3-Bet Ranges 100bb Cash: Value, Bluffs, and Blockers

The three-bet is where cash pots start getting expensive, and where a lot of players either freeze or overdo it. A solved three-bet range is not a mystery. It is a deliberate blend of hands you want the money in with, plus a carefully chosen set of bluffs, sized to make the whole thing hard to play against. This guide breaks down how that range is built at 100bb: the value, the bluffs, why blockers pick the bluffs, and how sizing changes when you are in versus out of position.

Value first

Start with the easy half. Your three-bet value range is the hands that are happy to build a big pot before the flop: the strong pairs and the strong broadways that dominate the opener's continuing range. These want in, and three-betting gets more money in while you hold the advantage. Nobody agonizes over three-betting a premium. The skill is in everything around it.

Then the bluffs, chosen by blockers

A three-bet range that is all value is transparent. A thinking opponent folds their weak hands, continues only with strength, and you never get paid or fold anyone out. So the solve adds bluffs, and it does not pick them at random. It picks them for their blockers and their playability.

Blockers are the key idea. When you hold an ace, it is combinatorially less likely your opponent holds AA or AK, the exact hands that punish a three-bet. So a hand like A5s makes an excellent three-bet bluff: it blocks the opponent's strongest continues, and when it does get called it flops well and can make the nut flush. Compare that to a hand with no blocker relevance and worse playability, which bluffs into the opponent's full strong range and flops poorly. Same "bluff" label, very different value. This is why solved bluffing ranges are full of suited wheel aces and specific suited hands rather than just your weakest holdings.

If the underlying idea of playing a hand at a frequency rather than always or never is still fuzzy, how to read a preflop chart covers the mixed-frequency cells you will see all over three-bet ranges.

Sizing: in position versus out of position

Here is where a single "standard three-bet" number breaks down, and it is one of the most important practical points. The correct three-bet size depends heavily on whether you will have position after the flop.

In the 100bb 6-max cash trees, a three-bet is around 3.4x the open when you are in position, and larger, around 4.4x, when you are out of position. The reason is that position is worth EV. When you three-bet without it, you use a bigger size to charge the opponent more and make it less comfortable for them to call and outplay you postflop. In position, you can three-bet smaller because you already hold the postflop advantage. Getting this backward, using your in-position size out of position, underprices your value and your bluffs alike. For the full sizing picture across the tree, see preflop raise sizing.

Position of the opener matters too

Who opened changes your three-bet range as much as your own seat does. An under-the-gun open represents a tight, strong range, so you three-bet it more carefully and more polarized. A button or cutoff open is far wider and weaker on average, so you can attack it with a wider, more linear three-bet range, taking strong-but-not-premium hands and turning them into value because they now dominate a loose opener. The same two cards in your hand can be a fold against an early open and a value three-bet against a late one. That is not a contradiction; it is the range you are up against changing underneath you.

Polarized versus linear

Two shapes come up. A polarized range is value plus bluffs with a gap in the middle: you three-bet your strong hands and your chosen blocker bluffs, and the medium hands that would rather see a flop cheaply just call or fold. This is common deep and out of position. A linear range is top-down value with few or no bluffs, common when you are attacking a very wide open and simply have a lot of hands that beat it. Knowing which shape a spot wants, and which hands sit on the boundary, is the difference between a three-bet range that pressures opponents and one they read easily.

Flat or three-bet the medium hands?

The hardest three-bet decisions are not the premiums or the clear bluffs; they are the medium hands in between. A hand like a middling pair or a decent suited broadway can often either call the open or three-bet, and the solve splits them based on the spot. Out of position and deep, three-betting is frequently better than flatting a medium hand, because calling out of position invites a raked, awkward pot where your hand struggles to realize equity, while three-betting takes initiative and denies the opponent a comfortable flop. In position, flatting more of these hands is fine, because position lets them realize equity cheaply. This flat-versus-three-bet split is exactly the kind of boundary decision a rounded-off chart smooths away, and it is where a lot of the edge lives.

Facing the four-bet

A three-bet is not the end of the sequence. When you three-bet, you have to be ready for a four-bet, and your range should already account for it. This is another reason blockers matter: a hand like A5s that three-bet as a bluff also holds an ace that blocks the opponent's four-bet value range, so it can occasionally continue or jam rather than always folding. Building a three-bet range without a plan for the four-bet is how players end up either folding too much to four-bets, which makes their three-bets exploitable, or stacking off too light. The Simple GTO trees carry the four-bet and five-bet responses so the whole sequence is solved, not just the first re-raise.

What changes shorter and deeper

At 100bb the three-bet game is fully alive: three-bet, get four-bet, and still play postflop. As stacks get shorter, the sequence compresses. Four-bets start committing stacks sooner, so four-bet-and-play gives way to four-bet-or-shove, and the three-bet ranges themselves adjust because the postflop room shrinks. Deeper than 100bb, the opposite happens: more postflop maneuvering room means sizing and range construction shift again. The core principles hold at every depth, but the exact ranges and the commitment points move, which is why the bundle solves each depth rather than stretching one chart to cover all of them.

Common three-bet leaks

• All value, no bluffs. Predictable and unprofitable. You need the blocker bluffs to get paid and to fold out equity.
• Random bluffs. Bluffing with hands that lack blockers and playability three-bets into the opponent's strength. Pick bluffs on purpose.
• One size everywhere. Using the same size in and out of position leaves EV on the table both ways.
• Ignoring the opener's seat. Three-betting an under-the-gun open like it is a button open gets you stacked.

What your three-bet range wants after the flop

A preflop three-bet range is really a plan for the flop, and thinking one street ahead explains a lot of the construction. Your value hands want to build a big pot and get called, so they are happy the pot is inflated. Your blocker bluffs want fold equity preflop, but when called they want to flop something, which is why the solve prefers suited, connected, ace-blocker hands over dead-weight bluffs: they can continue on plenty of flops rather than giving up. The medium hands you chose to three-bet rather than flat wanted initiative so they could win without showing down. You do not have to solve the postflop tree to use this. You just have to notice that every hand in the three-bet range has a postflop reason to be there, and hands with no such reason do not belong.

This lens also explains why three-bet ranges are so sensitive to position and depth. In position, your value hands and bluffs both realize more equity postflop, so the range can be constructed to get called and play on. Out of position, the range leans harder on fold equity and initiative, because you would rather not navigate a big pot from the wrong seat. When you look at two three-bet charts and they disagree, the disagreement is almost always a postflop story, one range is built to play, the other to end the hand, and the position or depth decided which. Reading the ranges with the flop in mind turns a wall of cells into a plan you understand.

Get the exact trees

Three-bet ranges reward precision because the boundaries are narrow and the blocker choices are specific. The Simple GTO Cash Game Bundle gives you the complete solved three-bet, four-bet, and five-bet trees at 100bb and every stack depth from 200bb to 40bb, with the exact IP and OOP sizings, on the 500z rake structure, as files you own and drill offline.