The flop betting round is, of course, extremely important in no-limit hold'em. There are three new cards dealt at once, which can radically change the ranking of the players' hands from what they were preflop. Two black aces are nothing to be proud of when the flop comes
Q
J
9
. If there is a large field, a check-fold strategy may well be best. One big pair, or even two pair or a set, will often not be a through ticket when there are three parts to a straight or a flush on the board. So, your first task on the flop is to reorient yourself to the new situation and decide just how much your hand is now worth.
The flop betting round is where draws have the most value, because you may get two chances to make your hand. However, the only way to be sure of seeing both cards is by getting all in before either arrives. The dread of any draw is to put a sizable amount of money in the pot on the flop, and have an opponent move you in for all of your money when you miss on the turn (or escape on the turn if you hit). To avoid this scenario by any means other than going all in on the flop - which is especially awkward to achieve in a cash game, where the money is likely to be deep - you have a far better chance if you have position on your opponent. This is the reason that I put so much emphasis in my teaching on playing your drawing hands when in position, instead of acting first. Good position in no-limit is far more important to a 10-9 suited than it is to pocket eights, two hands of approximately the same value in limit poker.
If you have a short stack, there is nothing wrong with raising all in on the flop with a straight draw or a flush draw, assuming there is the possibility of your opponent folding. However, when playing for deep money, this type of hand is not a big enough draw to play for all of your chips. For example, if you get all in on the flop against a set, you are more than a 3-to-1 underdog. You need more, such as a flush draw combined with a straight draw (hopefully an open-ender, but at least a gutshot). If you think your opponent has only an overpair, hands such as the nut-flush draw (with its ace overcard) or a flush draw combined with a pair are playable all-in hands. You will be a slight underdog with some of these draws if you get called, but you normally either have a chance that your opponent will fold or are getting enough pot odds to play if your opponent has reraised all in.
In light of all of the above, when I have a big draw and my opponent bets, I often will raise, provided I have position on him. If he reraises all in, I go with him and try to draw out. If he just calls, my raise has usually won me a free card - if I choose to take it.
When I hold only an ordinary draw, I usually prefer to just call. Note that the pot odds are not sufficient for a call. However, with position, you have a number of things going for you to justify a call. You may get paid off if you hit, or you may get a chance to take the pot away from the bettor if he checks on the turn, or perhaps even if he makes a wimpy-sized bet. However, without position, I seldom call with a draw. I either lead and hope that everyone folds (or that I make my draw on the turn if I get called) or simply check-fold. As you can see, a draw is a far more potent hand when you have position.
Some people play no-limit hold'em with a raise-or-fold philosophy; I do not. When facing a bet when I have a made hand and position, I have a simple playing method (when I have a big stack). I do not raise unless I am either willing to back my hand for all of my money or am semibluffing. Since most of the time when I play, I do not wish to do either of these things, I often simply call. I want to use my position.
Yes, it is annoying to call with a hand that is not going to get any better. But my opponent does not know what I have. He has all the problems that I have in guessing what to do on the turn, and in addition, he is out of position. So, my call has presented him with a problem at a relatively small monetary cost to me. Let me give you an example of a hand sent to me by one of my students. He had a good hand with zero chance to improve, decided to raise, and managed to lose all of his chips.
He wrote: "I just finished a session in a $1-$2 blinds ninehanded no-limit hold'em cash game. The following hand came up when I had about a $475 stack. I get the J
10
two off the button. I call, the next player folds, and the button and both blinds call. Five of us see the flop, which comes 9-8-7, all clubs. (My suit is spades; right church, wrong pew). The small blind bets $15, the big blind folds, the next player calls, and it is on me. I go into the tank. I'm thinking that I really don't want to give them a free card, since it is pretty obvious that at least one of them is drawing. I raise to $45. The button cold-calls and the small blind then goes all in for $10 more. I call, and so does the button. The turn is an offsuit king. I think that I can't give him a free card, and push all in; he calls, and I know I'm toast. He had flopped the ace-high flush. So, my question on this hand is, should I have checked the turn to see what he did? He was not a crazy player, but I was really sure that he had just the A
. Was this a bad read, or was I just unlucky he had the flush?"
Bad luck? My student plays a hand with which he has four preflop opponents, the flop comes all of one suit, and he runs into a flush when an opponent cold-calls a bet and a raise. A flush is the first hand you would expect the opponent to have in this spot. When there are three parts to a flush on board and you have several opponents, it is seldom right to get heavily involved without a flush. If all of my money got into the pot on the flop and I did not have a flush, it would mean I got caught "bluffing" with top set, or perhaps the lone ace of the flush suit. In either case, I would have outs. I would have just called on the flop when holding a hand like two pair or a straight. When your stack gets committed to the pot in a no-limit cash game, it should be when you have good reason to think your hand is the best or you got caught speeding and have some reasonable way to get lucky.
The above hand is one of many hands that I might hold when there is a decent or somewhat better than decent chance that my hand is good, yet I just call when someone in front of me bets. If there is any weakness in the aggressive modern-day no-limit player, it is the failure to use position to the fullest extent. I can understand why the raise-or-fold style of play is so popular, because to use position optimally, you need to be able to see and read your opponents, which you cannot do on the Internet. For a live no-limit game, where you can see your opponent and he acts first, I do not believe this commitment style of raise-or-fold is the optimum way to play, and neither do strong, experienced players like my friends Johnny Chan and T. J. Cloutier - and they have a lot of world champion bracelets to show that calling has a place in the poker player's arsenal.
Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.
