One concept that you may see mentioned quite a bit on poker forums and in strategy articles is 3-betting light. Seeing as how the name of this term isn’t entirely self-explanatory, it’s worth diving a little deeper into what 3-betting light means.

3-betting Light Definition – The basic definition of 3-betting light is re-raising another player preflop without great cards, and/or when you know you’re behind. For instance, if a player out in front of you raises, and you re-raise with 8s-9s, this is a light 3-bet because your holdings aren’t that strong.

Example of 3-betting Light – To better illustrate how 3-betting light looks in action, let’s say that a player to your right (button) who’s been stealing a lot raises to $6 in a $1/$2 Hold’em game. The small blind folds, and you (big blind) 3-bet to $18 with 7d-8d. Obviously your cards aren’t overly strong and would be best played in a multi-way pot. Furthermore, your position after the flop will be bad, which all combines to make this a light 3-bet.

Best Light 3-betting Situations – Expanding on the situation above where you 3-bet light with 7-8 suited, the ideal situation is for your opponent to fold here. If they call, you’re going into the flop with cards that don’t play well heads-up, and you are out of position too. If they reraise, it would be silly to do anything other than fold in this situation.

Taking all of this into account, the best scenario for 3-betting light arises when a TAG opens the betting from late position in hopes of stealing the hand. The reason why this is ideal is because they’re far more likely to fold being a TAG because they were simply hoping to steal the hand.

Now some people might ask why we don’t light 3-bet a LAG because they play such a wide range of hands. The reason is because the LAG is less likely to fold to a light 3-bet than the TAG, and their range will probably beat your’s in light 3-betting situations. Furthermore, you should be looking to value 3-bet bet LAG’s with good hands because your range will normally be ahead of their’s.

Micro stakes poker, which consists of limits ranging from $0.01/$0.02 to $0.10/$0.25, is filled with loose players who live and die with top pair, and are willing to call with just about anything to see the flop. In short, these players present you with excellent opportunities to whittle away at their stacks and increase profits. But in order to do this, you need to know how to properly bet against micro stakes players, and here are a few tips for doing just that.

Tip #1: Make Bigger Raises -The first thing you need to throw out the window in micro stakes games is the idea that 3x-4xbb preflop raises are going to scare anybody off of a hand. If you make a 4xbb raise in $0.01/$0.02 Holdem, you’re only betting $0.08, which won’t dissuade a micro stakes player from calling. And this can be a big problem if you’re holding pocket aces, and three other players decide to call your 4xbb raise to see the flop. So keep in mind that you’ll be forced to make 10xbb raises or more (depending on the table) to scare off potential callers.

Tip #2: Overbet with the Nuts – One nice thing about playing in micro stakes games is that players are willing to call big raises with far less holdings than those at higher stakes. For example, some players are willing to risk their whole stack with second or third best pair. With this being said, you can usually get more value out of the nuts by overbetting. For instance, if you hold As-Ts on a board of Ks-9h-3s-Qs, you can bet two or three times the pot size and still expect a call on this obviously dangerous board.

Tip #3: See Lots of Flops – Not everything in the micro stakes is about overbetting and making big preflop raises. In fact, you can also put yourself in some favorable situations by being passive preflop with suited connectors and small pocket pairs just to see flops. Once you’re on the flop, you can try to outplay others because micro stakes players are well-known for being bad postflop players.

Anybody who knows ABC poker strategy realizes how important it is to know your opponents and watch their betting patterns. By doing so, you get a much better indication as to the strength of your opponents’ hands. However, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of the information you gain just by memory alone – especially in poker tournaments since players are constantly switching tables.

In bigger poker tournaments, it’s pretty much impossible to keep track of everybody, which is why you should be taking notes on players. Now this isn’t to say you need to keep track of every single player who makes a 2xbb raise from the button, but you should at least keep track of poker players who make significant moves that can define their play.

For example, let’s say you notice a player make a 3xbb raise from middle position, and two other players behind them call. The flop comes out A-9-4, and the player shoves their stack into the middle when they’re in no danger of blinding out. One player folds, some fish calls, and the original raises shows pocket queens, while the fish shows K-9. The board fails to help either player, and the original raiser wins the hand.

Seeing as how the original raiser is still alive in the tournament, it’s worth taking a note on this particular play. You could jot down: “Screen name” makes moderate raises from MP (middle position) with premium hands, then overplays second pair when OOP (out of position). Assuming you and this player both move onto new tables, only to meet up later in the tournament, this information could be extremely helpful.

