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what hands should you call w/ against a TAG that 3bets light (3bet% of about 7-12%) against late position raises. for example if i raise to 3bb and i am 3bet up to 9bb what do i call w/. assume the opponent is cbetting somewhere between 70-90% of flops for 3/4 pot.

rough approximation of villians 3betting range: JJ+, AXs, AQ+, KJs, KQs+KQo.

the two different scenarios i need to address are calling oop and calling in pos. also when we do call what is our plan for the flop.

thanks in advance for comments and advice.

To me, if that is the villain's 3bet range anywhere from the C/O to the BB then I would say that the high 3bet% is really only indicative of a guy who is running good and is tight and that can happen over a small sample. When you said "3bets light" I was expecting you to say he was 3betting J5o from the SB!!! What I want to know is how you know what his 3bet range is. Is he showing cards before he mucks, have you played against him enough to see his holdings at showdown? I think there is a possible contradiction in his 3bet% and what you seem to think his range is.

Knowing the stakes and the table size and the stack sizes would be helpful as well as which spots he is doing this 3betting as all of these things factor in. Equally, it would be helpful to know what type of player you are.

I would say that you need to post back with the above information and maybe an example hand history. Also watching the DC vids appropriate to your game is the best and fastest medicine. There is also good information in the Sklansky starting hands chart about what you are never calling with in the face of a raise let alone a 3bet.

A tight player with a well defined 3bet range is very exploitable but there are only a number of possible strategies and you need to be aware that thinking opponents will adjust to your adjustments and then you will need to adjust again.

rough approximation of villians 3betting range: JJ+, AXs, AQ+, KJs, KQs+KQo

If he is even 3beting 7% his range is much wider than this.
Also I would assume most good tags are 3betting a more polorised range.
Hands like KJs-KQs and even AQ are not in thier 3beting ramge too much .
But I would include include Kx also and some random xxs

Unless they want to 3bet depolorised with a hand like KJ vrs a fish where they can get 3 value streets from they generally call with these hand types.Actualty the range you posted is the exact value range id have vrs a fish.

We must know their 3beting range before we can decide our calling/4beting range.

I think you are asking one of the most difficult questions and I think it is difficult because each villain is different and we very rarely have enough hands on a villain to develop an optimal counter strategy.

First, I want to start off with some fair assumptions:

1) Very few players at 50NL are good thinking players.
2) There are few good tags, as a "good tag" would move up. Regulars at 50NL are not that good, otherwise they would not be regulars at 50NL.
3) Someone 3betting over 10% from the blinds at 50NL does not understand the "value" of 3betting.

I think these are important assumptions to make, otherwise we end up leveling ourselves into make bad plays. Understanding that the villain is not really thinking, is very helpful with a counter strategy.

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I think this is a very difficult question as we don't know what he is 3betting with. Is he 3betting premuim hands and just under calling hands (such as QJ), is he 3betting with a more polarized range of premuim hands and air (which is a weak player as this only makes sense if he know the villian is going to 4bet or fold, which he probably doesn't know nor is he thinking about), is he 3betting the 10% of EV hands, or is he 3betting the 10% of most playable hands post flop? All this depends on how good he is and how much he adjust to opponents. If he is really good he will be 3betting the top 10% against wide late position openers who call 3bets too often, he will 3bet premiums and hands just under his calling range against players who fold too often, and he will 3bet his air and premiums against a 4bet or fold type.

Now, I assume are villian is not this good! but we could go further and ask the question, is he looking at my stats and my range or just 3betting the same vs. everyone? Also, if I 4bet does he ever call or is he fit or fold? What is his 4bet? I also think it would be wise to know his shoving range to the 4bet, but the problem with a lot of these questions is that you need thousands and thousands of hands to have any reliability.

Assuming that are player is not that strong I think he has the same 3bet range against everyone. I would first want to figure out what that is, which may take thousands of hands. I think a general strategy is to look at how often he folds to 4bets and if it is high to start 4betting with hands just under a calling range (if he isn't polarized in his 3betting) and premium hands. 100bb deep I think calling is really weak (unless we know for sure that his range is NOT polarized) as we are committed to almost every pot (the stack to pot ratio is around 3x-4x so we are committed very easily and against such a wide range it is hard to ever fold post flop and playing fit or fold is a bad strategy after calling with KJs for example).

So, if he is relatively unknown and a maniac 3better I would be interested to find out how he responds to 4bets and go from there. If he is folding or shoving I think you can mix garbage with premiums. If he just calls 4bets then I would 4bet premiums and call 2nd tier type hands.

