SB vs BB (3-max)

1. Why is the Small Blind (SB) position hard to play?

When you're in the SB facing the BB, you're always out of position preflop and postflop.

Your opponent will act last, making decisions trickier and increasing your chance of errors.

Pots are usually small but technical, and the hands involved are often marginal.

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❓Why simplify your SB strategy?

A strategy with too many options often leads to misplays — especially when you're out of position.That’s why it’s recommended to keep things simple, so you can focus on efficiency and reduce errors.

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⚔️ Wide ranges and frequent confrontations

In SB vs BB, neither player holds a clearly dominant range.

Unlike when you open from the Button, you're often facing the BB with mediocre hands.

And since, you've already committed 0.5bb, you're forced to defend wider despite the positional disadvantage.

On the other hand, the BB will defend an even wider range — having already invested 1bb and being in position:

➡ Result: both ranges are wide, showdowns are frequent, and postflop play is hard to navigate.

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2. What strategy should you adopt? Shove, min‑raise, or fold?

Forget complicated mixes for now.

Against recreational profiles, an effective exploitative strategy rests on two pillars:

• Min‑raise 2x: a simple, standard open that generates many folds from recs. We’ll explore sizing variations later.
  

• Fold

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❓Why raise more vs recreational players?

You’ll notice that GTO opens less than our exploitative charts. In other words, against recs, we recommend a wider opening range from the SB. Why?

Our data shows recreational BBs:

• fold too often facing a 2x open
  

• 3‑bet too little, whether all‑in or not

BB’s fold % vs 2x SB open:

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BB’s 3‑bet % vs 2x SB open:

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That said, don’t feel obligated to open 92s, 82s, J6o, etc., if you aren’t comfortable.

It’s a good exploitative adjustment, but sticking to a tighter GTO open range yields solid play with less room for error.

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📊 What sizing for your min‑raises?

Adjust sizing based on both:

• Stack depth
• Hand strength

Recreational players don’t adjust to sizing — so exploit that by aligning your raise size with your intentions.

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🤔 What about limps?

Limping is an interesting option… but it complicates everything:

• Doubles the number of postflop scenarios to master (limped vs raised pots)
  

• Harder to memorize ranges

➡ So we don’t recommend it by default — but it’s not incorrect.

If you’re comfortable, you may consider limping some of your weaker top-of-fold hands: Q4o, J5o, T5o, 64o, etc.

3. Open shove or min‑raise: which one?

SB is a tough position. In this context, simplifying decisions with open‑shoves (OS) can be a great solution.

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❓Why include open‑shoves in your strategy?

With 1.5bb of dead money in the pot, simplification with OS is smart, especially when EV(shove) ≈ EV(min‑raise).

• From 12–14bb, shove EV often matches or exceeds min‑raise EV.
  

• Shove eliminates postflop uncertainty.
  

• Extracts the dead money (1.5bb).
  

• Reduces the risk of errors in a tough spot

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🌡️ A key metric to watch

Your chip‑EV in SB vs BB is a great indicator. Theoretically, SB loses money, at least versus competent opponents.

But in practice—with mostly recreational opponents—if you aren’t at least break‑even long‑term, it means:

• Your preflop strategy is too complex or poorly executed, OR
• Your postflop SB game needs work

If you don’t know it already, check this stat in your tracker.

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➡️ Above 14bb: a few open-shoves to exploit bad calls

At 14bb+, the purpose of an open-shove isn’t just to simplify your decisions — it’s to punish weak calls made by recreational players in the BB.

BB’s call frequency vs SB open-shove:

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Hands like ATs, A9s, 88+ gain a ton of value when shoved against these players:

→ They dominate the typical calling range of the BB

→ They eliminate postflop complexity

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➡️ Below 14bb: prioritize open-shoves over min-raises

At these stack sizes, recreational players start overfolding to shoves, giving your all-ins extra fold equity.

Many hands become just as profitable to shove as to min-raise or limp, with only ~0.05 EV difference in theory.

Example:

97s at 12bb → same theoretical EV when shoved or min-raised (~0.37 EV).

But shoving locks in that EV right away, while raising puts you in a tough postflop spot OOP.

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➡️ Below 12bb: shoving becomes optimal

Recreational players — and even some regs — tend to overfold vs shoves at this depth.

This makes most hands that are already EV+ as a raise even better to shove.

Also, postflop play becomes unstable: every mistake is more costly when stacks are short.

The image below shows the EV difference between an open shove (OS) and the second-best option (usually a min-raise), based on recreational BB tendencies. As you can see, OS often guarantees at least break-even EV, while simplifying a tricky situation.

Without diving too deep into the solver logic, here's the takeaway:

• Green squares 🟩: shoving is the best option, better than min-raising
• Bottom red squares 🟥 (trash hands): folding is better than shoving
• Top-left red squares 🟥 (premium hands): hands too strong to shove → prefer a min-raise to maximize value

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In short: The SB vs BB spot in 3-max is relatively complex, but with the right ranges and a solid game plan, you’ll make it work.