One of the most difficult situations we face in poker is when we are faced with a bet from a player who is representing a better hand than ours, at a time when there will be more betting rounds after that.
The problem, in simplified terms, consists of considering whether you have a significant chance of improving your hand to the point of beating the one your opponent is representing. But what if you have no chance? If results like this are not taken into account either way, i.e. when there are no cards so good to come that they change the game completely at once, you have a difficult call with a mediocre hand, as there will usually still be another two rounds of betting to come.
A typical situation is when, for example, you're holding JJ in No Limit Hold'em and the board comes up something like 9 7 3 2 rainbow, and then the player who re-raised pre-flop bets about half the pot again. Against this player, you estimate that your chances of having the best hand are around 30%. If you raise, he'll probably call with hands that beat you and fold with hands that lose to yours. So a raise would be wrong. So should you call?
In this case, it all comes down to a simple mathematical problem
If you or he are all-in, or almost all-in, it's a simple math problem and an easy call. Let's say the pot is $100 and he posts $50. With pot odds of 150 to 50, you would only need to win 25% of the time to make the call correct. You have about a 34% chance of winning, including the chance of another J. However, from now on, I'll ignore that chance, as well as the chance of your opponent improving his hand. Not that it should be ignored, but at this point it's just to make the math simpler.
Returning to the example, the problem is that you're nowhere near all-in. What's more, he'll most likely bet on the river. Should that change your decision making? Of course it should! For example, if you knew that he would always bet half the pot on the river, say $100, with all the hands he bets on the turn, you should fold to that bet on the turn. At that point, your odds are 250 to 150, which requires a winning chance of around 37% to make the play profitable. Note, however, that if you call on the turn, you should also call on the river, since you now have odds of 300 to 100. That's exactly why your effective odds on the turn are 250 to 150.
A call on the turn could be an even bigger mistake if your opponent is known for occasionally checking on the river with weaker hands that don't beat your jacks. This would lower your expected pot odds to something like 240 to 150, since you'll still lose $150 when you lose the hand, but you'll only win an average of $240 when you emerge victorious.
Be very careful about having hasty opinions
This kind of thinking leads many players to quickly fold hands similar to this on the turn. However, they may be making a mistake, here's why:
Most players who see that their opponent has called a bet on the turn, with something that is obviously not a draw, assume that he will probably call a bet on the river as well. They are then inclined to check on the river with many of the weak hands they bet with on the turn. If you know this about your opponent, everything changes. The extreme case would be if they never bet on the river with hands that lose, in this case to jacks. Knowing this, you would never call a bet on the river, and the situation would revert to what it would be if you were both all-in. You call the $50 on the turn and either lose when you have the worst hand, or win $150 when you have the best.
But what if he bets 10% out of the 30% times you're ahead? That still means you're right to call his bet on the turn and fold to his bet on the river. We're assuming that all your bets are half a pot, so in this scenario we're looking at odds of 150 to 50 on a hand with a 27% chance of winning, which is still a good situation.
Of course, in this particular example, if we had known from the start that he would bet on the river with about half his losing hands, as well as with all his winning hands, we should, again, fold on the turn. If we call on the turn and fold on the river, we're only winning 20% of the time, and calling on the river is even worse. Can you see why?
In any case, in situations like this, you should seriously consider calling a bet if you intend to fold if he does indeed bet again.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that a call on the turn, with a hand that has odds of 30%, could theoretically be a correct call against some specific players even when you have every certainty that you will call another bet on the river.
As an extreme example, let's say you think that your jacks have a 20% chance of being the best hand, which means that a call on the turn would be wrong if it put you all-in. However, suppose you also believe that almost all the hands that beat you are bigger pairs, and that the player holding any of these pairs will be afraid to bet for value on the river. Meanwhile, you're pretty sure that when he has a losing hand he'll bluff with about half the pot. In this scenario, if you call the turn and river, you'll win $350 (the original pot plus $150 from the bet on the turn and the $200 bet on the river) when you win the hand, and you'll lose $50 when you lose. Effective odds of 7 to 1 on a 4 to 1 chance of winning.
Conclusion
I hope I've given you some insights and strategies to think about when you're faced with situations like this. When you don't know your opponent's tendency to play, try to stick to the ideal strategy, following the theory. However, when you do have information about your opponent, make them pay dearly for it.
Article translated and adapted from the original: Facing the Threat of Future Bets
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