Bets

Making bets is pretty much what you do when you play poker. Big bets, small bets, pot-sized bets. The general mistake a lot of people make with bets is that they don’t size their bets correctly. Bets that are too large overly expose your stack, and increases risks. Bets that are too small don’t extract enough value.

When playing poker, its easy to get carried away betting into a pot in the hopes of getting a player off a hand. Sometimes though, it’s good to just recall the fundamental reason to bet. You bet to increase the money in the pot for hands that are strong. You avoid increasing the size of pots for hands that are weak. When you’re firing several barrels into a pot with an average made hand (or even on a bluff!), and your opponents are not folding, you know you’re doing something very wrong.

I think the amount to bet depends on the reason you’re betting. If you’re betting to push your opponent off a hand, you have to know from previous experience the amount and situation he would fold a particular hand to. For example, if you’ve observed that he folds top pair to an 80% pot bet on a possible made flush, you can do the same when you’re in the hand with him in a similar situation. If he folds to 80% pot bets 4 out of every 5 times, you should always make this bet in similar situations regardless of what you’re holding, simply because its profitable to do so. Bets like these also help you read your opponent’s hands better. If he doesn’t fold when you bet 80% into the pot, you can pretty much be assured that you’re up against something better than top pair and you can let go of your hand unless you improve.

If you’re betting to increase the size of the pot for your monster made hand, there are several things you have to note. Bets the opponent calls on a regular basis, your stack size and your opponent’s stack size, the aggressiveness of your opponent and his opinion of your aggressiveness. I was in a situation some time ago, in a $2/$5 live game, when I had JTs out of position against a tight solid player (TSP) in late position. I have a loose aggressive image, with a pretty deep stack ($650 or thereabouts). TSP had about the same amount and called my pre-flop 4xBB raise. The flop came JJ9, with a possible flush draw, a monster flop for me. The only thing you should be thinking at this point is to make as much as you can from your opponent. I knew TSP for a passive player from previous games, so I knew I could not slow-play. I raised $28, 70% of the pot, and he calls. TSP regularly calls me down with a pair or Ace high (because of my loose aggressive image), so I put him on a 9 or a possible flush draw. The turn comes a T which made the flush, but I had the nuts. I bet $60, and he makes a raise to $165. If I went all in or even made a raise at this point, he could barely call me with the nut flush, and anything less would generally fold, so I flat called. This made the pot equivalent to our stacks. The river came a 5, and I made a bet of $300. He calls with the nut flush, and I take down the pot.

This example might not be the best, but I think it illustrates the need to know your opponent’s style of play and also his view of how you play. The turn and river bet was also important imho. The turn bet increased the size of re-raises from possible strong made hands, while the river bet was strong enough to avert suspicions for an extremely strong made hand, while putting enough value for a strong made hand to make the call (2 to 1). Many people might be tempted to check the turn with the nuts, but there’s no guarantee that your opponent would bet in position if he made the flush.

This is a complicated topic, and I’ve barely scratched it, but I hope this gives a bit of insight on the intricacy of making bets in poker. 

When You're Meant To Lose

Have you ever been dealt a hand when you're predestined to lose from the get go? How do you cut or avoid losses in hands like that? The worst thing is when it happens when you're already down. It feels like a punch to the gut, and you're left wondering when it will end.

I play very regularly in a live game at a poker room where I live. Games there are generally very loose and aggressive, usually played at the $2/$5 stakes. This particular hand happened just last night on a full ring table, between 3 players, 2 of them extremely loose players (calling raises with 62o!) and another who would almost always play any two suited cards from any position (this isn't considered loose in that room!). Of the two loose players, one of them (Player A) is usually very aggressive, raising with almost any two cards while the other (Player B) plays a more passive game, only becoming aggressive after the flop. Pre-flop action was the usual limping from early position, followed by a 5xBB raise from Player A in mid position. 3 players after him folds, button calls, Player B in the small blind calls, and the big blind and initial limpers all call.

Flop came 2sTs5s, and action was checked to Player A who bet 5xBB. Button makes the call and Player B thinks then raises to 5 times the raise of Player A. With such a huge raise, it was almost certain that Player B had a made hand, at least 2 pair or better. Surprisingly, Player A and button flat calls, and the dealer dealt a 6h on the turn. Player B checks, Player A bets 20xBB (a minuscule bet compared to the pot), button calls and Player B instantly goes all in. Player A instantly calls and button goes all in immediately, flipping over the nut flush with As9s. Imagine the shock of everyone else at the table when both Player A and Player B flip over K high and J high flush! River, a 9c, was irrelevant as both players were drawing dead to the nut flush.

Imagine that! All three players flopped the flush, all three were slow playing, and all three thought the other was drawing to a flush (players in this room generally go for draws regardless of pot odds). This was the sickest cooler hand I ever saw, and I've definitely seen my share. How do you escape from losing the maximum with hands like the K high and J high flush? I remember a very similar scenario about 5 months back, of which I was on the receiving end. I had Ks9s in early position, UTG limped in, and I followed suit. A few other limpers came in as well, and the flop came three spades, no ace (I forgot the actual cards as it was such a long time ago). Blinds and UTG checks, I check, and one of the limpers made a 1/3 pot raise. UTG flat calls, and I re-raised to 4x the initial raise. Everyone else folds, including the initial raiser, but UTG calls. Turn comes another spade, and UTG checks, I bet, he goes all-in, and I knew he had the Ace, but I couldn't fold it and called. He showed pocket aces.

I think the simple "moral" of these hands would be - never play any two suited cards unless they are the nuts. Drawing to anything other than the nut flush or straight would potentially lose you a lot of money as making your hand would be tantamount to trapping yourself with the second best hand. This is why playing with any two suited cards is so dangerous. There was a similar hand that night where I also made a two hole card flush, but lost the maximum to the nut flush. This really sounds like a lot of bad poker, and it is. Embarrassing to tell, but one can only learn from such experiences.

Any of you readers have similar experiences? Let me know in the comments section. Cheers!

Flopping the Nuts

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.