How to Play Versus a 3-Bet in PLO (With Hand Examples)

A poker player making a small bet.

What should you do if you get re-raised in PLO? In this blog post, we’re going to learn more about focusing our PLO strategy on how to respond when facing a 3-bet.

In this instance we’ll focus on a low stake with high rake level which is PLO 50. In the following table, you can see the frequencies for each action.

FOLD
CALL
4-BET
EP vs MP
49%
32%
19%
EP vs SB
31%
53%
16%
CO vs BTN
41%
45%
14%
CO vs SB
25%
65%
10%

There are 2 main takeaways here.

  1. In position you should fold less vs a 3-bet.

    We have a positional advantage post flop and we have more control of the pot because we’re last to act.

  2. Out of position you should fold more vs a 3-bet.

    We’re going to play a post flop pot versus a strong range, and that is going to put us in a lot of tough situations, so we’re gonna do a lot of checking.

Sometimes however we like to turn a couple of our hands into somewhat of a 4-bet bluff out of position to get a read of our positional disadvantage and lower the SPR as much as possible. 

If you 4-bet and now get called, you suddenly are the preflop aggressor and have a low SPR against which we can stack up very often.

To exemplify, in this post we’ll look into the frequencies of a specific situation from the following video:

Hand Examples

Aces

Aces are 100% 4-betting out of position. 

In position you can occasionally call few Aces facing a 3-bet. You could easily call in a couple of them, its also a good way to strategize. All the other pairs aren’t 4-bets, so we’re not going to look into Kings and Queens.

Double-Suited Rundowns With an Ace

4-BET 21%

A nut-suited low-connected starting hand in 4-card PLO - A♥8♠7♥6♠.

FOLD 39%

A double-suited disconnected starting hand in 4-card PLO - A♥T♥9♠2♠.

This balances our 4-betting range that is highly consisting of Aces. These hands can flop very smooth, and they also have the benefit of not blocking kings and queens, hence we make them fold when they decide to go for a 3-bet.

We are basically folding the ones that are the most disconnected, calling all the ones that are in between, and 4-betting a couple of the strongest ones that generally don’t have a King and don’t have a Queen.

Double-Suited Rundowns With No Ace

4-BET 19%

A double-suited connected starting hand in 4-card PLO - Q♥T♠9♠8♥.
A double-suited connected starting hand in 4-card PLO - J♠T♥8♥7♠.
A double-suited connected starting hand in 4-card PLO - T♥9♥8♠6♠.

This is also a great interesting group of hands. They don’t block Kings or Queens very often and have some potential to get the money in preflop in case our opponent does show up with Aces. 

These hands will flop smooth enough and therefore they are somewhat okay facing a 5-bet getting it in, but the main advantage of 4-betting these combinations is that they will give us some board coverage on the mid and low board textures.

If we only 4-bet Aces, they don’t have a lot of coverage on those textures. And, of course, the main benefit here is that we are capable for folding out our opponents’ Kings or Queens that did decide to 3-bet preflop.

The perfect connectors are generally just a call because the EV of a call vs a 3-bet is good enough. If we have a gap in our hands we have a little bit more problems flopping good and therefore we’d rather lower the SPR as much as possible. 

Conclusion

When facing a 3-bet, you should fold less when you’re IP, and fold more when you’re OOP.

The majority of your 4-betting range will be made up of Aces, so you will become a very tough player if you utilize hands like double-suited rundowns in your 4-betting range.

These hands will balance your range and often flop very smooth. The more connected and nutty they are, the better.

If you are interested in learning more about preflop and PLO strategy you can check out PLO Mastermind.

If you want you can also join our free forum or discord channel where hundreds of people are talking strategy every day and it’s a great way for you to get to know everything about the PLO Mastermind.

Good luck at the tables!

MrLuque86
I am always curious about learning more about the game and really enjoy diving deep into the strategic parts of it. I work together with the PLO Mastermind as one of the coaches, and I am the person behind the PLO Mastermind quizzes.

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