Your 3-bet percentage is too low, and everyone at the table knows

Check your stats. If your 3-bet sits under 4%, your raises are a face-up hand. Observant opponents fold everything but premiums when you 3-bet, and steal relentlessly when you only call, because your call announces "good but not great."

A 3% 3-bet range is roughly QQ+, AK. That range is ten combos of monsters and nothing else. When you 3-bet and get called, boards with low cards miss you entirely. When you flat instead, you play fit-or-fold out of position against a player with initiative. Both lines lose money quietly.

What a real range looks like

Against a late-position open, a healthy 3-bet range runs 8% to 11% and has two parts:

Value: TT+, AQ+, sometimes 99 and AJs depending on the opener. These hands want a bigger pot now, while you almost certainly have the best hand.

Bluffs with a backup plan: A5s through A2s, suited connectors like 76s, occasionally K9s type hands. Suited wheel aces are the classic choice for a reason: they block aces in the opener's continue range, they make the nut flush, and they flop wheel draws.

The bluffs are not optional decoration. They are what makes your value hands get paid. A player who 3-bets A4s sometimes gets stacks in with kings; a player who only 3-bets kings gets folds.

The two spots to start

Do not try to fix everything at once. Add 3-bets in two places first:

Button vs cutoff open. The cutoff opens wide, you have position for the whole hand, and folds win you a decent pot immediately. This is the most profitable 3-bet seat in poker.

Big blind vs button open. Buttons open 40% to 50% of hands. Flatting your whole continue range lets them realize equity cheaply. 3-betting your suited aces and best broadways makes their wide opens pay.

The tell you give off

Here is the part that stings: a low 3-bet number does not just cost you the pots you never built. It reprices every other hand you play. Your opens get 3-bet more because you fold too much. Your calls get barreled because they cap your range. Fixing one preflop number changes how the table plays against you everywhere.

Count your last 100 opportunities to 3-bet. Under four? Start with the suited wheel aces on the button and watch what happens.