Today’s question comes from a comment on last week’s “What’s Your Play?” The relevant details are that Hero is in the SB with AQs facing a raise from a loose-passive player in early position and a call from a possible scared money player in late position. It’s early in the PCA main event, and everyone is deep-stacked.
Q: I was wondering if you had considered 3b pre? You’re going to have the worst position in the hand going forward. You’ll also have the worst relative position since villain 1 isn’t going to lead the betting to often being passive. I think you get the button to fold a bunch and you get heads up, granted in a bloated pot, but vs a passive player where I’d think you get to show down easier with 1p hands.
A: The short answer is yes, I did consider it. Really, though, if you 3-bet, what are you hoping will happen? You’ll have to fold to a 4-bet, so that’s a bad outcome. Even if you’re called, you won’t be eager to play a big pot if you flop top pair. A passive player’s early position raising range is pretty strong, and it gets stronger once he calls a 3-bet. I think it’s safe to assume neither of these players continues with AJ or KQ, which means that your AQ won’t dominate anything in their calling ranges. If called, you’ll be hoping either to bluff or to flop some value and check it down, maybe squeeze out a value bet. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not a great outcome either.
If I 3-bet, I’d really be hoping for folds. And at that point, it doesn’t much matter that I have AQs. If I thought a 3-bet would get a lot of folds (and I don’t , because again the raiser’s range is strong), then I would rather do it with a hand that has less calling value.
The results of this hand notwithstanding, being up against passive players is actually a reason to prefer calling. You can keep the pot small and wait until they reveal more information about their hands. Plus, calling keeps all those dominated Ax and Qx hands in their ranges, which is what you really want to be up against when you hold AQ. Being suited adds an extra bit of value in a multi-way pot.
This isn’t to say that AQs is never a 3-betting hand. It’s often a very good one. The important thing to see here is that the original raiser has a strong range, so 3-betting serves only to isolate the best part of his range, the part that dominates AQ, while folding out the part that AQ dominates.
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3-betting and folding to a 4-bet isn’t completely terrible- if you believe he is only 4-betting a narrow range for value, you’re likely to end up losing more money post-flop when he holds the hands that he would be willing to 4-bet than if you were to just 3-bet fold. Also, there is a significant gain value by achieving initiative with a 3-bet (forcing opp’s to play honest vs a cbet, etc.) The post seems to suggest that the opp’s range consists of a lot of Ax and Qx hands- there is a lot of equity to be gained when smaller PP’s and even smaller SCs can be made to fold pre or on missed flops.