I think the biggest problem is that not all maniac 3betters from the blinds are the same and it takes an enormous amount of hands to develop an optimal counter strategy, but calling 3bets even IP for 100bb deep I think is a -EV play.

Once you get to 130+bb deep I think you can start flatting with certain hands IP if you feel you can outplay him postflop. If he is 3betting 10%+ from blinds, you can count on him probably being clueless postflop as well.

Just my thoughts...hope this helps!

Best.

rough approximation of villians 3betting range: JJ+, AXs, AQ+, KJs, KQs+KQo

Villain can also have nothing, he just pick up that you are weak OOP and try to take advantage of that

I think that's a very good question and one that I struggle with and haven't really found any good answers. He probably has some more light 3-bets mixed in with the range you posted. I think in position you can start with

AQo ,KQs, 88+, AJs+ as a range to keep you out of trouble. Basically when you call here you are basically bluff catching post flop imo. The post flop play is difficult and something I need work on myself. To be honest even calling JJ-88 ip is always tough because overcards will constantly be on the flop. OOP I think you want to play tight and fold everything and 4bet get in JJ+,AK, and if you do have 77 or something and want to play it, turn it into a 4-bet bluff/fold.

This question also brings up the difference between EV calculations and the actual ability to read hands and play well post flop. Meaning, 88 is certainly strong enough to call from an EV perspective, but we are not shoving here so the fact that we have to play post flop makes a lot of stronger hands (against his range) undesirable IMO.

There is a software program called poker academy pro 2 and I played HU against a player being dealt only the top 10% of hands for this purpose. As I played there is a hand analyzer that will say how much EV you have each step of the way vs. a 10% opening range. I was amazed how much equity certain hands had, but playing them postflop when there is next to know fold equity against stronger hands I think is very difficult. A5o did quite well, especially when an ace was flopped...but as our opponent will fold most of his range when we bet here except with what beats us I assume A5o is not a hand I would want to play (obviously). If he shoves on an Axx flop what do I do?? For example

Just trying to bring out the point of the difference in actually EV and the playability of hands after the flop.

You want to be calling with hands that make good pairs, i.e. broadways.

If someone is a light 3bettor, but not a great player postflop, I would call with KJ and play for showdown if i flop a pair, and possibly bluff if I don't. I don't want to call with hands like 88 or worse for a number of reasons. The biggest being, when I bluff, I have shit equity when called.

To expand on what SootedPower is saying, suited broadways are good hands to call vs a light 3 bettor. Not only do they make strong top pair hands, but they also flop strong draws with which we can semibluff with. And since villain is 3 betting a wide range, we should have a decent amount of fold equity.

You still need to play very tight if your OOP and should be folding to most 3 bets, If your getting 3 bet from the blinds and your in position you can play a few more hands..

The most important thing is that you don't play fit and fold with them. You can do things like push overcards, all sorts of draws and because their range is weak overall and you have equity when called you will pick up a lot of dead money.

I think the most important thing to consider, is he really 3 betting me too much? I still think tight is right a lot of the time and you don't need to get into the above dynamic.

OK...so I thought about this some more.

Most people don't call 4bets they either fold or shove. So an easy strategy against a small or big blind that 3bets 12% and shoves 45% and folds 55% against 4bets is to 4bet TT-AA, AKo, AQs+. According to Stox EV this is the most profitable strategy assuming that he opens 12% and folds 55% of 4bets and shoves 45%. 4betting light is not an option as we can't call his shoves and we need a fold to 4bet of over 70% to make this profitable. So against most of these guys you just can't 4bet lite as they are not folding to over 70% of 4bets.

The easy strategy is 4betting a little better than his range (quoted above) and calling 100% of shoves.

Hope this helps.

I don't like calling with low SC as we want to be making a TP and just calling two streets a lot.

I have found that along with Broadways, suited A's are good to flat with. This is because we have a blocker and Villain is always betting an A on the flop. It allows us to make a 2 Pair cooler, But we are basically never calling our stack off on Axx so it is reasonably easy to play. We will make TP a lot which we can take to showdown easily.

The most important feature is our Villain. If he is crazy we cannot let our ego get in the way and make us call off to light.

If he is a nit, like 9/11 with a 9% 3bet then we can float a lot of flops and take it away on the turn as these players are not confident playing post flop.

If it's a good TAG or LAG you are going to have to analyze the board texture and be aware of both what Villain and we can represent on the board and how that coincides with our ranges.