Card Player Pro

Game: 50¢-$1 no-limit hold’em
Opponent: Unknown passive, fishy player
Stacks: His: $72.55; Mine: $100
My Cards: I don’t know!
My Position: Cutoff

In a recent series of videos that I authored for Card Player Pro, I attempted to demonstrate the power of position and hand-reading by playing a session without looking at my cards. Through reads, board texture, and timing tells, I looked for spots to take advantage of my opponents’ weaknesses and pick up pots when they rarely had strong hands. In this column, I’m going to review one of those hands.

If you’re not going to look at your holecards, you need to have some other advantage over your opponent. For my coaching video, I chose position. I folded every single hand that I was dealt in early position, and raised 100 percent of my hands from the cutoff and the button. As is common in low-stakes games, players call too many raises when out of position and are forced to play weak hands without the betting initiative. We’ll now look at how profitable these situations can be.

In this hand, I raised to $3 from the cutoff with … well, I don’t know! Both the small blind and big blind called my raise. The small blind appeared to be a passive, fishy player who played too many hands and called the flop with weak holdings. The big blind appeared to be a rather tight regular.

The flop came down K 8 4, and both of my opponents checked.

This is a very good board for me to continuation-bet without knowing my holecards. A flop of K-8-4 is much more likely to have connected with my perceived raising range than my opponents’ calling range, as most of the hands with which people call raises from out of position (small or medium pairs, suited connectors, suited aces) have missed this flop.

I bet $6 into a pot of $9; the small blind called and the big blind folded.
Given my read of the small blind, I think he’s capable of calling me here with as weak as a 4, and probably isn’t folding any pair or any semi-decent (gutshot or better) draw. This is great news for me, as there will be many scary turn cards for his hand that I’ll be able to continue firing on.

The turn brought the A, adding a second flush draw.

The A is a fantastic card for firing another bet. It’s an overcard to the board; it didn’t complete any of the flopped gutshots; and, the heart flush didn’t get there, either. Unless he had specifically an ace-high heart draw, or spiked two pair with aces up, it’s a card that’s rarely going to improve his hand. Even if he has a hand as strong as K-Q or K-J, he’s going to be facing a very difficult river decision with second pair.

I toyed with my bet-sizing for a while, but landed on $15.

Bet-sizing is an important consideration here. He has $63.55 left in his stack. If my goal is to push him out of the pot, I want to size my bets to give him the most difficult decision I can on the river.

If I bet too much on the turn ($22-$25), he may feel “priced in” to call my bet on the river, and pick off my bluff. However, if I bet too little ($11-$13), I’ll need to overbet the river to get him out, which would be a very pricey bluff. Betting $15 leaves me with one pot-size bet that I can fire on the river.

Without much thought, my opponent called, and the river was the offsuit 6.

This was a final good card to bluff at. The flush draw missed, and the 6 is an unlikely card to make a hand that can call a river bet. Unless he called two streets with a gutshot-straight draw, or hit a miracle set, he’s rarely going to have a hand better than a pair of kings here.

Sticking to my plan, I pushed my opponent all in for his last $48.55. The bet-sizing has worked out great, as we’re risking $48.55 to win the $48.50 in the pot. For him to call, he has to think he’ll have the best hand more than 33 percent of the time. How confident would you feel with K-J in his spot? Or, with 9-8? Or, with an even weaker pair?

He thought for a few moments, and folded. I scooped a nice pot without ever having looked at my cards!

If you’re looking to improve as a player, cover your cards with Post-it note paper and try playing a few tables without looking at your cards (at stakes at which you can afford to lose some, of course). You’ll be pretty surprised at how much you learn when you have to pay attention to other things besides your own hand.

To watch Andrew Brokos comment on and play this hand, point your browser to Card Player Pro, the complete online poker training site, at www.CardPlayer.com/link/Foucault-3.