You Never Fold a Suited Hand Here

Here is the cleanest rule we have found in a preflop solve. Against every open from UTG to the button, at every stack depth from 15 to 40bb, the big blind in GTO Ranges+ folds zero suited hands and zero pocket pairs to a single open. Every fold is offsuit. At 40bb against UTG, 72s calls every time while A2o folds every time.

What moves is the offsuit fold line, and it moves with the opener. Against the button, the big blind defends over 80% of hands at every depth from 25 to 40bb. Against UTG it shrinks as stacks get deeper:

Share of all hands the big blind defends (call, 3-bet or jam). MTT chip EV, 8-max, 1bb BB ante. Source: GTO Ranges+.

The other shift is how you get aggressive. Against the button, about one hand in five plays back at every depth, but the form changes: mostly jams at 25bb, a mix at 30 to 35bb, and only small 3-bets at 40bb. 22 jams at 25bb and flat-calls at 40bb. Here is the full 30bb grid against the button:

Strategy Spotlight: The River Jam Is Almost Never the Draw

The straight draws miss, you bet the river, and the big blind check-raises all-in. Most players put them on a busted draw. On three rainbow runouts in a 100bb button vs big blind pot, Solver+ says the missed open-enders check-raise the river exactly 0% of the time. They lead the turn instead, or fold when they get there.

The big blind still check-raises about 17 to 19% of the time, almost always all-in. That range is sets and two pair plus a few weak pairs holding a card from the board. So the question is not "is it a draw?" but "how many weak-pair bluffs can this board hold?" Train the read in Postflop+, or read the full river check-raise breakdown.

Hand of the Week: One Draw, Two Answers

The spot: 40bb tournament, 9-handed with antes. The button opens and you defend the big blind with a suited 6-5. Pot 6.1bb, 37.7bb behind. Flop 8♥ 7♦ 3♣: you have an open-ended straight draw. You check (the big blind checks 98.8% here) and the button bets.

Your play depends on the size. Solver+ has the button checking 33%, betting a small 1.83bb 24% and a big 4.27bb 43%. Against the small bet, 6-5 suited check-raises to 5.22bb 83% of the time. Against the big bet it just calls, 100%.

Why? Against the small bet, a raise builds a pot your draw can win two ways: by folding out the button's air now or by hitting. The big blind raises 25% of its whole range against that size. Against 4.27bb, a raise to 12.17bb puts a third of your stack in with a draw, and the big blind's total raise rate drops to 7%. Your draw would rather see the turn cheaply.

Tool Tip: The Bet Size That Gets Stacks In

That 4.27bb c-bet is not random. Put the spot into our free Geometric Sizing Calculator: a 6.1bb pot, 37.7bb behind, three streets. It returns 68.6% pot on every street: 4.2bb on the flop, 9.9bb on the turn, 23.6bb on the river, and you are all-in. The big c-bet in Solver+ is almost exactly the geometric flop bet.

Run the same numbers at 100bb (5.5bb pot, 97.5bb behind) and the geometric size jumps to 115.8% pot. It is the same reason 40bb pots play so differently: one big bet per street is enough to get everything in.

This Week in Poker

A chip and a chair, for real. Justin Vaysman was down to a fraction of a big blind with five players left at a Poker Masters final table and came back to win the event, his first PokerGO Tour title. A good reminder that a short stack still has equity, and that the spots you pick when you are short are the ones that decide it.

WSOP Paradise moves. The December series in the Bahamas is heading to a new venue this year, with more affordable buy-ins aimed at mid-stakes players. If it is on your calendar, the big blind defense numbers above are exactly the depths you will spend most of your day at.

Put It Into Practice

Drill the BB vs UTG and BB vs BTN ranges at your usual depth in GTO Ranges+, train the flop that follows in Postflop+, and check any spot in Solver+. New posts land on the blog every week.

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