If you’re wondering how to take notes in online poker, Carbon Poker offers a nice feature where you can both tag opponents and jot down notes on them. To do this, just click on the player’s name during a game, and a screen will come up. Here you can tag the player as a Shark, Fish, Buddy, Champion, Bluffer etc., and jot down your own personal notes on their play. And what’s nice is that you’ll be able to see this information whenever you find them in a poker tournament or cash game.

Most poker tournament players have a healthy fear of the blinds because they gradually increase as tourneys move along. And this fear especially increases when you move closer to the tournament bubble, where your hard work either pays off or is all for nothing. So the question in this situation becomes what you do when you’re trying to hang on for a tournament cash in the face of increasing blinds. That said, let’s address this subject more by talking about a little strategy for these situations.

Measuring All of the Factors

The typical poker tournament bubble scene goes like this: the large majority of short stacks freeze up and either wait for A) a great hand to come, or B) the bubble to burst. Many poker strategists suggest playing really aggressive in these situations because so many others are playing tight, but this doesn’t usually work for the short stacks.

After all, the biggest stacks are far less likely to respect your raises or shoves when you are short on chips. So if you’re trying to hang on to make the money, it’s often counterproductive to bully other players around when you don’t have the stack to scare anybody.

On the other hand, folding pocket tens when they come around preflop isn’t a good idea either. You don’t know when the bubble is actually going to burst, and you could get stuck trying to decide whether or not to shove your remaining 2bb with Q-4 offsuit.

All in all, playing the bubble when you’re in danger of blinding out involves a number of factors such as how low some of the other remaining stacks are, how likely you are to get away with a steal, how much a small cash actually means to you, and whether or not the amount of money is worth passing up +EV moves. To illustrate these factors in action, let’s move on to a tournament example.

Playing the Bubble with a Low Stack

Assume you’re down to the final 21 players in a poker tournament where the top 15 cash. Your stack is at around 6bb, and there are nine other players with about the same stack size. At this point, you’re in a fold or shove situation because if you raise, it’s very likely a bigger stack will reraise and put you all-in anyways. So this becomes a time where you should be thinking about two main options:

1) Keep folding and pray for a cash
2) Play aggressively and hope to double up

Most people would say the first option is a terrible idea because other short stacks will be playing aggressively, and this strategy will earn them the blinds needed to stay alive. But if the money is significant to you (instead of a tiny cash), not going all-in with hands like J-T(o) could be to your benefit. In some situations, players will get a good run of cards right when it appears as if their tourney life is over. Furthermore, assuming there is another short stack or two at your table and they’re not playing aggressively, you could sneak into the money if they bust out.

As for the other suggestion, most players will advise that you do everything possible to double up before being in danger of blinding out, which is certainly a good idea because if you do double up, at least your stack will have some power behind the bubble. However, just because you have 3bb left doesn’t mean it’s the time to shove with T-3(o). A lot of what you do in this scenario will depend on position, and your judgement of how likely you are to be called here. A good idea is to wait for the cut-off or button to come around, then try to steal – especially if the players behind you are tight and/or low stacks.

One more thing to keep in mind is that when you play a lot of poker tournaments, the bubble becomes less of big thing, which allows you to forget about the money and make +EV plays without fearing a non-cash.

One of the more neglected skills among beginning poker players involves thinking ahead when looking at your cards. More specifically, many new players get a hand, and only think about how it relates to preflop play. To illustrate what we’re talking about, let’s say you have A-9 preflop, which is a decent hand for the following reasons:

1) You’ve got an ace
2) The 9 is an alright kicker
3) It’s suited

Taking these three factors into account, some players might be tempted to play this hand no matter the situation – provided the price to see the flop isn’t too high. However, playing a hand like this could also lead to trouble depending on the situation.

For one thing, your 9 kicker isn’t that great, thus leaving the possibility that your A-9 combo could be dominated by hands A-T and up. Another thing worth mentioning here is how you have very little straight potential since there’s too big of a gap between these hands.

Of course, the situation you’re in can also make this a really bad hand to play. For example, let’s say you’re in middle position during a poker tournament with 15bb in an unopened pot. Now A-9 suited isn’t a terrible hand to play here, but what happens if you open with a 3xbb raise, and somebody reraises to 8xbb; at this point you’re almost in a situation where either a call or shove puts your tournament life at stake. And if you choose to fold, you’ve just lost a fifth of your stack trying to play a marginal hand from middle position.

To sum this up, it’s important to think about all of the factors and possible outcomes before choosing to play a marginal hand preflop. If you think there’s too much at risk, fold your hand and wait for a better opportunity.