by Zmej » Fri May 25, 2007 8:54 am
I don't think that there is a clear cut answer to preflop play. 3bet vs call. I can see merits for both plays. IMO it goes down to dynamics which you want to create. Surely you should have a balanced range for your 3bets and calls, but there are many ways to create such balance.
I even disagree that 3betting only with QQ+ would be a bad idea. Against maniacs who don’t adjust and bluff too much we are in hugely +EV position 3betting just QQ+ and calling with AK going to fit or fold. You see, with such a dynamics you don’t need to exploit smaller edges, i.e. 3betting TT. It could be even wrong to do so, as maniac is ready to bluff/overplay TP and playing TT OOP in a bloated pot could be very difficult.
Even if dynamics is such that Button raises a lot of marginal hands preflop, 3betting him with TT every time could be not the best solution, as he would know that when you just call preflop you don’t have TT+ and it will be hard to play postflop. There are, of course, the obvious cases like Button playing like 30/25, then you should 3bet him for value.
Ok. My point is that we can’t tell in a vacuum that 3betting > call, there are too many variables which we don’t know (i.e. what is called dynamics) and without them there is no clear answer IMO.
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