Learning when to induce bets from an opponent and pay off or fold with marginal hands are distinguishing characteristics of good players. The equity of those bets won/lost/saved add up over the course of time, enough to make a significant difference in your earnings at the end of the year.
I was on the button, playing $30-$60 hold'em, with the K
J
. Three players had limped in. In thinking about my best play, I analyzed the playing styles of the blinds. Both were highly likely to call a raise. Two reasons to raise from late position with a marginal hand are to fold the blinds and obtain the button. I already had the button and the blinds were likely to call, so I chose to just call with my holding. The small blind tossed in a chip, the big blind knuckled, and we took the flop off sixhanded.
The flop came K
10
6
, giving me top pair with a respectable but not great kicker. The blinds checked to a young pro who had called from up front, and he bet. The field folded to me. I was in a tough spot. I didn't think Mr. Young Pro would bet as a total bluff into a large field. That said, I did know that he bet his draws, and both straight and flush draws were present, increasing his chances of being on a draw. But if he had a non-drawing hand, he probably had me outkicked, or had flopped two pair or a set of sixes. He wouldn't play K-9 or lower from early position, even suited, and would have raised with K-K or 10-10. So, what was I to do?
I definitely wasn't going to fold. I most likely had the best hand, and there was a considerable amount of money in the pot. If I flat-called, I would give either of the blinds a shot at making a correct call to outdraw my hand if it was good. If I raised, I would put myself in a position of being reraised by a better hand. I also thought about any intangibles.
I looked at the blinds; the small blind seemed interested in the hand, but the big blind was ready to throw his hand away. Mr. Young Pro was a player who followed through on his bluffs. In such situations, with marginal holdings heads up, I often just call the player down and let him bluff off his chips. You realize a greater gain when your hand holds up and, generally, a lower loss when your hand loses. That said, sometimes playing a hand passively causes you to lose a pot that you otherwise might have won. With players yet to act behind me, I don't want the small blind to make a correct call and draw at me when my hand is good. For this reason, I raised. The good news was that I shut out both blinds. The bad news was that Mr. Young Pro three-bet me. He could have either a made hand that crushed me or a straight or flush draw that I currently had beat. I called.
The turn card was the 6
, pairing the board and making wired sixes a much less likely hand for my opponent. Mr. Young Pro bet and I called. The river card was the 3
, filling a backdoor-flush draw. He bet again and I called.
"I missed," he said, and held his hand over the muck.
I paused for a moment, hoping that he would show, both out of curiosity and looking to gain information. After a few seconds, he tossed his hand into the muck without showing it.
This hand speaks to concepts relating to when to let your opponent do the betting. This hand was a very close decision, and I can make the case for letting it go much earlier in play. The greater the chance you are beat (but are getting the pot odds to play through), the greater the likelihood of your opponent(s) to bet, and the smaller the chance that it is correct to draw to your hand, the greater your propensity should be to play the hand passively. An additional benefit of calling is that you may outdraw a better hand if you call and get to the river, rather than making a laydown on the flop or turn. An additional 5 percent chance to win the pot can have a lot of equitable value, especially in big pots.
Did I play the hand correctly? The results seem to validate my choices, but that isn't the correct way to analyze a poker hand. Results-oriented players find themselves on the rail telling bad-beat stories to winners who have just cashed at the cage. It is necessary to keep in mind that he may have hit his draw, and also that my decisions would have been different had, say, the 9
hit on the turn. I received 2-1 on the hand, the way it played. The correct analysis is whether or not the likelihood that my opponent was drawing justified my risks. It was - like all poker decisions - ultimately an edge question. Part of the analysis includes how the play of the hand would affect future hands, not only against Mr. Young Pro, but against any other players at the table who were smart enough to be paying attention.
Most poker decisions have both positive and negative elements and, except in the very tiny minority of "key pot" situations, add or subtract very little in the way of expectation to your long-term results. Yet, it is the accumulation of multiple small differences in expectation that distinguishes lifetime winners from lifetime losers. In this case, I think my decision options were very close.
Roy Cooke has played winning professional poker since 1972, and has been a Card Player columnist since 1992. He serves as a freelance consultant to the I-poker industry and has a successful Las Vegas real estate brokerage. His e-mail address is [email protected]. He has written six poker books that are available from www.conjelco.com/cooke, including the soon-to-be-released Real Poker III. His longtime collaborator John Bond is featured in Best American Mystery Stories 2007.
