Defending against 3-bets OOP

Posted 8 years ago

I was today in a very similar spots two times. I raised with JJ oop, and my opponent made a standard sized 3-bet. I called. In both hands there was only low cards on the flop, and a 9 in the turn. My opponent bets all the three streets in both situations. In both hands I was against a regular, but not the same one. In the first hand my opponent had AA, in the second hand my opponent pushed on the river with AQ. I called in both spots, because I have a gut feeling that at least in the skypoker people do not like to give up in 3-bet pots if they are aggressors pf. According to pokerstove our JJ is solid 54-57% favorite against our opponents range, if he bets three streets with AK and AQ (and of course 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA + some random bluffs).

The problem is, that our opponent is betting with range advantage and he can force us to fold almost every time. I suppose that average regular in NL20 is 3-betting something like 5-8% of his hands, and maybe 8-12% from the button vs late position raises. So, we almost never have a set there, because we fold small pairs if the opponent 3-bets IP. In theory, he should put all the pressure he can to us, because we do not have AA, KK or QQ because we would 4-bet with those hands, but our opponent has those hands in his range, right? This is is super akward situation, escpecially OOP.

So, should we have something like black aces, kings and queens in our calling range to defend against this? Or, should we start to 4-bet with hands like TT+ and add some bluffing hands like AQ and KQ to balance our 4-bet and calling ranges against 3-bets?
Komododragonjesus

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Komododragonjesus

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Posted 8 years ago
I think 4Betting with TT for value and 4Bet bluffing with AQ is very advanced and will have to have a lot of information to back it up. I am very uneducated in this area and will look forward to seeing a coach reply. I have never done this before but let's give it a try

@w34z3l can you help us please?
Posted 8 years ago
If your opponent is 3-betting a lot IP, most likely the best defense is to sit out and find softer table. I just think that sometimes it is not an optimal choice. If you have calling station on your right and the rest of the table conditions are good, then you should propably stay in the table and try to defend somehow.
Posted 8 years ago
On many low boards, especially IP the preflop 3bettor will have a huge advantage or exactly the reasons you stated. Starting to flat with hands like AA will definitely help against that but often leads to a spot where you're taking a lesser EV play preflop or order to hopefully capitalize on it postflop. Against good players like regs I think you often won't gain back the value lost unless they have some leaks like having way too high of barreling frequencies.

The thing is that the 3bettor will have an advantage on some boards but the caller will also have advantage on other boards so you're not always just screwed because he can have aces and you can't. Sometimes you have a good advantage because while he can have AA he can't have any sets or straights and you can.

If a player is loose enough, 4betting TT+ for value will definitely be good but against those types of players you don't need to be 4bet bluffing hands like AQ/KQ since those hands will likely play just fine as a flat. I saw you posting some 20NL hands in the other forum. At those stakes I wouldn't worry about balancing 3bet/4betting ranges too much but instead just try to exploit your opponents based on the mistakes they're making.