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When playing on the button, you’ll frequently have to deal with cutoff raises. Your strategy against the CO raise includes 3-betting with close to 9% of your range.
Often, your 3-bet will be enough to win the pot, but the cutoff player will also call some of the time, taking things to the flop. On the flop, they should be checking pretty much 100% of the time, leaving you to figure out how to continue across different boards.
In this article, we’ll cover the optimal GTO strategy for c-betting in position after 3-betting preflop and facing a dry flop, assuming standard raise sizes and 100 big blinds effective stacks.
Before we dive into specific examples of representative dry flops, here are a few main takeaways:
- You should be c-betting ace-high dry flops at high frequency using small sizing
- We are pretty much never checking on king-high dry boards, often using big bet size
- Our c-bet frequency on other high-card dry flops is very high (around 80%)
- C-betting strategy for low dry flops is split almost exactly 50/50 and we always utilize the big sizing when c-betting
Tip #1: C-Bet Ace-High Dry Flops Aggressively with Small Sizing
After 3-betting before the flop, we’ll be continuation betting across all types of dry ace-high flops at a high frequency. There are differences in the GTO strategy depending on the exact texture, but the rule of thumb is – drier the board, the more often you should c-bet.
Let’s look at an example of a super-dry texture like A♠7♥2♣. Here, solver suggests c-betting 90% of our range, pretty much always using the small (30% of the pot) sizing:
Our checking range is split between hands containing an ace, pocket pairs, and complete bluffs, such as T9s, K9s, etc.
Just like in other similar scenarios, to make this more practical and easier to remember, you can select a few combos that you’ll consistently check back with and c-bet the rest.
However, not all ace-high dry flops have been created equal in the GTO world. If we look at the board like A♥9♦4♣, our c-betting frequency drops to just 61%.
Our check-back range isn’t much different from the first example, but the frequency with which we check hands like pocket pairs and middling aces is much higher.
This is because the second texture coordinates much better with the cutoff defending range, giving them more made hands and backdoor draws they can continue with.
So, there is no single catch-all strategy that you can apply to ace-high dry flops. As a rule of thumb, you’ll be c-betting these boards at a high frequency, but your check-back percentage increases as the board becomes more favorable for the OOP player’s defense range.
Tip #2: Always Continuation Bet on Dry King-High Flops
Unlike ace-high boards, king-high dry flops are much more straightforward to play as a 3-bettor in position. Basically, you’ll always be c-betting these flops, with check-backs present only as a 1% fragment that you can disregard.
Let’s look at the K♠8♥4♦ flop:
However, although your decision whether to c-bet or not is easy, you can see that the poker solver splits the strategy between small and big sizes almost equally.
Once more, the strategy is split pretty evenly across all hands, but some things to note to help you navigate these situations are:
- KK and 88 (flopped sets) always use the small sizing
- Middling pocket pairs (JJ – 99) significantly prefer the small sizing
- You should use big sizing about 70% with your small suited aces
- KQ leans towards bigger sizing
- AK bets big and small fairly evenly
- 77 specifically uses the big sizing almost 100% of the time
We won’t analyze why things break down this way in detail, but the main thing to remember is that these boards heavily favor the 3-bettors range, which allows us to c-bet them liberally and without any notable exceptions.
The c-bet % drops down to a bit under 80% on Q-high and J-high dry boards. For example, on Q♥7♦3♣ you need to c-bet around 77% of the time, and on J♠7♦2♣ you will be betting 79% of your range.
Tip #3: Balance Checking & C-Betting on Low Dry Flops
Low dry flops are the type of texture in which we check back the highest percentage in 3-bet pots. The solver suggests a split strategy in which we c-bet about half the time and check back the other half.
If we look at the board like 9♠5♥2♣, this is how things break down:
While there is still some split strategy, there is a fairly significant chunk of hands that clearly prefer checking back in these spots, like:
- Middle and bottom pairs (K5s, 65s, A2s)
- Weaker top pairs (T9s, J9s)
- Pocket pairs under 9s (88, 77, 66)
- Flopped sets
- Gutshots (76s, A3s)
Hands that lean more towards c-betting are largely strong hands that are likely good on the flop but could lose equity on different turn cards, plus some good bluffing hands:
- Overpairs (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT)
- A5s specifically
- AKs
- ATo
As for the sizing, there is a strong preference for big sizes with virtually no exceptions worth mentioning. The reason for it is quite intuitive, as our c-betting range consists largely of strong hands that need some protection and monsters like flopped sets.
The c-betting strategy on these types of low dry flops isn’t overly complex. You just need to remember that these are boards that require most balancing and you don’t need to re-open the action by c-betting with mediocre hands and potentially allow your opponent to blow you off your equity with a check-raise.
