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What if SB minraises preflop, what if SB 2.5x and what about 2.9x? What's so special about 3xing at 100bb deep (or whatever stackdepth it was) that means BB can't defend atc profitably?
There is nothing special about a 3x open. That is just the sizing I use in my example. It also happens to be the most common SB open sizing.
Where is the cutoff for when BB can no longer profitably defend 100%? Can BB even defend 100% vs. a min-raise? I don't know, and I haven't claimed to know or even guessed at where this cutoff is. I am just guessing that he can't do it at 3x.
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4 years ago many winning regs defended less than 50% vs a minraise HU. So virtually every single good player back them would have been making huge mistakes.
I think your point here is that just because good players do something doesn't mean it's correct. Let me respond.
1)In this HU situation, it's not so clear to me that defending less than 50% is a mistake. Yes, it lets BTN autoprofit, but since he has a positional advantage, he may be entitled to autoprofit. I don't play HU so I don't know what a common defense frequency vs a minraise is nowadays. Either way, this scenario is certainly less clear than 72o vs a 3x SB open.
2)Theory has advanced a lot in the past 4 years. And as time goes on, players are playing more and more balanced and closer to GTO. Therefore, what winning players are doing today is more likely to be correct than what players were doing 4 years ago.
3)When virtually every single winning player (not "many" or "most" or "80%" but practically every single winning player) does the same thing in a particular situation (e.g., fold 72o vs a 3x SB open), then I think it is very likely for this to be correct. Just like it is very likely that open raising AA UTG (as opposed to limping) is correct.
4)I'll elaborate on my last point in my previous post. Think about the consequences of defending 100% of your range from the BB vs a 3x open. As part of a GTO strategy, you cannot allow villain to profitably tripple barrel with his entire range on average. Therefore, you have to call down with a certain percentage of your range on average. And since your preflop range is so weak, you're going to have to call down with a lot of bad hands, which, I would imagine could easily be exploited by a standard value-oriented strategy. I mean, you're basically just a calling station.