Strategic Guide

How to punish the Button without putting yourself at risk?

SB vs BTN limp (3-max)

Button limps? It often hides a weak hand. But be careful not to turn this spot into an expensive trap.

👀 Key Takeaways

1️⃣ The BTN limp is often a sign of weakness. It reflects a marginal range you can exploit.

2️⃣ Favor ISO shoves with your strongest hands: recreational players call too often with dominated hands.

3️⃣ Avoid shoving slightly EV+ hands that unnecessarily increase variance.

4️⃣ Call with hands that have good postflop potential, but stay selective: you’ll be out of position in a 3-way pot.


1. The Button’s range is rarely strong

When the BTN chooses to limp, they’re entering the pot with a hand they don’t want to fold nor raise.

This means their range includes a few strong hands occasionally, but mostly medium-strength hands.

Here’s the average limp range for recreational players on the Button across all stack depths:

As you can see, the range is very wide, with a few premiums but mostly middling hands (like JTs, K5s, 96o, etc.)
The Button should never be limping. We’ll try to capitalize on this mistake — but let’s stay cautious since we don’t have position.

2. ISO shove: often the best response

As in many similar situations, ISO shoves (or ISO all-ins) are highly effective against recreational players, who tend to call way too many dominated hands.

Shoving directly allows you to:

  • Instantly capture the dead money in the pot (2.5 bb).
  • Avoid complex and often unfavorable postflop decisions out of position.
  • Exploit recs’ tendency to overcall shoves.

Here are the recreational players’ calling percentages from the BB and BTN when you shove:

Stack size Recreational (BB) Recreational (BTN)
20–25 bb ~25% ~18%
12–14 bb ~23% ~32%
❌   In this spot, we can't compare the recreational players' call percentages to GTO. That’s because this situation doesn’t exist in GTO theory — the Button is never supposed to limp in 3-handed play under GTO strategy. However, even without a comparison point, you should know that the recreational players' call percentages are very high, especially considering their relatively weak range in this spot.

❓ Which hands should you shove?

Prioritize shoving hands that dominate the opponent’s calling range and play poorly postflop, such as strong Ax and pocket pairs.

Then, as the effective stack shrinks, progressively widen your shoving range:

Exploitative SB vs BTN limp range (18–25 bb)

Exploitative SB vs BTN limp range (14–18 bb)

⚠️ Beware of marginally +EV hands:

Avoid auto-shoving every hand that appears profitable.

For example, ISO shoving small Axo hands with a deep stack might be slightly more +EV than calling, but it's a high variance play that we generally want to avoid.

By playing more cautiously, you preserve the opportunity to capitalize on future, more profitable spots.

The following image illustrates this well — it shows the EV difference between a shove and a call at 25 bb:

🟩 Green: shove is more +EV than call. 🟥 Red: call is more +EV than shove.

Example: shoving A3o is slightly better than calling — long-term gain is about 0.04 bb.

But that gain is minimal and doesn't justify taking a significant elimination risk this early, especially if you have an edge over your opponents.

❌   In other words, just because shoving a hand is theoretically profitable doesn’t mean it’s the best practical choice. That’s a basic principle of low-variance play.

On the other hand, hesitating to ISO shove hands like AJo or TT is a common mistake.

Letting your opponents see a cheap flop denies you value and gives them a chance to outdraw you with weaker hands.

3. Calling to see a cheap flop

The alternative to ISO shoving (and folding) is calling — and that’s what you’ll do with most of your hands.

Completing the SB lets you see a flop at a low cost versus two opponents.

And since the BB squeezes very rarely, this can be profitable.

😈   Calling may not seem like an Exploitative play in this situation, but in reality, it is. Theoretically, you’re never supposed to be able to see a flop this cheaply so easily.

Here are BB squeeze frequencies:

Stack size % recreational squeeze 🐟 (BB)
20–25 bb ~4%
14–16 bb ~10%
8–10 bb ~17%
❌   As with the previous chart in this strategic guide, no GTO comparison is possible here — but just keep in mind that these squeeze percentages are low compared to what they should generally be.

But keep in mind that playing from the SB in a 3-way pot is tricky:

  • You’re always out of position.
  • You’ll often play a 3-way pot, which is inherently complex.
  • You’ll realize little equity when you miss the flop.

Don’t get overconfident. In SB, with three players, you’re still in a fairly precarious position.
➡️   Completing from the SB is a viable and often profitable strategy, especially with hands that have good postflop potential. But remain selective to avoid mistakes.

Avoid completing trash hands like T3o or 85o — they rarely realize equity and expose you to costly postflop mistakes.

Limit your calls to hands with decent postflop potential (e.g., 65s or 22).

Stay selective with the hands you call to avoid putting yourself in too many unfavorable spots.

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