ive seen some conflicting ideas about the concept of raising vs. calling when in and out of position. kinda curious as to what most ppl feel.

when discussing this question im obv talking about situations where there will be post flop play, i guess we can view this as a deep stacked cash or tourny hand

so the situation is someone opens the pot, say from MP, your holding some sort of marginal hand that flops well and is basicly a type of boarderline 3bet/flat hand. ive seen 2 different types of logic applied that seem to imply opposite things as to how your position should impact your decision

A) say your in the small blind/big blind, ive seen ppl say that since your OOP im more inclined to 3bet since flatting hands OOP is very costly. in the end you let the MP raiser keep control of the hand and have to try and out play him post flop when OOP. by raising we
1) allow ourselves the chance to win the hand without having to play a pot OOP.
2) more define his hand so that we are at less of a disadvantage post flop
3) take control of the hand which should enable us to win a higher % of the time post flop.

the same ppl would then say that if you were instead on the button then theyd be more inclined to flat and see a flop with a hand that can flop well and use our positional advantage.

ive seen statements like "you cant flat that hand OOP"

B) the other form of logic i see is basicly the exact opposite, that you would be more inclined to 3 bet on the button than in the blinds, the reason for this is
1) you would rather be inflating a pot when your in position since thats when u have the biggest post flop advantage
2) you dont want to inflate a pot when OOP and would rather keep the pot small and practice pot control
3) if you get 4bet you can continue you hand more often when on the button than when in the blinds and you dont want to allow him to push you off a hand that has alot of post flop potential when you can see the flop for a discount.

does anyone feel its at all dependent on the specific hand your holding

im sure there might be other reasons as to why one would be more inclined one way or the other, i just wanted to get the general ideas out

this might be an extremely n00b question but ive seen in different places from well seasoned players implications of both lines of reasoning and i think it might make for a somewhat interesting discussion

 

Originally Posted by mtstackin88

it sounds like u just described a bunch of good reasons to 3bet ip and oop i mean.....its not like u have to choose one or the other

i mean the logic that you should try to inflate pots when in position implies that you should try to avoid it when oop

are you saying that you never let position affect ur decision to 3bet and all you take into account is your cards and the range of your opponents open?

 

Originally Posted by okse54

i mean the logic that you should try to inflate pots when in position implies that you should try to avoid it when oop

are you saying that you never let position affect ur decision to 3bet and all you take into account is your cards and the range of your opponents open?

I think you have to do both. Sometimes 3 bet light in position as well as out of position. These are the players that are impossible to range and the toughest to play against...

as far as ur logic goes id much rather like 3 betting in position but i think you should be doing both. this is probably a huge tell/betting pattern but when were playing 50+bbs deep i really only like 3 betting with QQ+ and mid suited connectors and just pretty much flat everything else.

at around 50bbs OOP i dont think you have the right implied odds to play a hand like T9s but if the situation is right 3betting seems like the better option b/c you can take the pot down pre/or post flop more effectively w/o ever making a hand.

same situation as above except now were OTB i think flatting the open is a better option b/c of the postional advantage post flop we have. we can float/control the potsize better/makes it easier to play a pair of 9s or Ts for value. but i think OTB against the right opponent you cant really go wrong either way. i just think having position allows you take both lines whereas OOP only 3 betting seems like a reasonable line.

now if my hand were JJ OOP id much prefer flatting here since a 4bet puts us in an ugly spot or weve bloated a pot that can put us in a lot of sticky situations post flop.

 

Originally Posted by Faded TV;5625274[B

]If you always 3bet IP and always flat OOP, or vice versa, that's exploitable.[/B] You need to 3bet in both positions and flat in both positions. However, when you're 3betting OOP you should make it a larger raise to compensate for your positional disadvantage. Also, when you flat OOP you really need to have a strong strategic plan for how the action is going to go post-flop on any given board texture. FWIW I would lean towards 3betting more frequently OOP than IP simply because of the positional disadvantage, I'd often rather just fold than flat call OOP.

so i wasnt rly saying that you should always 3bet in one and always flat in the other or visa versa, obviously there are certain hands/situations where u are gona 3bet regardless of if ur on the button or in the small blind and there are situations where you will likely flat regardless of if ur on the button or the small blind

my question is built around those select hands/situations where u can go both ways, basicly the inbetween of your always 3bet and always flat. i feel that whenever your looking to decide whether to 3bet or flat there are many things that go into your decision like the opponent who raised, your stack sizes and so on. my question is in what way does position influence your decision (if at all) are there hands/situations that you would 3bet if you were in the SB but flat if u were in the button and visa versa, is ur 3bet range wider in one than the other.

i dont think its a leak to say your 3bet range is wider in one position over the other, it would be like saying its a leak to open less pots from utg than from the button.

i feel like position should play an impact on if you 3bet or flat but im not rly 100% sure the impact that it has.

and to reiterate, im specifically talking about very deep stacked where your basicly setting up for your post flop play. i think the deeper stacked the more of a question it is. obviously 25 bb deep hands that u know your gona get a shove or fold to a 3bet, ur position doesnt rly matter at all

so in short, is your 3bet range wider on the button or in the blinds in a deep stacked full ring cash game, is there no difference, does it depend on the specific situation

As a proportion of the hands that I will be playing from either position, my 3bet range in the blinds makes up a substantially larger part of my total playing range than on the button. In terms of actual number of hands, though, my 3bet range on the button is wider.

It is very situational.

 

Originally Posted by Wein

 

Originally Posted by Faded TV

If you always 3bet IP and always flat OOP, or vice versa, that's exploitable.

If you're always doing the same thing IP and OP, aren't you describing the opposite of being exploitable?

I'm going to start with the disclaimer that I suck at poker and am kind of new to game theory, but here's my reasoning behind thinking that not using a mixed strategy in those spots is exploitable. If you never do anything on the button but 3bet or fold in an opened pot, you are pretty clearly defining your range over a reasonable sample size. Unless you're playing optimal poker, that's going to be exploitable. While we can attempt to play near-optimal, it's basically impossible to actually play optimal poker from my understanding. The reason why I think that a mixed strategy is less exploitable is that your range is less clearly defined for each action. It's entirely possible that I'm misunderstanding something here though.

 

Originally Posted by Wein

your thought process makes better sense when you explain it like this. I concur with most of what you said.

i agree that the way he explained it now makes much more sense, and that switching up whether u call or raise certain hands makes it much tougher to play against you

but i still doubt that always raising or folding is exploitable as long as u can keep switching up how wide your raising.

but nonetheless i was never advocating always raising or folding

"it depends"

imo the pre-flop and post-flop tendencies of our villain should pretty much dictate us the way we have to play the hand, especially OOP.


I also just don't see myself ever playing those tricky spots every time the same way. Imo the right way to approach it is to switch it up depending on the informations you get on the tendencies of your opponent.

For example, against a post-flop passive ABC villain ill be more inclined to flat call OOP, because his weakness should allow me to bring marginal value hands like bottom pairs to showdown easily, i will not get bluffed out of the best hand very often, i could float him, bluff him later in the hand etc. The same spot against a tricky-agressive post-flop opponent should put us in a 3bet or fold situation more likely, because we just don't gonna win the pot often enough playing the hand passively to make it a profitable play against him.