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Table Dynamic > Preflop 3-Betting Charts
Sometimes especially in live play, we need to set down our preflop charts and rely on table image. In my recent live tournament action I had 3-bet the player to my immediate right three times in this session and two of them were in my 3-bet bluffing range. My opponent was an aggressive player, though it was good controlled aggression. He folded to two these 3-bets, and flatted the other. On that flatted one I got a 3-bet range-friendly flop on 86s and C-bet him out of it with nothing. He hesitated on the last one before he let his hand go preflop. I got a vibe that I had tapped dry my 3-bet bluffing well with this player.
Some time later he made an open and I passed on the A5s 3-bet bluff.
A couple of levels later my stack was dwindling down to the lower 20’s in big blinds. My player, who by now had built a big stack, made an open. I looked down at my first AA holding of the tournament.
Now, if you look at the preflop charts in Range Trainer Pro, this is a call. It balances the weaker hands in your calling range. But I decided to 3-bet jam. It folded around back to my player and he tanked for over a minute. Then he threw in the call with KJ and doubled me up.
He and I had had a friendly banter in this game for hours, so he felt fine with asking me if that was my first AA hand that day. I told him, ‘yeah,’ which was the truth.
The moral of this story is that you must be aware of situations in which the preflop charts will fail you. The preflop charts are meant to be simply unexploitable. You must deviate from them if the table dynamic changes to something other than neutral or unknown, like it had in this game.
My 3-bet value/bluff frequency ratio was out of whack WITH THIS PLAYER. I was still using the charts and frequencies in the overall game. On my A5s hand it would likely have cost me my 3-bet if I had adhered slavishly to the charts. It would likely have cost me a double-up if I had flatted the AA like the charts say to do.
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1 Reply
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Nice read.
GTO is a crutch we fall back on when we have no other information. Even if it is just population tendencies, we usually have a reason to deviate (i.e., they don’t bluff enough). But we need to know GTO to know what we are deviating from! It is very important to do like Keith and be situationally aware. This not only includes hands that you are involved in, but also hands that you folded. This same situation could have arisen if villain had been 3bet every time they opened, but by a different player each time.
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