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Although defending against continuation bets out of position is a much more common scenario, you’ll find yourself in some situations where you have a position but no betting initiative.
A common such scenario is when you are on the button and flat call a raise from the cutoff just to face their c-bet on the flop. This scenario will be the focus of today’s article.
Like the rest of the article in this series, the setup is 100 big blinds with a standard 3x open before the flop, and we’ll look at some representative board types such as ace-high flops, flops containing a high card, and low card boards.
Before we dive into it, here are a few main takeaways:
- Defend a lot on ace-high flops going up to 80% of your range on wet boards
- Play conservatively on dry high card flops and just have a calling range when you continue
- Do a lot of calling on low card dry flops
- Bet yourself aggressively when your opponent checks on connected boards
Tip #1: Utilize Your Advantage on Ace High Flops
Generally speaking, ace high boards will be better for your range as in position caller than for the cutoff raiser. While their raising range is fairly wide, you should be calling with a lot of hands containing an ace:
With this knowledge, the cutoff should be continuation betting at a very low frequency, especially on dry ace-high flops like A♠9♥4♣. Here, the solver suggests checking 97% of the range. The rare c-bets will be a mix of very strong hands and a few bluffs.
With such a low continuation bet percentage, there is no need to get fancy in these spots. Against a big sizing, you’re just calling with all your pairs down to pocket treys and a few hands with backdoor combos, while against a small size, you can throw in a few raises with your very strong hands and rare bluffs.
There is no need to spend too much time talking about these spots, though, as, once again, you can expect the cutoff to check almost always.
When they check, this is your opportunity to seize control of the pot, and you should be betting with around 40% of your range. It is a mixed strategy, where you should be doing some betting and some checking with all hands, where hands with worse showdown value gravitate towards betting.
Navigating Wet Ace-High Flops
Dynamic flops containing an ace are different. On a flop like A♥10♦9♦, the cutoff will be c-betting about 10% of the time, using predominantly a small size (29% of the pot).
What’s really interesting is that you should be continuing 80% against this continuation bet, raising almost 22% of your continuation range.
While the cutoff’s range coordinates a bit better with these textures, you still have a significant range advantage, which allows you to continue at such a high frequency.
- Mix calling and raising with your strong aces (approximately 70% to 30%)
- Raise your sets at around 80%
- Mix between calling and raising with two pair combos
- Raise about a quarter of the time with your gutshots and open-enders
- Call more with your stronger second-pair hands & do more raising with weaker second-pair combos
This may seem like a lot to remember, but keep in mind that you won’t encounter these situations too often, as the cutoff will still check almost 90% of the time. If the Cutoff decided to check, then as in the previous example, you should be betting yourself with around 40% of the range, and here is how that strategy looks:
On the other hand, when you end up facing a c-bet, remember that folding is the least favorite option reserved for hands with no equity, and you actually should be defending quite a lot of the hands.
Tip #2: No Raising on Dry High Card Flops
If we switch the board texture to contain a high card other than an ace, both the cutoff c-betting strategy and our defense plan change quite radically.
This is primarily because the cutoff’s raising range works much better with these types of textures.
On the other hand, BTN's calling range is much narrower and does not contain as many high-card combos in the range, which means we must be much more cautious.
Facing a C-bet on Dry High Card Boards
On dry high-card flops, the cutoff will be c-betting nearly 70% of the time. There is a strong preference for a large (69% of the pot) sizing.
If we look at the board of K♥8♦2♣, when facing a large c-bet, our only options are between calling (around 65%) and folding.
The strategy is very straightforward as we’re continuing with hands that have some direct equity (i.e., all pairs down to pocket sixes, plus fours and fives about half of the time), our strongest ace-highs, and small aces with backdoor equity (i.e., hands like A-3 and A-4 containing a backdoor straight and flush draw).
Facing a rare small c-bet, we can actually continue with close to 90% of the range, calling with all pairs down to pocket treys at nearly 100% and occasionally raising with our strongest hands (strong top pairs and better), balancing it out with a few bluffs with decent backdoor equity.
Handling Dynamic High Card Flops
Wet flops containing a high card are quite a bit different. When we look at a board of K♥9♥8♦, the cutoff’s c-bet percentage drops to around 20%, with the small sizing used almost without exception.
Facing this bet, we’ll be continuing 75% of the time, including a fair amount of raising:
As you can see, all hands that we’ll be continuing with are a mix between calls and raises, with our strongest holdings like two pairs and better gravitating towards raises.
This allows us to also have a fairly wide bluff raising range with hands like:
- Second pairs with backdoor straights
- Gutshots
- 67s open-enders
- 87s combos
Tip #3: Default to Calling on Dry Low Flops
The last category of flops we’ll consider in this article is those containing small cards. As you’ll see, there is a significant difference between dry and coordinate boards.
If we look at a dry board like 9♠6♦2♣, we see that the cutoff c-bets at around 20%, using mostly large sizing.
While we will be defending against this bet at just over 70%, our default strategy is to just call with hands like:
- All pairs down to 33
- Strong hands like sets
- All suited over-card and ace-card combos with backdoor draws
Because of the dry texture, raising here doesn’t make much sense since there are very few strong hands that we can represent, and it’s hard to find good bluff candidates to create balance, so calling is the best strategy.
Dominating Dynamic Low Card Flops
When the board texture changes and the flop becomes more dynamic, there is a big shift in the cutoff c-betting strategy.
If we look at the board like 9♥8♦6♦, the solver suggests that the optimal strategy is to actually check at 98% frequency. This means that these are scenarios where you don’t need to worry about how to defend against the continuation bet but rather know what to do after the opponent checks.
The answer is that you’ll take over the initiative, betting over half of the time with gutshots, pairs, overcards, and low ace-high combos with backdoor draws.
This type of texture favors your range, and since you have a position as well, you can take advantage of this situation and apply pressure to your opponent.
This will put him in many tough situations, and you will put yourself in a position to keep your aggression and make him fold on later streets, even if he sticks around on the flop.
