By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.
Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.
Abusing the Button Part 1
Also, you don't have to open this wide either (I am raising some pretty junky stuff like K2s, T5s). The main idea here is just to open your eyes a little bit if you are currently playing a really nitty game. And believe me I used to be that nit. But a couple of years ago I started realizing just how profitable it was to start isolating much wider than I normally would versus the legions of limpers that you will find at these limits. It definitely was difficult at first because I had it engrained in my head: only play good hands. However when you start to open up your range even a little bit it eventually becomes second nature to you.
By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.
Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.
You learn to think less about the strength of your hand and instead focus on the strength of your position. As I talk about at length near the beginning of my book, with a huge sample of Hold'em Manager data to prove it, money flows towards the button in poker in a big way and there is just no denying it. It might seem like an overly simplistic view of things but if we know that the blinds and early position aren't very profitable, in fact losing in the former case, why not just play less hands there? And conversely, if we know that the cutoff and button are wildly profitable why not just play as many hands as possible from them?
This is the overall approach that I have tried to take over the past couple years and I think it has paid dividends in my winrate. I hope you enjoy these two videos and if you have any questions or comments about the hands, please post them below.
Lastly, I would just like to thank Pokerlistings for the recent article that they did on me. I was thrilled to do the interview with them and I thought it turned out excellent. The article can be found here:
http://www.pokerlistings.com/blackrain79-building-a-fortune-a-few-cents-at-a-time-66310
If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!
Overplaying Top Pair Hands - Don't Do This
There have been of course a wide variety of different skill levels. Some have been total beginners. Some have been very solid players. And everything in between.
But all of these people sought my services because they were struggling for one reason or another. And after having worked with this many people I have been able to notice many common trends.
The first of which is a general proclivity to spew or tilt more than they should. It is very difficult to "fix" this issue as a poker coach. We can go over the hands and agree that there is bad play from tilt going on and I can lecture on about the importance of staying disciplined in these spots.
But the truth is that at the end of the day it is up to the student to make those adjustments at the table. And I make some of these same mistakes from time to time when I play as well so I would be a complete hypocrit to try and tell them that they must play perfect at all times.
As long as you are human, you are going to tilt. I try and tell students to just focus on getting a little bit better over time in this regard. There will always be spew to some extent. However, another common area of concern that I have noticed is overplaying top pair hands.
By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.
Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.
Here is an Excellent Example of Overplaying Pocket Jacks:
This is a frequent issue that I have seen to some degree across all skill levels and unlike spew or tilt is something that I can easily discuss and try to fix with them. Now what kind of top pair hands am I talking about?
I am mostly talking about TPTK (top pair top kicker) and TPGK (top pair good kicker) hands on dangerous boards or in situations where you are likely to only get action from better and fold out worse. I am just going to dive into a couple of examples here to hopefully better explain this. Both of these hands were played recently by a current student of mine.
Overplaying Top Pair Example #1
NL10 6max
Effective Stacks are 100bb.
Hero opens to 30c from the CO with,
A♣T♣
A 15/11/1.7 (702 hands) nit with a 3% 3bet makes it 90c to go from the button.
A 9/5/1.9 (378 hands) supernit cold calls from the BB.
Preflop Analysis
I would actually prefer that we just fold preflop here. If the cold caller in the BB was a fish I think a call would be fine. But when it's all tight regs involved I think our hand plays very badly against their range. That is we are often dominated when we make a pair. And I don't think they ever have anything in their range that we dominate such as,
A9, A8, KT, QT
Also, since they are reasonably competent players they aren't going to spew off a bunch of money with worse hands anywhere near as often as a fish would. So OOP (out of position) I would just fold here. I don't advocate calling 3bets OOP very often as is.
Things change a little bit when it is multi-way, but I would much prefer that there be a fish in the hand. When it is only regs, I would only call here most of the time with a hand like a pocket pair that stands to definitely be the best hand (barring the incredibly rare set over set situation) should we hit.
Hero calls in this example however.
The flop comes,
2♥3♠T♠
The BB checks and Hero leads out for 85% of the pot.
