Puzzles
#14
Position
Advanced
30bb effective

The same range, the other seat

The book takes the button’s range, leaves it completely unchanged, and makes it act first on the flop. Nothing about the cards moves. Everything about the strategy does — and the gap between the two is what position is worth.

  1. Flop

Hand info

Seats
BTN vs BB
Street
Flop
Pot
5.5 bb
Effective stack
27.5 bb
To call
Nothing — you may check

MODIFIED SIMULATION. Preflop is real: you opened the button, the big blind called. On the flop the book flips who acts first while both players keep their original ranges — so you hold the button’s 49% range with no position. This cannot happen at a table; it is the book’s own thought experiment, built to price position with range held constant. A♣Q♦ is illustrative only — the question is about the range.

Pot5.5 BB
D
HERO ·BTN
27.5 BB
SB
FOLD
BB
27.5 BB
UTG
FOLD
HJ
FOLD
CO
FOLD

FLOP · 27.5BB EFFECTIVE

FLOP · FIRST TO ACT

6-max table. Hero is BTN with 27.5 big blinds effective. FLOP: 6c, 5d, 4s. FLOP · FIRST TO ACT. Hero holds Ac and Qd.

Hand history

Pre-flop

  • BTNRaises to 2.5 bb
  • SBFolds
  • BBCalls 1.5 bb

Flop

  • 6♣ 5♦ 4♠ — pot 5.5 bb
  • Positions flipped — you are first to act

You opened the button with a standard 49% range and the big blind called with a standard 64% range. The flop is 6♣ 5♦ 4♠ — rainbow. Now the book flips the experiment: both players keep the exact ranges they just built, but you are the one who has to act first. This is a modified simulation, not a seat you can be dealt — it exists so the effect of position can be measured with the ranges held still.

You hold the button’s range, but you are out of position. What is your action?