Today we are going to look at a basic strategy for how to play against 3-Bets in general.

We have constructed a range that will allow us to play an easy post flop game with our hands after being 3-Bet from a player in position.

Overcalling out of position is a big leak in peoples games, so we are going to look at how to plug this leak with a solid range of hands.

So what we are going to do when we get 3-Bet and we are out of position is fold all our non showdown hands, so any hands in Orange will go in the muck, the reason for this is that they are going to play poorly against our opponents 3 Betting range, even hands like KQo are in the mix of hands we will fold, which in theory is a good hand, but realising our equity against a stronger range out of position with King high, is a tricky task in No-Limit Hold’em!

Remember that this strategy is for which hands we can look to flat call and play out of position against our opponents. We will look at a 4-Betting range in one of the next posts, as if we are against an aggressive opponent we will need to throw in some 4 Bets for value and some for bluffing purposes.

Why should we only consider calling these hands?

Well, they all have showdown value and can play fairly well post-flop, with regards to pairs, we can choose to continue in the spots we are getting the implied odds for hitting a set.

The other part of our range is our Ace high hands, half of these are suited hands where we will often flop equity with a pair or straight and flush draws allowing us to pick up the pot with semi-bluffs, but also still having the showdown value of Ace high.
So even our offsuit Ace high combinations have showdown value if our opponents are ever getting out of line with their suited connectors pre-flop for example.

The good part about tightening up our calling 3-Bet range is that we can be a lot more sticky with these holdings post flop as our opponents are going to have many bluffs against us.

So When Should We Fire Up The 4-Bet?

Well, this is all going to be very player dependant if a player is 3 Betting often we can look to have a fairly wide 4-Betting range for value. However on the other end of the scale if our opponent is only 3-Betting hands like AA and KK as they are very tight, we may only ever want to 4-Bet with AA for value.

Let’s look at the Chart we have created and run through the hand selection

So facing a 3-Bet as we have discussed we can flat call with our best hands and play post flop, however, there are times we are going to want to play for more money, particularly when we have the top two hands in Hold em, Aces and Kings. But if we only ever 4-Bet with these two hands we become too predictable and easy to play against, our opponents can just try and beat our obvious monster hand on the flop or just get out of trouble.

Therefore we need to stay Balanced. So how do we do this with a 4-Betting range, well we are going to 4-Bet with the hands in Green, some of these are monsters and others serve as bluffs that still have a solid amount of equity should we get the 4-Bet called and have to play post flop.

We can look to 4-Bet bluff some of our hands that perform worse post flop hands like AQo which has less playability that AQs for example, we can look to get value from this hand by turning it into a bluff, blocking our opponent having hands like AA, QQ, AK & AQ themselves, it serves us well.

Another good hand to work into our 4-Bet bluff range is KQs whilst it may not be strong enough to call and play post flop with out of position, it serves as a good 4-Bet bluff, blocking our opponents’ monsters like AK, KK, QQ & AQ too.

Another of our hands that plays well post flop that we may want to work in are low suited Ace high hands that can make a wheel as well as a nut flush, so a hand like A5s is perfect, as even if we are up against a hand as strong as QQ we will still have around 33% equity in the pot and the betting lead, although we have included this hand into our 4-Betting range you don’t want to over do it with these types of holdings, they play perfectly fine as a flat call too, but using them to occasionally turn up the heat to balance our range out is fine.