Flop Analysis
I am not a big fan of donk betting (leading into the preflop raiser) very much in general. And this is also something that I have noticed some of my students doing way too much in my opinion. But that is a subject for another blog post and I don't want to get into that right now.
In this spot here, I think donk betting is an especially poor choice. I don't like the sizing either. The main reason why I don't like leading here is because this is a situation where if we get action, it's probably only from better hands.
We already determined that the preflop raiser (the button 3bettor) is fairly tight. I mean he has pretty standard full ring stats and this is a 6max hand! His overall 3bet% is 3 and his 3bet from the button is 4%. This is already quite tight for full ring. This is very tight for 6max.
If we quickly open up Pokerstove we can see that a 3% range looks like this (the hands in purple),
Now Pokerstove distorts things a little bit when you plug in ranges because they include more pair hands than most people normally would but I think you get the idea here. This guy basically only has big aces and big pairs in his range.
So when we lead out for near pot here in an already bloated 3-way, 3bet pot we basically make one of two things occur.
- He folds his big aces
- He calls or raises with his big pairs
So anytime we get action it is from better hands. And we force him to fold all of the hands that we are a big favorite against. What's worse is we even take away his ability to make a cbet with these hands and at least put some dead money in the pot. And sometimes he might spike an ace later in the hand and get himself into all sorts of trouble versus our two pair as well.
So it is a lose/lose situation for us to lead out here. The play that I would recommend is to check/call or check/fold. Poker hands often play out like a domino effect and this exact sort of situation is why I advocated simply folding preflop.
By making a mistake in calling preflop we allow ourselves to get in a difficult situation like this. If we check and he cbets he could be doing this with his big ace hands which we beat but he could also be value towning us with his big pairs. Worse yet, we are OOP in a bloated 3bet pot and it will be very expensive to find out which one it is.
Since the opponent here is quite passive and there is another player involved, I actually don't expect him to cbet all that often with his big aces anyways. So I would probably just check/fold in this spot.
Button calls on the flop.
The turn comes,
Q♣
Hero bets near pot.
Button shoves for a small amount more and Hero calls.
Turn Analysis
I would definitely advocate just shutting down at this point and not putting another penny in the middle. As I said before, I think the button's continuance range on the flop is almost unequivocally only hands that beat us. If we don't improve on the turn I think we are just value betting for him by barreling here.
Results
The river comes,
Q♦
Button shows A♥A♦
Hero mucks.
Overplaying Top Pair Example #2
NL10 6max
Effective Stacks are 100bb.
Hero opens to 30c from MP with,
A♥Q♠
A 20/7/0.5 (16 hands) virtual unknown calls from the CO.
An 18/15/1.4 (432 hands) TAG calls from the BTN.
Preflop Analysis
Not much to say. Everything is very standard.
The flop comes,
7♠A♣5♥
Hero cbets about 85% of the pot.
Both villains call.
Flop Analysis
I think the cbet here is very standard. However I think the sizing is a little bit less than optimal. I would prefer a smaller cbet here of around 60% of the pot. This is a very dry board with an ace on it. Both of these players appear to be reasonably competent so far and so I don't expect to get too much action from worse hands. I expect them to fold with almost the same frequency whether we cbet 60% or 85% here so this just allows us to save a little bit when they actually do have a monster.
If one or more of the villains in this hand were fish I think the larger cbet sizing is excellent. This is because these types of players absolutely will continue will all sorts of worse hands and we just want to start building as big of a pot as possible.
When you make a big cbet and get called by two relatively tight decent looking players on a very dry board like this one, the alarm bells need to go off in your head. The turn comes,
3♣
Hero bets again for 85% of the pot.
CO folds and the BTN goes all in.
Turn Analysis
So as I said, given the flop action I think we really need to be careful here on the turn. I would actually not recommend betting here again into two players. And if I was to bet I would definitely make it smaller now, 60% of the pot. And this follows a similar line of reasoning as on the flop.
