If your initial reaction to this claim is one of skepticism, I don’t blame you in the least. I have learned one shocking yet powerful lesson from this approach.Įvery beginner-to-intermediate level student that I have ever coached has exactly the same leak, and it is costing them a significant slice of tournament ROI. This allows me to identify their most obvious leaks, which in turn acts as a starting point for our work together. I do think it is important to try to understand the numerous issues that go into a decision rather than just using pre-formed general ranges, although you can try to do both.My preferred method of working with MTT students is to begin with a hand history from a recent tournament in which they went deep. More recently, folks now use solvers to provide ranges in scenarios like this. Back in the old days, not too long ago, we used to talk about mandatory defense frequency. Just to name a few: intital raise size, 3 bet size, stack sizes, your cards, your position, 3 bettors position, game conditions (ie are you likely to get squeezed or could it go even more multiway?), opponent's estimated 3 bet range, opponent's likely reaction to a 4 bet, and the list could go on and on and on.Īlso good news, there is plenty written on this subject that you can easily find online.

There are many, many factors that impact the decision of whether to call a 3 bet and they can't really be boiled down to a simple answer in this kind of format.

The bad news is that this is a huge field of study. The good news is that you have just identified a subject matter that you know you need to gain a better understanding of, AND it is totally do-able. Is my assumption correct? Not that 98s should ever be calling cold-3bets like this - just that ATs seems even worse because of reverse implied odds in a deep-stacked situation. In addition, how does the effective stack change the strategy here? Was his decision better or worse based on it being 250bb deep rather than the standard 100bb? I have a feeling it was worse because of reverse implied odds, and that something like 98s would honestly be a better cold-call than ATs here, whereas ATs might be a better call at 100bb than 98s would be. In general, was his pre-flop decision a mistake? What hands are good enough to cold-call a 3-bet, or should we always be 4-betting or folding when facing a cold-3bet?

I couldn't help but think that I might have made the same pre-flop decision, though. Long story short, the LJ lost his entire $500 stack after he hit TPTK and I had an overpair. 1/2 deep-stacked (~$500 effective stacks).

3 bet nlh poker def