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In modern tournaments, defending your big blind against a button open with a wide range is an important part of game strategy. Small open sizes create favorable pot odds thanks to all the dead money in the pot from the small blind and ante.
At the stack depth of 40 big blinds, we are defending almost 80%, primarily calling. Some of our hands also fall into the all-in bucket, while we are supposed to go for a standard-sized 3-bet around 11% of the time.
After we 3-bet and the button opener calls, we’ll need to navigate different types of flops, deciding whether to continuation bet and what size to use depending on the texture.
In today’s article, we’ll look into the GTO strategy for c-betting out of position in 3-bet pots on different types of dry flops, i.e. boards containing very few direct draws.
Here are a few main pointers to guide you through this lesson:
- We are c-betting 100% on ace-high dry flops, using small sizing of 25% of the pot
- C-bet almost always on high-card dry boards.
- Default to small size on king and queen-high boards and utilize about 20% of larger bets on jack-high flops
- We are c-betting almost all small and disjointed low card flops using a small sizing
Tip #1: C-Bet Small on All Ace-High Dry Flops
Our strategy for c-betting on ace-high dry boards after 3-betting before the flop is very simple, as we’ll be firing a continuation bet 100% of the time, using a small, 25% pot sizing. You’ll notice this is different from a strategy for 100 big blinds, where our approach is more finessed.
We have a good example of this on a flop like A♠8♥3♦, which is pretty much as dry as they get:
Our 3-betting range absolutely smashes this flop and it has a big advantage over the button’s wide opening range. Thus, we can always continue, and we can use the small c-bet size to accomplish our goal.
In many instances, the button player will miss completely on these types of flops and will have to fold regardless of the small sizing. When they do continue, using a small size helps keep the pot size under control.
After we c-bet, the button player is supposed to play a call or fold strategy, so we shouldn’t face any tough decisions at this juncture. Due to smaller sizing, the in-position opponent should be calling about three-quarters of the time.
At 60 big blinds, there are no significant changes to our strategy after the flop, except for a tiny amount of larger bets (66% pot) that we can introduce with hands like AQ, AJ, J9, and T9, specifically, but at very low frequencies. Our default still remains a small, 25% bet.
Finally, 25 big blinds effective, our strategy doesn’t change much, either, as we are still betting on all flops, primarily using a small (22% pot) sizing. However, we will be using a 54% pot sizing about 10% of the time:
Tip #2: Always Continue on High Card Flops
You’ll be happy to hear that the GTO strategy for c-betting on dry high-card flops is quite simple as well. We are continuation betting pretty much 100% on these textures, defaulting to a 25% of the pot sizing.
If we look at an example of a flop like K♥7♠2♦, the solver suggests c-betting quarter of the pot around 90% of the time, and mixing in the larger, 66% sizing, at a frequency of about 8.5%:
The strategy is applicable to queen and jack-high dry flops as well. The only significant adjustment on jack-high flops is that we’ll be using the bigger sizing around 20% of the time:
At 60 big blinds effective stacks, there are no significant changes to our strategy. However, with shallow stacks, i.e. playing 25 big blinds, the solver introduces a checking range, suggesting we skip a continuation bet about a quarter of the time:
As you can see, our checking range is fairly evenly split between value hands and hands with little to now showdown potential.
After checking, we’ll face a bet from the button about half the time, and we’ll be continuing around 53%, using a strategy that’s split between calling and check-raising. It’s interesting to see that we are always using hands like QQ and JJ as check-raises, with the plan to commit our stack.
Tip #3: Bet 100% on Dry Low-Card Flops
In MTTs, we’ll want to continuation bet a majority of low and disconnected flops, which is quite different from a 100 big blind strategy in these spots. Once again, our default sizing is 25%, with larger c-bet used about 10%, as we can see on the 8♦6♥2♠ example:
This approach changes as stacks get deeper, though, as at 60 big blinds effective, we get to a 10% checking range.
At 25 big blinds, we are checking around 8.5%, but our choices of hands are spread around the entire range. We are still using a small c-bet as the default, but larger sizings are represented with about 20%, primarily with strong hands like top pairs and vulnerable overparis (JJ), and overcards with backdoor potential like JTs.
