Analysis: First draft - three betting

** Why do we three bet?

This depends upon how our opponent will react to three bets.

Against the typical player, who makes the mistake of calling too often, we are three betting for value and to play a pot in position. This combination becomes even more profitable for us in the long run when it is done in larger pots, for obvious reasons. Our opponent is left in the awkward position of often going unimproved on the flop and facing aggression with a low stack/pot ratio making floating and chasing iffy propositions.

Against more regular players, we will often encounter a four-bet or fold philosophy. Against these players, we are betting to take advantage of the fact that they will often have to fold perfectly good hands to our aggression because of the likely significant gap between their preflop raising range and their four betting range.

** How does this affect what cards we three bet with?

Against the calling player, we expand our value betting range with more high cards - AJ/AT/KQ/KJ/QJ types of hands that will be able to hit good top pairs, or will be able to represent high cards that hit the board and miss our opponent's hand.

Against the four bet or fold player, we polarize our range. If we were to expand with the same range of hands, we would often find ourself in the position of losing value with strong hands such as KQ, as our opponent will simply muck those hands that we dominate. Nor do we want to add in hands that come with excellent implied odds such as suited connectors and pocket pairs. Instead, we add in hands that we are less happy to call with, but still have some potential to hit big postflop should another player call - A6s-ATs, Kxs, and the like.