Poker Strategy Why You Should Stop Triple-Barreling (as much) URL has been copied successfully! Having played the 3-handed jackpot style Sit & Go games since they first hit the market all the way back in 2014, I’ve both seen and made every mistake possible when playing a game with a starting stack of just 25BB. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I have witnessed the same collection of mistakes being made thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of times. And while the most frequent one I see from inexperienced Jackpot players continues to be not being aggressive enough, today I want to speak about the opposite – being too aggressive in one particular spot: the triple barrel.However, before we begin, I want to stress that as a reformed “spew monkey” (an overly aggressive player), there are very few people on the planet who have barreled off more stacks than I have – sometimes to my benefit, often not. So, you can be certain that this information is coming from a place of deep love and appreciation for the art of poker aggression and that in no way shape or form am I saying that you should never employ the bet, bet, bet line. Instead, I aim to highlight why using this line indiscriminately at the Jackpot Poker tables in 2024 will get you killed. With that in mind, let’s take a look at two key reasons why triple-barreling might ultimately be less effective than you think. 1. It’s Hard To Make A HandSure, you’re still going to play with some players you can completely run over, particularly at the lower stakes. But with the overall player-pool being infinitely more intelligent than they were a decade ago (even if for no other reason than those who have refused to evolve have long since gone broke), players now understand, whether consciously or not, that the laws of poker randomness dictate that it’s quite hard to make a strong value hand 3-handed. This insight, combined with the structure of quickly diminishing stack sizes, forces perceptive players to call down lighter and more or less eliminates the profitability of hero-folding. After all, poker is not just a game of what does my opponent have, but what does my opponent not have? And, when it comes to Jackpot Poker games, the answer to the latter question is most often: a strong hand.2. The Lost Line – Call, Call, FoldThe reason the bet-bet-bet line has forever been a favorite of aggressive poker players is that they were adequately incentivized into using it by opponents who would overfold the river – a trend that continues to be found in many low to mid-stakes cash games and tournaments even today. However, when discussing Jackpot Poker games, where calling two bets will often mean committing a significant portion of one’s stack, there are (generally speaking) far fewer river folds to be found. Add this to the fact that Jackpot games operate as a winner-takes-all format, and that many opponents will add a good chunk of their draws into their flop or turn raising ranges, thereby strengthening the range of hands they flat-call with, and there is suddenly very little incentive for players to find a fold on the river after calling twice.What does this mean? Well, put simply, don’t make the same mistakes I did and continuously blast off in spots where it makes no sense to be doing so. Instead, take a second to think through each hand, pick spots where your perceived range (the collection of hands your opponent thinks you are most likely to have) is stronger than theirs, and choose bluffs that have equity when called. Additionally, make sure to pay close attention to your opponent’s tendencies in other spots at the table by using one simple question to guide you: were they aggressive/passive with their big/small hand in this spot? Ask yourself that often enough, especially when seeing the same player over the course of a few games, and you’ll quickly develop intuition into which spots make sense to triple-barrel and in which ones you’re simply being a spew monkey.Good luck!