A Battle for Information

At its heart, poker is a battle for information. One of the factors which needs to be taken into account before any action is taken is the information that is likely to be leaked by such an action. As a hand progresses, more and more information can be gleaned to the point where a good player can sometimes be confident about knowing his opponent’s hole cards.

Unfortunately, sometimes, by the time you have enough information to accurately predict the strength of your opponent’s hand, it’s too late to deviate from your original course of action. Every poker player knows that sinking feeling as they call off the last of their chips to be shown a very strong hand by their opponent (importantly, it’s this fact that makes most of the discussion on taking coin flips in tournaments redundant, because by the time you reach the point that you have enough information to realise that it’s probably a coin flip, the pot odds are such that you cannot fold). The later the stage in a hand at which you leak information, the less damaging it is to you.

Conversely, the earlier the stage at which you leak information, the more damaging it is because it gives your opponent a better chance to use that information against you. The following hand is a good example of that fact. If your opponent knows what you have he can play perfectly against you. He can fold or call as necessary and in some cases bluff you. My opponent didn’t necessarily make a mistake in the following hand, but (perhaps unavoidably) he leaked information at an early stage which allowed me to play the hand perfectly against him.

This hand was played online. The blinds were $1-$2, and it was played at a deep table. Each player had $600 in front of them. I am on the small blind. Opponent number one is a straightforward tight-aggressive player (TAG). Opponent number two is an extraordinarily poor player who is very, very loose preflop and post-flop.

The poor player limps from under the gun. This sets off a chain reaction of limps around the table. I complete the small blind with A-4 offsuit. The big blind checks.

The flop comes up A-4-2 with two hearts. There is $12 in the pot.

I lead out for $10 with my top two pair. The TAG immediately makes it $30. The loose player smooth calls the $30, everyone else folds, and the action is on me. So now it’s time to think about my opponents’ ranges. First of all, I’m not at all concerned about the loose player. While it is possible he has a real hand, it’s more likely he has something like K-3 or Q-5. His range for calling the $30 is extraordinarily wide.

However, the TAG’s range is very narrow: his raise here indicates he has a very good hand. He would raise any pair from the blinds, so cannot have a set. He is also very unlikely to raise a draw here with so many people behind except for something like 6h 5h. I also think it’s unlikely he would raise a weaker two pair.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. This leads me to suspect that the TAG has 5-3, So because the raise to me is $20, which is only a tiny fraction of the remaining stacks, calling is the only viable option. At this stage what I’m hoping for is an ace or a four.

The turn however, is an interesting card: it’s the nine of hearts.

At first this seems like a bad card but things aren’t always what they seem. The TAG leads out for $50 (around half the pot). The loose player folds. This leaves the door open for me to push the TAG off his hand. Before attempting any bluff, you should always ensure that the hand you are trying to represent is coherent with your play previously in the hand. It is quite believable that I would lead a flush draw on the flop.

So, I make it $200 to go. The small blind thinks for a while, then calls. Before firing the final and most costly bullet, it pays in situations like this to re-check one’s assumptions. In this case, I think that my opponent’s best hand is a straight or small flush. I think that he’s good enough to fold either of these if he thinks he’s beaten and I think my hand would look very strong with a large river bet.

I fired $350 on the river and then endured that uncomfortable, yet strangely enjoyable, moment during which you’re not sure whether or not your bluff is going to work.

Thankfully, he folded and I made a mental note to remember this hand because it’s both instructional, and it’s the first time, to the best of my knowledge, that I successfully turned two pair into a bluff.

I don’t think that my opponent made any major mistake in the hand. If he had a straight he should have probably just folded the turn because if I start a bluff on the turn I will nearly always continue it on the river. Therefore he is just putting money into a pot which ultimately he is going to have to concede. His problem was that his flop raise gave me a very good idea of what his hand was but he had less information about the nature of mine. An interesting scenario might have developed had the loose player called the turn bet, there I could have raised the TAG’s bet hoping to get called by the loose player’s worse hand and fold out the tight player’s better hand.

However, that’s a story for another day.

Daragh Thomas has made a living from poker over the last three years. He also coaches other players and writes extensively on the boards.ie poker forum, under the name hectorjelly.