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Strategy for handling three bettors in 6 max cash games

In no-limit hold ‘em 6-max cash games, there’s one thing most of my students bring up when I ask them to tell me an area they have trouble with: dealing with 3-bets, specifically, when getting 3-bet by their opponents.

It’s a spot that comes up often and is almost always tough to deal with. What the best action is will depend on a variety of factors: what your position is, what your opponent’s position is, who your opponent is, how you’ve been playing at the table (and perhaps in the past against this opponent), how your opponent has been playing at the table and how he’s played in the past against you.

So, yes, there are a million factors that come into play and it’s hard to tell my students what to do in every situation. Today, I’ll concentrate on one situation where I do believe you can follow some general rules since you will often play against opponents with many similar styles, specifically, the tight-aggressive (TAG) player. The situation occurs when you open-raise on the button, and either the small blind (SB) or big blind (BB) 3-bets you.

This spot will come up frequently since you should be open-raising the button with a wide range of hands. Being on the button is a very powerful position, and it will add greatly to your win rate if you try to play a wide range of hands in that position.

So how should you generally react to the SB or BB 3-betting you when you open-raise the button? My first word of advice is to play tightly until you’ve established some history against your opponent and you know that he knows you are raising a lot on the button and you know that he is willing to start 3-betting a wider range of hands to protect his blinds.

I have played back lightly against SB and BB 3-bets when I’m on the button when I’m new at the table and lost my stack very easily because of it. An hour later, I’ll realize the player who 3-bet me was actually a very tight player and in no way should I have been calling his 3-bet with hands like KJo or T9s.

Again, it’s better to play tightly and continue with your good to very good hands until you’ve got a better idea of how he plays. I would generally say this would be with 99 or better and AQo or better, but you can certainly add a couple hands. Now, how to play those postflop against an unknown player is a whole other subject that I’ll skip for today.

So let’s say I’ve been at an online NLHE 6-max table for an hour and have some reads to go off of. When it’s been folded to me on the button, I’ve raised with hands as weak as 85s and T8o. Perhaps the SB or BB, who are tight and aggressive players, have noticed this tendency, and they’ve started 3-betting me when I raise the button. They’ve 3-bet me a few times now and I know that they can’t be getting dealt big pocket pairs and AK every hand — they’re obviously 3-betting hands like small pairs, suited connectors or some other kind of marginal holding.

I have to fight fire with fire. I’m going to start using my positional advantage to abuse this tendency of my opponents to 3-bet me with marginal hands when they are out of position.

My main tactic to play back against my opponents in these spots is to call their 3-bet with a wide range of hands – let’s say, most suited connectors (65s and up), any two suited broadway (JTs or better), and some of my good but not great broadway hands (KJo or better).

Now, when I call with these kind of hands, I’m not calling just to hit a big draw or a big hand like two pair. I’m going to be semibluffing often on the flop, with hands such as middle pair or a gutshot.

For example, say I’m playing in a $2/$4 NLHE game on Poker Stars. I raise on the button with 6s5s to $14, and the BB, who is a tight yet fairly aggressive regular who knows that I raise with a wide range on the button, 3-bets me to $52. I have $400 to start the hand, and I call this raise.

The flop comes Jc 4s 6h. My opponents bets $76 into the $106 pot, and I shove in $272 over the top that raise. It’s a big shove, but if you’re raising here, it’s better to just put all the money in.

You might be asking, why not just call the flop and fold to another bet? In this spot, I like to shove because by calling, I usually give off to my opponent that we have a one-pair type of hand, and I can be bluffed off it on the turn. Also, there are many cards that can come that will improve my opponent’s hand to the best hand.

Also, it’s not terrible if we shove and get called, since it’s very likely we have 5 outs to improve to trips or two-pair to beat him, which is a roughly 20% chance to win. Rarely will we be getting out money in with a very small chance to win. And here’s the thing; if my opponent is 3-betting a wide range of hands in this spot, he’s simply going to be missing this flop way too much. If he’s 3-betting hands like 98s, A5s and 22, there’s not going to be many flops he likes and if we are shoving any piece of any flop we get, he’s simply going to have to fold and we’re going to win a nice pot. If he does have something to call us with, we have some kind of draw to back us up to improve to the best hand.

There are other benefits to this play as well. Often times, it will slow down your opponent from 3-betting us as much since he knows you can play back with marginal hands. It will make your life a little easier as you can raise the button without your opponents fighting back as much.

Also, it will make it more likely you will get paid off when you do hit a hand like two-pair, a set, or when you slowplay AA (by just calling your opponent’s 3-bet). If he knows you can go all-in with middle pair, he’s might even start calling with hands like TT in the example above.

The great thing about getting called more when you do actually have a hand, is that you will start getting paid off in spots where you don’t really bluff. What I mean by this is when you are in other positions at the table – like under-the-gun, where you are generally playing strong hands – you will get called by worse hands in other spots by this opponent because he assumes you can make moves in a wide range of spots. When in reality, you are making a very specific move based on the button versus the blind dynamic that happens in aggressive 6-max games.

Just a word of caution; don’t start calling every hand in this spot and shoving every piece from now on. It’s never going to a big mistake to play tightly against 3-bets. You must use it selectively and generally have a good reason for it. Doing this move against tight players who don’t 3-bet very much can be a losing play. Doing this in other spots where your opponent’s 3-bet means a strong hand (such as when you raise under-the-gun and your opponent 3-bets you) can be a very bad play.

As you can see, I just spent quite a bit of time talking about a very specific spot when dealing with 3-bets. There are other ways to play back in this spot, such as 4-bet bluffing, but the move described above is my favorite and most common tactic to fight back.

Start mixing it in at the right spots. You’ll get a better feel for the right time to use it and you’ll become a much tougher opponent to play against.

Bill “billyjex” Vosti is the author of Skilled Online Poker’s “How to Beat No-Limit Hold ‘Em 6-max Cash Games” e-book.

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