Countering the Chronic 3-bettor

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

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In general, I'm not especially reluctant to go to war with someone when I'll have position on him every time.

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I don't mind it at all vs someone who is capable of folding because I will take down some pots when I have draws, etc. It is against the hyper aggressive guys who are virtually guaranteed to keep the pedal down postflop regardless of their cards and regardless of whether I raise somewhere that I hate to get involved with when my hand has no showdown value. Basically, when I have a 98 type hand, he is going to win the pot unless I make a pair or better and that seems like a difficult obstacle to overcome even if he does compensate me well when I do make a hand.

Do you still not mind going to war against that type of opponent?

Thanks,
Cartman

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No, I don't mind. It's sort of an implied odds situation really, if he's willing to go off for plenty of bets with second pair, bad kicker when you have a straight. Besides that, it's rare that anyone truly shows down every hand (and someone who did would be a terrible player). If it feels like you've been forced to play showdown poker, maybe it's just that you're missing a lot of flops or running kind of bad or playing a little scared.

Metagame wise, showing down something like 98 will also tend to encourage his bad play.

btw, you can conceivably also open-limp, which will (a) confuse the hell out of him; (b) allow you to see three cards relatively cheaply.

Basically, I think of my Button as my blind - nobody is about to steal it from me.