Theory of Pre-Flop 3 Bets

[AshleyC]

I've been thinking alot lately about 3 betting pre-flop, how often it is profitable and how people can be exploited if they call 3 bets too little / much.

Assuming 100bb stacks @ 50nl, if we open raise to $2 and get 3 bet pre-flop to $6.50, then an unknown villan can immediately show an EV profit by 3 betting us if we fold 70% of the time = 100% - ($2 + $0.25 + $0.50) / ($2 + $0.25 + $0.50 +$6.50).

If I am raising 17% of hands, say from middle position, then I am raising ~ 451 / 2652 hands.

I would say that this is a decent assumption for most of us here. For villan to exploit us, we have to fold 70% of the time, ie call only 30%. What % of our raising range are we calling with? It is obvioulsy player dependent, but assuming the raise is to $6.50, I have realised that my calling range is pretty easilly exploitable:

If it is TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA and AK then that is 46/2652 hands. [Each pair can be made 6 ways, 16 ways to make AK, total no hands is 52 x 51].

If we just call with this range, then this is 46/450 = 10% of our original raising range (2.5% of total hands); which is way below the 30% that the villan needs to make the 3 bet immediately profitable. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] If we add AQ and 99, it increases to 14%.

Moreover, this is not taking into acount any post flop advantage he has by taking the lead in the hand, and often having position. For example, we may call with TT, and check fold on a Q high flop to his c-bet with AK.

I've been thinking about how to make use of this in my game. 3 betting pre-flop seems such a powerfull tool.

Playing for 100bbs my range for calling 3 bets seems to be so narrow, pretty much TT, JJ/QQ, assuming it's not a donk min/small raise. I tend to 4 bet nearly always with KK, AA and AK a fair amount. Should I be just calling 3 bets with AA/KK more to merge my 3 bet calling range to punish villan for 3 betting me light? As I 4 bet with AK in alot of situations and ocassionally QQ, I would say my 4 betting range is actually wider than my 3 bet calling range.

Given the above should we be either be 4 betting more lightly or just calling 3 bets with our very big hands, AA/KK to merge our 3 betting range to prevent it from being so exploitable?