MATH Pimp, and 3-Betting NLH Strategy

It's Monday, and that means it's that time again....



I'm still atop the 2007 money leaderboard for the MATH, so come on out and take your shots at knocking me from the top spot tonight at 10pm ET on pokerstars. Password is "hammer" as always. And as always, tonight's tournament is sure to be replete with callmonkeys and people with big stacks playing the "any two cards" strategy to perfect donkery. So come out tonight, for entertainment purposes as much as anything else.

Right now the Hammer Family is actually on vacation, and as such I won't have time for my traditional megaposts until I return later this week. That said, today I wanted to briefly discuss something I read on the Poker Gnome's blog last week, something that frankly surprises me greatly. I've been reading the Gnome more and more lately, and I have to say I like what I'm seeing there. I added him to my blogroll last week even in my constant attempt to provide the highest-quality poker blog links to you all, and I suggest you go check him out if you've never read his blog before. Anyways, late last week the Gnome put something up that surprised me, and I was even more surprised by the commenters saying how very right he is. His post dealt with no-limit holdem cash games, and situations where he likes to 3-bet it (re-reraise a reraiser) preflop.

The basic premise of this post that surprised me is when Gnome says the following:

"Three-betting in position preflop with most reasonable hands is a standard play in shorthanded online games. Any suited connector, low pocket pair, Ax suited or high cards are worth a raise in these situations."

Now, as most of you know, I am not a cash game player. In fact I'm a cash game donkey, as I've said here on many, many occasions. I don't even play enough nlh cash to be able to know whether this advice is good or not. Nonetheless, I've read enough strategy books on nlh cash to know that this is not "standard" advice that you get from most well-known cash strategists and authors. Is this how you other big cash guys play the game? Do you reraise preflop with hands like 75s and A4s and KTo if you have good position?

Personally, though again I don't play enough cash to be able to say this from experience, I can't imagine how putting in extra preflop bets with lesser hands like this can be profitable. The Gnome does a good job, however, of explaining in his post how moves like this with hands like this can in fact be profitable, ranging from getting folds before the flop to having a chance to hit an "unreadable" monster hand if you make just the right flop with starting cards like this. While I have no doubt that playing hands like this will make it almost impossible to know if you do hit the flop hard, I have trouble accepting -- again having no experience with this in actual cash game play myself -- that the money you put in with these poor relative starting hands can be made up over time, even with the scenarios and results that the Gnome describes in his post.

So tell me all you cash gamers out there, is this the way that you guys play nlh cash before the flop in position? If it is, this just goes to show all the more what an mf'ing cash game donkey I really am, because I freely admit it's never even occurred to me to make a play like this with 75s, A4s or KTo. In fact, I would never even call with a hand like this. If it was raised and reraised ahead of me in any no-limit holdem cash game, I am folding "garbage" hands like this faster than you can say "pushmonkey". Is this yet another well-accepted and profitable cash strategy that I have completely missed the boat on?