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I, Robot
Introduction
Poker has changed a lot over the last few years. Players talk about the game in more advanced terms than ever, with phrases like ‘slowplay’, ‘continuation bet’ and ‘pot control’ thrown around routinely. You may have made some of these moves part of your strategy, but do you really understand what they mean?
If you want to really succeed at poker, you can’t play by rote. Contrary to popular belief, the much-feared ‘poker bots’ of the internet game don’t win except at the smallest stakes. If you allow yourself to become one, you’ll never achieve your true potential.
In the next few pages, we’ll look at some of the strategies that everybody takes for granted, and remind ourselves what they really mean.
The Preflop Raise
An obvious place to start is with the preflop raise. These days, everybody knows that you have to be aggressive to be a long-term winner. The typical player also knows that in a tournament, you should often be raising before the flop to steal the blinds. Some well-known players even go so far as to advise that if you enter a pot at all, you should be raising. However, it’s important to not let raising preflop become a routine. Depending on the circumstances, it may not always be the best play, and you may be giving up profit by raising without thinking.
There are many reasons to raise before the flop, for example:
- To build a larger pot with a strong hand
- To eliminate opponents, so that your hand has a higher chance of winning
- To get your opponents to fold stronger hands
- To win the blinds and/or antes
For example, if you are playing a cash game, the blinds will often be so small relative to the stacks that raising solely to steal the blinds becomes unprofitable. You’re much more likely to be called or reraised than you would be in a tournament, and you’ll be entering the pot with too many weak hands to make money after the flop.
It can also be a mistake to raise to eliminate opponents, depending on what your hand is. For example, if you’re playing no-limit, raising from early position with a hand like K-J offsuit can be a big mistake. In general, hands that you beat will fold to your raise, and you’ll have no chance to win money from them. Hands that beat you will tend to call, or reraise. There is almost no way to make a profit without outdrawing your opponent.
Before you raise preflop, you should think about the possible consequences of your action. You’re looking for a situation where you can get your opponents to call with a worse hand or fold a better one, where you can create a favourable pot size relative to your remaining stack and the strength of your hand, or where you can increase your equity in the pot significantly. If you can’t achieve any of those goals, it may be better to simply call, or even fold.
The Continuation Bet
A continuation bet is a bet that you make on the flop, after raising before the flop. You make the bet whether you have improved your hand or not. You make a continuation bet for several reasons:
- Your opponent’s reaction to the bet gives you valuable information that you can use to play the rest of the hand
- If you have the best hand, you protect it. For example, if you have ace high but your opponent has queen high, it’s very easy for him to hit a queen on the turn and take the lead if you check. By betting, you deny him the free card he needs to beat you
- If you have the best hand, it may be so difficult to extract value from a worse hand that you’d prefer your opponent to give up the pot immediately, and save you difficult decisions on later streets
- If you have the worst hand, you may get your opponent to fold a hand that beats you. For example, your opponent might fold a small pocket pair that would have won at the showdown
The continuation bet has become so commonplace that many players bet the flop without thinking. As a result, continuation bets get a lot less respect than they did a few years ago, and tough opponents will often call your bet with nothing, just to take the pot away from you on the turn.
If you’re playing in a game where your opponents don’t respect a continuation bet, you may find that checking more often (both when you hit a hand and when you miss completely) is a profitable strategy. It confuses your opponent, and if you have a strong but not unbeatable hand, allows you to keep the pot small and see what develops on the turn. If you have a weak hand, you’ll often get to see a free card.
In poker, it’s never right to do something 100% of the time. It cannot possibly be correct to always make a continuation bet after raising before the flop. Nevertheless, many of the reasons for making the play are still valid. As recently as a year ago, I would have recommended that you follow up on the flop with a bet the vast majority of the time, checking only when the flop was particularly dangerous. These days, I think following up with a bet somewhere between half and two-thirds of the time is correct, depending on how loose and creative your opponents are.
Checking the Turn with a Marginal Hand
Imagine this situation – you’re playing a deep-stacked cash game, and raise before the flop holding A-K offsuit. You get one caller, and the flop is K-J-7 of different suits. You follow up with a continuation bet, and your opponent calls. The turn is a 9. What should you do?
It should be immediately obvious that this is not a situation in which you’d like to commit your entire stack. Indeed, if your opponent is not a complete idiot, when the stacks go in your hand will almost always be beat. So, often, the correct move is to check.
You check for several reasons:
- To keep the pot small, making it less likely that future bets will commit you to the pot with a weak hand
- To feign weakness, making it more likely that you can extract value from a weaker hand on the river
- As part of a balanced strategy, enabling you to slowplay strong hands on the turn
Many players check here by default, and it often is the best play. However, you must be careful not to check without considering how likely the river is to help your opponent.
For example, if you hold the same A-K offsuit, and the flop comes A-10-9 with two hearts, it should be obvious that draws represent a significant part of your opponent’s range of hands, especially if he flat-called your preflop raise from a late position. If the turn does not make the draws, it could be a huge mistake to check and give your opponent a free card to hit his draw. Instead, you should bet enough to deprive your opponent of the proper odds to call (and provided you will not pay off a river bet, this can be as small as half the pot).
