Wet flops are tricky to navigate in general, but that’s especially the case when playing in an inflated pot, the first to act, and without the initiative.
Today, we will address situations where you’re out of position and facing a c-bet on a wet board in a 3-bet pot.
Keeping things as simple as possible, we’ll be using the cutoff vs. a button scenario at the stack depth of 100 big blinds and standard GTO open and 3-bet sizes.
As always, before we dig into a more detailed analysis, here are the main takeaways from this lesson:
- You should continue with over 60% of your range on ace-high wet flops, check-raising aggressively
- You’ll face a c-bet almost always on K-high wet flops & should stick around with 60% of your range and raise at least one-third of the time
- You should continue around half of the time on Q-high wet flops, and call with your entire range instead of raising
- You won’t face many c-bets on low wet flops, but when you do, you should continue with almost 85% of your range
Tip #1: Defend 60%+ on Ace-High Wet Boards and Check-Raise Aggressively
Firstly, let’s look into wet flops containing an ace, as these are perhaps the most interesting ones to break down in 3-bet pots.
After 3-betting before the flop and facing a check from the cutoff (we are checking 100% of all boards with no leads), the 3-bettor will fire a continuation bet only about a quarter of the time.
This has to do with the fact that the caller’s range coordinates pretty well with these types of flops, as seen in the picture below:
So, on a board like A♠9♥8♥, the button player will continue to bet just above 25% after we check to them, with their range consisting of a solid balance between value hands, decent draws, and bluffs with some backdoor potential.
Even against that relatively tight c-betting range, we will be continuing over 64% of the time when facing a 30% c-bet (which is a default GTO sizing in this spot).
Our defense strategy includes a fair bit of raising. In this situation, we will be raising 25% of our hands and calling 39% of the time.
Hands that we’ll be raising with facing a button c-bet include
- All two-pair combos (A9s, A8s, 98s)
- Flopped sets
- QTs about 60% of the time (70%+ if it is a gutshot + flush draw combo)
- 65s about half the time
- JTs about half the time
- KTs 3-bets around 30% and folds the rest
The rest of our continuing range gravitates toward flat calling, so hands like A5s, A8s, and AJs are almost all pure calls. The likes of AKs and AQs can raise at a relatively low frequency, but calling is the default option here.
The rest of our calling range consists of hands like T9s, which calls 100% of the time, JJ and TT that we balance between calling and folding (although TT can 3-bet on occasion due to its blocking properties), and QJs.
Tip #2: Understand Differences Between Different Types of High Card Wet Flops
When it comes to wet flops containing a high card, there are quite a few differences in strategy depending on the exact card, so we’ll try to break it down for each board type.
King High Wet Boards
Let’s start with king-high boards, using an example of K♠9♥8♥. On these types of boards, you’ll face a continuation bet at a frequency of well over 90% as the in-position player is almost never checking back.
Their default size will be 30% of the pot, and facing that bet, you’ll still continue with around 60% of your entire range, calling two-thirds of the time and raising the rest:
Once more, our default raising range consists of very strong hands (two pair or better) and draws (65s, QJs, QTs), while we are defaulting to a call with strong and solid top pair, middle pair, and even bottom pair holdings.
Queen High Wet Flops
If the flop contains a queen instead of a king, though, things change quite a bit. If we look at the board of Q♠8♦6♦, the in-position player is supposed to continuation bet only about half of the time, and when they do, they’ll mostly be utilizing the big sizing of 70% of the pot.
Facing that bet, we will still continue with over 50% of the range, but only raising with a few select hands and calling the rest.
When the opponent bets big on the flop, we can no longer profitably raise with many drawing hands, and we can flat call with some of our strongest hands at a decent frequency.
Jack High Wet Flops
Finally, jack-high wet boards are a category of their own, because the 3-bettor is supposed to check back these flops almost always.
Given this, there is no reason to spend too much time tailoring your strategy against a c-bet as you’ll face it very infrequently on these types of textures.
Tip #3: Defend Around 85% Against Infrequent C-Bets on Low Card Dry Flops
Just like coordinated jack-high flops, low-card wet boards don’t particularly favor the in-position 3-bettor. For this reason, you won’t face many c-bets in these spots. The button player will continuation bet around 10% of the time, mostly using the small (30% pot) sizing.
When they do continuation bet, you are supposed to stick around at almost 85%, with calling being the default option, as you can see on this example of the 8♥7♥5♠ flop:
Our raising range consists primarily of very strong hands, specifically flopped sets and a few combos of pair + straight draw and gutshots.
You’ll always have a range advantage on these types of boards, so, once again, your opponent will mostly check back, but when they do choose to continue, we’ll be folding only the worst parts of our range that have absolutely no coordination with the board, such as KJs and QJs with no flush draws.
