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Question for winning small to mid stake Full Ring Cash players on 3 betting approach at NL50 - NL100

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  1. Yourangutang Yourangutang is offline

    Posts: 284
    Joined: Aug 09

    Oct 26th, 2009 (10/26/2009 4:44pm)

    I've been playing a lot of Full Ring Cash games the past few months, had good success at NL50, I averaged about 3.5bbs/100 playing about 9 tables at a time. I'm feeling pretty good overall at NL100 so far and feel like I will be able to continue to win at at least the same rate at this level. Still, I feel like if I'm ever going to be succesful beyond NL100 I'll need to be much much stronger preflop.

    The one area of my game however that I have really played kind of passively to this point has been preflop. For any of you who play or have played NL50 - NL100 Full Ring games I'm sure that you know what I mean when I say that you almost NEVER see anyone other than the donks get their money in preflop with less than AA or KK. This fact has led me to flat call a lot more with hands like QQ JJ 1010 when I have position facing a raise from a solid player because I know that if I get 4 bet its just not going to be EV+ for me to get it all in or even call. Essentially at these smaller stakes in the Ring games 3 betting with 1010 - QQ or AK AQ is really just turning your strong hands into semi bluffing hands. ((EG. Even if you 3 bet with say QQ versus a solid player and just get called, flop an overpair of QQ, then cbet the flop and get reraised all in, you are probably losing way more often than you are ahead if you are to call, yet you are borderline pot commited since you will be looking at calling another $60 or so to win $100 with an overpair)). Now, obviously I dont want to only be 3 betting AA KK against solid players because there is just too much value out there to be gained from 3 betting, especially against the more solid types.

    The last time that I tried to open up my range I just started 3 betting more with my good hands like 1010 - QQ, AJ - AK, 89 suited, etc. All this really served to do was probably lead to me losing value on my big hands. I lose more big hands and at best make about the same as I would on my average winning hands with my premium cards.

    The approach that i was considering to increase my range was to follow some advice that I'd read a while back in a arcticle from Duuuurrrrr. He talks about polarizing your range of 3 betting hands (hands that you will get it all in with) ( and hands that you are semibluffing with) and using the hands that are at the top of your range of hands that you would have to fold most of the time to a raise ( Hands like KQ, KJ, A8 - A10, JQ suited, etc) and using these as your 3 bet semibluffing range (obviously depending on the opponent and other factors at thetable etc).

    Do any of you guys take this approach? and have you been able to really add 1bb/100 or 2bb/100 to your win rates by opening up you 3 betting semibluff range?

    I guess what I'm asking in my typical rambling style is out of these two 3 betting ranges at a NL50 or NL100 FULL RING game (I know 6 max you may have a much wider range that you can get it all in with preflop) which one would be closer to your 3 betting range and why?

    Range 1 (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, AK, AQ, 89 suited)
    Range 2 (AA, KK, KQ, KJ, A8, A9, A10, JQ suited)
  2. All-in-clubs All-in-clubs is offline

    Saint Helens, OR
    United States

    Posts: 86
    Joined: Aug 08

    Oct 26th, 2009 (10/26/2009 5:05pm) in reply to Yourangutang

    I am not the one to suggest anything but they say Being in position at the table is very important. Early position hands wont make as much money they say ussually compared to being in last position to act. The later in positon the more hand range you can have...unless an early position raises a lot then you might dump some hands.
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