Checking and Calling

I recently played in a World Poker Tour event at Bellagio. In all of the Bellagio tournaments, players start with twice the number of chips of the buy-in. So, in this $10,000 buy-in event, we started with $20,000 in chips, which players really like, for the most part.

Personally, I like it fine, but I don't see it as a significant change from starting with $10,000 in chips, since the blinds start off twice as high. In a tournament with $10,000 in starting chips, the blinds start at $25-$50, while in the tournaments with $20,000 in starting chips, the blinds start at $50-$100. Proportionately, it's the exact same structure at the very beginning.

So, anyway, early on in the tournament, I played a hand against a young, aggressive high-limit Internet player. Having played high limits online sporadically, I had a decent idea of what to expect from a self-proclaimed limit hold'em specialist.

The blinds were $100-$200 with an ante when a player in first position raised to $600. I called from the small blind with the K 10, and the young Internet player called from the big blind.

The flop came down 7 6 3. Being out of position against a preflop raiser and a player calling from the big blind, this was a flop I had absolutely no interest in. The plan was to check and fold to any bet.

Well, no one bet the flop, so I was able to see a free turn card. The turn was the K, which put a possible backdoor-flush draw on the board and paired my king. At the same time, I didn't love that card. The preflop raiser easily could have checked the flop with a hand like A-K and have me outkicked and in bad shape. So, I decided to check, and see what the Internet player in the big blind and the preflop raiser would do.

The Internet player took the lead, betting $1,000 into a pot with about $2,000 in it. I still didn't have enough information yet as to what I would do, since it would weigh heavily on what the preflop raiser chose to do. If he raised, I was obviously folding, but even if he made the call, folding would make the most sense.

The preflop raiser folded, so I decided to flat-call the bet and see what developed on the river. The river was an ugly card for my hand, the 4. If my hand was good on the turn, that river card could have improved my opponent's hand if he was on a semibluff.

I saw no reason to bet my kings, so I decided to check the hand and sell my opponent the idea that I'd picked up a flush draw and had missed it. The Internet player bet $2,000. Aside from picking up any physical tells on him based on how he put his chips into the pot, I was compelled to call the bet for very different reasons.

First of all, I was getting 3-1 odds on the call. Secondly, I didn't believe that the Internet player would value-bet a hand that wasn't a straight in that spot. So, it boiled down to one of those situations in which your opponent has either nothing but two napkins or the nuts. The last thing that pushed me toward calling was the fact that I'd sold him the idea that I was on a flush draw. If I convinced him that I had a flush draw, he would be forced to bet with a hand like 9-8, or something to that effect.

I called the bet, and the young player said, "You got me," and turned over 9-8 offsuit.

What this hand should illustrate for you is how you can actually maximize your winnings while limiting your losses at the same time, with a very safe and cautious approach. Generally speaking, on the turn, my hand is either dead meat or I'll have to fade a drawing hand on the river. So, when I have the best hand here, it might be only marginally so, while if I'm beat on the turn, chances are that I have few or no outs to win the pot on the river.

One of the biggest mistakes I see many amateur players make is that they overplay these types of situations by check-raising the turn to "protect" their hand. As a general rule, when you are out of position, you should be looking to limit your losses on the hand by keeping the pot small. It's when you are in position that you should look to be aggressive and maximize your winnings.