Three-Betting Preflop - Part I

When I started playing limit hold’em years ago, most people three-bet before the flop only with aces and kings. The game was less aggressive then, and the initial raiser typically held a good hand. To three-bet, you needed a much better one, and A-A and K-K were thought to be the only two that qualified.

Increasingly, players now reraise preflop with a much wider variety of hands. In my book Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy, I recommend a very aggressive reraising style in select circumstances as a method of confusing the opposition, creating dead money, gaining extra action on your better hands, and, ultimately, making more money.

Greater aggression naturally increases your volatility. Occasionally three-betting with hands that others would either call or fold will give you larger swings and require both a larger bankroll and a positive attitude toward the long run.

This discussion will analyze the whys and wherefores of this strategy. We will look at:
• Why calling is a weak option
• Advantages of three-betting
• Disadvantages of three-betting
• When to three-bet

Why calling is a weak option: Someone open-raises before the flop, and you are next to act. You have to consider folding, calling, or reraising. How do you decide which action to take?

If you have a weak hand, it’s easy, and if your hand is very powerful, reraising comes naturally. That leaves intermediate hands, with which most players simply call.

Frequent readers of my column know that I consider this a raise-or-fold situation. You are next to act with no intervening callers. You have a hand that may be the best (if you are almost certain that the raiser has a better hand than yours, fold). You cannot call with a drawing hand in this situation, because you do not know how many others will join you if you elect to call, and there may be additional raises behind you, thus reducing the field and spoiling your chances of getting a good price even if you flop a draw.

Given that you want to play your hand as possibly being the best, three-betting is the best way to do this. Consider how the hand will play out if you call. One, two, or more others also may call, either because of their hands or because you have invited them in by increasing the pot size while not increasing the price that they must pay. Now the flop hits. In general, everyone will now check to the raiser, who will bet. You are out of position on this and possibly other streets, as you are facing a bet into a field and you have to commit before they do. Your relative position is effectively under the gun, making your decisions more difficult.

Advantages of three-betting: If you three-bet, you tend to narrow the field. Far fewer players will call three bets than will call two, so you isolate the raiser much more often.

You also get the blinds to fold more often. Many players in the big blind will call one more bet with far more hands than they will call two more. If you get them to fold, the dead money that they leave behind adds to your potential profit. (“Dead money” is money in the pot that was put there by players who can no longer win any of it. More dead money means that you can win less often and still show a profit.)

Because you were the preflop aggressor, most of the time everyone will check to you after the flop. Now, you can assess the situation better than if the player on your right had bet into you. If you have narrowed the field or believe that a bet will work, you can make it. If not, you can check and possibly get a free card.

Finally, your three-bet puts considerable pressure on the preflop raiser to make a hand. This is especially true if you have managed to get heads up. Even if he has the better hand, he will often have a difficult time recognizing that, especially if you are selective and do not overdo three-betting. If most of the time you three-bet with premium hands, your opponent will often fold when he misses the flop, giving you undeserved wins on your more aggressive reraises.

For example, a middle-position player raises preflop with K-Q and you three-bet with J-10. He has way the best of it, but will find it hard to diagnose this. Let’s say that the flop comes A-7-3. He checks, and you bet. What can he do but fold? The same thing happens if the flop is 7-7-2. He may take one off with his overcards, but will fold to another bet if he misses the turn.

You may be surprised to see the three-bet in the example with J-10. Normally, you would fold that hand, and you should not call for the reasons stated earlier. But three-betting has advantages if made on the right occasions. Next issue, I will discuss them in detail.

Disadvantages of three-betting: You have to be selective and judicious in three-betting with weaker hands. I will provide some criteria later, but if your opponents think you are just going nuts, they will play back and call you down with weaker hands, thus costing you some of your edge. In general, you still want to fold decent but not premium hands most of the time when facing a preflop raise.

You will have far more difficult decisions to make, especially on the turn. Let’s say that you decide to three-bet with Q-J, the flop comes with small cards, and your opponent checks and calls. Now, a small card comes on the turn. Do you bet again? If he has K-K, you are just costing yourself money while drawing dead. If he has A-K, he may give up, depending on how he plays and what he thinks of you. If he has K-J, he will almost certainly fold, but you have given yourself a tough and possibly expensive decision that you would not have if you had just folded preflop.

As mentioned before, making plays of any sort, but particularly expensive ones like three-betting with hands that you might have folded, increases your swings. If things go wrong, you will lose several bets in a session that you may believe you need not have lost; if this sort of loss causes you to go on tilt a bit, play worse, chase, and otherwise lose still more money, this is not the strategy for you, no matter how profitable it may be for others.

Next issue, I will conclude by examining which players to try three-betting and when to try it, and look at some examples.

Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold’em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].