriate when making such a move.

One alternative to 3-betting in this spot is to try a New York Back Raise (described on page 221), but we generally don’t recommend this move; it may turn out to be costly, as you’ll most often be called only by hands that are either coin flips or could crush you. As always, try to be aware of the table flow and your opponents’ ranges, because 3-betting with AQ should be done mainly when you think you can take the pot right there, pre- flop. Otherwise, flat-calling is the course of action we tend to recommend, as it usually spares you headaches and/or chips.

At the mid- to late-game stages of a tournament, you should re-raise 70% to 80% of the time with AK. The times you don’t 3-bet are generally because the effective stacks are very deep with the opponent and he’s not likely to get it in light with you pre-flop or when you’re setting a trap for a small to medium stack behind you to squeeze all-in.

When you 3-bet, watch out not to put yourself in a spot where you have to give up all the equity in the hand by folding. For instance, when the EP raiser has around 50 BB, raises 2.5X BB, and you 3-bet to 6.5 BB, if he 4-bets you to 18 BB to 20 BB, you have no more fold equity left to 5-bet all-in. If you 3-bet light, you can just release your hand and move on.

However, with certain hands, you should definitely account for this parameter in your decision-making. For example, if you 3-bet with KQ or KJ and your opponent 4-bets you, you have no more fold equity to 5-bet shove and you’re probably behind your opponent’s range. As a result, you end up in a spot where you had a starting hand with good equity and flopping value, but had to release it PF. Therefore, you need to be careful with selecting your 3-betting range with hands that have decent equity and flopping value.

Re-Raising Out of Position

When you’re out of position, we don’t recommend 3-betting suited connectors while stacks are still on the deep side (roughly 70 BB or above). If you do, it’s often difficult to play the hand out of position, even if you flop a draw. You can consider squeezing with them, but we think it’s unnecessarily risky, unless you have a good read that your opponent is stealing.

When stacks become shallower, in the 30- to 50-BB range, you can then 3-bet suited connectors with more regularity, because you can sometimes continue in the hand with good equity on a variety of flops. In these situations, it’s easier due to the stack depth to size your bets and define your lines in a more straightforward and mathematical way. You’ll have options available, such as check-raising all-in on the flop or betting the flop with the intention of shoving most turns—plays not as recommendable while stacks are much deeper and getting called would result in a larger degree of loss when compared to the potential gain.

In general, 3-bets from the blinds signal very strong hands, especially against EP or MP raises. As always, your decisions should be based on how many players are involved in the hand and the history among you and your opponents.

For example, if you have AQo in the SB, it’s OK to 3-bet if you know your opponents never make a move and 4-bet you with less than AK or better. In fact, some players are totally incapable of making a move pre-flop no matter what the history is between the two of you, so stay alert to identify and target these opponents. Additionally, they’ll also flat-call you a lot, most of the time with a holding weaker than your AQ (often suited connectors or medium pairs), and wind up giving up too much equity when they fold to your continuation bet.

Re-Stealing

You need to be cautious with your re-stealing. It only looks believable if you do it once in a while. We advise that you re-steal mostly from the SB or BB, because no more players are left to act who might wake up with a monster. However, against smart opponents that you have some history with, it’s worth considering 3-betting light from some more unexpected positions, so they don’t 4-bet light on you as often, even though there’s an increased risk of someone behind having a hand. Yet again, we advise that you pick opponents who open-raise a lot of pots and play aggressively. Also, we think that re-stealing is more efficient when stacks get shallower at some stages of the tournament. During the earlier stages when stacks are still deep, your opponents in position may flat-call your re-steal and put you in a difficult post-flop situation.

Big-Sized 3-Bets

Sometimes, when stacks are shallow (around 30 BB), if you’re facing a raise from an aggressive opponent whom you think may 4-bet you light, it might be good to 3-bet shove (even with suited connectors occasionally), rather than going for a standard re-raise. Especially against an overaggressive raiser, you might want to really pick on him by systematically 3-betting him all-in in specific spots (when he raises your BB from the button, for instance). Of course, choose your spot carefully, especially to avoid losing equity if a player behind you wakes up with a big hand. However, if you do it at the right times, especially when the blinds are really high, you’ll occasionally increase your opponent’s tilt factor.

4-Betting

Over the last two years, 4-bets have become increasingly popular and frequent. Hands such as JJ or TT can easily be out-flopped. With such hands, you can often 4-bet LAG players and you’ll be way ahead of their ranges a majority of the time. They’ll mostly fold pre-flop and you’ll take down a nice pot without the risk of further play.

For example, if you have 35 BB and are facing a LAG opponent, he may 3-bet your raise with any pair greater than 55, any two Broadway cards, and any suited ace. If you 4-bet him all-in, his calling range will likely be something in the area of ATs+, KQ+, and any pair that he has 3-bet with.

When you have even stronger hands (QQ+) and are deeper than 35 BB, there are two ways to play back at a 3-bet. First, you have to assess whether or not your opponent is making a move on you. For instance, if you hold KK and believe that your opponent has a strong hand as well (such as TT+), you might want to 4-bet small and try to induce him to move all-in. The alternative is to flat-call the 3-bet when holding a monster. Most of the time, whether your opponent has air or a strong, but dominated, hand, he’ll wind up firing a continuation bet regardless of the flop, which enables you to get additional value.

3-Betting with the Intention of Calling an All-in

With some stack sizes, you should be ready to call an all-in before you 3-bet re-raise. For instance, if you start the hand with 35 BB, we believe it’s suboptimal to 3-bet and fold to a 4-bet with a decent hand such as KQo. Additionally, players sometimes give you more credit if you flat-call a LP raise from the blinds with 35 BB than if you 3-bet. Therefore, your decision should be very player dependent and you always need to mix up your play.

Here’s a quick example: Say you have 35 BB and a hyper-LAG raises 2.5 BB from LP. You 3-bet to 6.5 BB with A♠T♠ or KQo and your opponent moves all-in. In this situation, we think you can’t 3-bet/fold, so you should make the call. As we stated earlier, there are spots where it’s OK to 3-bet/fold 35 BB, such as when your opponent raises often and folds to 3-bets most of the time, but has a tight 4-betting range. For these opponents, you should polarize your 3-betting range; that is, 3-bet with big hands you can confidently call an all-in with, or 3-bet junk hands that can be immediately and easily folded when your opponent moves in on you.

The reason for polarizing your range is this. When you 3-bet with a decent hand and get 4-bet all-in, you have to release a lot of equity in the hand, whereas you wouldn’t wind up in that spot by just flatting sometimes. For instance, if you 3-bet from the BB with a small pair and your opponent shoves, you often have to make the call and face a coin flip at best. Therefore, such a move would be suboptimal, considering how few times you’ll actually flop a set. In summary, if you 3-bet in such a spot with the intention to fold to a 4-bet, you should probably just flat-call instead.

It’s definitely optimal to have a plan when you 3-bet. If your opponent moves in with 35 BB, you don’t necessarily have to call, but you should at least be prepared for the possibility, by having assessed his range to re-shove and the likeliness he’ll make that move. Therefore, you need to