You already know how to build your strategy for c-betting on ace-high boards with a full 100bb stack, so today we will dive deeper into a tournament environment.

We will examine 40bb and 20bb situations and cover connected ace-high boards to see how to play them in and out of position.

C-Betting On Ace High Boards In Position – Ah9d8d

Here are the assumptions we will be using:

• The hand is played 40 bb deep with 12.5% ante
• We are opening from the button to 2.3bb
• Big blind calls and checks to us on the flop

Let’s start with an example of an Ah9d8d.

This is a spot where we have a very clear range advantage as the preflop raiser, so we will be c-betting here all the time. The solver suggests c-betting 98% but to make things easier, you can safely fire a bit with all of your range.

The biggest decision here is what sizing to use, since this is distributed between three different options. PeakGTO picks these sizings:

• Full pot size bet – 13% of the time
• Two-thirds pot size bet – 44% of the time
• One-fourth pot size bet – 43% of the time

Different bet sizes are distributed throughout our range, but we reserve the biggest bets of 100% of the pot some of the time with our strongest top pairs, some gutshots, and bottom pairs with runner-runner draws.

Surprisingly, our strategy does not change much with 20bb stack.

We still c-bet our entire range. The only difference is that we have one bet sizing that we use in almost all cases, and can stick with a two-thirds pot size bet.

Key takeaways

• C-bet 100% of the time with 40bb or less IP
• Mix between different bet sizes with your entire range with 40bb
• Still c-bet all of your hands with 20bb stacks and use two-thirds pot size bet as a default option

C-Betting on Ace-high Boards OOP – Ah9d8d

Now let’s see how our strategy changes when we are out of position using these core assumptions:

• We are playing 40bb deep 
• We are opening from the CO 
• BTN calls, and both of the blinds fold

Let’s look at the same example of Ah9d8d but OOP. 

This is not the board where we can bet very aggressively, as our opponent will have a lot of hands in their range that can defend well. Instead of betting all the time as we did when sitting in position, we will be c-betting just around 24% of the time in this spot. 

We are sticking to exclusive 25% pot size bets in these situations, making our strategy fairly straightforward. 

Things change a bit when we go down to 20bb stacks.

We c-bet a bit more often in this situation and fire a bet around 32% of the time in this spot. 

That said, the biggest difference comes from bet sizing. With a smaller stack size, we will be distributing fairly evenly between 60% and 24% pot size bets with a slight preference to bigger bets..

In this spot, GTO poker want to check back most of our strong K-high holdings and some strong pocket pairs that do not need much protection, and distribute our bets fairly equally across the entire range with other holdings.

Key takeaways:

• Bet around 24% of the time when OOP with a 40bb stack size
• Stick exclusively to 25% pot size bets with 40bb 
• C-bet a bit more often with a 20bb stack and mix your bet sizing between one-fourth and two-thirds of the pot