Card Player Pro

Game: $150 no-limit hold’em tournament
Opponent: Unknown player
Stacks: Mine: 2,865; Early position: 2,925; Hijack: 2,885
My Cards: K K
My Position: Small blind

Poker is a game of mistakes. More importantly, it’s a game of making fewer mistakes than your opponents. I think one of the biggest leaks among amateur players is not giving their opponents opportunities to make big mistakes, and instead trying to get “tricky” with their strong hands. Here’s a hand from a recent training video I produced for Card Player Pro that illustrates inducing a mistake from your opponent.

On the sixth hand of a $150 online tournament, an unknown player opened for 90 from early position (15-30 blinds). Everyone folded to the hijack-position player, who reraised to 300. It was then folded to me in the small blind, and I looked down to see the K K.

We have a few options here. Obviously, folding isn’t one of them — so we can either reraise or flat-call.

Here’s a spot where I think players make a mistake by flat-calling. Their reasoning is usually this: “Well, I want to keep weaker hands in the pot, and I want to disguise the strength of my hand.”

Well, unless your opponents are very good players who will make big folds preflop, or will actively bluff post-flop, flat-calling is just leaving money on the table. By flat-calling, we’re not giving our two opponents a chance to put a lot of chips into the pot when in bad shape.

Let’s imagine that we flat-call and the flop comes A-5-2, J-10-9, or even 7-7-5. Hands like A-K, Q-Q, J-J, or 10-10 that might have put in 100 big blinds preflop are now looking to check-fold, or may have even outdrawn us.

Against unknown players who probably aren’t top-notch online pros, I’m not going to let one of them avoid making a big mistake by just flat-calling with my kings.

So, I elected to reraise. I could shove all in, but again I think this prevents my opponents from making a mistake. Unknown, casual players get scared by big bets, and might fold hands like 10-10 or J-J if I shove, but might not fold to a smaller raise.

I decided to make it 900, fully content on calling a shove. If I ran into A-A — well, that’s poker.

As it happened, the early-position player instantly jammed all in, the other player folded, and I called, hoping to avoid a K-K vs. A-A situation.

He turned over 10-10, and my kings held up, as the board ran out Q 5 5 4 6.

Had I just flat-called, there’s a chance that pocket tens wouldn’t have paid off his entire stack on a queen-high board. Instead, I gave him a chance to make a big mistake, and fortunately he did.

Keep giving your opponents chances to make big mistakes and you’ll be surprised at how often they do!