Big blind against the button, start to finish

The most common single-raised pot, big blind against a button open, played from flop to river with everything from the two modules before.

The flop drills here are dealt from Rail's flop library: twelve heads-up 6-max 100bb lines, each solved on 100 representative flops. A drill's flop is one of those, so it is graded combo for combo. Your own hands on any other flop are read from the nearest solved flop by hand category, and the analysis marks those grades as mapped.

Approximate: the ranges here are hand-written teaching ranges or rest on Rail's narrowing model, not on a solve of the whole hand. The direction is what to take away.

In this lesson

Plan a big blind defence against a button open from the flop to the river.
Combine the raiser's and the caller's ideas in one hand.
Handle mixed turn and river decisions in a single practice session.
Find and replay your own big blind versus button hands.

Read first: Defending against a flop bet, Check-raising the flop, Calling in position and taking it away, Leading into the raiser · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: Blind defence, Continuation betting, MDF and alpha

The most common pot

Button opens to 2.5 bb, big blind calls: pot 5.5 bb, 97.5 bb behind. This single line is a large share of every online player's postflop hands, and everything in this module meets in it.

The SPR is about 17.7. Getting all the chips in over three streets with equal bets would take bets of about 116% of the pot each time. That is why one pair rarely plays for stacks in a single-raised pot: the money goes in only when one side holds a very strong hand or the other side keeps paying.

Flop, turn, river

Flop: check your range. Defend against small bets with most pairs and every real draw; raise your strongest hands and best draws, more on low and connected boards.
Turn after you call: keep calling with hands that improved or kept good outs; fold the weakest pairs to big bets.
Turn after the button checks back: its range is capped, so probe with value and with draws.
River: bluff-catch with hands that beat the button's bluffs when the price is right, and fold the ones that do not.

Practising it

The flop drill deals the big blind facing the button's bet on the library's flops; the turn and river drills come from single-raised pots solved on demand.

Flop spots come from Rail's flop library; turn and river spots rest on ranges Rail narrows through the earlier streets. Your own hands on flops the library did not solve are read from the nearest solved flop.

Rules of thumb

Check the flop, defend wide against small bets, raise strong hands and good draws.
Fold the weakest pairs to big turn bets; keep hands that improved or have good outs.
Probe turns after the button checks back.
In a single-raised pot, one pair rarely plays for stacks.

When they break

Against a button that opens and c-bets almost every hand, defend wider and raise more.
Against a passive button that only bets strong hands, fold more to big turn and river bets.

Example hands

Examples come from two places only: your own analysed hands in this lesson's spots, and a hand Rail deals and grades itself. Never a hand from outside Rail.

From your own hands

A hand Rail deals

Rail scripts this hand from the lesson's own practice, always the same one, and grades it with the analysis. Decide first, then read Rail's verdict.

Practice

The lesson is mastered when every exercise below that Rail can grade is passed. Missed items come back later as review cards.

Exercise 1

Pass: 3 of 5 right

Five flops from Rail's library, big blind against the button's bet: fold, call or raise.

Exercise 2

Pass: 2 of 3 right

Three turns from single-raised pots, solved on demand.

Exercise 3

Pass: 2 of 3 right

Three rivers from single-raised pots, solved on demand.

Exercise 4

Optional

Your own hands as the preflop caller in single-raised pots, on any street, the costliest first.

Module F3 review · Single-raised pots: the caller

6 items mixed across this module's lessons: a spot from one lesson, a sum from another. Telling which idea a spot asks for is half of it. Missed items join your review cards; the score is not kept.