However, the majority of the time, checking the turn with a marginal hand is the correct play. Many years ago, David Sklansky wrote ‘don’t turn good hands into seven deuce’. By that, he meant that if you would absolutely hate to get raised, and there is a decent chance that it will happen, you should rarely bet in the first place. Since usually, you’ll hate to get raised on the turn with a marginal hand, your standard play should be to check.
Check-Raising All-in With a Flush Draw
If you start with two suited hole cards, you’ll flop a flush very rarely - just 0.8% of the time. However, with the same cards you’ll flop a flush draw 10.9% of the time – so it should be obvious that you’ll need to know how to handle a draw if you’re going to be successful at Hold’em. Many players like to bet and raise with their draws every time, which is known as semibluffing. A semi-bluff has two ways to win – either your opponent can fold and you win the pot straight away, or you can improve to the best hand when you hit your draw.
It’s common to see players check-raise all-in on the flop, holding a flush draw. The reasoning goes something like this:
- You’re up against a single opponent
- Your opponent has a wide range of hands, many of which have missed the flop
- Your opponent may be making a continuation bet with a weak hand
- Your raise all-in will be large, so that your opponent is not getting good pot odds
- Your opponent is therefore quite likely to fold to your raise
For example, if the stacks are very deep, then your raise all-in will be far too large relative to the pot for it to be a profitable play in the long run. Raising all-in for 100 big blinds, into a pot of just 8 big blinds, for example, is just too much to risk to win such a small pot.
It’s also a mistake to make this play if your opponent is very likely to have a strong hand. For example, if you raised from early position with A-Ks, and your tight, shrewd opponent reraised from middle position, it may well be a mistake to check-raise all-in when the board comes three small cards (with two of your suit). After all, it takes a big hand for a tight player to reraise an early position raiser. If your opponent has a big pair, he will almost certainly call.
Likewise, any other situations in which you are very likely to be called rules out this play completely. For this reason, check-raising all-in any time you flop a flush draw is a huge mistake. Your default play should be the straightforward, non-tricky one.
Slowplaying Big Hands
One of the first things that beginning poker players learn is that you have to disguise the strength of your hand. That’s good advice, but a lot of people take it too far, playing every single hand in the opposite way to it’s actual strength. If such a player has nothing, they move all-in, and if they have the nuts, they check.
Slowplaying is an important part of every poker player’s arsenal, but it’s hugely overused. Imagine the following situation. You’re dealt 7-6s, and limp in on the button after two other players also limp. Both blinds call, and the flop comes the 8-5-4 of your suit, giving you a straight flush! Everybody checks to you – should you bet, or check to slowplay?
By slowplaying, you’re hoping to give your opponent a chance to catch something with which he can call a bet, or encourage him to bluff. If it’s likely that your opponent already has something, or will call your bet drawing to a hand which cannot possibly win, you often do better by simply betting straight away, building a big pot in case your opponent is willing to commit a lot of his stack, or getting the money in before a scare card comes, frightening your opponent off the pot.
In the case where you flop a small straight flush against multiple opponents, you probably should not slowplay. There are several reasons to do so:
- If one of your opponents already has a flush (but not the nut flush), you might win a bigger pot by betting straight away
- If one of your opponents has a set, a straight, or the ace of the suit, they will definitely call and might even raise, committing them to the pot
- If another heart comes on the turn, it may kill the action and you’ll wish you had bet the flop
- If none of your opponents has anything now, it’s very unlikely that they’ll pay you off anyway
On the other hand, if you have flopped the top full house on a board like A-5-5, it’s much less likely that your opponents have any kind of made hand or draw that they can call you with. There are also very few scary turn cards to kill the action. Slowplaying is probably a good idea – you hope that one of your opponents will try a bluff, or will catch something good enough to call a bet on the turn or river.
However, slowplaying should definitely not be your default strategy. As always, your standard play should be the straightforward one, and you should deviate from it only when you have a good reason to do so.
Value Betting the River
Making value bets on the river is an important part of any good No Limit Hold’em player’s strategy. After all, missing a bet on the flop might cost you just a few big blinds, but missing a bet on the river, when the pot is typically much larger, might cost you twenty or thirty big blinds even in a pot without much action.
Many players automatically bet the river when they think they have the best hand, but that’s often a mistake. To see why, lets look at this example. You’re at the river, and the board is A-Q-10-4-2 of hearts. You have the As-5h, giving you a slightly higher flush than the one on board. Should you bet into your lone opponent?
Based solely on probability, you are likely to have the best hand. However, betting is a huge mistake. To bet the river, probably having the best hand is not enough. You should be the favourite to have the best hand when you get called in order to make a profit.
In this case, when you are called your opponent will usually have a higher heart to beat you. What’s more, some of the time your opponent will raise, and you can’t call. Going back to what we said about not turning good hands into seven deuce – you absolutely should not bet the river if it’s likely you’ll be raised, and you cannot call that raise.
Making good value bets on the river is all about knowing your opponent, and reading their hand well. By the time the river is dealt, you’ll have seen how your opponent played each street, how they reacted to your actions, and what physical mannerisms they have displayed. If you can assign them a range of hands which will often call and lose, then you can make a profitable river bet.
Once again, making reckless bets robotically, without thinking, is not the way to succeed. Always consider the circumstances carefully before taking your action.
