In one of our earlier lessons, we covered the GTO strategy for c-betting in position on dry flops when playing 100 big blinds deep.
That article provides a solid baseline and can help you determine your ranges in cash games or the early stages of tournaments. However, in most tournaments, as time goes by, you’ll find yourself playing with a much shallower stack.
Thus, our next series will focus on MTT-specific strategy, looking primarily at effective stacks of 40 big blinds, and we’ll start with the strategy for c-betting in position on dry boards.
As always, before diving into specific situations and examples, here are a few main takeaways from this lesson:
- Always c-bet ace-high dry boards
- C-bet small on high-card boards
- Check around 40% of the time on low-card boards
- When c-betting on low-card boards, stick to pot size bets
Tip #1: Always C-Bet on Ace-High Dry Boards
When playing 40 big blinds deep and using standard GTO raising sizes (2.3x), we’ll be continuation betting ace-high dry flops like A♥8♠4♣ in position at a 100% frequency.
Although our button raising range is wide, these types of textures favor the preflop aggressor, as the big blind’s defending range at this stack depth is still quite wide.
As you can see, we are using three different sizes, with the small size of 25% of the pot being the most common pick across our entire range.
The GTO strategy suggests using the larger size of 67% of the pot about a quarter of the time, and the full pot bet about 10%, reserving these options for specific parts of our range, such as:
All suited aces
- Offsuit aces down to A5o
- Some gutshots like 76s and 75s
- 99 and TT specifically
- Hands with some backdoor potential like Q9s, J9s, and T9s
Since stacks are dynamic in tournaments, it’s worth checking how things change at other stack depths as well.
- At 20 big blinds deep, we are c-betting 100% of these flops, using primarily 60% of the pot sizing
- At 60 big blinds deep, our strategy is similar to that for 40 big blinds, with a slight increase in big (100% pot) bets
Tip #2: Bet Small on 100% of High-Card Dry Flops
As a preflop aggressor, you’ll also want to continuation bet on all high-card dry flops when playing 40 big blinds deep.
However, unlike ace-high boards, we will be using small, 25% of the pot sizing, pretty uniformly across the board in these situations, as we can see in the example of a K♠7♦2♣ board:
So, our strategy on these types of textures is really straightforward: we are always taking a small stab at the pot and taking things from there.
Things do change somewhat when playing 20 big blinds deep, as our c-betting frequency drops to 73%. While we are still using a small c-bet size when we do bet, we are also checking back a fair bit. Poker hands in our checking range include:
- Super strong hands like KK, 77
- Some weaker top pair combinations
- QQ and JJ
- Some middle pair combos like 87s and 97s
- A lot of Qx combos like QJs, QTs, Q9s, etc.
As for the 60 big blinds deep strategy, it is very similar to the one we use at 40 big blinds, with only a sliver of check-backs and bigger flop bets, but our default (94% of the time)is still a small c-bet.
Tip #3: Balance Between Checking & Betting on Low-Card Dry Flops
Unlike the previous two scenarios, we will be c-betting at a frequency of around 60% at low-card and disjointed flops, checking back around 40% of the time.
Let’s look at an example of 8♠4♥2♣:
As you can see, our go-to option for c-bet sizing is 100% of the pot, which we’ll use with almost all of our strongest hands and a selection of bluffs.
However, we are also checking back a lot, with many hands that stand a chance to improve on the turn or have some showdown value, so we don’t want to bet with them and possibly lose out on our equity. These are hands like:
- KQs, KJs, KTs, etc.
- Offsuite hands containing an ace like AQs, AJs, ATs, and A9s
- Weaker suited aces like A6s and A5s
- Pairs like 66, 55, and 33
- Some suited connector combos
Our strategy in these spots changes somewhat when effective stacks are 20 big blinds. Our check-back percentage increases to almost 55%, while our sizing when c-betting represents a balance between 60% and 25% of the pot.
When it comes to 60 big blind stacks, the strategy is similar to the one we use for 40 big blinds. The main difference is that we are checking back a bit more, and the big (100% pot) sizing becomes the absolute default option.
