In position after a check in a 3-bet pot: small, big or check

In this lesson

• Split an in-position range into small bets, big bets and checks after a check in a 3-bet pot.
• Make the split both as the 3-bettor and as the caller facing the 3-bettor's check.
• Predict how the split moves with board texture.
• Predict how the split moves with deeper stacks and a higher SPR.
• Explain what each option is for: value, denial, fold equity, pot control or protection.

Read first: Stack-to-pot ratio and commitment, Betting the flop as the 3-bettor, Calling a 3-bet and playing after, Flop bets by board type · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: Continuation betting, Bet sizing and polarisation, Range advantage, Nut advantage, Board texture, Dynamic and static boards, SPR and commitment, Check-raising

The spot, from both seats

This lesson is about one moment that moves a lot of money: a 3-bet pot, you are in position, and the player out of position checks to you. You can get there in two ways, and they play differently.

• Role A, the in-position 3-bettor: the cutoff opens, you 3-bet on the button, the cutoff calls and checks the flop.
• Role B, the in-position caller: you open on the button, the big blind 3-bets, you call, and the big blind checks.

Either way your whole range now has three options: bet small, bet big or check back. Splitting the range means deciding which hands go where, and why, before you think about the one hand you hold.

The flop split here is graded by Rail's flop library, which solves the 3-bet-pot lines at 6-max 100bb on 100 representative flops each. Your own hands on other flops are read from the nearest solved flop by hand category.

The pot and the stacks

Role A at 100bb, with the sizes in Rail's charts: the cutoff opens to 2.5 bb, you 3-bet to 7.5 bb on the button (three times the open, in position), the blinds fold and the cutoff calls. The pot is 7.5 + 7.5 + 0.5 + 1 = 16.5 bb, with 100 − 7.5 = 92.5 bb behind each player: an SPR of 92.5 / 16.5, about 5.6.

Role B: you open to 2.5 bb on the button, the small blind folds and the big blind 3-bets to 10 bb (four times the open, out of position), and you call. The pot is 10 + 10 + 0.5 = 20.5 bb, with 100 − 10 = 90 bb behind: an SPR of about 4.4.

At SPRs like these, one good pair is often a hand you are happy to play for stacks, and every flop bet is the first step of a plan that can end all in.

Three buckets, five jobs

Each bucket does a different job, and knowing the job lets you place hands you have never studied.

• Value: getting called by worse hands.
• Protection: a made hand that can be outdrawn bets so that it does not hand out free cards.
• Denial: overcards and backdoor draws would get cheap equity from a check; a bet makes them pay or fold.
• Fold equity: winning the pot now with a hand that rarely wins at showdown.
• Pot control: keeping the pot small with a hand that wants to reach showdown but cannot stand a raise.

The small bet is mostly value, protection and denial, on boards where you are ahead overall. The big bet is polarised: strong hands that want a big pot, and draws that can win it now or later. Checking back is pot control and free equity, plus a few strong hands that keep your checks from being an easy target.

Role A: the 3-bettor when the caller checks

Read the check first. In a 3-bet pot the caller checks to the 3-bettor almost every time, so the check tells you very little: the whole calling range is still there, strong hands included.

Small bets are the main bucket, by far. In Rail's solves of the button's 3-bet against the cutoff, the 3-bettor bets small with most of its range on almost every board: overpairs, top pairs, sets and many hands with only overcards and backdoor draws bet together. The small size works because the calling range is condensed: it holds few hands that can attack a small bet and many that must pay or fold.

Big bets are rare in position. They come mostly from overpairs and the strongest hands, a little more often on low boards, where the caller's range has the most pairs and draws to charge.

Checking back is the medium hands' bucket: second pairs and weaker top pairs that win at showdown but hate facing a check-raise with so little behind. It grows on monotone and ace-high boards, where the caller's range holds more of the hands that can fight back.

Role B: the caller when the 3-bettor checks

Here the check carries real information. In Rail's solves an out-of-position 3-bettor bets most flops, so its checks are a smaller, weaker share of its range, though they can still hide an overpair.

Even so, checking back is your biggest bucket. The caller's strongest hands, sets, two pairs and top pair with a top kicker, bet most of the time, and some air bets with them; middle and weak pairs check almost always.

Your bets are mostly small. You bet most on low and middling boards, where your pairs and connectors hit, and least on king- and queen-high boards, where the 3-bettor's checks still hold strong hands. Bigger bets come from the strongest hands, two pairs, sets and the best top pairs.

Checking back suits made hands of medium strength that fear a check-raise, hands that will reach showdown and realise their equity anyway, and some strong hands, especially when the 3-bettor is likely to bet the turn.

How the board moves the split

• High, dry boards: as the 3-bettor, bet small with most of the range; as the caller, check back more, and keep your stabs small.
• Middling and low boards: as the 3-bettor, still bet small with most of the range, with a few more big bets on the lowest boards; as the caller, bet more often, mostly small.
• Paired boards: small bets for whoever bets. Few strong hands exist, and most hands are either well ahead or drawing thin.
• Monotone and ace-high boards: more checks from the 3-bettor, and smaller bets. The high cards of the flush suit decide which hands bet.

How stack depth moves it: 100bb against 200bb

At 100bb, role A's SPR of about 5.6 leaves room for a plan. Three equal bets of about 65% of the pot get the stacks in by the river. Even a flop bet of 5.5 bb, a third of the pot, leaves a pot of 16.5 + 5.5 + 5.5 = 27.5 bb with 87 bb behind, and two bets of about 85% of the pot finish the job. One pair can bet small and still play for stacks.

Start 200bb deep and the same small flop bet leaves 192.5 − 5.5 = 187 bb behind that 27.5 bb pot. Getting it all in over two more streets would take bets of about 141% of the pot each. That changes the split:

• One-pair hands move from betting for value towards checking, or betting small for thin value.
• Sizes get bigger and checks more common, because big bets need hands that want a big pot.
• Hands that can make the nuts, such as small pairs, suited connectors and suited wheel aces, gain value, while overpairs are no longer close to the nuts.

Real opponents, and practising it in Rail

Many live 3-bettors check only their weak hands and bet everything strong. Against them a check is a strong sign that the range is capped, and in role B you can stab more often and with more hands.

Against players who almost never check-raise, the main reason to check back medium hands disappears: bet them for thin value and protection, and your check-back bucket shrinks. Against players who check-raise a lot, check back more of them.

The split puts your whole range in this spot on one of the flop library's flops, and the drills then put you in it on the turn and the river: a 3-bet pot, you in position, the opponent checked. On the turn you choose between checking, betting 75% of the pot and, when the stack is at most three pots, going all in. On the river you choose from a check, several bet sizes and all in. The grade is the one the analysis gives a real hand.

The ranges that reach the turn and the river in these drills rest on Rail's narrowing model, a heuristic estimate of how each player continues on earlier streets, as the analysis says. Treat a close grade as close.

Rules of thumb

• Name the bucket's job first: value, protection, denial, fold equity or pot control.
• As the in-position 3-bettor, bet small with most of the range; check back medium pairs, more on monotone and ace-high boards.
• As the in-position caller, check back most medium pairs and bet your strongest hands, mostly small, most often on low and middling boards.
• Big bets need the strongest hands; check back the one-pair hands that cannot stand a raise.
• Deeper stacks mean bigger sizes, more checks and less love for one pair.

When they break

• Against 3-bettors who check only weak hands, stab far more often than a balanced split would.
• Against players who rarely check-raise, bet more of your medium hands for thin value instead of checking them back.
• Multiway or with uneven stacks, the SPR and the ranges change, and so does the split.

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.