Exploiting Light 3-bettors: What NOT to do

I've been experimenting with some different lines in dealing with light 3-bettors. Here's one that almost NEVER works: calling pre-flop and then floating or raising a raggedy flop. You will get zero credit. If you had an overpair to the board, why weren't you re-raising pre-flop? Sets don't come around often enough to be scared of. AK will be 3-bet shoving pretty much every time. Incidentally, this should tell you that it's a great way to get value out of big pocket pairs is to just flat call a 3-bet, hope the board isn't too bad, and then raise a c-bet. You will get re-shoved by air many a time. Here are a couple of examples, all against players I'd consider very aggressive. The $1/$2 hand is at a full ring game, while all the $0.25/$0.50 hands are at 6-max tables.

Trying a raise:

Seat 3 (CO): HERO ($200)
Seat 5: SB ($223.55)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Qh Kh]
folds to me...
HERO raises to $7
SB raises to $26
HERO calls $19 (Third time in a row he had 3-bet me, I decided to call this one in position and play aggressively on the flop)

*** FLOP *** [3s 9d 5d]

SB bets $36
HERO raises to $80 (This is a terrible play. He reads this small raise for what it is, an "I hope you have nothing and fold" raise, and shoves over the top)
SB raises to $197.55, and is all in

Well played by him, but again, I'm not doing a good job of repping a hand here, and he can shove with A-high, thinking it's either the best hand, or he at least has some outs.

Here's an example of trying a float:

Seat 1 (button): HERO ($52.35)
Seat 2: SB ($72.65)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt toHERO [Qh 9d]
UTG calls $0.50
2 folds...
HERO raises to $2.25
SB raises to $7.50
BB and UTG fold
HERO calls $5.25 (UTG was a donk. The SB was an aggressive player and probably realized I was trying to isolate him so I called. But this raise is big enough compared to the stacks that there's not really enough room for me to outplay him after the flop enough, and my hand just has very little value. So this is just a bad call. I would definitely not recommend it in this spot. I should have waited for a better one. But on to the rest of the hand...)

*** FLOP *** [8c 2h 4c]
SB bets $12
HERO calls $12 (A float's not going to work here either. There's nothing scary on this board. I was thinking "it looks like I have a pair that wants a showdown, maybe he'll check-fold A-high on the turn hoping that I'll accomodate him and go for the cheap showdown". But if I had AK, or really any hand, I'd be shoving pretty much every turn, hoping to get this calling-station donkey to fold his dogshit one pair hand that looks like it wants to take not just any showdown, but a CHEAP showdown. Also note how the shallowness of the stacks comes into play here. If he bets the turn, he's either already putting me all-in, or he's committed to calling my raise with ATC. He can't bet-fold as in the hand from the earlier post on defending vs. 3-bets.)

*** TURN *** [8c 2h 4c] [4d]
SB bets $33 (sure enough, he follows through and shoves)
HERO folds

Just because I don't want to make a post that consists entirely of me making dumb plays and losing money, here are some better spots to raise (notice the difference in the flops):

Seat 2: BB ($49.25)
Seat 3 (UTG): HERO ($83.15)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Js Ah]
HERO raises to $1.75
BB raises to $6
HERO calls $4.25 (This guy had a 3b percentage around 20...I was absolutely ready to stack off if I hit a pair. Also note the preflop betting is a lower fraction of the effective stack size than in the Q9 hand.)

*** FLOP *** [6h 8s Kd]
BB bets $8
HERO raises to $77.15, and is all in (Reasons for making this play: 1) No matter how loose-aggro he is, VERY difficult for him to call this bet without a King or a hand that beats a King, and there just aren't that many of those in any 20% of hands. 2) His bet size is weak...I think if he had a king, he'd bet more like $10. 3) I raised UTG, which means I would be more likely to be slowplaying AA, KK, or AK. Weaker hands I could have, but that he still probably can't beat, would be QQ-JJ or KQ.)
BB folds

Here's another one against a tighter player, but I went with it because stacks are deep:

Seat 2 (button): HERO ($113.40)
Seat 4: BB ($64.50)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [5d 6d]
HERO raises to $1.75
BB raises to $6
HERO calls $4.25 (We're deep enough that I can call this normal-sized re-raise)

*** FLOP *** [Js As 6c]
BB bets $8.15
HERO raises to $21 (Again, really hard for him to continue here without an ace, and even for a relatively tight player at a 6-max game, there aren't enough aces in his range. He's gonna fold KK-QQ, TT-99, plus some of his re-raising range I'm actually ahead of, like KQo or 89s. It's hard for me to rep AK here having just called pre-flop, but hands that he'd be scared of would be a set of sixes, AJ, maybe A6s, and some combo spade/straight draw like KsQs. But really, I thought for a tight player like him, he just wouldn't even consider 3-betting all-in for 130 bbs with KK or QQ on an ace-high board.)
BB folds

These hands are just examples to make my point. Obviously, SOME of the time in the 65s hand, he will show up with a set of jacks and shove over the top and I'll have thrown away $21. And maybe occasionally in the KQs hand, I will get a fold on 9-high board. But in general, I think these examples are representative of what you'll get in each situation. To raise c-bets from a 3-bettor (or even in a normal raised pot where you called in position), I need to consider the board texture at least as much as my own hand or how aggressive or loose my opponent is.

-BRUECHIPS