Playing Calls From the Button in Cash Games

When first beginning to study cash game poker strategy, there is a common refrain that you might often hear:

“Just play 3-bet or fold from anywhere but the BB.”

Benefits of 3-Bet Only

There is a good reason for this; it prevents (over)calls from positions where you shouldn’t have any, with hands that should probably just be folded. This piece of advice is the simplest way to cut that bad habit out, but, as we will soon learn, it removes the play too in spots where it is appropriate.

Additionally, it creates a simplified strategy—you only need to consider one range when you decide to play a hand, rather than two. You may lose some amount of EV from theory by playing a simpler strategy, but if you would be making significant mistakes playing a more complex strategy, the simplified strategy could be preferred.

Benefits of 3-Bet and Call

There are advantages, however, to playing calls from late positions, particularly the Button. Doing so allows us to play more pots in position postflop; when given the option to call, BTN can play nearly 16% of hands against a UTG open in a 6-max game. When forced to only 3-bet or fold, this drops to under 10%. This ability to open up our range is particularly useful when we expect to have a skill edge over our opponents postflop.

Additionally, when we do 3-bet, we make more EV and avoid tricky situations, since we strengthened our 3-betting range by playing some more marginal hands as mixed calls. In this way, some parts of the game tree become easier to play, despite the higher complexity strategy.

When To Call Preflop

Not all opens are created the same; there is a significant difference in strategy facing a CO open compared to a UTG open. The adjustment to make here is rather simple, however—the earlier the position of the raise, the more we call instead of 3-bet. This is because against earlier position raises, we expect to get 4-bet more often and generate fewer folds thanks to stronger ranges from early position.

This effect is rather dramatic:

Against a CO open, BTN will 3-bet ~12% of hands, while calling only 5%.
Against a UTG open, there are more calls than 3-bets (8.2% calls, 7.5% 3-bets).

This means that we have to call hands as strong as AKo and QQ at some frequency, as our calling range contains a lot of marginal hands that generally prefer to call but can only do so confidently if accompanied by additional protectors.

BTN response vs UTG min-open: NL500, 100bb starting stacks

BTN response vs CO 2.3x open: NL500, 100bb starting stacks

Speaking of frequencies, almost every hand that we continue with is going to be a mix between calling and 3-betting, with the exception of the very top of our range.

Playing Flops

When playing calls from the Button, ranges will look significantly different than they would when calling from the BB. These range differences, combined with the fact that we play postflop IP, mean that many heuristics that apply to common single-raised pot (SRP) spots will be altered or irrelevant. Since the majority of calls will emerge when playing against UTG opens, we will focus on those spots to explore postflop strategy.

How it started

One of the most striking differences when calling from the BTN is how it affects c-bet strategies:

Against a BB call, UTG is allowed to bet very often due to their strong range advantage, range-betting many boards that favor them.
Against a BTN cold-call, UTG only bets about ⅓ of the time across all flops.

UTG’s aggregate c-bet flop strategy vs BTN

Despite UTG’s stronger range, there are two primary factors driving the strategic shift:

After calling from the BTN, our range is significantly less weighted down by air than a BB calling range would be.
UTG is now playing OOP, forcing them to be far more cautious—theory rarely plays overbets, despite UTG often having a nut advantage on many boards.

With the UTG player checking so often, you might expect our strategy to look rather aggressive, but in fact, the opposite is true. Thanks to the strong range that UTG has opened with, we check back more than ½ of the time across all flops.

This specific dynamic caused by a BTN call forces both players into a defensive stance on the flop.

Flop Texture

As with any spot, the texture of the board will significantly impact strategy. Let’s look at some common groups of textures.

King-High

UTG c-bets most commonly when the board is King-high. Additionally, UTG prefers the board to be disconnected, rainbow, and at least paired. In other words, UTG benefits the most when the marginal hands that we, as the BTN cold-caller, have in our range are least able to connect, allowing them to exercise their strong overpair advantage. This is a heuristic that remains true in other SRP spots.

Ace-High

UTG also c-bets quite frequently on Ace-high boards, but there’s a significant dropoff in specific types of Ace-high boards, and one that we want to be attentive to when executing our own strategy. This brings us to the next group of textures.

Two Cards Below Ten

When there are two cards below a Ten on the flop, UTG begins to check with very high frequency, with the exception of when the board is paired. The explanation for this goes back to our preflop calling range: When cold-calling from the BTN, we have all low pocket pairs in our range, which UTG will have at a much lower concentration of their range, if at all. While UTG still has an advantage in the absolute nuts, since we always 3-bet AA, much of their range is focused around high cards, and our advantage in set combos and general connectivity with the board forces them to slow down.

On the other hand, when checked to, our strategy from the BTN on these boards involves using almost exclusively overbets to leverage this advantage, centered around our strong Ace-x and sets for value, and using hands that block sets as well as strong draws for our primary bluffs.

Lower and Lower

As boards get lower, UTG checks more and more, as we would expect from a high-card-heavy range.

Interestingly, however, our BTN strategy when checked to on low boards becomes rather similar to c-bet strategies as the initial raiser on high card boards: Betting very frequently for a small size. In position on these lower boards, our range becomes advantaged in a similar way as an IP preflop raiser against a BB call: UTG’s range now contains a fairly large amount of air and very few nutted hands. The best way to attack such a range is to bet small.

One notable difference is that UTG’s range contains a lot more equity than a BB calling range, as their high cards do have significant equity against our one pair holdings, as well as still having overpairs that checked to us, so we should expect to continue to the turn far more often than in the scenario we’re comparing to.

Summary

Having a strong grasp of playing calls from the Button allows us to exercise our skill advantage more often, and can yield more profit.
Many aspects of playing the flop are altered by the different range that we have called from the Button, as well as acquiring the power of position postflop.
Our advantage is the greatest on boards that reduce the strength of their overpairs and support our marginal preflop calls.

Author

Aidan Heberle

Aidan “OpiWrites” Heberle is a lifelong strategy game enthusiast with a passion for understanding games through teaching them. He’s a NLHE Cash specialist and is always looking to improve both his and others’ game.

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