People always say its easy to be the champ when you flop the nuts. Easy enough to play, you bet and you win. Nothing to it really.
Not exactly.
Sure, its fun flopping the nuts and knowing you can't be beat. The real skill involved here though is extracting the maximum out of your opponents, and not wasting the luck that just got thrown your way. A lot of players, when they see that they flop the full house, immediately put themselves in the mindset that they have the best hand. So when their opponents check, they check, in the hopes that someone would bet. When their opponents actually bet into them, they think, "I want maximum value, but I can't bet too much or they would fold", so they do a min-raise. Fact is, they play as though everyone knows their hand, when they could have done the same thing with any two cards and still have taken down the pot.
Having aces preflop would equate to having the nuts before seeing the flop. It is the best possible hand to have, and any other hand is at least a 4 to 1 underdog. Let's say you get aces UTG, and you bet 4xBB, everyone folds. Does it matter then if you had aces? Nope. Technically, you could have been holding seven deuce and still have achieved the very same effect with your bet.
Let's look at an actual example of flopping the nuts. I was holding JcJs preflop on small blind, $0.5/$1 full ring table. Everyone folds to me, I bet 3xBB, big blind re-raises to $10, I call. Flop comes Jh7hJd, quads for me. I check, he bets $10, I call. Turn shows 9h, I check, he checks. River comes As, I shove all-in, for his remaining $28.50, he calls with AcKh.
Replaying the hand from the big blind's perspective, this was probably the logical process that was going on behind the scenes. I was on small blind with one player left to act behind me, excellent position to steal the blinds. Big blind knows this, so he thinks that he very likely has the best hand with AcKh. I raise to 3xBB, a typical steal, and he re-raises slightly more than 3x my raise, to obtain information on the strength of my hand. If I had Aces or Kings, I would probably re-raise him, or at the very least call. Some looser players may even have called with AQs or AJs. I call, which says that my hand has some strength.
The flop shows a paired up board, which decreases the chance that it hit me. I checked, and the big blind does a standard continuation bet of $10, half the pot. This bet is designed to take the pot down then and there if I was playing something like AQs or even AKs, or to test if I had a J where I would likely reraise. Very few people would continue slowplaying J after a bet behind on a possible flush drawing board. I flat called his bet, which puts me on possible suited connector hands drawing to a flush, lower pairs like Tens, or possible over pairs trying to keep the pot small. The 9h puts the flush on the board, and gives the big blind a K high flush draw, 15 outs against QQ, TT, 9 outs against any flush lower than Ace high. I check, and the big blind checks. The river comes the A and I shove. This could have been a bet by AQ or AK whiffing on the flop and making a loose call, only to hit the river, or it could be a total bluff trying to represent the A or flush. It is very likely that I did not have the flush as I checked the turn, possibly being afraid of the flush. AK has very good showdown equity with an Ace on the board, so big blind calls in the hopes that I had something like QQ or even KK.
The brilliant play (excuse my modesty) lies in the shove on the river. If I were to have checked the river as well, the big blind would definitely have checked, and shown down with the Ace pair K kicker. A small bet would show that I was very strong (possibly with a flush), and was trying to extract the maximum value, so the big blind could also very likely have thrown his hand away. Because the big blind knows that I know that the Ace is a natural scare card, the chances of me bluffing is higher than normal, and since he does have the Ace, the chances of me having the ace is much slimmer. Most players with the absolute nuts would likely have checked again to the aggressor in the hopes that he would bet out and make a check-raise possible. With all that in mind, the shove was by far, the best play to extract the most money.
Of course, there would also be times when you play against weak / unthinking opponents who are just there to gamble. In that case, given the same scenario, these kind of players would also probably have lost all their stack with a change to the turn play. The flop would have gone check check, and bet call on the turn, shove call on the river.
Hope this gives an insight on the thought processes behind both playing with, and against the nuts.
Not exactly.
Sure, its fun flopping the nuts and knowing you can't be beat. The real skill involved here though is extracting the maximum out of your opponents, and not wasting the luck that just got thrown your way. A lot of players, when they see that they flop the full house, immediately put themselves in the mindset that they have the best hand. So when their opponents check, they check, in the hopes that someone would bet. When their opponents actually bet into them, they think, "I want maximum value, but I can't bet too much or they would fold", so they do a min-raise. Fact is, they play as though everyone knows their hand, when they could have done the same thing with any two cards and still have taken down the pot.
Having aces preflop would equate to having the nuts before seeing the flop. It is the best possible hand to have, and any other hand is at least a 4 to 1 underdog. Let's say you get aces UTG, and you bet 4xBB, everyone folds. Does it matter then if you had aces? Nope. Technically, you could have been holding seven deuce and still have achieved the very same effect with your bet.
Let's look at an actual example of flopping the nuts. I was holding JcJs preflop on small blind, $0.5/$1 full ring table. Everyone folds to me, I bet 3xBB, big blind re-raises to $10, I call. Flop comes Jh7hJd, quads for me. I check, he bets $10, I call. Turn shows 9h, I check, he checks. River comes As, I shove all-in, for his remaining $28.50, he calls with AcKh.
Replaying the hand from the big blind's perspective, this was probably the logical process that was going on behind the scenes. I was on small blind with one player left to act behind me, excellent position to steal the blinds. Big blind knows this, so he thinks that he very likely has the best hand with AcKh. I raise to 3xBB, a typical steal, and he re-raises slightly more than 3x my raise, to obtain information on the strength of my hand. If I had Aces or Kings, I would probably re-raise him, or at the very least call. Some looser players may even have called with AQs or AJs. I call, which says that my hand has some strength.
The flop shows a paired up board, which decreases the chance that it hit me. I checked, and the big blind does a standard continuation bet of $10, half the pot. This bet is designed to take the pot down then and there if I was playing something like AQs or even AKs, or to test if I had a J where I would likely reraise. Very few people would continue slowplaying J after a bet behind on a possible flush drawing board. I flat called his bet, which puts me on possible suited connector hands drawing to a flush, lower pairs like Tens, or possible over pairs trying to keep the pot small. The 9h puts the flush on the board, and gives the big blind a K high flush draw, 15 outs against QQ, TT, 9 outs against any flush lower than Ace high. I check, and the big blind checks. The river comes the A and I shove. This could have been a bet by AQ or AK whiffing on the flop and making a loose call, only to hit the river, or it could be a total bluff trying to represent the A or flush. It is very likely that I did not have the flush as I checked the turn, possibly being afraid of the flush. AK has very good showdown equity with an Ace on the board, so big blind calls in the hopes that I had something like QQ or even KK.
The brilliant play (excuse my modesty) lies in the shove on the river. If I were to have checked the river as well, the big blind would definitely have checked, and shown down with the Ace pair K kicker. A small bet would show that I was very strong (possibly with a flush), and was trying to extract the maximum value, so the big blind could also very likely have thrown his hand away. Because the big blind knows that I know that the Ace is a natural scare card, the chances of me bluffing is higher than normal, and since he does have the Ace, the chances of me having the ace is much slimmer. Most players with the absolute nuts would likely have checked again to the aggressor in the hopes that he would bet out and make a check-raise possible. With all that in mind, the shove was by far, the best play to extract the most money.
Of course, there would also be times when you play against weak / unthinking opponents who are just there to gamble. In that case, given the same scenario, these kind of players would also probably have lost all their stack with a change to the turn play. The flop would have gone check check, and bet call on the turn, shove call on the river.
Hope this gives an insight on the thought processes behind both playing with, and against the nuts.
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