Two No-Limit Hold’em Plays That Make You Easy to Read

I play no-limit hold’em cash games regularly, both live and online. I prefer to play live, and a major reason is that live-action players are for the most part much easier to read. It’s not that I can magically decode an opponent’s every twitch and tic.
Physical tells are sometimes useful, but more important are betting patterns.

Live-action players tend to routinely employ an assortment of plays that make them much easier to read. These plays are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. They just have a tendency to make a player too predictable overall, unless he takes special care to avoid this problem. Here are two of the common plays that my opponents make that let me take advantage.

Flat-Calling With A-K
Many live-action players, particularly in the small-stakes games like $1-$2 and $2-$5, like to flat-call preflop raises rather than reraise when they hold A-K. Some players will call nearly every time when they hold A-K, and some will mix it up, reraising and calling.

Flat-calling with A-K has some things going for it. First, by keeping the pot small, it enables you to sometimes play more profitably on flops such as Q-10-5. On these flops, A-K can leave you in a hand-strength no man’s land: too good to fold, but not good enough to play for stacks. You have more flexibility with the hand in a smaller pot. Additionally, flat-calling with A-K can add some deception to your game. A preflop raiser with A-10, A-J, or A-Q will be much happier to play for stacks on an ace-high flop against a preflop caller than against someone who reraised preflop.

Nevertheless, habitually flat-calling with A-K has one huge flaw. It completely unbalances your preflop reraising range. If you aren’t reraising with A-K (and presumably not with A-Q and weaker, either), an opponent can expect you to have a big pocket pair when you reraise preflop. This is far too much information to divulge about your hand. If I know that a player is an A-K caller, and I also know that this player doesn’t often bluff-reraise with a hand like 8-7 suited, I can play almost perfectly against his preflop reraises. I never have to give him action when he has A-A or K-K. This is a huge problem for him, since A-A and K-K are normally, by leaps and bounds, the most profitable hands.

The other problem with flat-calling with A-K is that reraising is significantly more profitable, on average, over the long run. You’ll end up in plenty of uncomfortably large pots with ace high, but you’ll also get your top pair paid off for stacks much more often. On average, A-K makes more money for you if you reraise preflop. And on top of that, reraising with A-K disguises your reraises with A-A and K-K.

Flat-calling with A-K is occasionally a good play, but most of the time it’s not. Unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise, reraise with it.

Calling the Flop With a Drawing Hand
You might be thinking, “What is wrong with calling the flop with a drawing hand?” There’s nothing wrong with it ­— as long as your overall strategy is balanced. But many players don’t bother to balance their plays, and they end up making themselves very easy to read. Here’s an example of how I exploit the drawing-hand callers:

It’s a $2-$5 no-limit hold’em game with $500 stacks. A loose player limps in, and I make it $25 to go from one off the button with the 2 2. The blinds fold, and the limper calls.

The flop comes J 9 5. My opponent checks, and I bet $40. He calls.
The turn is the 4. My opponent checks.

In this situation, I can bet $80 to $100 or so, and expect my opponent to fold the vast majority of the time. Why?

Loose players limp in with all sorts of hands. My opponent could hold hands like Q-8, 10-7, and 8-6 that form gutshot draws on this flop. Or, he could hold hands like 8-5 and 9-7 that make a weak pair. Because so many hands catch a piece of this flop, even after he calls the flop, he’s much more likely to have a draw or a weak pair than a jack or a big hand. The turn card completes few of the possible draws, so I can bet with confidence that my opponent will usually give up.

How should my opponent adjust his play to avoid allowing me to win pots like these so easily on the turn? He should make three adjustments to his strategy:

1. He should fold the weakest draws. Some guys will peel the flop from out of position with just backdoor draws. These weak hands are oftentimes better folded.

2. He should sometimes take an aggressive flop action with drawing hands. With a hand like K-10 on the J-9-5 flop, my opponent should occasionally bet the flop or check-raise. This aggression can win the pot immediately, and it also lays cover for the times that he flops a big hand like J-9 or 5-5.

3. He should sometimes call the flop, intending to check-raise the turn with both strong hands and draws. This line, while you don’t want to overuse it, sets a would-be thief up for the maximum penalty.

Checking and calling with draws on the flop is fine. In fact, it’s fine to check-call the flop while planning to fold the turn when unimproved. But if you want to make sure that you’re not too easy to read, you should protect your passive plays with more aggressive ones. If you mix up your draw play between bets, calls, and check-raises, both on the flop and on the turn, you’ll be a much more dangerous player.

Ed’s latest book, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, is available for purchase at smallstakesnolimitholdem.com. He is a featured coach at stoxpoker.com, and you can also check out his online poker advice column, notedpokerauthority.com.