Poker Strategy: When and How to Call 3-Bets Cold

When facing a raise and a re-raise in poker, playing tight is necessary for all positions and effective stacks. This strategy is crucial whether you are in an early position or a late position. Calling 3-bets from the button is almost always incorrect unless in deep stacks and ideal positions. The button can call 3-bets more frequently in deep stacks due to the positional advantage.

Ideal hands for cold calling include high suited connectors and pocket pairs from nine to queens. These hands offer good cold equity and quality realization in multi-way pots. However, cold calling from the small blind is less desirable due to tighter ranges from earlier positions. In 100 bb, the big blind can cold call with high connectors and middle pocket pairs. In 60 bb, the big blind's cold call range shifts to include more aces, as aces remain strong on most flops.

Players often avoid mandatory 4-bets in favor of calls to reduce variance, but this does not actually reduce variance. 4-bets should be smaller than 3-bets to achieve a low SPR on the flop. This allows strong hands to comfortably play to the stack on most flops without needing to build the pot pre-flop.