WPT GTO Trainer Hands of the Week: 3-Betting From The Button Against a Wide Range
The selected hands for this week demonstrate correct strategy for 3-betting in a tournament scenario where you are on the Button against an open raise from a wide range in the Cutoff with a big blind ante in play. The Cutoff made a standard open raise to 2.5BBs then you 3-bet to 7.5BBs and the Cutoff calls.
Your range is completely uncapped as the 3-bettor in this spot however it is very wide including all of the strongest hands and a wide mix of broadway cards, suited connectors, suited gappers, and suited hands with significant blockers (Axs/Kxs). In this scenario even though the Cutoff is the original opener preflop, their range is now somewhat capped given they just called our 3-bet. This does not mean that the Cutoff will never have a premium hand in this spot as they will slow play AA with some frequency here, however hands such as KK/AK will 4-bet in this spot.
This is also a situation where you have a significant range and nut advantage on most flops as well as position in a low stack to pot ratio (SPR) of exactly 3. All of these working together means you will be able to correctly continuation bet using a small sizing on a vast majority of flops. A tough Cutoff player will try to counter this strategy with a robust check-raising range on the flop, so your main exception to continuation betting will be hands that are vulnerable to check-raises and that have significant backdoor draws to improve their overall equity.
3-Betting against wide ranges in position in tournaments is an extremely powerful tool that applies tremendous pressure on the out of position player. Tough players will also attempt to counter this strategy by defending your 3-bets and attempting to outplay you post flop. Utilizing a solid continuation betting strategy with a high frequency and small bet sizing and following it up with good turn barreling on cards that favor your range or significantly increase your equity will make your 3-betting strategy more difficult to counter.
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Use this series of articles to practice the strategies you learn on LearnWPT (or at the table) and test your progress by playing a five-hand sample each week
