Facing an SB open, you have position — but beware: your opponent often has a strong range. Let’s look at the different options available.
👀 Key Takeaways
1️⃣ The SB’s range is stronger than GTO, but SB will make mistakes out of position.
2️⃣ Recreational players call too much against 3-bets, making bluffs ineffective.
3️⃣ Use 3-bet shoves to maximize the EV of your strongest hands.
4️⃣ Adjust your calls depending on the strength of the open (especially based on sizing).
5️⃣ Calling or folding a marginal hand doesn’t matter much—as long as your overall range stays consistent.
1. What does the SB open range look like?
🤏 SB opens rarely… and strong
Recreational players in the Small Blind tend to open-raise much less than GTO.
Their range is tighter and stronger than expected — often including Ax, broadways, and pocket pairs.
Here is a comparison between the GTO open range and the recreational players’ open range from the Small Blind at 25 bb:
Left: GTO SB open range (🟥 = open, 🟦 = fold). Right: Recreational players’ open range in the same spot.
You can clearly see the recreational range is stronger than the GTO.
👀 It might not be obvious at first glance, but if you look not only at the green colors but also at the numbers inside the boxes of the recreational players' range (which indicate how often each hand is opened), you'll notice that their range is actually stronger than the GTO one.
📊 Sizing is a strong indicator
Without realizing it, recreational players give away information based on their open sizing:
2x: usually a wide and merged range.
3x or more: typically a stronger hand (solid Ax, KQs, 99+).
➡ The larger the sizing, the more you should tighten your calling range.
Here are recreational SB open ranges (all stack sizes):
Left = opens with 2x sizing, Right = opens with 3x+ sizing. Each number represents how many times recreational players open-raised with that combo (raw frequencies). → The takeaway: the 3x+ range is clearly stronger overall.
⚠️ They call too much vs. 3-bets
Another major leak among recreational players: they call 3-bet shoves from the BB far more often than GTO would.
This might seem logical —since their open range is stronger—but even accounting for that, their call frequency is still excessive.
⏮️ This follows the general pattern we’ve seen throughout these strategy guides: recreational players tend to call too much with dominated hands.
Here’s a comparison of GTO vs. recreational call frequency vs. a BB 3-bet shove:
Stack Size
GTO 🤖
Recreationals 🐟
20-25 bb
~29%
~54%
16-18 bb
~38%
~69%
12-14 bb
~41%
~77%
8-10 bb
~51%
~86%
2. What strategy should you use?
❌ Avoid 3-bet bluffs
Bluffing against a recreational player is rarely profitable.
They don’t fold enough, and you’ll end up in tricky pots with weak hands.
➡️ Keep it simple and completely remove bluffs from your 3-bet range. You’ll save a lot of chips.
You’ve likely noticed: recreational players tend to be very sticky.
📈 Exploit overcalling with 3-bet shoves
3-bet shoving is the most effective action for your strongest hands. It directly exploits recreational players who overcall with dominated hands (like A5o, KJo…).
⚠️ But be careful: only 3-bet shove with your very best hands. Since the SB has a relatively strong range, as we’ve seen above, we’ll prefer to flat call with a large portion of our range when SB open raises.
Here is our Exploitative BB vs SB open range (18–25 bb):→ Only the very best hands are shoves (with AA and KK excluded).
Even at 10 bb effective stack, we remain tight, because the SB’s open range is still strong:
Our Exploitative BB vs SB open range (8–10 bb): the shove range remains narrow.
❓ Which hands to call? Which to fold?
You have positional advantage over the SB, which helps.
But don’t overdo it—SB’s open range is strong, so you’ll still need to fold part of your range.
Here’s the EV differencebetween calling and the second-best option (shove or fold) at 14–16 bb:
🟩 = call is most EV+. 🟥 = call is not the most EV+.
You can see that the boundary between a call and a fold is quite gradual.
For example:
Choosing to call J7o instead of folding it will never be a major mistake.
Conversely, folding Q7o instead of calling won’t be a serious error either.
➡️ Calling with a borderline hand that should have been folded — or folding a hand that should have been called — won’t be a mistake as long as you stay consistent in the long run.
📊 Adjust your range based on SB open sizing
As mentioned earlier, recreational players unintentionally signal hand strength with their sizing.
Our ranges are built assuming:
2.5 bb open when stacks are ≥12 bb
2 bb open when stacks are <12 bb
Recreational players give you clues with their open-raise sizing from the Small Blind.
If you’re a bit of a perfectionist, you can adjust your calling range based on the SB’s sizing like this:
Facing a 2 bb open at 14 bb+: widen your calling range slightly.
Facing a 2.5 bb open at <12 bb or a 3x+ open at any stack size: tighten your range and defend only solid hands.
