One of the things that fascinates me about poker is that, even though I've been playing for over ten years, I still find room to improve my game, even in the most mundane situations.
Let's take preflop raising as an example. It's a decision I face in almost every hand of No-Limit Hold'em, but I'm still unsure about which to choose: minimum raises, pot-sized raises, or something in between.
Here's another example. I've made thousands upon thousands of decisions about whether or not to bet a flop after raising preflop, but I still find myself thinking over and over how I should play in these situations.
This, I think, is a very healthy thing to do. As much fun as it is to make wild plays and all-in decisions, focusing on small improvements to the more fundamental elements of your game is probably more valuable.
Let’s consider what a bet accomplishes in simple terms. When you bet (or raise), your opponent can respond in two ways. He can either fold or put more money into the pot. Based on this principle, you should only bet if you have a chance of winning on at least one of these outcomes, and the most profitable bet tends to benefit from both outcomes.
Consider, for example, a semi-bluff. You bet :6c :5c on a :9d :8c :3c flop. Given that you have a 6-high, you certainly benefit from your opponent folding, since only your very bad cards would have significant equity in the pot.
This, of course, is true for any weak hand that you bet with. What makes this particular hand special is that, while it doesn't exactly benefit from your opponent continuing to put money into the pot, it's not that weak if that happens, compared to other weak hands. There are plenty of situations in poker where betting with a draw is profitable, but betting with other weak hands is not.
Another simple example is betting :Ad :9d on the same flop. In this case, you have top pair with top kicker and can expect to be ahead even if the bet is called. Your opponent may have some kind of draw, a low pair, or best of all, a top pair with a kicker dominated by yours.
However, your hand is vulnerable, and you also gain something if your opponent folds. A hand like KQ would probably fold to a bet, but would win almost 25% of the time if you saw the turn and river. Some less vulnerable hands, like 99 or :Qc :9c , usually win less by betting than by just checking, even though they are good hands on this flop.
This is all very basic stuff, but I want you to keep it all in mind as I look at an example of a tricky hand I played during the $2,000 Spring Championship of Online Poker.
The blinds were 50/100 with an ante of 10. I was first to act, holding :Ad :Ac and raised to 300. An excellent tournament player called from the cutoff, the rest of the table folded. The pot was 840 chips, my opponent was about 10k behind and I had a little over 13k.
The flop came :7d :4c :3c . Since I was holding :Ac , I had very little to gain if my opponent folded. This may not be obvious, since the turn could easily have put three cards for a flush or a fourth card for a straight, but it is true.
There's no way my opponent can turn a higher pair than me. The :Ac in my hand limits the number of flush draws he could have, and it also gives me the option of a redraw in the unlikely event that he turns a flush.
It is true that any straight draw my opponent might have would have considerable equity against my Aces. For example, :7h :6h has over 30% equity against my AA in this situation. It would be great to make my opponent fold this hand, but there is no reason to believe that a bet would have that effect.
Of course, betting and getting called on a hand with only 30% equity is preferable to letting that hand see the turn card for free, and many of the hands that could call my bet have much less than 30% equity. Most players don't look beyond that. They think, "I have a good hand, worse hands can call me, time to bet!"
However, it's worth thinking about until the end of the hand. How would you feel if your bet was raised? How many cards on the turn would make you want to bet again? How many cards on the river? If you double-bet and check the river, how would you feel if your opponent made a big bet?
I'm not saying that betting and getting called is a bad thing with Aces, what I'm saying is that it's not as good as it might seem at first glance, which makes it worth considering the other options. If you check, your opponent will also be able to bet many of the hands that would call your bet, as well as some weaker hands that wouldn't have called. If both players checked the flop, you could value bet the turn and river with much more confidence than you would if you were to bet all three streets.
I would probably bet more often with smaller pairs, as well as with Aces without the Ace of Clubs. With these hands, your opponent's folding is a profitable outcome, as is a call. Taken together, these two possibilities make betting desirable. With my exact hand, however, getting called was only a reasonable outcome and him folding would be worth very little, so I decided to check. My opponent bet half the pot and I called.
The turn came :7d . I checked, he bet half the pot again and I called. The river came :7c . I checked, he bet two-thirds of the pot and I called again, to beat his pocket 5s.
Let's look at my opponent's betting decisions that I think were good despite the outcome of the hand.
After I check the flop, there's a good chance that his hand is best, but it's still very vulnerable. Not only could I improve to a top pair, but I could also simply put him in a tough decision just by pretending to improve. Therefore, his pocket 5s definitely profit from my fold.
At the same time, they don't look bad if they get called. They would still be ahead of AK, have 6 outs against higher pairs (except any 6), and give the player the option to continue throwing chips, representing a set or straight, if they feel it is necessary.
A lot of the same arguments apply to the turn. He doesn't have to worry about my hand improving since the flop, since he was ahead of the potential overcards I could have, plus the board is now even scarier for a top pair. Again, he wins a lot with my fold and it's not too bad if he gets called.
After I called two bets, the chances of me not being able to hit the pocket 5s have diminished considerably. On some rivers he could simply fold and go to showdown. However, this particular one gives him another opportunity to represent a strong hand.
Since I was holding a very significant blocker I had an easy call on the river. This was all part of the plan, from the moment I checked the flop.
I still think my opponent played well. He was just unlucky that a hand in his 3-barrel bluffing range met a hand in my calling range.
You might be thinking that just betting the flop would be more profitable, and it would also avoid the awkward situation of having to call a big bet on the river with a middling hand that could only win with something like a bluff. Unfortunately, when you’re out of position against a tough player, you generally can’t avoid having to make tough decisions. It’s best to anticipate and be prepared for them.
If I had bet the flop, he might have raised and put me in a very tough position. Or, he could have called and raised a bet on the turn, or bet if I had checked the turn, or called and raised a bet on the river, or bet if I had checked the river. The point is, I can't force him to stop representing a big hand, so I'd better put myself in a position where I at least have a good decision to make when he does.
This doesn't mean I was certain I had the best hand, my opponent could be playing many better hands just as well, which is what makes his play a good bluff. I was, however, certain that with the Ace in my hand, calling was by a large margin more profitable than folding, meaning I had a clear decision to make.
This was a special, action-packed hand played in a high-stakes tournament, involving 3-street betting, a big bluff, and a big call. It’s not the kind of thing you see every day. Yet I would argue that the most important decisions came in the more mundane aspects of the play. I had to decide whether or not to c-bet the flop, and then my opponent had to decide whether or not to bet against my check. These two decisions set the stage for everything that followed, which shows just how important it is to get the basics of poker right.
ANDwritten by: Andrew Brokos
Translated and adapted from: Why Bet?
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