Updated November 2026
A 3-bet is the first re-raise before the flop. It's called that because the big blind counts as the first bet, the opening raise as the second, and the re-raise as the third.
A $1/$2 game, the bets as they go in
The price of staying in, in that $1/$2 hand
There are two reasons. The first is value: you have a big hand and you want more money in while you're ahead. The second is a bluff: you'd like him to fold, and you've picked a hand that can still do something if he doesn't.
A 3-bet also takes the lead in the hand. The player who raised last gets to bet the flop, and that's usually where the pot gets won.
Just calling a raise with a big hand lets more players in cheaply, and each one makes your pair of aces weaker.
About 3 times his raise when you'll act after him on later streets, and about 4 times when you won't. You charge more out of position because the rest of the hand will be harder to play. Slide his raise and see.
More often than you'd guess. Say he opens to 2.5 big blinds, the blinds folded their 1.5, and you bluff to 8 big blinds on the button. You risk 8 to win 4.
That's if you give up every time he doesn't fold. In real hands you sometimes win after a call, so the true number is a little lower. Still, bluffing a player who never folds is setting money on fire.
Pick your bluffs by who you're bluffing.
Big hands, plus a few that are good bluffs. The grid shows a simplified big blind 3-betting range against a raise from each seat.
The bluffs are nearly always suited aces such as A5s. Holding an ace means he's less likely to have aces or ace-king himself, which is called a blocker. And if he calls, you can still make the best flush.
The later his raise comes, the wider you can go, because a player on the button raises far more hands than one under the gun.
Against a raise from each seat, in our simplified tables
A polarized 3-betting range is big hands plus bluffs, with the middle left out. A linear range is simply your best hands from the top down.
About 10% of all hands either way
Use a linear range against players who call too much, because your medium-strong hands get paid. Use a polarized range against players who fold or 4-bet a lot, because the hands in the middle play badly against that.
Start with the price, like any other call. You open to $5 in a $1/$2 game and the big blind makes it $22.
Most of the hands you opened can't do that, so most of them fold. Here's how the replies split up, seat by seat.
The cutoff raises to $6. You 3-bet to $18, the blinds fold and he calls.
He checks. You bet $13, a third of the pot, and he calls.
He checks again, you bet $35 and he folds.
His $18 before the flop, the $3 in the blinds and his $13 call on the flop. You never had to show your hand.
It worked because you had the lead and the position. Had you just called the $6 raise, the blinds would have got a cheap look and the pot would be a fraction of the size.
Now the bluff.
The button raises to $5 and you 3-bet to $20.
You win his $5 and the small blind's $1 straight away.
You can still make a flush or a small straight, and the ace in your hand makes it less likely he's holding aces himself.
A squeeze is a 3-bet after one player has raised and another has called. The caller has shown he's not that strong, and the raiser has to worry about both of you, so it folds out a lot of hands. Make it bigger than a normal 3-bet: add about one raise for each caller. Bet sizing covers the rest.
Under about 40 big blinds, a 3-bet takes up so much of your stack that you can't fold to a shove afterward. So with a short stack, 3-bet hands you're happy to get all-in with, and make your bluffs smaller or skip them.
A 4-bet is a re-raise of a 3-bet. Make it about 2.2 to 2.5 times the 3-bet, and keep it for your very best hands and a few bluffs with an ace in them.
In our simplified tables, against a 3-bet from the big blind
It makes the pot bigger compared with the stacks, and that ratio decides how much the rest of the hand is worth. Players call it the stack-to-pot ratio, or SPR: the money left behind divided by what's in the pot.
At an SPR near 5, a strong top pair is close to being worth all your chips. In a pot that was only raised once, the same hand may want to stay small. The bigger you 3-bet, the sooner it all goes in.
Change your range to fit the player
Twelve spots in three rounds.
Before the flop, yes. After the flop, a re-raise is usually just called a raise.
Yes. On the flop the first bet is the 1-bet, a raise is the 2-bet and a re-raise is the 3-bet.
A 3-bet with a hand that isn't strong enough to want a call. In plain words, a bluff.
Mostly 3-bet or fold. Calling from the small blind leaves the big blind a great price to join in, and you'll play the hand out of position.
It depends on who raised. In our simplified tables the big blind 3-bets about 3% of hands against the first seat and 10% against the button.
Because you'll act first on every later street, and a bigger pot makes the hand simpler.
How often a bluff has to work is risk divided by risk plus reward. For the button example that's 8 / (8 + 4) = 66.7%. The 3-bet ranges are simplified tables from our trainer: one answer per hand, and they aren't the output of a solver.
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