Joined: Jul '14
Location: Australia
Age: 29 (M)
Posts: 218
Lately I have been been playing a fair few more tournaments with a few regs, and have decided to mix up my flatting range preflop, including flatting TT-QQ (3-betting AA or KK every time). My question is, how profitable can it be? I've seen some posters to this forum discourage flatting preflop with big pairs, and obviously depending on the pair, it can be the opposite.
I've found the advantages to be; getting value from villan's c-betting range (which is almost all of their preflop raising range) Disguising overpairs Mixing up your range enough to include high pairs amongst your floats/standard check calls
The disadvantages being; You don't have a well tuned pre-defined range on the villan The chance to get drawn out on General confusion Harder to fold
So, can someone tell me, do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Am I becoming too predictable if I'm constantly 3 betting my big pairs preflop? Am i sacrificing value against worst hands that call a 3 bet often from out of position?
Mixing it up is always good obviously, the last thing you want is to be predictable at any poker table. You're also gonna hit more sets if you see more flops with pairs so playing this way can't be a bad thing if you're a good post flop player. But there's some situations... like when you have a big stack and you want to look like you're bullying the table. You just have to 3bet QQ IMO, it's just bad to let people hit their smaller sets or overcards for free. And ofc when people flop 2 pairs, it can be tricky to see it coming when you have an overpair. But by keeping the pot small pre flop you allow yourself to see a turn and river and possibly hit a monster which can't be a bad thing.
You're gonna get a lot more value from hands like AJ, A10, K10, KJ when they hit their 10 or J on the flop also. But you have to rely on your read a lot
Joined: Jul '14
Location: Australia
Age: 29 (M)
Posts: 218
Can't believe I forgot to include post flop play in the initial post (imperative to this strategy of course). How often is it acceptable to 4-bet a player on a squeeze? When you can make a good guess they are squeezing? So much can go into this strategy such as position, stack size, players tendancies etc.
