Seven Ways to Win Pots Without Having Made Hands

How many times have you played a poker tournament and gone a long time without winning pots, watching your stack slowly shrink with the blinds and...

This is one of the hardest things to deal with as a poker player. You sit there, folding hand after hand, while the guy three seats to your right plays almost every hand and watches his stack triple. You start to think this guy has a collection of cards and you start to envy his luck. What you don't realize is that he only has good hands 30% of the time. The rest of the time he is employing various strategies – mostly related to his understanding of his opponents and his position at the table – to pick up chips.

He’s not relying on his cards to win pots – he’s relying on his opponents’ weaknesses and mistakes. This is what makes poker a game that’s not just about the cards. No, it’s much more than that, and this article will show you some of the ways you can accumulate chips without having to make the best hand.

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Planning and Execution

There are numerous moves you can make in a poker tournament to help build your stack. Some of them will involve taking advantage of your opponents’ weaknesses. Others will involve using your position at the table to your advantage. And in some situations, you’ll be representing a hand you don’t have, playing the way you would if you actually had that hand.

When you are going to employ a move to get chips without necessarily showing the best hand, it is important to keep two ideas in mind.

First, you need to make sure that your move makes sense. That is, it should be coherent to your opponent and in line with your tendencies and the way you play the hand. If your actions are not cohesive, your opponent will likely catch you and you will lose even more than your valuable stack of chips.

Second, you should make the move against a player who is capable of falling for it. Many players make the mistake of trying to make a move at the wrong time, such as when a player is pot-committed or against a player who is calling all raises (calling station). Find the right opponent and the right situation, and then pull the trigger – regardless of what cards you hold.

Here are some creative plays you can add to your game when the good cards aren’t coming, or even if you just want to apply pressure at your table to increase the likelihood that you’ll get paid off when you finally start making good hands. I’ll divide these seven actions into two categories: pre-flop and post-flop moves.

Pre-flop moves

1. The move “representing a great slow-played pair”

With this move you are trying to represent that you have a big pair. Typically, the best way to play this is to limp in from early position and if a raise is made and the action returns to you, you reraise as if you had limped with KK or AA. This move only works if there is a single raise and the action returns to you. Don't make the mistake of doing this when pots have been raised and reraised, as you are much less likely to be convincing in this scenario.

2. The “punish limpers using position” move

If you are at a passive table that is flushing a lot, and you have established a tight image, you can pick up some good pots by getting a series of folds with a big raise from late position or even from the blinds with a marginal hand. Make sure you make the same type of raises you would with a legitimate hand.

3. THE squeeze

The squeeze is a popular move and can work for you if you are careful not to pick smart, attentive players. One player raises and a second calls, and when the action gets to you is when you can reraise to put “pressure” on your opponents.
The reason this move works is that the player who just called usually doesn't have a good enough hand to resist a reraise. If that player had a good hand, he would have reraised himself. Meanwhile, the initial raiser has to worry about what the caller will do, so in a bad position, he can only continue with the best hands.

4. The resteal

If a player has raised from late position from your big blind, this can be a perfect opportunity to pick up some chips. It is more likely that the player is stealing and will therefore fold to a good number of reraises. However, you need to be careful that the person who made the initial raise is not a short stack or the type of player who is likely to come back at you with nothing, thus ruining your opportunity.

Post-flop moves

5. The move “representing on a bad board in an unraised pot”

How many times have you filled the small blind or checked the big blind and seen a flop like :8c :5d :3s , only to check-fold to the limper button? Most of the time it's very unlikely that this flop hit the button, and the player is simply taking advantage of position to bet and win the pot. So why not represent the flop? A dry flop like this is more likely to hit the blinds' random cards than someone who voluntarily put chips in the pot, and this aggressive move takes advantage of that fact.

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There are two ways to implement this move: leading out or check-raising. The leading out method is the most cost-effective approach because if your opponent raises, you can easily leave the hand without a significant loss. However, the problem here is that your opponent may take advantage of his positional disadvantage and float to see what you do on the turn. You can also opt to check-raise. Check-raising will cost you more chips if your opponent has a legitimate hand, but it will also make it much harder for your opponent to continue because you are representing a truly strong hand.

6. The float

This is another popular move that is tried a lot, so be careful when using it. The way this move works is that you call a bet on the flop in position in order to take down your opponents pots on the turn. When your opponent checks the turn to you, he is often telling you that he doesn't like your hand and is giving you the opportunity to take down pots.

7. The move “represent after a dangerous card”

This one is a bit harder to pull off and can be costly because it requires calling a bet in the hopes that a certain card will come. For example, let's say the flop provides possible straights and flush draws and you feel like your opponent has something along the lines of streets like top pair. You don't think you can successfully float the move, but if a sufficiently scary card, completing the draws, comes on the turn you could represent a big hand and induce a fold.

If that straight or flush card comes, you bet or even raise, telling your opponent that you have hit your hand. You can often have an opponent who predicts a legitimate hand in this situation – just don't make this move against opponents who have shown that they won't fold if they hit the board.

Conclusion – There are many ways to win pots in poker

There’s a lot more to poker than just the cards. Knowing how to win pots without relying on being dealt the best hands is often what separates the winning players from the rest.

Translated and adapted from: Seven ways to win pots without making hands