We're gunna node-lock and look at the AK3r flop in the next video in this series and see CO's max EV response versus the exact strategy you highlight here (range cbet by BB for 30% pot) :)

It's possible you're overestimating just how much fold equity you have cbetting this texture/just how good of a texture it is for the BB's 3b composition and how much EV a lot of our range has checking. IP has strong coverage of Ax/close to full weights of KK+/close to full weights of AT-AQ/reasonable coverage of Kx and likely doesn't need to 'reach' and continue versus a small cbet w/ much wider than this + its broadway gutters as result...once you cbet range and IP continues you run into the issue of having a lot of hands in the awkward spot of being OOP in a bloated pot versus a strengthened range and are going to have a very hard time protecting your checking range/not allowing IP to capture large amounts of EV versus it

The reality is this board is one for OOP where our range just sort've 'naturally polarizes' and which we don't need much protection - we have a bunch of hands like AJ+ that are the effective nuts now and will still be on most run outs. Then we have a bunch of hands like weak Ax/Kx/underpairs that don't need protection and aren't incentivized to bet and strengthen IP's range/fold out all of the hands we crush.

Good question, thanks for giving me a chance to clarify.

Basically, protection is always playing some sort of role when we are betting on the flop, it's just to different degrees and to benefit different parts of our range that we use the different sizes.

The larger cbet size tends to be used more in spots there are lots of draws present and we're looking to get protection for hands that are strong now (hands like strong top pair/vulnerable overpairs) but prone to having villain's draws improve to hands that beat those hands on many turn/river cards.

Conversely, the smaller, more frequent cbet strategy tends to be used on dry/static textures, where there are less draws present + our strong value hands retain their equity better across streets + we get value/protection for a wider class of hands like strong high card/2nd/3rd pairs/underpairs/etc. These classes benefit from getting a lot of 6-out hands to fold and also get a little bit of value from worse holdings.

While the "larger when we need more protection/smaller when we need less" is a solid heuristic for figuring out which cbet strategy to execute in most spots, it's also just that: a heuristic. There are exceptions to it, and the AK3r flop is one of those. The thing about a texture like AK3 is that when we cbet, even for a small size, IP has such density in their 3b defending range around Ax and Kx that they have a lot of easy/'natural' defends and can adequately hit their defense threshold and end up w/ a calling range that's weakest holdings are hands like JTs and a frequency of pocket pairs. Arriving to the turn OOP in a bloated pot at a range disadvantage w/ a massive medium/weak hand class component is not a recipe for good things. BB also doesn't really have any class of hand that 'accomplishes' anything from the utilization of the small size over the benefits of other options like checking or betting bigger (opportunity cost is a core principle in poker!). Now compare this w/ a texture like AJ2r where BB does prefer the small cbet size over the larger one since i) IP's defense is less strong/natural and includes holdings at robust weights as weak as K5s and Q8s, and Ii) BB has more hands that benefit from protection on this texture, hands like QQ-KK, Jx, etc.

Ryan Martin Reading this, seems like we bet big on AK3r, because we are way ahead or way behind, maybe we bet big with at least double backdoors (bfd+str8 or bfd+wheel and nutted hands)

This just seems far away from population tendencies but has lot of sense for me now, I appreciate your time.

Coming up in part #2 (specifically that AK3 spot, too!)