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3betting in Position with Deep Stacks
In the previous article we talked about 3betting out of position when stacks are deep and why it is usually better to tighten our 3betting range out of position.
In this article we will focus on 3betting in position and how we should adopt the opposite approach. We should be 3betting a much wider range when deep stacked and in position. We should be 3betting frequently and relentlessly.
We do this for a number of reasons:
- We create a loose image
- We obtain the lead in the hand
- We have position and therefore we act second
- It will almost always be checked to us postflop
- It is harder for opponents to 4bet as they are out of position, so they will play tighter, especially because we are deepstacked
When 3betting preflop, we should focus more on a player's continuing range rather than on their preflop opening range. Their opening range is made up of hands they will fold to a 3bet as well as their continuing range. A players continuing range can be defined as a hand they will call a 3bet with or 4bet preflop and this is far more important than their opening range.
3betting a ton in position when playing deepstacked poker is an extremely profitable strategy. It uses the concepts of stack leveraging and positional leveraging to their full potential. People will fold a lot preflop or will call and fold to a flop continuation bet or to a second barrel on the turn. Implied odds hands such as suited connectors are much harder to call a 3bet with as their value goes down when out of position, so people will just fold a large proportion of their opening range to a 3-bet preflop.
3-betting an under the gun (utg) raiser is a great way to increase your winrate. While a player's preflop raising range is much tighter under the gun, most tight aggressive players are still open raising a wide range of hands including all pocket pairs, suited broadways, suited aces and some suited connectors. Even though a larger % of this range can call a 3bet or 4bet preflop (compared to their late position raising ranges), they are more likely to play their hands extremely straightforwardly postflop.
For example, when we 3bet an under the gun raiser, they will often call with small to medium pocket pairs to try and hit a set on the flop. When they miss, they will check fold most flops. Sometimes they might peel hands such as 88 on a 732 rainbow flop, but fold to a second barrel on the turn because we are using effective stack leveraging and they have no idea of the strength of their hand compared to ours.
Additionally, people give more respect when 3betting an utg raise as it is seen as a sign of strength, as our perceived 3-betting range is much stronger when we 3bet an early position raiser. This holds true even more so when we are deepstacked because people tend to play the direct value of their hands.
As stacks get deeper our continuation betting range will become more polarised. This is because we are no longer bet calling with hands that we might stack off with when only 100 big blinds deep. For example against certain opponents when 100BBs deep, we might bet and call all in with TT on a J74 flush draw flop or with AQ on KQ5. Another way of putting this is that our value range will narrow substantially in deepstacked play.
A 5 out hand such as ATo on QT3 rainbow may now be a good hand to check back on the flop to control the pot size and to pick off bluffs on later streets.
Here we can introduce another theorem:
When playing a 3bet pot with the lead in position, we should check back any hand that cannot call a check raise versus a specific opponenet type when stacks are deep.
Here we can utilise player profiling:
1. Against aggressive opponents who will check raise bluff or put pressure on us, we should check back
2. Against calling stations we should value bet a wider range
3. Against people who fold too much or play weak tight postflop we should bluff more and fire more second and third barrels.
While the above is a good rule of thumb to follow, there are certain exceptions. We should still follow normal continuation betting theory and c-bet very obvious flops. The two most obvious flops are ace high and king high dry, rainbow and generally uncoordinated boards. These flops are the best to continuation bet, as they are good for our perceived range. We should also be double barreling and triple barreling more as players will often peel these boards when deepstacked with an underpair such as a pair of jacks, second pair or with a weak top pair hand. Remember, we have the lead and position so we need to apply stack leveraging to stop their attempt to control the pot size by check calling every street out of position hoping to get to a cheap showdown.
When 3-betting in position, we can make our 3bet size smaller. Some people find this counter intuitive as they think we should be encouraging more folds when 3betting. But, in reality the opposite is true. When people fold, that's a great result because we pick up all the dead money in the pot. But when they call, it's also a good result. We are forcing them to play a pot out of position without the lead, with a lot of money left behind. Most players play so honestly in 3bet pots when deep that we will regularly pick up the dead money in the pot with a flop continuation bet.
This is also true in a battle of the blinds when we are the big blind facing a limp from the small blinds. We should just make it 3x the big blind instead of 4x. This is to encourage more calls and to encourage our opponents to put more dead money into the pot preflop out of position with a perceived weaker range.
To summarise, when playing in position with deep stacks, we should use the power of our stack size in order to put pressure on our opponents and to force them to make mistakes both pre and postflop. The best way to do this is to apply more pressure preflop by 3betting regularly in position. Our next article takes this concept to the next level by discussing 4betting preflop with deep stacks.
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