Countermeasures

Many years ago, I designed computers for the military. Among the things we tracked were "countermeasures," which meant things the enemy did to negate what we were doing. Of course, we then employed "counter-countermeasures" to deal with the countermeasures.

I am not fond of military analogies to poker games, as we are engaged in a social activity in which money changes hands, not a life-or-death struggle. Everyone participates willingly. However, there are certainly some similarities between war and poker, especially countermeasures. Poker is an ever-evolving game in which your opponents try to counter things they think you are doing, and you, in turn, try to figure out how they are responding to you. You then adjust your strategy to overcome their countermeasures. Here is a hand I played recently that demonstrates this point.

Entering a Bellagio $30-$60 limit hold'em game, I posted in the cutoff to start my session. I prefer to take the big blind, and I almost never post between the big blind and the button. Oftentimes, when I sit down after just missing the blinds, I wait and watch a full round until my big blind comes around.

This time, however, I was familiar with almost all of the players, who had been there all week. I was dealt 10-7 offsuit, and everyone folded to me. Now, that is unusual these days (it used to be common before the poker boom), but it does happen. This is a raise-or-fold situation, and you can't fold, so the proper strategy is to raise. This enables you to take control of the hand and possibly create some dead money if one of the blinds folds. In fact, there is some chance of winning immediately, which is a huge plus.

There are some situations in which you should not make this almost automatic raise:

• The player on the button is hyperaggressive and will frequently three-bet, putting you at a big disadvantage, especially when you have a mediocre or weak hand.

• You know from experience that neither blind will ever fold, and you have a hand that is just terrible.

Neither of those things appeared to be true. I was familiar with all of the remaining players, so I raised.

Cooperatively, both the button and the small blind folded. Excellent! The big blind, however, reraised. Superficially, this was a very bad sign, as he should have a very good hand to make this play from out of position after I had shown strength.

I had played with this guy all week, however, and there was an excellent chance that he was reacting to his knowledge that I would raise here with almost any hand, and he was taking this opportunity to wrest control of the pot. I had seen him make a similar three-bet with a weak holding earlier in the week against a player who made suspicious raises, so I knew he had it in him. Of course, he might have a premium hand, but I immediately distrusted his play and resolved to use my position to challenge him.



I called, and we saw a flop of K-4-4, not exactly a perfect flop for 10-7 offsuit. There was no reason for me to believe that he had any of this (or even a hand as good as ace high), and I decided to make a play for this pot. As in every hand, I developed a plan.

If he bet and I raised here, would he believe me? I did not think so. Raising here would have little credibility, and he would expect me to represent something on this sort of board. My plan, for better or worse, was to call here and bluff-raise the turn or river, depending on what came off the deck. This is how I would play a hand like K-Q, so that is what I decided to represent.

I called his flop bet, beginning to execute my plan. Then, the turn was a 10. That changed things, and I needed to rethink my strategy. I no longer had to bluff-raise, as my hand suddenly had developed some showdown potential. But should I raise for value? I most likely was ahead, but there was no certainty. After all, he could be doing all of this raising and betting because he actually had something. I certainly did not want to have to solve a reraise problem. Invoking my new plan, I called again.

The river deuce did not seem to change much. He bet again. A raise would not accomplish much that I could see. If he had a better hand than mine, there was no way he would fold it. He might call with a few worse hands than I held if he was suspicious enough, but fairly few. I called again.

He turned over Q-7, so I won. In fact, he had correctly determined that my preflop raise was bogus, and tried to respond. My plan of raising the turn if a blank came may have worked, but there is no way of knowing if he would have folded or tried again to represent a big hand (which would have succeeded).

The showdown caused an interesting reaction at the table. When the betting went raise, reraise preflop, then all of that betting and calling followed, most people at the table thought we had real hands. One guy said, "I thought you both had a king."

Conclusion: Sometimes things are not what they seem at the table. I certainly would have looked foolish if I had raised a blank on the turn and bet the river, only to display my 10-7 and lose to something like A-K.

Occasionally, you have to assess the chances that your opponent has something real or is just trying to use countermeasures against what he thinks you are doing. If you decide he's using countermeasures, go ahead and launch your counter-countermeasures, even though they may backfire. In the long run, it is better to have the courage of your convictions than to wait until everything is just perfect to play a hand aggressively.

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].