Against these players, you’ve passed the litmus test, and the 3-bet is on. But most decent players don’t really limp the button-or they might do it once in a while with A-A. If so, then this raise represents uncommon strength for a button raise. Ask yourself if this player ever would limp the button. A player opens the button for $30 in a $5-$10 game.

Ok, he limps occasionally, but basically he’s raising here. But, in general, you would expect this player to raise the button. You’ve seen him limp in this spot once in a blue moon-he might do it with a hand like 8-5 suited just to see a flop. Say two players have limped for $5, and an aggressive pro-like player makes it $30 on the button. Now a little bit of limping shouldn’t deter you. If you are looking to attack a raise, it’s a bad thing if a player limps-because this time he chose not to limp, which means he’s marked with a stronger hand. When players limp sometimes and raise sometimes, it means that they are reserving the raise for their stronger hands. Does he limp here sometimes? If the answer is yes, then it’s time to tap the brakes. But before you act, there’s a final litmus test the situation has to pass. If one of these three conditions applies, there’s a good chance that this raise is one that is 3-bettable.

Someone open-raises from the button or perhaps the cutoff.

An aggressive, pro-like player in the cutoff or button raises one or more limpers.

An extremely loose player who just likes to raise a ton of hands open-raises.

These raises typically come in one of three flavors. This is a raise made with at least 25 percent of all hands. In fact, when confronted with a loose or steal raise in the blinds, I probably 3-bet at least 20 percent of the time.įirst, let me clarify what I mean by a loose or steal raise. I make this play far more frequently than most live $2-$5 and $5-$10 players do. I believe that 3-betting preflop from the blinds is a critical tactic to defeat loose raisers and blind steal attempts.

Poker what to 3 bet preflop