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In a recent $10,000 buy-in tournament, an overly loose, splashy player limped from the hijack seat and a good, loose-aggressive player raised to 3.25 big blinds from the cutoff. Another good, loose-aggressive player then three-bet to 12.5 big blinds from the small blind. All of these players started with about 150 big blinds.
I looked down at 10-10 in the big blind. With my 60-big blind stack, I have a few options.
Folding is by far the most prudent option, but also the weakest. It is nearly impossible that at least one of my other options will not turn some sort of profit, given all my opponents are loose and aggressive. If the three-bettor was especially tight, folding would become much more reasonable.
Cold calling may have some merit, given I will be in position against the three-bettor, but that may result in a cascade of calls which will usually not work well for me because I will likely only be able to realize my equity when I flop a set.
Notice that strictly set mining is not profitable because I am not getting anywhere near the required 10:1 implied odds. Calling also allows the three-bettor to realize his equity with his marginal hands and bluffs that would fold to a four-bet. In general, cold calling with stacks shallower than 100 big blinds is a poor play.
I could four-bet to 22.5 big blinds or so, looking to fold to an all-in, but that is not a good play because I will be getting excellent odds to call off. If the person who pushes all-in ever has A-K (or any bluff), then folding is a disaster.
Finally, I could go all-in. The main downside to this play is that when someone has A-A thru J-J, I will get called every time and will be in horrible shape. However, this should not happen too often, assuming my assessment of the opponents’ strategies is correct.
The initial raiser is likely raising with a bit more than his normal raising range in order to play heads-up in position against the splashy limper. The three-bettor may be three-betting wider than normal because he expects the initial raiser to be wider than normal.
If the three-bettor has a range containing about 65% “bluffs” that will fold to my all-in, going all-in wins about three big blinds, which is a significant profit. Even if he is three-betting on the tighter side, going all-in roughly breaks even. The main time going all-in is bad is when one of the three players has an especially tight range that will call most of the time, but that is not the case here.
After considering all my somewhat marginal options, I decided to go all-in. The three-bettor quickly called with K-K and I was out.
In retrospect, there were perhaps a few tiny things I could have noticed that may have allowed me to fold, but then again, I may just be looking for some sort of justification. The raiser’s sizing was quite small, to only 3.25 big blinds. That size gives me in the big blind and the limper a decent price to call, meaning the raiser will rarely win the pot preflop. This means that the raiser may have a stronger range than I expected.
Also, the three-bettor made it quite large, to 12.5 big blinds. While that sizing is certainly not gigantic or out of line, it may polarize his range. This means the three-bettor either has a premium hand that will call my all-in every time or a junky hand that will easily fold. If the three-bettor’s range happens to be weighted towards value hands because he views the previous 3.25 big blind raise as strong, then my all-in may be quite poor.
That said, I am fine with my play. It is high-risk and high-variance, but sometimes, that is what you have to do to maximize equity. Sometimes maximizing equity results in ruin.
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Jonathan Little is a WSOP bracelet winner, two-time WPT winner, and the 2024 PokerGO Cup champion with nearly $9 million million in live tournament earnings, best-selling author of 15 educational poker books, and 2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year. If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush the games, check out his training site at PokerCoaching.com/cardplayer.
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