The live three bet

Live Poker / Marcus Bateman / 19 February 2011 / Leave a Comment

Put simply, most live regulars nearly always have a very big hand when they show strength in the face of raises.

If you are an online poker player starting your first forays into live games, one of the most crucial adjustments you need to make is taking three bets much more seriously than you typically do online. The internet game has developed at a much faster pace than live play due to the radical increase in hand turnover and multi-tabling ability, and the aggression levels and hand ranges behind three bets are very different on the virtual felt to how they are live.

Most of the live community is still three betting a very low percentage of their hands in No Limit Hold'em games, and when assigning ranges to players you need to err much more towards the tight side of things without very specific reads. You will regularly see certain classes of live player cold calling hands as strong as jacks or even queens to hijack, cut-off, or even button raises, and most players in small and mid stakes live games will often only be three betting a range as tight as AQo+ and JJ+, a much tighter range than you see in basically any online game any more.

The first and most obvious adjustment you have to make is to simply back down in the face of action more often. Four (and even five) bet bluffing has started to become a core area of online Hold'em, but this strategy has yet to be needed in the live arena, simply because the vast majority of players are not thinking at the levels where you need to make these sort of plays to win. If people are only three betting a very slim percentage of their hands, you simply take advantage of their hyper tightness through targeting their blinds habitually, set mine and play weaker implied odd hands when deep stacked, and never giving them action when they start firing.

Time and again you see players brought up on the web game making four bet bluffs on live regulars, only to look thoroughly surprised when they come back over the top every time. Put simply, most live regulars nearly always have a very big hand when they show strength in the face of raises, and despite it being an effective and necessary strategy online, is simply an excuse to haemorrhage money in the live environment. The simplest path is nearly always the easiest in poker, and there is a time honoured way to beat nits out of their money in big bet games, and it most certainly does not include making elaborate moves when they start showing real strength.