Head Games: To Float or Not to Float, That is the Question

Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer from a professional poker player. Ask three players a question, and you’re liable to get three different answers. Why? Because it depends on the situation, opponent, stack sizes, table image, and many other variables.

Head Games will peer deep inside the twisted minds of today’s top players. We’ll reveal why they do what they do in sticky situations. Let the games begin.

The Pros: Chris Sparks, Jordan Morgan and Eric Lynch

Craig Tapscott: What are the ideal types of opponents or situations for floating on the flop in cash games?

Chris Sparks: Floating is a good technique to use against opponents who continuation-bet on the flop with a high frequency but do not follow up with a bet often enough on the turn. When you float, you call your opponent’s bet with a hand that may or may not be the best hand at the time, with the intention of taking the pot away later if your opponent shows weakness (usually with a check). This play is most effective when in position, but it can also work when out of position against good opponents, as you can usually represent a stronger hand range with a call when you are out of position than you can when you are in position. The ideal situation for floating is when the flop texture is such that your opponent will nearly always be firing a bet but will rarely be connecting very hard with the board, like K-7-3 rainbow.

Floating a low board such as 8-6-2 with overcards like K-Q can be advantageous, as your opponent will be likely to give up on low cards (thinking a pocket pair such as 9-9 will not fold), but will continue to fire on the cards that pair you (incorrectly assuming that they will always be scare cards). Also, it’s generally a good policy to attempt a float only in situations where your opponent thinks you might slow-play a big hand, in order to discourage him from reading your flop calls as universally weak. A sharp opponent who sees you call on a wet and connected flop texture such as 9 7 6 will likely fire again with a high frequency on the turn, mainly because it is presumed that you have a “capped range,” meaning that you would presumably be raising all of your strong hands here, and therefore have a range weighted toward weaker hands when you just call. Rather than float, a better course of action on this type of flop texture would be to bluff-raise.

Jordan Morgan: Floating the flop can be a very useful tool in one’s arsenal. Yet, identifying when and where to float can be tricky. One spot in which I like to float is when I have seen a guy take only one stab at a pot in position and then check down air. Some players make a habit of continuation-betting every board, and then always giving their opponent credit for either what was on the flop or what came on the turn and river. This seems quite obvious, but once you have seen a guy bet his 4-3 offsuit on a Q-10-2 board and then check it down when it come 8, 7, you will be surprised at how often he will take that exact same line with hands that actually have some showdown value. There are many more spots out there to float. The key is definitely not only in identifying patterns in your opponents’ play, but also in accurately guessing what they would be making a bet or raise with based on other unrelated hands that you have seen them show down.

Eric Lynch: The ideal candidate to float is an opponent who is out of position against you and continuation-bets far too frequently. Ideally, I want him to have raised from later position or be an active player, so that his overall range of hands is much weaker and therefore cannot stand the pressure of my bluff on a later street. I often prefer to float instead of just raise (as a bluff) when I have some sort of additional equity in the pot. For example, if I flop a gutshot-straight draw and one or two overcards, it is unlikely that the bet I’m calling from my opponent will give me the proper pot odds to make my hand. But if I include my “float equity” (the times that I win the pot by bluffing later) with my actual pot equity (the money that I win when I make my hand), I can often take situations that aren’t profitable purely from a pot-odds/made-hand perspective and make them profitable by adding my float equity.

Craig Tapscott: When you recognize that a player tends to float you quite a bit, what are some of the ways that you can combat it and turn the tables on him?

Chris Sparks: An instinctual adjustment that some players might make in an attempt to counter a habitual floater would be to just continuation-bet less often and give up more pots when they think the opponent is unlikely to fold on the flop. I think that, in general, this adjustment is incorrect. If my opponent is floating me too often, he is putting a lot of money in the pot with weak holdings (also known as passive dead money), which is something that I do not want to discourage. Rather than becoming more passive on the flop, I become even more aggressive on later streets. A good rule of thumb is that your barreling frequency should be proportional to the width of your opponent’s calling range on the previous street. An opponent who is frequently floating on the flop is going to get to the turn with a wide range of hands, many of which will be unwilling or unable to continue facing further aggression.

Jordan Morgan: I find that combating a player who is floating relentlessly is actually easier than floating other players myself. It usually doesn’t take too long to identify when someone may be a “floater.” It also really depends on if you are being floated from in position or out of position. If the person floating you is out of position, the obvious move is to start betting the flop with a value hand, then checking the turn to induce his bet on the river. Since it is hard to float against a flop and turn barrel, frequent floaters will be calling flop bets to either fold to a turn bet or fire a river barrel against a missed turn bet. Knowing that they are doing one of those two things enables me to play perfectly with my value hand. I just check back the turn and get them to choose putting more money in the pot. If I’m getting floated by someone who is in position, that means that I’m probably check-raising quite a bit. Against players I don’t think will ever stop floating me, I usually alter my check-raising range to include almost only value hands.

Eric Lynch: If the stack sizes are right, one play that I will make against habitual floaters is to bet the flop and then check-raise the turn. The thing I want to make sure of, though, is that the stack sizes in relation to the pot size are such that I can make a check raise on the turn that puts the effective stack sizes basically all in. If we are still very deep-stacked in relation to the pot, I don’t really like betting the flop and check-raising the turn, because I feel like the risk/reward profile is much better on two-barreling, and I also don’t want to give my opponent the opportunity to take a free card, thus missing a betting street when I have a big hand.