My preferred course of action here would be to check/fold versus any reasonable size bet (50% of the pot or more). I do not expect a decently tight player to be floating a near pot sized bet on the flop here with light holdings and then make a good sized bet on a turn card that changes nothing. And I especially doubt that that will be the case when there are two of them.
I expect that one of them will often have a hand that beats us (AK or two pair+). And one of the only actual draws,
46
got there. Even though I don't expect either of them to have that hand in their range very often, it is worth noting. So I would not advocate barreling the turn here. But when we do and especially when it is a big bet and one of them comes over the top, it is the nuts every single time.
Results
Hero calls and both players are all in.
The river comes,
9♣
Button shows 5♠5♦
Hero mucks.
If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!
If you want to know my step by step strategy for crushing small and mid stakes poker games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
How to Deal With Min 3-bets in Poker [2025]
One of the biggest problems that fish or newer players in general face is a deep misunderstanding of the math of the game. Now anyone who reads my blog, has watched my videos, read my book etc knows that I am not a big proponent of the math side of the game.
I advocate knowing just the basics such as pot odds, implied odds and a few basic hand odds such as the probability of a flush draw coming through for instance. All of this information can easily be found with a simple google search and digested in about 20 minutes of reading time.
While knowing this basic stuff is important and will be crucial in certain spots I have long believed that the majority of the decisions that people make at the poker table really just boil down to logic, also often referred to as "common sense."
For instance, if there is $10 in the pot it does not make any logical sense to ever bet $1 because we give our opponent 11 to 1 on the pot. Virtually any hand possible, in any situation possible, can continue given those odds. But players at this level routinely make these plays. Instead of diving any deeper into the why, as I don't think it's very important, I think we should instead just focus on what to do when facing these specific types of bets.
And for the purposes of this article I am just going to focus on min 3bets.
A minimum 3bet just means exactly what it sounds like. Your opponent re-raised you the absolute minimum. This is also sometimes referred to as a CiB (click it back). Because in most poker software there is a button available to bet the minimum amount on every street. This way you can play limit hold'em while playing no limit hold'em. Fun for the whole family!
Minimum 3bets can mean a lot of different things depending on the player type. Sometimes they are the absolute nuts, AA or KK. But I think plenty of people give them too much credit. They are also some broadway hand such as KJ or even a mid pocket pair from time to time. And of course a certain amount of the time they will just be out and out trash as well. So it is important to view them with a pretty wide range in mind.
Now as I often say, I think the first thing that you should look at before anything else in a no limit hold'em cash game is your opponent's stack size. And by stack size I do not mean money. I mean big blinds. You really should train yourself to think solely in terms of them and be able to quickly interpret how many big blinds certain dollar or euro amounts mean at your stakes. I really, really wish poker rooms would just give us the ability to view stacks in big blinds but that is for another rant (I mean article).
There are wide variations in the actions that I will take when facing min 3bets depending on what stack size my opponent has 20bb, 50bb, 100bb, 200bb for instance.
Let's go from smallest to biggest.
By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.
Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.
20 big blinds
There are a couple of things first here. In today's online poker environment I believe virtually all rooms have gone to a 35 or 40bb minimum buyin for cash games and moved all the shorties to CAP or shallow games (thank God). So if somebody has 20bb they have likely lost at least half of their initial stack. The reason that this is important is because it tells us that they are not using the auto rebuy option that most poker rooms also offer these days.
These "stack size tells" can give us a lot of information about our opponent before we ever play a hand against them. Serious poker players and professionals will almost always buyin for 100bb or whatever the maximum amount is. And they will also almost always make use of the auto rebuy feature. So if you encounter somebody with a 20bb stack, they are almost certainly a fish.
Against a 20bb stack there isn't much room to manoeuvre after the flop even in a single raised pot. In a mini 3bet pot there is even less.
Say we open to 3bb and the shortstack min 3bet's us to 5bb. Add 1 more for the blinds and the pot on the flop will be 5+5+1=11bb. Since the shortstack only started the hand with 20bb and has already put in 5bb, he has only 15bb left which is just over a PSB (pot sized bet).
