Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
A baseline for a value 3-bet range
A baseline for a value 3-bet range is 4.2% of hands, which looks something like this: JJ+, AQs+, AQo+. Now clearly if you only 3-bet about 4% of your hands, you're not going to get much action when you 3-bet, and you're going to be leaving money on the table. You'll want to add in some more hands as bluffs, and also find ways to add more value hands against certain opponents.
Bluffing Range
Bluffing Range You may have heard some of your poker friends talk about 3-betting a polarized range. This is where you 3-bet hands that are more towards the bottom of your hand range that you wouldn't find profitable to call as a bluff, and at the very high end of your range JJ versus CO open of 29.5% of hands JJ versus CO 3-bet calling range (top 4.2%) for value. Then some of the remaining hands you leave in your range to call with. So a typical polarized 3-bet range would look something like this: For Value: JJ+, AQs+, AQo+ Bluffing: A2s–A8s,A2o–A8o, K2s–K9s, K5o–K9o, Q5s–Q9s, J5s–J7s, Q8o–Q9o, J7o–J8o Calling Range: KJo+, KTs+, ATs–AJs, ATo–AJo, QTs+, QJo, JTs, 22–TT