Button, I Suck. #2

Hey, well I continued some work on preflop equities today after I watched a leak finder video. There were situations where the button called a 3-bet from the blinds. Now, I've always been led to believe that this situation is good for the button providing the blind has a big enough range; however it's also a situation where I've never really begun calling either. I'd play 4-bet or fold much too often.

As far as the maths goes, most of the time we face a 3-bet it's a pot sized bet and so our hand needs at least 33% equity to continue. Given the advantage of playing in position and implied odds I'm going to lower this to 30% for these calculations. If villain is 3-betting a tight range from the blinds, say {QQ+, AK} then we can profitably call with the following range:

{ 22+,AKs,A5s,87s,76s,65s,54s,AKo }

(I've included the hands we'd 4-bet for value with too as I just want to make a point). So any pocket pair and some suited connectors. Even against a very tight range! This is probably really obvious to many players but it's only just hit home now as I've worked through the calculations.

OK, how about a looser blind 3-bet range, say {99+, AQ+}? We can profitably call with:

{ 22+,ATs+,A8s-A2s,K4s+,QTs+,J8s+,T8s+,87s,76s,65s,54s,AQo+,KJo,JTo }

There are players who have been 3-betting me nearly ten percent from the blinds and the reason why is because I've been mucking almost all of the hands above. Instead of making a profitable call I've been giving money away.

A quick word of warning : I think it would be easy to begin to spew with these ranges post flop so care must be taken but I think players would certainly be more careful with their 3-bets if I continued using my current four bet range (which is pretty balanced imo) and also begun calling with some of these profitable hands.

With this new information I'm going to draw up some new preflop ranges tomorrow. My early and middle position strategy will not change as almost all 3-bets I face will have position on me thus a 4-bet or fold strategy is likely to be optimal. But for the cut off and button I will create ranges with polarised 4-b sets and a calling set for playing against the blinds. As always I'll let you know how the new strategy fares over the next few thousand hands. GL