In these situations we can't ever really profitably call the min 3bet preflop and then fold the flop. We will be getting nearly 2 to 1 on his shove (15+11/15=1.73 to 1).
So we need to make our decision preflop on whether we want to continue on with the hand or not. And by continue I mean that we should just go all in. I suppose you could get tricky with AA or KK for instance and just call because it's an easy call or shove on any flop. But the only play that makes any sense the vast majority of the time here is to shove or fold.
50 big blinds
Versus a 50bb stack things get a little bit more interesting. Against this stack size we can call a min 3bet in some instances and then fold if we completely whiff the flop. This is because our opponent will have a lot more behind and therefore there is a little bit for us to win.
So while against these guys I would still advocate that you shove or fold most of the time, there is a little bit more wiggle room to call with a decent but not quite premium hand such as,
A♥J♥, A♦Q♠ or T♥T♦
And just get it in when you flop decently well.
100 big blinds
Versus a 100bb stack you will need to be calling quite a bit wider versus a min 3bet. When the stacks are 100bb deep and somebody min 3bet's you, it doesn't really change a whole lot about the complexion of the hand. There is still plenty of room to play all three streets postflop. And of course you have amazing odds to set mine or just hit something cool with a suited connector or broadway hand.
Especially when I am IP (in position) I don't think I fold pretty much anything versus a min 3bet given this stack size. Even if I am on the button and opening the trashiest part of my range. Maybe something like,
T♣7♥
I would probably still call. The price is too good and I am confident that I can outplay my opponent (especially with the benefit of position) after the flop often enough to make up for my crappy hand.
200 big blinds
When the effective stacks (the lowest stack size in the hand) are anywhere north of about 150bb or more there is no hand that I will fold to a min 3bet whether I am IP or OOP. There is just so much stack behind to get (implied odds) that it's worth my while to call with anything. And remember that min 3bet's almost always come from really bad players so I expect to win a big pot plenty of the time when I hit something. Against a reg or somebody decent this wouldn't be the case nearly as often. But you also won't find them min 3betting you very often either.
Player Type and What a Min 3bet Means
Now that I have gone over some general guidelines regarding stack sizes when facing a min 3bet it is equally important to know which player type you are up against. Depending on the player type their range can vary widely and thus significantly impact our decision. Now as I said, it is mostly bad players who will be min 3betting us so I won't even talk about nits, TAG's or LAG's here (the broad banner known as regs).
I am going to be talking about
- SLP's (semi-loose passives, 24/6 stats)
- Fish (55/5 stats)
- Maniacs (75/55 stats)
None of this is an exact science of course but against somebody who has literally half the deck or more in their range you should be routinely just shoving over their min 3bet's when they have 20bb or even 50bb with a pretty big chunk of your range. Make sure to be aware of who is left to act behind you however, especially if you are deep.
Versus maniacs who have 100bb or more I will call pretty wide and just use their aggression against them for the most part. So you can easily call with plenty of mediocre hands such as,
A♥9♥, K♦J♠
And just become a calling station when you hit. There is often no point in raising them because they will just barrel the whole way with a ton of air hands and just put the money in the middle for you. Whereas if you raise they will just fold and only continue the few times where they actually have you beat.
Versus SLP and fish things are quite a bit different. There are definitely some really weak players in this category (ones with an extremely low PFR for instance) who will only min 3bet with a huge hand, sometimes AA or KK only. Versus these types of players I will usually just fold everything but my premium hands if they have a 50bb or less stack and cautiously call if they have more.
But against most SLP and fish their range is decently wide enough to warrant calling or shoving with plenty of my range when the stacks are 50bb or less and calling a lot when they are deeper. I don't really mess around with them much when I don't hit. But I don't really advocate messing around with fish much under most circumstances. The reason of course is pretty simple, they don't like to fold! And in "3bet" pots they will be even less likely to fold.
The great thing about players who make these min 3bets however is that they will often make min bets after the flop as well. So you can easily call their "cbet's" with your whole range and try to spike something ultra cheaply or just check down ace high for the win.
If you want to know my step by step strategy for crushing small and mid stakes poker games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!
If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)