Can You Lay Down Your Hand?

I was watching a student play $3-$6 limit hold’em online at Full Tilt when he picked up pocket aces on the button. Everyone folded to him, and he raised. This can be an excellent situation for this hand, because almost everyone has a wide range of raising hands here, and rarely do the players in the blinds even consider that they may be up against such a powerhouse.

Only the big blind called. The flop of 9 5 2 looked perfect to my student, and he wasn’t worried even when the big blind check-raised his bet. He considered his options, and decided to go for a raise on the turn, so he called the check-raise.

The 3 on the turn looked even safer, and, indeed, he raised when the big blind bet. His opponent called. The river was the 7, making the board 9-5-2-3-7. My student bet, and immediately was check-raised. “Oh, no,” he (approximately) exclaimed out loud, “I have lost the hand.” Then, he called, and looked at an 8-6 offsuit, making a straight. Sure enough, he lost the hand.

Let’s take a quick look at what the big blind was doing. Assuming that he was facing a steal-raise, he decided to try a resteal when he flopped a gutshot. When he got raised on the turn, he knew that he was up against a real hand, but decided to call the raise to see if he could get lucky. This was against the odds, in that he was getting 7-1 on an 11-1 shot, and even if he succeeded in getting two more bets on the river, he could get only nine big bets total. My student’s turn raise netted him some theoretical profit, even though he lost the real-world hand.

Calling the river: For lesson purposes, the hand basically played itself, except for the river call. I pose this question: “Should he really call the river check-raise, or can he lay down his hand here?”

In favor of the call is the fact that by the time he gets to decide, there are 11.7 (counting the small blind) big bets in the pot, so he is getting considerable odds. In addition, there is a basic tenet that limit hold’em is not a game that favors heroic laydowns. After all, he needs to pick off a bluff only about 9 percent of the time for his call to show a profit.

There is some poker logic that argues against the call. Let’s look at this topic by the following categories:
• Gut feel
• Previous betting
• How people play
• The nature of the board
• The curiosity factor

Gut feel: First is his own automatic response, “Oh, no, I’m beat.” It was not, “I’m probably beat,” or, “Most of the time I’m beat.” He essentially knew that his aces were no good.

Previous betting: The fact that my student raised the turn is an important consideration. One of the things you need to think about when an opponent may be bluffing is whether or not he has a reasonable expectation that you will fold. Very few players check-raise the river after being raised on the turn, expecting to win the pot without a showdown. Their check-raise is designed to win more money, not induce a fold.

How people play: In fact, very few players ever check-raise bluff on the river. Most poker players fall into a “cautious” category in which they may make an occasional play on the flop, but an expensive and almost never successful river check-raise bluff is just too expensive to contemplate. Putting in two bets while hoping an average opponent who has been betting strongly will suddenly decide to give up works so rarely that you almost never see it.

The only people who make this sort of play are great players with an amazing ability to read opponents, very weak players who have learned a new play and lack the judgment to know that it does not work, and desperate players who have decided to try anything to win a pot. Unless you recognize your opponent as being one of these unusual types, you can be confident that he will almost never try a check-raise bluff on the river.

The nature of the board: I learned this old axiom way back in my stud days: If a player showing a board of J-10-8-7 raises you, he may have a straight or may just be hoping to represent a 9 and get you to fold. But if a player showing a board of J-8-5-2 raises you, he almost certainly has a monster. There is nothing there for him to represent, so he cannot think is he scaring you. If he isn’t trying to represent something, he must have something.

In the hand we are discussing, the board is 9-5-2-3-7. This is about as barren as they come. The check-raising opponent cannot believe that you will find something so frightening on that board that you will just give up. If he can’t expect to frighten you off, he must expect you to call. Thus, your one-pair hand is no good.

The curiosity factor: Many river calls of out-of-the-blue raises and check-raises stem from the caller just wanting to know what is beating him. He really does not expect to win, but he wants to know what is beating him, partly so that he can have a good reason to whine and complain after the session. I am not saying this applies to my student, but it happens a lot in the live games that I play.

Conclusion: Yet another poker axiom tells us to figure out what our opponent hopes that we will do, then do something else. If he is clearly check-raising, expecting us to call (and lose), we should fold. It is tough to do, especially when your hand started with so much promise, but a big bet is a big bet, and saving one is the same as winning one.

Of course, you can’t get a reputation for making great laydowns, or you will encourage your more observant and daring opponents to make bluff-raises and check-raises. But one of the best things about folding a hand is that your opponents do not know what you had — that is, unless you tell them, and the temptation to do just that seems to overwhelm some players.

If you apply poker logic to every showdown, and refrain from advertising your difficult folds, you can save some money when it makes sense and call when you really think you are getting the right price to win.

Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold’em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].