How to play when nobody bluffs preflop l Barry's Strategy Corner
Today we hit the solvers to look at how to play in live games when a 3-bet preflop always means a strong hand.
One of the most noticeable leaks I have seen in live games and many online poker games is that when a player 3-bets preflop, it is rarely a bluff. I know because I am guilty of this myself a lot of the time.
Preflop 3-bets should be polarised ranges with strong hands and bluffs, but they are usually linear ranges, where it is just the strongest hands. If you only 3-bet value, you are missing out on the EV of preflop bluffs, and thinking opponents will not pay you off.
This seems like an important leak to know how to exploit, so what do we do against these players?
Just keep opening
Below is a 25bb effective range for the Button, from Holdem Resources Calculator. It assumes the Small Blind and Big Blind will 3-bet preflop with a balanced range of bluffs and value bets.
As you can see, it has a healthy mix of opens and shoves. The shoves make up 17.2% of the range and are typically hands which realise equity poorly on the flop, like small pairs. The opens make up 24.2% of hands and are the hands that play well in position.
I node locked the Small Blind and Big Blind so that they both would only 3-bet 88+ AJo+ ATs+ and KQs. The strongest hands essentially, and what I expect a typical live 3-betting range would look like (if anything, it might be even tighter than that).
This is how it changes the Button range:
The first thing to notice is that more small pairs shove, we shove as high as 88, when it was 66 in GTO World. These hands would not be happy to min raise and get shoved on by a strong range, but would just about do OK against a polarised range, so they make natural shoves.
The second thing to note is that most of the range become opens now. This range, in position, will play very well against a capped range on the flop, which is what the calling range now becomes. The bottom of the range also becomes very easy to bet/fold when shoved on.
Finally, the range has increased overall. We play 41.4% of hands in GTO World, and we play 64.8% of hands when the blinds don't bluff preflop. When there is little danger of being bluffed, you can take liberties and open more hands.
I think you can simplify this strategy to just opening around 65% of hands, not worrying too much about having a shove range. Tight players are very easy to play against; don't be one of them.
