Card Player Pro

Game: $100 buy-in, 50¢-$1 six-handed no-limit hold’em
Opponent: Unknown regular
Stacks: $126.65 (mine); $100 (his)
My Cards: K K
My Position: Small blind

Beating weak opponents is one of the first skills that any poker player learns, but how do we take advantage of our more skilled opponents? In today’s tough online games, it’s necessary to step your game up to the next level, and occasionally mix up your play in order to keep your smart opponents guessing about your holdings. In this column, I am going to review a hand I played recently that shows how we can outsmart the “sharks” in our game, and use their skills against them.

Everyone folded around to me in the small blind; I had the K K and made my regular open-raise of $3. In today’s games, battles between the blinds are some of the most difficult situations to manage, but afford you some of the best opportunities to take advantage of your opponents. My opponent, a professional player who is a regular at the tables, called the raise, and we took a flop heads up.

The flop came J 5 3, giving me an overpair.

I made a continuation-bet of $4.80 into the pot of $5.70. Observant players might notice that my bet size on a flop this dry is rather large. In blind-versus-blind battles, aggression plays a big role in deciding who wins the most pots, and my opponent knows this. Here, I actually think a big bet looks unusually weak to a smart, thinking opponent. After all, if I had a strong hand, wouldn’t I want to keep him in?
My opponent called.

The turn brought the 6, adding a possible flush draw.

The normal action here would be to value-bet my kings again. However, given that I think my big flop bet looks weak, I think there’s a decent chance that he “floated” this dry flop and will bluff when I check. Besides, if I check, there’s no way that he’ll put me on a hand as strong as K-K in this situation.

So, I elected to check, and my opponent bet $9 into the pot of $14.85, which I promptly called.

The river was the Q, adding a potentially scary overcard to the board.
Given that I checked the turn, the “standard” action would be to check the river and allow my opponent to continue with the betting lead.

However, part of beating good players is forcing them into spots that they don’t normally see. If I lead out for a big bet here, he’ll likely be very confused by what I’m doing. And, when people are confused, they often find reasons to call you down.
I decided to make a pot-sized bet of $32 into the $31.95 pot.

Against weaker players, a big bet here probably looks strong — a hand like two pair, a set, or a straight that’s hoping to win a big pot. However, given my unorthodox post-flop play, a smart player is going to realize that I rarely have a strong hand when I take this line. Good players will think my hand looks like a missed draw that’s bluffing a “scare card” on the river.

A big bet here forces my opponent to make a tough decision with a hand like J-10, J-9, or even a pair such as 7-7 or 8-8. If I check, he’ll likely just check behind with these hands.

Without much hesitation, my opponent called with the Q 9, a weaker one-pair hand.

Had I taken the standard action of betting the turn, he likely would have folded his hand. However, by mixing things up, I was able to confuse him and take down a much larger pot than I normally would have been able to do.

Remember to occasionally keep your opponents guessing, and they’ll pay you off more often than not.