Free Cards - Part II

In my last column, I began to explore free cards, and looked at the potential cost of giving a free card when your opponent would have folded if you bet. Let's begin here with the cost of a free card if your opponent will not fold if you bet.

If he will not fold, the cost of a free card is a fraction of a bet. The exact fraction depends on his number of outs, but not on the size of the pot. If he will not fold, he will win the pot when he hits his outs, and there is nothing you can do about it. Your only option is to charge him the fractional bet to get there.

Let's look at an example: Holding the A K, you raise from middle position. Both blinds call, making a pot of six small bets. On the flop of K 8 3, they check, you bet, and the big blind calls with the Q J. The turn is the 4. He checks. Clearly, you will now bet, correctly fearing that he has a flush draw, but also hoping he has a king with a smaller kicker, or even a smaller pair. Because he does have a flush draw, he will draw out roughly one time in five. If you check, he pays nothing to see if this is the 20 percent of the time he gets there. If you bet and he calls, he will win that extra bet 20 percent of the time, as well, and you will win it 80 percent of the time. Thus, by betting, you gain 80 percent of a big bet.

While this may not seem huge, after thousands of hands, it adds up to a very large number. The incremental fractional bets that you collect when you are ahead are critical to your success, and one of the reasons why timid players have a tough time winning. They leave these bets on the table time after time by checking or calling when they should be betting or raising.

Before moving on, let's discuss what happens if you are ahead, but are an underdog on the turn. Let's say that you have the 9 9 on the button in a loose game. After two limpers, you raise, and the blinds and limpers call. On a flop of 7 5 2, everyone checks, you bet, and everyone calls. Now, the turn is the 2. Everyone checks again, but you can now see their hands, and realize that they hold the A Q, the K 10, the J 7, and the 6 4. You whip out your PDA, bring up the Card Player Odds Calculator, and see that you will win only 29 percent of the time, making you a huge dog. You also realize that none of these particular opponents will fold if you bet. Should you check and see if you win?

No! No! No! Even in this totally contrived scenario, you should bet. Since five players are participating, you will put in 20 percent of the money on this round, and will take out 29 percent of the money wagered in the long run. The additional volume adds to your return on investment. You bet - say, $20 - and get four callers, so all of you together have put $100 into the pot. Over time, you will take out 29 percent from this betting round, which is $29, a 45 percent gain. So, even here, when you will lose more than 70 percent of the time, you still gain by not giving a free card.

Later in this series, I will discuss when giving a free card on the turn can potentially be profitable. But as a general rule, if you are ahead in a hand, or have good reason to believe that you are, betting wins money.

Raising for a free card: Because raising is probably the most common free-card play, I will discuss the criteria for making that play.

The criteria are a joint function of math and psychology. We will look at the following:

• How many outs do you have?
• How large is the pot?
• What is your position?
• How many players are there?
• What is your table image?
• How do your opponents play?

How many outs do you have? Presumably, you are considering raising for a free card because you have outs. (Please bear in mind that this discussion is limited to free-card raises, meaning that you raise when hoping to get checked to, and plan to check the turn if you are. If you are raising to win the pot, or bluff the turn, or bluff the entire hand out - all fine plays on their own - that is not under discussion here.) Don't try for a free card just because you have outs. You need to have enough outs to justify putting in two bets on the flop, with potentially one additional big bet in implied odds if you make your hand.

Let's look at an example: You are on the button with the 9 9. After a middle-position player raises, you three-bet and get heads up. The flop is A Q 5, and the original raiser bets. Unless he is a most unusual player, he has you beat. You have, at best, two outs. If you raise, even if he checks, you will hit your hand by the river around one time in 11 (about 9 percent of the time). When it is your turn on the flop, the pot has eight-and-a-half small bets in it. You need to put in two to raise for your free card, so you will be getting 4.25-1, plus two bets on the river if you hit your set, he bets, and pays off your raise. So, you will be getting 8.25-1 on an 11-1 shot, and that assumes that you will win every time you hit a 9. The odds are not there, and you should fold this hand, not try for a free card.

As a general rule, the more outs you have, the better a free-card raise is.

Next issue, we will look at the remaining criteria for a free-card raise, starting with pot size.

Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold'em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold'em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies, both available at www.CardPlayer.com. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].