just shoot me now

[Justin A]

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Now imagine your 3 handed game where this time the SB folds 50% and the BB folds just 20%. Now we win the blinds only 10%, and it becomes much harder to turn a profit with our marginal hands. The strategy adjustment we need to make is folding more hands on the button than in the previous example.

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I'd still disagree here. while its true that we'd less money preflop, that says nothing about our chances postflop.

a further illustration of your example:

lets say the sb and the bb have made the threehanded adjustment of defending 50 and 80% respectively, but they both decide to play fit or fold postflop. Its still incredibly difficult to find hands that are unprofitable to raise from the button because we'll win outright 10%, and win on the flop [in an inflated pot] an additional percentage of the time when a defender misses and folds to a cont bet. In fact, this could end up being a more profitable situation than the pure preflop steal ones, depending on exactly how weak/tight our opponents turn out to be.

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I don't think such players exist. I think it's a fair assumption that players who are defending 50% and 80% of their hands aren't exactly going to be playing fit or fold.

[milesdyson]

i still haven't seen a convincing argument in this thread to go against what victor and i and others are saying.

in a 3-handed game, the blinds WILL play more aggressively against the button. they won't just magically start spewing chips though. the marginal-est of hands THRIVE by making the other players fold. pokerbob disagreed with me earlier by saying "there is so much more to it than that," but in my opinion he is vastly overestimating how much money a hand like 86o makes when it goes past the flop in a blind steal situation. i use that hand as an example of a hand i would likely steal with on the button in a 6-handed game but not on the button in a 3-handed game.

i agree with Justin A about disagreeing strongly with Guruman. the blinds are defending more, and defending aggressively. they don't just call preflop and check fold flops nearly as often. as i have said throughout this thread, the worst hands you steal with make the money preflop and on the flop. of course you will win by making pairs and stuff, but you will also end up taking a marginal pair to showdown against someone who is probably pretty good at value betting. you just don't want to see the big streets, you don't want to get 3-bet preflop, you don't want to get checkraised on the flop. this stuff all happens a lot more when you play 3-handed. i mean, it's one thing when there's someone who just spews bets in the blinds, but we're talking overall. and overall, 3-handed blinds are going to give you more trouble with the worst hands (Q6s not being one of them so let's not talk about it anymore).


i still think everyone saying they "open up" on the button 3-handed is underestimating how often they steal on the button in a 6-handed game. like i said earlier, i play almost 50% of my hands in this spot. that means my vpip/pfr OTB in a 3-handed game would be something like 48/48.

do you all really play more hands in this position, just because it's 3-handed? or are you letting the fact that it's always "folded to you" interfere? do you really think you should play more hands? why? do you still disagree that the worst button stealing hands make their money early and not late?

[PokerBob]

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"although a few orbits usually gives me much of the info i need. "

so after a few orbits you raise more? or less? what criteria affects this?

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i probably raise more. i think the biggest thing that affects this is the reads i develop on my opponents. once i am confident that i know how they play, i am comfortable playing a wide range of hands vs. them. that said, i reserve the right to leave the table if i feel that my edge is small. if i find that they play well, i'm gone.

i should also note that imho a big part of super-shorthanded play is frustration and how your opponents deal with it. if you can get them pissed off, your edge goes up quite a bit. tilt is murderous to many.

[Victor]

"i probably raise more"

pbob and all, its real easy to find out if you raise more. look at position stats in pt.

[StellarWind]

Predeal: Why are you playing 3-handed with no clear read on where the money is coming from? Don't you have better things to do with your time?

Preflop: Raising Q6s seems pretty routine. Two thoughts on the 3-handed/6-handed discussion.

1. Q6s should be slightly better hand in a 3-handed game than a 6-handed game with three folds. Having the deck stub rich in aces is not good for your health.

2. The borderline hands that might defend or not defend are generally a lot worse than Q6s. Having a poor player defend those bad hands OOP may be just as profitable as folding him out preflop. The whole argument that people defend more 3-handed doesn't interest me very much even if it is true.

Turn: Important to realize that despite all the FTP lagtard rhetoric there is no actual read on this player. I would quietly call the turn.

1. This could very easily be a ten, a second pair, or a better six.

2. SB may well be prepared to checkraise with a ten or set and my raise becomes a very expensive error.

3. The pot is fairly small. If SB wants to overcall that's OK with me. The pot odds to draw aren't there and I'm not at all sure my hand is good anyway.

4. It's easy to say that you can fold to a 3-bet but the truth is you have no idea what you are doing. You will certainly be laying down the best hand some of the time.

River: You need to call this at 9.5-1. This underlines my point that you shouldn't be making the free showdown raise with no read or control over your opponent.

[Dane S]

Great post.

[MAxx]

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Great post.

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I agree. While other posts were very insightful and provided some very good reasoning.... Stellar's is imo the most compelling/ seems the most correct to me.

I think that his point about raising the turn for a freeshowdown against a readless opponent... is bonus material.

[milesdyson]

The argument of 3-handed OTB and 6-handed folded to the button is still wide open. His #1 point is a very tiny factor based on bunching, and I don't think anyone is debating #2 any more. Q6s is a good hand. The question is, should you be raising more 3-handed OTB than you do when it's folded to you OTB in a 6-handed game, and why?

[Surf]

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The argument of 3-handed OTB and 6-handed folded to the button is still wide open. His #1 point is a very tiny factor based on bunching, and I don't think anyone is debating #2 any more. Q6s is a good hand. The question is, should you be raising more 3-handed OTB than you do when it's folded to you OTB in a 6-handed game, and why?

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I agree. Bunching doesn't make a large difference and I don't think anyone is arguing that we should fold Q6s 3h otb.

Surf

[MAxx]

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The argument of 3-handed OTB and 6-handed folded to the button is still wide open. His #1 point is a very tiny factor based on bunching, and I don't think anyone is debating #2 any more. Q6s is a good hand. The question is, should you be raising more 3-handed OTB than you do when it's folded to you OTB in a 6-handed game, and why?

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I was thinking that point 1 was true even if not sigificant. I think that point 2 is what makes it decisive in my mind. I think that they will defend more with a wider range when 3handed. I think that b/c they defend with a wider range, their avg defensive hand will be even weaker than 6handed. I think that (assuming all else equal) this should make Q6s more of a raise rather than less of a raise.

Basically I dont think you should go nuts and raise a bunch of crap just because it's 3handed, but I think you should expand your range a little because a hand like Q6s becomes a little stronger here than in a 6handed situation and I want to push that edge.