Betting Out of Trouble

I got a little home leave from Moscow recently, and of course spent far too much time playing poker. Now that I'm back in Moscow, hunkering down for the winter, I have a chance to catch up on my notebook, and review some interesting hands. Here's one in which I bet myself into trouble, and then bet myself back out, demonstrating the principle that "the best offense is often a good pretense."

The game was $200 buy-in no-limit hold'em with $3-$5 blinds. I had about $250 in front of me, and a working no-nonsense (as opposed to my usual much-nonsense) image. On the hand in question, I was dealt the A Q on the button. A canny, frisky player limped in from under the gun and the player in the cutoff seat made it $15 to go. I knew the cutoff to be, as it were, the last float on the clueless parade, so I raised to $55, looking to get heads up against him, then outplay him on the flop.

My plan went way astray when the big blind called all in for, as it happens, exactly his last $55, which inspired both the under-the-gun player and the cutoff to call. Now my situation was grim. I had wanted one caller, but got three - including an all-in player who was thus bluff-proof. I figured there was no way I had the best hand, and that if I didn't hit the flop pretty hard, I had a lost cause on my hands.

The flop came K-3-3 rainbow. I wasn't looking at the flop as it came down, of course. I make it my practice (and assume you do, too) never to look at the flop, but instead study others for some sign of reaction. I usually don't get much - but I never give anything away. So I was studying the under-the-gun player, as my key foe in this hand, and he didn't look particularly happy, but didn't seem to have given up on the hand entirely. He checked, though, as did the cutoff, and now I was faced with a choice. I could check behind them and hope either that my hand was the best or that it would improve. Or, I could bet, hope they both folded, and take my chances against the all-in player, who could have anything or nothing at all in this instance.

I chose to bet. Not only is it generally "better the bettor to be," I figured that any hand except a good king would have a lot of trouble calling me here, and that the best place for me was heads up against the all-in player and his anything or nothing at all. So I fired $100 into the pot. The under-the-gun player thought for a while, studied me for a while, and let his hand go. Clueless thought less long, and mucked his hand, as well. The turn and the river were both blanks, and my A-Q held up against the all-in player's A-8. As I raked in the pot, both players who folded claimed, with a certain amount of rue, to have been bet off the pot while holding small pocket pairs.

In reviewing the play, I realize that part of what made me bet was the diminished possibility of a "curiosity call." A curiosity call is the call you get sometimes from players who should know better, but don't - which can do evil things to your bluffs. But with an all-in player in the pot, everyone's curiosity about your holding gets satisfied whether they call or not. Many people will fold in this situation and let the all-in player be their stalking horse. That's what I was counting on here, and that's what I got. People are also reluctant to call big bets that open side pots, reasoning that you wouldn't be trying to build a side pot unless you had a real hand. In both senses, then, I used the all-in player to leverage the strength of my bet.

I knew there was a real possibility that the all-in player had me beat. He easily could have called off the last of his chips with something like K-J, in which case I was dead to an ace. But that wasn't the goal of my bet. He either had me beat or he didn't; what I had in mind was to drive out two players who, I felt reasonably certain, did have me beat or could easily catch up (or bet me off the pot) on the turn or the river. Getting them to fold was the goal, and the major accomplishment, of my post-flop play.

I must tell you that all of these thoughts flew through my mind much faster than I am able to relate them to you now. It was only later, upon reviewing my session (which I regularly do - don't you?), that I was able to articulate my plan of attack. In the moment, the situation presented itself to me more as a picture than expressible thoughts: I saw a path through the hand, the only path that could win me the pot, and that's the path I took.

There are four important points, then, to consider:

1. Have a plan for the hand. Know what you're going to do and why you're going to do it. Preflop, I cooked up the reasonable scheme of reraising a weak player in order to take the pot away either then or later in the hand.

2. Adjust your plan as necessary. When two others called, I had to change my plan for the hand. My first impulse was to shut it down, check it down, and surrender the pot, but further thought yielded a proactive (and, as it happens, winning) approach.

3. Make the latest possible decision based on the best available information. Be clear-eyed and dispassionate. When you get outcomes you didn't expect (such as more callers than desired), simply fit new facts into a new paradigm. "Always make room for the new idea," and make sure that your thinking isn't clouded by resentment or wishful thinking.

4. Be bold. When you bet yourself into trouble, sometimes the only thing to do is to bet yourself back out. Fortune favors the bold. You needn't be reckless or careless, but if you fear betting when betting is called for, you probably shouldn't be playing the game.

In all events, make it your practice to analyze the situation as the situation unfolds (and your other practice to review later). Find a path through the hand, then follow that path. Guile and resourcefulness can earn you chips that cards alone would never send to your stack.

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series and the new poker novel Under the Gun, in bookstores now. He resides in cyberspace at vorza.com, and blogs the world from somnifer.typepad.com. John Vorhaus' photo: Gerard Brewer.