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Paired flops represent a very interesting and important subset of board textures in Texas Hold’em, and many players struggle with finding the right strategy for these boards.
In today’s article, we’ll cover the perfect GTO strategy for playing paired flops as the button raiser after the big blind checks.
As you’ll see, the strategy for most of these spots, given 100 big blind stacks and the standard 3x open, is pretty straightforward and intuitive. The exception is low pair boards, where there are more factors to consider.
We’ll keep things simple, sticking to boards without straight and flush draws since the presence of draws would be hard to cover in a single article.
The main takeaways from this strategy lesson are:
- We are betting AAx flops pretty much 100% of the time
- Boards containing KK and QQ are c-bet at a high frequency
- There is more checking back on JJx and TTx boards (20% to 30%)
- You should be betting more often on low-pair boards with a high third card compared to a low one
Tip #1: Always Bet on AAx Boards
Flops featuring a pair of aces and another random card are by far the easiest to play as a button raiser. Once the big blind checks, we’ll be c-betting these flops at a pretty much 100% frequency.
Let’s take an example of a A♠A♥6♦ flop:
As you can see, solver suggests c-betting these flops using the small sizing of one-third pot. The marginal cases of using big bets and checking back are so low frequency that you can just disregard them.
The theoretical explanation for this strategy is that the big blind doesn’t really have many aces in their calling range, as many of their ace-high hands prefer 3-betting before the flop.
We are using the smaller bet sizing because we don’t really need much protection on these types of textures.
It is worth mentioning that things don’t change much if we replace the 6 with a face card. The solver still suggests c-betting over 98%. The 2% of check-backs is distributed across the entire range, which means that you can, on a very rare occasion, check with any of the hands that you’ll be c-betting with.
If you really want to implement this strategy into your game, a good way to go about it would be to pick a few hand combos that you’ll always check back with (for example A8o, K7s, 55, and A6s) and just bet the rest. This is easy to memorize and will add some finesse to your strategy.
Tip #2: Bet High Paired Boards at a High Frequency
Flops containing a high pair like KK and QQ are also very good c-betting candidates. While they are different from AAx boards, we’ll still be c-betting at a frequency of around 90%
For example, this is a strategy for the K♠K♥2♣ flop:
Once again, the solver suggests c-betting most of our range using the small sizing. Our checking range is distributed similarly to the previous example, i.e. spread across all hands, just at a higher frequency to bring the total number to around 10%.
Once again, a good approach here is to pick a few hands from both sides of the graph and use them as check-backs and just c-bet the rest. Even for opponents that play against you often, it will be very hard to catch on just from the information they gather on the tables.
Navigating TT & JJ Boards
Although they are technically high-pair flops, TTx and JJx boards are quite a bit different from KKx and QQx flops in the GTO world.
We should be doing much more checking back on these boards – over 20% on flops containing a pair of jacks and almost 30% on flops with a pair of tens.
This is because these boards coordinate much better with the blind calling range, either directly or by offering more backdoor combo draws that will allow them to continue in the hand:
Because of this, we need to check back more. For example, on a board of 10♠10♥3♦, we end up betting 70% of the time and checking 30%:
As you can see, we are doing much more checking with our ace-high hands and hands containing one overcard. When choosing which hands to check and which to bet in these combos, a good rule of thumb is to check back with some combos that have a backdoor potential.
Tip #3: Consider the Side Card on Low Pair Flops
When it comes to flops containing low pairs like 66 and 77, our strategy will be significantly influenced by the third card.
Let’s first look at the board of 6♠6♥2♣:
In these spots, we c-bet even less, betting only 58% of the hands and checking 42% of our holdings.
Hands that prefer betting are:
- Combos containing a six
- All pocket pairs, with the exception of aces and kings, to balance between betting and checking
- Strongest suited aces with runner runner flush draws, i.e. AKs down to A9s
- Combos like J9, J8, T9, and T8 that can pick up equity on many turns
On these flops, the big blind doesn’t necessarily have a range advantage, but they do have a lot of hands that they can continue with and have different turn options, which is why there is a lot of checking to control the size of the pot and avoid potentially tricky spots.
Low Pair Boards With a High Card
When a flop contains a low pair and a high card, the button strategy changes significantly, as the side card is usually better for our range.
If we look at the flop of 6♠6♥K♣, that shift in strategy is very obvious even at a glance:
Our c-betting frequency increases to just over 73% (compared to 58% on 6♠6♥2♣) adding additional betting hands to the range listed previously:
- Different Kx combos that prefer betting over checking
- All offsuit aces bet at a high frequency
- Suited aces down to A7s
- A few small suited connectors
The presence of a high card allows us to significantly increase our c-betting frequency as there is a much wider range of hands we can credibly represent as the button raiser in these spots.
