When the action folds around to us in the SB, we have an excellent opportunity to boost our winrate with exploitative strategies.
Most poker players fail to maximise the potential of this scenario.
The two most common strategy blind spots are as follows -
- Missing opportunities to expand SB RFI frequency vs weak opponents.
- Completely ignoring the SB complete option.
Post the advent of solvers, many regulars stick to a standard 43% SB RFI for a 3bb sizing.
Let’s discuss why rigid adherence to GTO poker is a mistake, and how we can capitalise on winrate gain from the SB unopened position.
Attack Big Blinds Who Fold Too Often
According to theory, our opponent in the BB is supposed to defend roughly 50% of the time when facing a 3bb SB RFI. If our opponent is folding more than this, we can profitably expand our RFI frequency.
If our opponent folds more than 62.5% of the time, we can profitably open 100% of our SB holdings.
We might not always know our opponent’s precise folding frequency, but we can gradually increase our RFI frequency the more we notice our SB steals are succeeding.
If our opponent is folding less than 50% in their poker games, they are defending too frequently. While it often doesn’t make sense to RFI aggressively in this context, it doesn’t mean we must play a tight range. We can still consider our SB complete option.
Utilise the SB Complete Option
Many players totally ignore the option to complete in the SB because they associate it with ‘limping’, which is a generally considered weak option in Hold’em.
While limping from non-SB positions is often not recommended, SB completing can be extremely profitable and is even a solver-approved line.
GTO completes in the SB around ~10% of the time, but we can potentially complete much wider depending on our opponent in the BB.
How to Expand SB Complete
The following BB traits allow us to increase our SB completing frequency beyond the solver-approved 10%.
- BBs who raise less than 40% of the time against a SB complete.
- Weak players in the BB who we want to play postflop against.
Theory says that the BB should raise around 40% of the time against a SB complete. Any time the BB raises less than this, we get to see more flops than we are supposed to.
This scenario typically gives us a poker probability to complete around 30% of holdings while still raising around 40%.
In addition, if the BB is a very weak player, we can potentially expand our approach to playing 100% of holdings. We retain the theoretically correct 40% RFI and complete an additional 60% of hands, never folding anything.
Although it’s technically unbalanced, we should generally complete with our weakest poker hand rankings while raising the stronger ones. This play only becomes a problem if our opponent in the BB starts raising above 40% of the time.
If that happens, it becomes correct to set traps and ‘protect’ our completing range by completing with premium holdings (including AA).
Key Takeaway – Increase SB Unopened VPIP
The key takeaway here is that we can significantly increase our SB winrate by playing many more hands than a solver might suggest.
The solver assumes that the BB is a perfect opponent, whereas this is NEVER the case in practice.
Next up, check out how to repair your biggest big blind leak you never knew you had!
