All Trappers Do Not Wear Fur Hats

It was a Saturday night at Bellagio, just before a big tournament came to town. It was the kind of night that reminds you why Vegas is the best place in the world for a poker player to live. My $30-$60 limit hold'em game had the type of field I really like. As I've written before, my favorite game texture is very passive with lots of callers, most of whom are pretty easy to read. The poker gods had smiled on me with this lineup.



I was in the seven-hole when several players limped in for $30 in front of me. I looked down to see wired fours. It was the perfect situation for a small wired pair: a cheap entry price with several callers. Because the value of such a hand comes from the times I flop a set, getting in for a low entry price with several opponents adds value; the initial price the pot lays me is higher, and there are several players available to give me action if I do flop a set.



My position was even sweeter than that; there were passive players yet to act behind me who were very likely to limp in with several callers in front of them. They were not the type of players who would raise unless they held a monster hand. Limping in with a small pair with opponents who are not likely to raise behind you strengthens your call, as it makes it more likely that your preflop price will remain good.



In addition, players who are likely to make bad calls after the flop – like my opponents yet to act, as well as those who had already called – add extra value to small wired pairs when they hit, increasing the implied preflop price of my call. It was also good to have opponents who are easy to read, so that I could get away from the hand cheaper just in case I made the second- or third-best hand.



Delighted with the situation, I called the preflop bet, sliding three $10 chips into the pot. A couple of players called behind me, as did both blinds. We took the flop off eighthanded.

The flop came J 7 4, giving me bottom set. A lady who entered the pot from the small-blind position led into the field. She was the type of opponent who led if she hit any piece of the flop. One player called, and the player directly in front of me raised. I thought about the best way to play my hand. When deciding how to play a hand, I consider the texture of the flop and my opponents.



The flop was a favorable one for my set. While there were no flush draws present, there were lots of straight draws available, most of them gutshots. I thought about my opponents. The players behind me tended to call with pretty weak hands, the lady was inclined to overplay her hands, and the fellow who raised was not one to lay down much.



I don't often slow-play my sets, particularly when it is not top set. As a rule, sets are difficult hands for your opponents to read, so playing them fast can get you lots of good value action from top pair or an overpair. But in this case, two points stuck in my mind. The lady was prone to reraise if she held much of anything, and either of the opponents behind me was likely to call two bets but probably not three with a hand as weak as overcards. My image to my opponents was a tight one, as I had not either picked up or made a hand in a while, so reraising was likely to intimidate them and thin the field, costing me loads of future chips if my hand held up.



Obviously, my choices were to raise and protect the rather large pot, or flat-call, inducing action. If I called, I was taking a risk, as the pot was reasonably large, but not huge. If you are going to take risks to gain extra bets, the larger the pot, the greater your risk. I am generally an advocate of taking the action that will win large pots right there if possible, forcing people to fold who are drawing to beat me. But the other important concepts in slow-playing/trapping situations are the likelihood of your hand winning and the likelihood of your opponents giving you action that they otherwise would not have with hands that are not getting the right price to proceed. In this case, I preferred action. I flat-called the raise, hoping to invite action behind me.



One player called the two bets cold behind me. I was unsure of his holding, but felt it was a pretty weak hand that I wanted to call. To my disappointment, the lady I had hoped would three-bet just flat-called. I thought about what hand she might possess. I had seen her three-bet earlier with top pair and a bad kicker. She had won the pot, so I didn't think she would change her strategy. She led with any pair, so based on that knowledge, I thought her most likely hand was something worse than top pair, possibly second pair. A third opponent called the extra $30, so five of us were left.



The dealer turned the 7, filling me up. I observed the lady, who I thought might hold a 7. She had only 17 $10 chips left. She started to bet, then hesitated and checked. I did not think she was acting, and was planning to check-raise. The man behind her checked, and the fellow who had raised the flop fired $60 forward. Inasmuch as I thought the lady would check-raise, I called once again, looking to trap the fellow behind me for at least a bet and get the bettor to go for three bets. The fellow behind me let me down and folded.



The lady check-raised, as I thought she might, folding the man in between her and the bettor, who called the check-raise. As she raised, she held her final five chips in her hand, inadvertently hiding them.



"Are you all-in?" I asked her, knowing full well that she wasn't. I knew I was going to raise, but I wanted to disguise the strength of my hand and make the initial bettor think I was raising to put the lady all in. I reraised and the bettor called, and I also received a call on the river from him.



Trap plays are very important in limit hold'em. The value of those extra bets won (or lack thereof when you fail to make the plays that get them) can be the difference in a winning day, week, month, or year. You have to put those extra bets in your stack to be successful at the game.



I utilized reading my opponents to gain extra value out of my holding. While reading hands is not an exact science, all players are capable of making errors in judgment, and you must include the likelihood of an error in judgment in the value of your play. This hand shows how you can use your reads to gain additional edge from your hands.



Another thought from this hand is that I could not have gotten quite the same amount of value from it in an Internet game. Reading body language and watching players' physical and chip-handling actions gave me a much stronger sense of who they were and how they would play their hands than I ever could have gotten from a computer screen. It is important to understand that when you're opting to play Internet rather than live poker, you are increasing your volume variable at the expense of some of your edge. I stacked extra chips in this situation because I had a good feel for my opponents, obtained from observing more than just their betting actions.



Gaining additional edge in the hands that you play enables you to play more hands, thus creating more positive volume for yourself (offsetting to some extent the volume advantage of Internet play). But whether you play live or on the Net, the more positive volume you can create, the more you will win at the end of the year!

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. His books are available at http://www.conjelco.com/. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a freelance writer in South Florida.