Lesson
Why Loose Opens Bleed Money: Building 3-Bet Ranges Off Stats
Exploiting Recreational Players · advanced · 12 min
Tyler explains how to attack a very loose, erratic opener by building wider three-bet ranges and using smaller sizing at awkward stack depths. The lesson focuses on deducing position and range from stats, distinguishing a true top-percent range from a random-frequency range, and understanding why wide opens become costly when opponents three-bet more often.
Key takeaways
- A preflop raise around 37% should immediately suggest a button-type opening frequency, so compare it to position-specific raise-first-in stats before assigning a range.
- Against loose players at awkward stack depths like 30-40 big blinds, use smaller three-bet sizing to preserve postflop SPR and reduce the cost when facing a cold four-bet.
- Do not treat an erratic player's 15% raising frequency as the top 15% of hands; it may be a random fraction of many hands, which makes hands like small pairs perform much better as value three-bets.
- When a player opens too many hands and must fold often to three-bets, each loose open can cost them close to a big blind on average.
- After three-betting small pairs against a loose caller, play the board texture postflop; if the hand checks down to the river, bluff many textures because this player type tends to overfold in that node.