Facing an open: fold, call or 3-bet

In this lesson

• Choose between a call and a 3-bet based on your position.
• Explain why the small blind leans towards 3-bet or fold.
• Avoid calling with hands the opener's range dominates.
• Account for the rake before you flat an open.

Read first: Seats and opening ranges, 6-max and full ring · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: 3-bets and 4-bets, Blind defence, Equity and equity realisation, Pot odds

Three answers, three costs

When someone opens in front of you, you can fold, call or 3-bet. Folding costs nothing more. Calling keeps the pot small and lets you see a flop. A 3-bet risks more but can win the pot at once and takes the lead.

Start from the opener's range, not your cards. An UTG open at full ring is a narrow, strong range; a button open is a wide one. The same hand can be a 3-bet against the button and a fold against UTG.

Dominated hands

A hand is dominated when the opener often holds the same high card with a better kicker. KJ against an early open is the classic case: when you pair your king you can be against AK or KQ, and you lose a big pot with the second-best pair.

Card removal shows why it matters which cards you hold. With A♠J♦, the opener's AK drops from 16 combos to 3 × 4 = 12, and so does AQ, but KQ keeps all 16. You block some of the hands that dominate you, not all of them.

Pairs and suited connectors do not have this problem: they make sets, straights and flushes, hands that win big pots instead of losing them.

In position or out of position

Two ideas price every call here. Pot odds: the equity a call needs is the call divided by the pot after you call, the opener's raise included. Realisation: the share of that equity a hand turns into winnings, higher in position and for hands that make strong hands, lower out of position.

Calling in position, say on the button against a cutoff open, is the easiest call in poker: you act last on every street and realise more of your equity. Only the blinds are left behind you to squeeze.

Calling out of position is worse. The small blind is out of position to the opener and still has the big blind behind it. Against a 2.5 bb button open, the small blind calls 2 bb into a pot of 4 bb, while the big blind would call 1.5 bb into the same pot and needs only about 27.3%.

Rake taxes the flop

Rail's charts assume 5% rake capped at 3 bb, taken only when the hand sees a flop. A 3-bet that wins preflop pays no rake; a call that goes to the flop always does.

Small pots pay the full 5%: a pot that ends at 20 bb pays 1 bb. The cap only starts to help in pots over 60 bb, because 5% of 60 bb is the 3 bb cap. Single-raised pots rarely get there, so marginal calls lose more in raked games than a no-rake chart suggests. That pushes some calls into 3-bets and others into folds.

Putting it together

• Narrow your continuing range as the opener's seat gets earlier.
• Fold dominated offsuit hands against strong ranges; keep pairs and suited hands that make strong hands.
• Call more in position, especially on the button; from the small blind, prefer 3-bet or fold.
• In raked games, every marginal call costs a little more than it looks.

Which hands Rail's charts flat and which they 3-bet changes with every seat pair. The drill deals the close ones; that is where the lesson sticks.

Rules of thumb

• The earlier the opener's seat, the tighter you continue.
• Offsuit hands that share a high card with the opener's range are the first to fold.
• Call in position; from the small blind, 3-bet or fold most of the time.
• Rake falls on hands that see a flop, so it punishes calls more than 3-bets.

When they break

• Against openers who fold too much to 3-bets, more of your calls should become 3-bets.
• With no rake, or very deep stacks, speculative calls in position gain value.

Example hands

Practice

The lesson is mastered when every exercise below that Rail can grade is passed. Missed items come back later as review cards.