We already covered how to defending in position on Ace-High boards with a 100bb stack, and today we will dive deeper into tournament scenarios with 40bb.
In this article, we will analyze different board textures after calling a raise in position and see how to adjust our strategy on dry and connected boards.
Playing on Dry Ace-High Boards in Position – As9h4c
When we are facing an open from the CO and find ourselves on the BTN, we will be calling close to 18% of our hands with a 40bb stack.
Let’s keep this in mind as it will be essential when constructing our defending ranges on future streets.
Key assumptions:
- The hand is played 40bb deep with 12.5% ante
- The cutoff is opening the pot
- We call his preflop raise from the BTN
- Both of the blinds fold
- We face a c-bet on the flop
On a As9h4c, CO will be c-betting 31% of the time and using small sizing in almost all cases while distributing his bets quite evenly across the entire range. Due to the small bet, we will end up defending this board with 85% of our hands.
We mostly fold our offsuit broadways that missed the board and do not have a lot of equity in the hand. With the hand we continue with, we call 72% of our range and raise another 13%.
As you can see, we mostly raise sets, a few two pair combos, strong top pairs, and a few buffing combinations with running running draws. All other hands go into our calling range.
When the stacks drop to 20bb effective, we will defend a bit less often preflop. That said, our opponent will continue to put pressure by c-betting even more often, with 37% of the hands still sticking to a small sizing.
Against this, we will continue with 83% of the hands. This time, our range only includes a few combinations, and we will be calling with pretty much all of the hands we continue.
Key takeaways
- Defend over 84% of the range against a c-bet on dry ace-high board with 40bb
- Have a raising range with 40bb stack and do that with some sets, two pairs, and a few strongest top pair combinations, along with some bluffs
- Only call with all of the hands you continue against a c-bet with 20bb
Defending on Connected Ace-High Boards – AsTd9d
Your opponent will be c-betting more often on connected boards, so we will need to approach it a bit differently.
Key assumptions:
- The hand is played 40bb with 12.5% ante
- The cutoff is opening the pot
- We call his preflop raise from the BTN
- Both of the blind fold
- We face a c-bet on the flop
Let’s take a look at an example of AsTd9d. In this case, CO will c-bet only 14% of the time, mostly using bigger bet sizing of two-thirds of the pot.
With a 40bb stack, we will continue by calling 55% of the hands, raising 8%, and folding the rest.
Our raising range mostly consists of sets and two pairs with a few draw combinations, and we call the rest of the hands that connect to this board.
Our strategy remains largely unchanged even as the stacks drop further.
CO will be c-betting more often with around 39% of the time with 20bb, and will mix sizing between small and big bets. That said, since the CO prefers larger sizing and will use a 60% pot size most of the time, we will explore how to play in this situation.
As you can see, we will be calling 59% and raising with 8% of our hands. We will mostly raise poker hands like two pair combinations and specifically QJo for an open-ended straight draw.
Other than that, we will call all hands that have equity, like any pair or flush draws.
Key takeaways
- CO will be c-betting just 14% of the time with 40bb stacks
- When facing a bet, we defend by calling 55% of the hands and raise 8% of our holdings
- Our strategy remains fairly similar when the stacks drop to 20bb and we call 59% of the hands and raise 8% in this situation
