Raising preflop, out of position after

In this lesson

• Explain why a raiser out of position realises less equity and bets less.
• Keep some strong hands in your checking range.
• Bet a more polarised range when you do bet out of position.
• Apply this to the small blind against the big blind and to early seats against a button caller.

Read first: Which hands bet and which check · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: Position, Check-raising

The same range, a worse seat

The small blind opens to 3 bb and the big blind calls. The pot is 3 + 3 = 6 bb with 97 bb behind, an SPR of about 16.2. The small blind raised first and has the stronger range, but it now acts first on every street.

Acting first costs equity realisation. Every check can be attacked, every bet can be raised with the big blind still to see what you do next, and medium hands find it hard to get to showdown cheaply. So the raiser out of position bets less often than the same range would in position, and checks more of its medium hands.

Where it still bets, and where it checks

In Rail's solves of the small blind against the big blind, the board decides almost everything. On king- and queen-high boards and on ace-high ones the small blind bets most of its range, mostly small. On low boards, seven-high and below, it checks nearly everything: the big blind's calling range holds more of the small pairs, two pairs and straights there.

Middling boards sit in between: fewer bets, and more of them big. The pattern is the in-position one with the dial turned towards checking.

A checking range that defends itself

When you check a lot, the checks must not all be weak. If every strong hand bets, the big blind can bet any two cards after your check and you have nothing to fight back with. Keeping some strong hands in the checking range lets you check-call and check-raise, which is what makes your checks hard to attack.

When you do bet out of position, the bet is a little more polarised than in position: strong hands and good draws, with fewer thin value bets. A third of the pot here is 2 bb, and a pure bluff of that size needs 2 / (6 + 2) = 25% folds.

The flop drills are dealt from Rail's flop library, where the small blind against the big blind is the single-raised line with the raiser out of position. Your own hands on flops the library did not solve are read from the nearest solved flop by hand category.

Rules of thumb

• Out of position, bet less often and check more medium hands than the same range would in position.
• Bet the high boards your range dominates; check most of the low boards that favour the caller.
• Keep strong hands among your checks so the caller cannot bet freely into them.
• When you bet out of position, lean polarised: strong hands and good draws.

When they break

• Against a big blind that never bets when checked to, checking strong hands loses value: bet them.
• Against one that stabs every check, check more strong hands and let it bet.

Example hands

Practice

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