WPT GTO Trainer Hands of the Week: Playing Against a Tough 3-Bettor Out of Position
This week we’re analyzing a tournament scenario where you are out of position against a tough player on the Button after opening 2.5BBs in early position, the Button raises to 7.5BBs, and you call.
Your range will be somewhat capped in this spot, as you are slowplaying AA but not other big holdings in your range of KK/AKo. This opening range from the UTG+1 seat contains far more middle pairs and suited broadway cards. The Button’s 3-betting range is quite polarized containing all the big hands (QQ+/AK) and uses a mixed strategy of 25% bluffs with some suited broadways, suited connectors, and ace-wheel cards.
This situation can be difficult to determine the best path given the unique factors at play. As the preflop caller you actually often have an overall range advantage on the flop. However the Button has a nut advantage as they have more of the big hands in their range while also often having far more bluffs available. Due to this unique circumstance many of your medium strength hands will benefit from keeping Button’s range wide and playing passively postflop. In order to balance your range it’s crucial to add in some big hands to your slowplaying range postflop.
Given the preflop aggression it’s important to note the stack to pot ratio (SPR) on the flop. In this spot we go to the flop with a low SPR of 3. In these low SPR spots it’s easy to get stacks in the middle quickly. Many of your stronger hands that you don’t want to slowplay, such as top pair with a good kicker or better, you will just want to check-raise with on the flop. These hands are better as check-raises because while they have strong equity on some flops they usually will benefit more from equity denial. Check-raising is also preferred using some hands with key blockers both for balance and to attack the bottom part of Button’s polarized range.
To see more examples and test your skills, you can play through five free solved hands from this scenario.
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Regular play on the WPT GTO Trainer will help you adjust your decisions closer and closer to GTO strategy.
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The full selection of scenarios for the WPT GTO Trainer are only available to members of LearnWPT, however we’re giving PokerNews Readers free access to the Trainer on a regular basis with the WPT GTO Hands of The Week.
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
