This article is about a very specific and interesting poker situation - hopefully you'll find it brief and to the point.
The situation is this: you open preflop in a six-max ring game and find your opponent showing strength with a three-bet...
How do you react to different types of players and with different holdings in these spots?
Of course, there are many different factors to take account of and many different situations that you'll find yourselves in, but for the purposes of this article I will focus on one key factor that should be at the front of your mind when making your decision. Position is king! I am not talkin about 'standard' or obvious spots here either. If you have premium holdings like AK or QQ then you should almost always jam it in. I'm only really talking about marginal decisions - where you have a choice about how to proceed.
The interesting discussion comes when you start asking 'what do you do with 9Ts on the button when the big blind has three-bet you?' Now a lot factors come into play like, how often does the BB three-bet you, how often do you raise, how deep are you playing etc. As a general rule, I suggest you avoid three-bet pots out of position. You'll get owned a lot of the time if you give them the chance to outplay you. You just can't do much out of position, so you end up praying for a big flop and a bit of luck - not a winning strategy!
In position I like to call a lot of three-bets with speculative/drawing hands. Let's use a hand like 45s for this article, so I can give you some examples. Now let us see three different flops when we opened the button and BB has three-bet us (both playing 100 bets deep).
Board1: 4, 8, T - rainbow
Board2: 3, 9, J - with a flush draw for you
Board3: 2, 7, K - rainbow
Board Nr. 1 is easy to play. If your opponent is loose then you can call his c-bet and see a turn. If your opponent is tight and doesnt c-bet with air then you probably want to fold a lot of the time.
Board Nr.2 is even easier. Raise his c-bet and get it in. 30%+ draws like a flush draw, or open-ender are quite easy to play in three-bet pots because you often have good pot odds and fold equity. The answer is usually to jam it in these situations.
Board Nr. 3 is my favourite. If you are scared-money then just fold (and step down stakes). What I like to do on those kind of boards is to bluff-raise him. Raise his c-bet small (it's an easy fold if he shoves). The good thing is, on this board he can only continue with a really strong holding. He will fold most of his other hands a lot of the time - even folding as big as QQ and AQ most of the time. It is also easy for you to get away and you are not opening the door to be pushed out of a pot that you could win with the best hand.