Orphan Flops

To me, the purest form of poker expression is heads-up no-limit hold’em. From a strategy point of view, it offers the greatest opportunity to treat poker like a chess game, and to make moves with both short-term and long-term impact in mind. In this column, I’m going to discuss a common occurrence in heads-up play, and how that occurrence relates to your, and your foe’s, mindset.

Much of what I discuss here is situationally applicable to full-ring games, especially reasonably tight ones in which most players fold preflop, and I encourage you to extrapolate accordingly. But at the same time, I encourage you to examine your feelings about heads-up play, because many players have a real prejudice against it, a prejudice that I find unfounded … wrongheaded, even. They feel that by playing heads up, they’re placing themselves at the mercy of a single foe. Is this thinking not exactly upside-down? Shouldn’t you seek to put yourself in situations where your single foe is at your mercy? And if you had this dominate-and-crush idea in mind every time you sat down to play, wouldn’t you perform better in heads-up matches and full-ring games alike?

That’s mindset, folks: In no-limit hold’em, it’s almost always better the bettor to be, and it’s certainly always better to have it in mind to bury your foes completely.

OK, now let’s discuss the common heads-up occurrence of an orphan flop, one that comes something like 7 7 3: no draws, and no cards that either player is likely to hold, especially if there’s been a raise and a call preflop. This orphan flop is just looking to be adopted by someone. Well, it turns out that there are two kinds of players in this poker realm of ours — those who adopt orphans, and those who don’t.

Here’s the mindset of the Timmy (timid player), who doesn’t bet into this board: I have none of that flop, and I’m not likely to convince my opponent that I do. If I bet, I’m just opening myself up to a raise, and then where will I be? I’d better check, and be ready to fold if he bets. Why not? There’s not that much money in the pot to begin with.

There’s nothing too terribly wrong with this conservative mindset — except that it completely surrenders control of the hand and, by extension, the whole match. It’s a negative mindset … a loser’s mindset. Here’s the sort of state of mind that’s more likely to lead to heads-up hold’em success: That flop fully missed my hand, but it likely missed my opponent’s hand, as well. If I bet, he may or may not believe me, but unless he’s prepared to raise on a bluff, he’ll have to let his hand go. Should I bet? Why not? There’s not that much money in the pot, which means that I can fire at the pot without exposing myself to too much risk. Plus, in addition to winning the pot, I’m serving the greater goal of control.

So, you bet and your foe folds. Now you’ve made the important discovery that he yields orphans; that is, he won’t contest flops that he’s manifestly unlikely to have hit. This gives you a certain carte blanche to attack subsequent orphans, over and over, again and again, until your foe finally shows some willingness to play back at you — in which case you can be more than reasonably certain that he has a piece of the flop.

Plus, check this out: Your relentless pursuit of orphans will actually inspire your opponent to play worse. Let’s suppose that you raise in position preflop (which you will most of the time in heads-up play) and he’s got a junk hand, which he knows he should throw away. If he’s thinking about hitting an orphan flop and trapping you, he might go ahead and call. Of course, most of the time he’ll miss the flop and have to surrender when you bet again. That’s more profit — and more control — for you.

Never forget that in addition to building pots and thinning fields, raises act as active sonar, pinging your opponents for information about their strength — and their strength of will. Raises define your foes, and their style of play; their tolerance for risk, their willingness to bluff or semibluff or check-raise bluff. The more you raise, then, the more you learn about your foe’s real mettle. His reaction to orphan flops becomes a microcosm of the macrocosm: If he’s timid there, he’s probably timid (and thus highly exploitable) elsewhere, such as in defense of blinds in a full-ring game.

An added benefit of aggressiveness is that it defines you, as well: It defines you as a strong, relentless player who’s not afraid to bet out, either with or without a hand. When you define yourself as a player to be feared, you deal yourself the one thing better in poker than great cards: control.

Now, a lot of this thinking gets muddied in the context of a full-ring game, where so many players can have so many different holdings that, for example, pure orphan flops are few and far between — because with several players in a pot, someone’s bound to have something. (This is one of the reasons for raising preflop in full-ring games — to clarify the situation by narrowing the field.) Nevertheless, the principle remains the same: Either you’re acting or you’re reacting, and for the sake of owning the game, it’s much better to act than to react.

This is why you see strong, aggressive players playing more hands than pure card strength warrants. They’re after your whole stack, and they know that the way to get it is through aggressiveness and knowledge. Aggressiveness forces foes to make decision after decision, and creates ample opportunity for poor decision-makers to guess wrong. Knowledge yields the information — derived through active sonar — that’s needed to make the right decision when entire stacks are at stake.

There’s one caveat: In today’s everybody-knows-everything poker realm, the concept of orphan flops is not exactly a secret. When you bet to adopt, your savvy foes will know exactly what you’re doing, and will play back at you, either by raising right away or by attacking on subsequent streets. That’s OK. They’re defining themselves as players capable of making such moves, and once you have that information in hand, you can decide how to use it: back off, set traps of your own, or find another game.

If you haven’t played much heads-up hold’em, I suggest that you seize the next opportunity to do so. Playing heads up for even small stakes with a friend will give you a quick feel for the parry/thrust nuance of this special form of poker. You’ll discover that being involved in every hand steepens your learning curve, and growing your aggressiveness will pay off in increased self-confidence. And when you’re in there, keep your eye peeled for orphan flops. They happen all the time, and it’s just a shame when no one moves to adopt.

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.