Three-Handed Pots

Broadly speaking there are two different toolboxes for playing Texas Hold'em. One is "no fold'em Hold'em" strategy, which basically boils down to playing tight and value betting your hands when you have a positive value expectation (your chances of ending with the best hand is better then the pot odds offered). The other is shorthanded strategy, which applies when there are so few players left in the hand that there is a reasonable chance that you can win the pot without it reaching a showdown. In most games situations where both types of strategy will apply will come up. But the tighter and more aggressive the players at the table are, the more frequently you will see situations where shorthanded strategy applies, whereas loose passive tables rarely will have such situations.

The three handed pot represents an interesting situation where both shorthanded and no fold'em strategies apply. When there are fewer than three players seeing a flop, you will never get pot odds to chase. But with three players in the pot, you will often find situations where you almost get the right pot odds to chase. Furthermore, there is always a chance that you might take down the three-handed pot uncontested before showdown. In shorthanded pots there are three ways you can win the pot: you can have the best hand hold up, you can have the worst hand catch up to win the pot, and you can win the pot without a showdown (bluff or not). When you approach a three-handed situation you should always keep this in mind.

In a multiway pot you will always have some general idea of whether or not your are currently leading the hand, and you should also have a general idea of how many outs your opponents have combined to beat you (usually 2-3 outs per opponent calling a bet on the flop - assuming that some of their outs are dead). You are therefore rarely a favorite with any made hand when you have 5+ callers on the flop. Nevertheless, you are happy about this as the size of the pots you win will more than compensate for the fact that you will be outdrawn frequently.

In the three-handed pot it is harder to figure out whether you are leading or chasing. The nature of the board gives you some idea of how likely it is that your opponents are drawing without a made hand relative to having a made hand already. But apart from that, there is often no reliable way of gaining information about the real strength of your opponents' hands, which means that you will often have to go on without knowing whether you are leading or chasing. This, however, is not vastly important, as long as you win more than your fair share of pots, and the pots you win are generally bigger than your contribution to the pots you lose.

So much about the general approach to three-handed pots. What I really want to talk about today is positional considerations in 3-handed pots. Most players simply don't get this, but positional considerations are often the prime determinator for whether or not a post flop play will work or not in a three-handed pot. The thing is that by betting into a raiser who has a player to act behind him, or by raising a loose raiser, you are presenting the final player with a very tough call and you can isolate. There is no place where isolation moves make more sense than in a three handed pot, as knocking out a contestant for the pot will greatly improve your chances of winning the pot by having the best hand hold up, by catching up or by getting it without a showdown. Furthermore, by making isolation moves in situations where you consider your hand marginal but not much behind the bettor (if he is a loose bettor) you may actually make money by knocking out the third guy even when you are less then 50% to win the pot. The reason is that the third player will leave some dead money in the pot that the two remaining players will get to "share". Therefore, isolation is the key to success in three handed pots, and the key to successful isolation is a good knowledge of your opponents, a thorough understanding of positional consideration in three handed pots, and a good sense of timing.

When you consider an isolation move you must exploit the options presented by the board without hesitation, as well as the actions of your opponents. You must also realize from the betting patterns in this hand, as well as from previous hands, who you can knock off a hand, when and how. But the beauty of the isolation move is that even when you have the worst of it, it is still often a value play, as you still have outs to catch up. Furthermore, it is usually not a catastrophe if it doesn't succeed in knocking one of the opponents off the pot, for the same reason. You will normally have at least 5 outs to improve when you make the move, and even though this is not enough to justify the betting, you will actually find that you have the best hand some of the time, making what you thought of as an isolation move a value bet. Add to this the times where you will take down the pot uncontested, and you get the general idea.

Below are given three actual hands to give you an idea of how post flop isolation come into play in three handed pots. You should keep in mind that sometimes what you have done on a previous street will effect how you can play on later streets, and sometimes you can "go for the rebound" if you miss the first attempt at isolating but the board gets scary on the next round. After the case hands the general principles for whether you should bet out or you should aim at a check raise are laid out.

Hand 1

A tight player in late position open raises, I call with 76 in the small blind, and an aggressive player who is out to get me, as I have been attacking his blinds very frequently lately calls too, making the pot three handed. The flop comes 986 rainbow leaving me with bottom pair and an open ended straight draw. I bet out, the big blind raises me, and the tight player three-bets it and we both call. The turn is a 7 laying a 4-card straight on the board and giving me bottom two. I check-raise when the tight player bets, and knock out the big blind in the process. The tight player makes a crying call with his QQ. The river is a 5 making a straight on the board so we end up splitting two-way. The big blind says he laid down 98 for top two pair, and I believe him. After all how can he call a bet and a raise cold without holding the straight? Furthermore, it is worth noticing that I was way more concerned about the big blind than I was about the tight preflop raiser. Why should a tight raiser in any way connect to a board that low?

Hand 2

A mid position player raises it in and a late position player calls. I call with 66 in the big blind. The flop comes QQ3. I check and the pre-flop raiser bets and we both call. I might be ahead at this point, though I don't expect this to be the case more than a third of the time at best. But unless the pre-flop raiser has a Q, he has to slow down= and apart from my two clean outs I might be able to make a play later if the board gets more ugly. The turn is the J laying three cards to a flush on the board. I bet straight into them and they both fold. By betting straight into the pre-flop raiser here I confront him with a very tough call should he have a pair higher than mine, as he will have to consider the possibility of a raise from the player behind him. So I figure that by betting here I might drive out a hand that would beat mine. As the pot played out the last player called my bet on the turn and the river but couldn't beat my 6's (he mucked so don't ask me what he had), whereas the expression of the pre-flop raiser indicated that he might indeed have had a better hand than mine.

Hand 3

I open raised with Ah8h two off the button. The button and the big blind called making it three of us to go. The flop comes KQQ giving me the nut flush draw and an overcard. I bet, the button called and the big blind check-raised. I am fairly certain he has a Q at this point, but decide to proceed with my flush draw, as the pot odds are almost there. The button called the raise as well. The turn is the K laying two pair on the board. The big blind bets out and I raise without hesitation! The button called and the big blind hesitated for a loooong time before reluctantly mucking his Q, stating that he would have called heads up but he can't call a raise and a cold call. The river was a blank, and the button mucked to my bet. He was probably on a lower flush draw or a straight draw (I later found out that he was a horrible calling station.)

Principles

You are first to act on the turn, with the pre-flop raiser acting second and a late position player last to act and a scare card has just arrived. You have a low pair that you reckon to be the leading hand 10-20% of the time here and two outs to improve. You are mostly worried about the preflop raiser as the LP player is loose aggressive. What do you do?

Answer: You bet straight into them, knowing that the pre flop raiser will face a tough call knowing that a loose aggressive player behind him might re-raise.

You are first to act and have flopped top pair with no kicker. A limper acts between you and the pre-flop raiser. The pre-flop raiser might have a hand like AK/AQ that you can beat, a middle pocket pair that you can beat or an over pair that has you beat. You have no idea to what the MP player might hold. What do you do?

Answer: You check to the raiser planning on a check-raise to so that the MP player gets to face a bet and a raise. He knows that the guy who is being check-raised was the pre-flop aggressor, and will therefore have to put me on a hand like two pair. When you are leading you have 2-5 outs against you heads up against the raiser, whereas he has 6 outs to beat you when you are behind. Knock the MP player out to make sure that your outs are live and that his money is dead in the pot.

Thanks to Leigh Lightfoot-Martin for proof reading this article.

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