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When you decide to 3-bet from the BTN against CO open, how you proceed once the flop is out and they check depends largely on the board texture.
In today’s article, we’ll cover the GTO-approved in-position continuation bet strategy in 3-bet pots on wet flops. The setup we are using is CO vs. BTN, presuming 100 big blind effective stacks and standard raise sizes.
To break down the strategy, we’ll look at several different types of representative wet flops. Before we dive into it, though, here are a few main takeaways:
- Check back a lot on A-high boards and use small bet sizing when you bet
- King-high wet boards are best c-bet candidates, with a frequency of close to 100%
- Other high-card wet flops like Qxx or Jxx we c-bet at around 50%
- Low card wet flops have a high check-back frequency between 70% and 80%
Tip #1: C-Bet Ace-High Flops Under 50% and Use Small Bet Sizing
The ace-high boards look like natural candidates to continuation bet on in 3-bet pots, but the GTO strategy suggests a lot of checking back in these spots.
While we do have stronger Ax hands in our range like AKo and AQo, the cutoff’s calling range also contains quite a few suited Ax hands so there is no point in over c-betting in these situations. Here is the expected CO calling range:
Because of this, our c-betting frequency on wet ace-high boards should be between 30% and 50%, and this fairly big gap is dependent on the other two cards.
For example, if we look at the board of A♠9♦8♦, we are supposed to c-bet with just about 27% of our hands and check the rest back.
Looking at our c-betting range, it is clear that there are no pure bets in these spots. However, some hands that prefer betting over checking are:
- Our strongest aces – AKs and AKo
- Q9s & T9s
- KQo
The rest of the hands are a mix between checking and betting, with a majority of our range leaning towards checking back.
However, if we consider a board with a slightly different setup and middling connectors, such as A♠7♦6♦, our c-bet frequency increases to almost 50%.
This is because our 3-betting range coordinates better with this board type. It contains hands such as 67s, pockets 6s, and pockets 7s, as well as hands like A6s and A7s, and all of these hands c-bet a very high percentage of the time.
As far as sizing is concerned, we mostly use a small 30% continuation bet on all A-high boards.
You can introduce big bets at a low frequency with your strongest top pair and two-pair hands, mixing them in with a few bluffs like KQo and QJo.
So, when it comes to ace-high wet flops, we should stick with small bet sizes and c-bet less often on connected boards that interact better with CO calling range. We should increase our betting frequency as the board becomes less connected.
Tip #2: Continuation Bet Aggressively on King High Flops
When it comes to high-card wet flops, our c-betting strategy will vary depending on the specific high card.
Wet boards featuring a king are the best continuation bet candidates, where solvers suggest c-betting at over 90%. For example, this is what our strategy should look like on a K♠9♦7♦ flop:
As you can see, we are checking back only a small fraction of the time, with hands like JJ, TT, 88, and JTs. For practical purposes, though, we can say that these are flops that you’ll just always continuation bet on.
Things really don’t change much if we introduce different side cards with a king, as the c-bet percentage remains over 90% in all spots.
As far as sizing is concerned, the solver vastly prefers the small of 30% pot size bet in all these situations.
Big bets should be used sparingly, over a mix of our strong but vulnerable hands (like AK and K7) and a few ace highs like AQ, AJ, and AT. If you prefer to keep things simple, you can just use one (small) sizing on these textures.
However, what we’ve just described is not the case for all high-card wet flops. If we introduce a Q or a J instead of a K, the strategy changes quite significantly.
This is primarily due to the fact that after 3-betting before the flop, the number of very strong hands containing a Q, and especially a J, is not that big. So, while our opponent doesn’t necessarily have a range advantage on these types of flops, neither do we in many cases.
If we look at the flop like Q♠8♥7♥, we should be c-betting with just under 50% of the range, primarily with our strongest aces, overpairs (AA and KK) and small suited aces combos with immediate and backdoor flush draws.
One change regarding the sizing is that we introduce bigger bets as the highest card becomes lower. We use big and small bets, with a preference for big bets because we are c-betting these boards with a fair number of strong hands that will decrease in value on many turns, so they benefit from some protection.
So, there is a pretty significant difference between K-high and other high-card wet flops when it comes to c-betting strategy. While we should be betting K-high flops pretty much always, other boards are split pretty equally between checking and betting.
Tip #3: Check Back Small Wet Flops 70% to 80%
Let’s now look at the final type of a wet flop, the one containing all small cards. In general, these are the flops where our c-betting frequency will be the lowest, at around 20% to 30%.
If we look at the board like 8♥6♥4♦, we see that the solver suggests c-betting around 27%:
When c-betting, the solver prefers a bigger (70% of the pot) size, although a smaller 30% pot c-bet is still used.
The c-betting frequency is spread pretty evenly across all hands that we’ll continue firing with, such as:
- A8s, 88, 77 – 100% of the time
- K8s and K5s – about 60%
- Overpairs (AA to TT) – around 35% to 40%
- All ace high hands – around 25%
- Pocket 6s – only about 30%
The reason for keeping the c-bet percentage fairly low on these types of boards is fairly clear, as we know that the opponent will have a decent coverage on these flops and they’ll be able to continue a lot.
By checking back, we control the size of the pot and deny them the opportunity to check-raise us on dangerous textures while still being able to get value from our strongest hands on the future streets.
