BB vs SB all-in

👀 Key Takeaways

1️⃣ SB rarely shoves, and when they do, it's often with a strong range (pocket pairs, Ax, Kx, broadways).

2️⃣ Preserving your stack is a priority to avoid unnecessary risks, especially early in the game.

3️⃣ Adapt by calling tighter than the GTO.

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1. Quick Overview of the Situation

When the Small Blind (SB) decides to shove directly, their range is generally strong.

This means we need to be cautious and call with an adjusted range.

📊 What does the SB’s range look like?

SB rarely open shoves against BB when there are still three players left at the table. But when they do, their range often includes:

Pocket pairs (55+)
Ax, especially mid and low Aces (A2–A9)
Kx and broadways
Occasionally some random hands, but that’s uncommon

Here is the GTO open shove range from SB vs BB when BTN has folded, at 12 bb deep, compared to that of recreational players:

Left: GTO range. Right: recreational players’ range. As you can see, the recreational range is noticeably stronger than the GTO range.

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SB’s range in this spot will clearly be narrower than the GTO’s.

2. Why Should You Call Tighter Than GTO?

1️⃣ Reason 1: SB is shoving a stronger range than GTO

It makes sense—since recreational players tend to shove stronger hands than GTO does, you must adapt by narrowing your calling range.

As you can see, our Exploitative range (bottom) is slightly tighter than the GTO range (top). Example shown at 14–18 bb.

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2️⃣ Reason 2: Avoid Calls With Minimal EV

Even if some hands are slightly EV+, it’s not always worth risking your stack for such small gains.

🛡️   As we’ve often repeated in these strategy guides, a low-variance approach, by choosing to go all-in less frequently, helps preserve your stack and wait for more profitable spots in the future.

Here is, for example, the difference at 14 bb between the theoretically EV+ calling range in BB vs a recreational SB shove (left) and the tighter Exploitative calling range we recommend (right):

In both cases, hands to call are in green 🟩. You’ll notice the right-hand range is a bit narrower.

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But be careful—once the effective stack gets shorter, the situation changes, and you must be willing to take almost every +EV spot, even the marginal ones.

Here’s the same comparison, but this time between 6 and 8 bb:

You’ll see that at 6–8 bb, the difference between the GTO range (left) and the Exploitative range we recommend (right) is much smaller.

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Strategic Guides

Strategic Guide

BB vs SB all-in (3-max)