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August 5th – You should try to find reasons not to play hands versus good players preflop

For winning players, poker is like an arbitrage of a financial situation.  Warren buffet once said “price is what you pay; value is what you get.”

I’ve written in previous articles how deep one needs to be to call with certain implied odds types of hands. Say, for example, we have $800 in a $5-$5 no-limit game. An under-the-gun player raises to $25 and we have 5 7 on the button. Using my formula, we need to make thirty times the raise size from the total pot to make this a profitable call. But is this always correct?  Our price is right but what about the value? If we are up against a tight player who will routinely stack off with one pair hands, then this is a very desirable situation. But what if we are playing against a good, winning player? 

In poker, as long as you can beat your opponents by an amount that will also overcome the rake, then you will end up ahead. But like any other set of short-term investments, you need to be able to pick the best spots and have the ability to pass on bad ones. If you see another winning player at the table, he has to be that much better than all of the weaker ones. You should try to find excuses not to play pots with him, especially from out of position, as there are much better situations that will cross your path. This is not to say that you cannot have profitable positions against good players, but you have to realize that calling with implied odds types of hands against people who know where they are and will not pay off is not a good investment.   

I constantly see good young players going out of their way to mix it up with each other. I guess that it is a macho thing but there should not be ego in poker. It is as if they have forgotten the main reason why we play – to win money.  

Now some players like the competitive nature of the game and could care less about their profits. I have no problem with this but for those who play to achieve the highest winrate you should try to get yourself into the best possible scenarios that will reap short-term gains. The easiest way to do this is not to call good players’ raises preflop. If a tough opponent opens in late position who is capable of firing multiple barrels at the pot and will rarely pay you off when you hit big, then you should routinely be folding hands like suited connectors or even small pocket pairs.  
The sheer fact of the matter is that in the long run, if you run this situation a million times, you will end up behind. Why would you want to put yourself in a long-term negative expected value (EV) situation?

Now the exact opposite of this is true when playing bad players, especially deep with position. In these types if scenarios you want to give yourself excuses to get involved. Don’t take this advice to the extreme, however. You are never going to be in a long-term positive situation if you are calling with hands like 9-4 suited out of the blind. Remember, we play poker to win money, not to beat good players.

August 11th – You will find the highest bluffing frequency of any street on the flop. It is also the most common place where people overplay hands

We have all been in the sticky situation of holding an overpair on the flop facing a raise. Is our opponent bluffing? Does he think he has the best hand but doesn’t realize that we are actually strong? Answering these questions can be a daunting task, especially at the lower levels, where people do not necessarily understand hand strength.  

The point of this tweet is to make you realize that these decisions are usually the most difficult on the flop. The flop is where the highest rate of bluffing occurs and where people commonly overplay hands. It is very rare to see someone check-raise the turn on a draw or overplay a one pair holding. For some reason, players are less scared when the board only contains three cards, and are more likely to push marginal hands or think you have missed. 

We can combat this flop aggression by calling raises with the intention of seeing what our opponents will do on the next street. Say, for example, we continuation bet with K-K on a Q-5-3 rainbow board. Our opponent, who called us out of the big blind, check-raises. We can easily call here with the intention of seeing what he does on the turn. Most of the time, if he slows down, we can bet for value. One of the more common lines you will see is a check-raise followed by a small bet on the turn and a check on the river. This then becomes an easy bet for us with a value hand, especially if a front-door draw misses.  

Where you must gauge strength, however, is when the raise comes on a later street. Take the above example and say that our opponent check/calls the flop and then check-raises an offsuit 8 turn. He is really representing a strong hand now and will almost never show up with a hand like K-Q. He also will rarely wait until the turn to pull a check-raise semibluff with a hand like 3-4.  

You have to adjust, especially in smaller-stakes capped games, to this common pattern. Let us say that we hold Q-Q and we raise from early position to $10 in a $1-2 no limit game. Three players call including the big blind. The board comes out 8 8 4. It gets checked to us and we bet $25.  Both players in position fold and the big blind check raises all in for $150.

This is an easy call, as the all-in player could have a flush draw or be overplaying a hand like J-J. If we are deeper stacked we can call with position to see what our opponent does on the turn.  

Let’s change this around now and say that the big blind calls our $25 bet and then check-raises a 9 turn with $400 effective stacks. It is much more likely that he is strong, as turn check-raising as a semibluff is extremely uncommon at the lower levels. It is also very rare that a player would wait until the turn to make a big move with J-J or 10-10 as he is more likely to just call you down. Check out my podcast Deuce Plays for further examination of this concept. ♠

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Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on twitter @barthanson. Check out his podcast “Deuce Plays” on DeucesCracked.com and his video training site specifically for live No Limit players—CrushLivePoker.com. He also hosts Live at the Bike every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 pm ET at LivettheBike.com