Ten Flops After Getting Called By The Button

Today I bring you the next in a series of articles where I take one preflop situation and then analyze play on ten different flops. The goal is to give you an idea how preflop dynamics combine with board textures to suggest to you a general strategy with your entire hand range.

You’re playing $5-$10 with $1,000 stacks. You open for $30 from the cutoff with 9 9. A professional player entrenched at this level calls on the button, and both blinds fold.

It’s fortuitous that you hold a hand as strong as 9-9, as you would open from the cutoff with a fairly wide range of hands such as 2-2, K-8 suited, 6-5 suited, K-10 offsuit, and the like. When the pro calls on the button, he holds a hand he expects to compare favorably to this range. Since he also has the advantage of position, he is going to expect to be the postflop aggressor on many board textures.

It’s a delicate balance, since 9-9 will be among our stronger hands on many flops, but we will have an opponent who wants to push the action, and things could get hairy.

A common theme among these hands is that you have competing interests with a hand like 9-9. You want to bet to protect your hand against overcards. But without a set the hand typically won’t be strong enough to bet on all three streets. So it’s a hand that you’ll frequently want to bet, but that will ultimately become a bluff catcher by the river. The more bad turn and river cards that can come, the more trouble you can get yourself into by betting haphazardly.

Let’s get started. Again, to recap, you opened red nines and got called by the button.

7 4 2

You should bet this flop. You likely have the best hand, and you should give your opponent the opportunity to fold hands with one or two overcards to your nines. On flops like this one, however, you shouldn’t expect your opponent to give up easily. With as little as overcards and a backdoor draw or two, the player on the button should continue. With position, pot odds, all the money behind, and the fact that the turn card will likely change the situation significantly, the button can play a wait-and-see game.
Because the button is incentivized to peel this flop, I’d make a large bet like $60 into this $65 pot.

Q 9 7

Bet with the intention of reraising against a raise. This is perhaps the ideal flop for nines. Your opponent will have plenty of excuse to give you action, so just walk right into it. I’d bet large on this flop as well.

9 3 2

With you holding top set, it’s very difficult for your opponent to hold anything he wants to give action with. Still, this sort of flop is one that the button player should interpret as likely having missed both of you. He should continue against a bet with hands like Q-J and a backdoor flush draw.

My experience, however, is that many players in the button’s position fold flops like these too frequently. I like to bet them small with my entire range to try to take advantage of this flaw. You could bet perhaps $20 into the $65 pot here.

Or you could check. Since I’m not checking many hands on this flop, it should alert my opponent to be careful. But in practice, few players understand my strategy well enough to decode this.

Just don’t make a big bet. If your opponent has an overpair he will push the action for you at some point.

K J 2

Enough with the good flops. They don’t come too often when you have 9-9. This is a pretty typical two overcard flop.

There are two things to note about two overcard flops. First, you can’t protect against overcards anymore because no hand with two overcards is folding. Second, it’s often easier for your opponent to hold a draw on a board like this than to hold a truly strong hand (for example, a set, two pair, or top pair/strong kicker). For instance, it’s more likely your opponent holds A-Q than A-K. And it’s more likely he holds a flush draw than a set or two pair (particularly if he wouldn’t flat call preflop with K-J offsuit).

Therefore, I frequently start out on flops like these by checking and calling. Check first because you’re likely behind if you bet and get called, and the hands willing to fold your bet have little equity against your pair. But don’t fold, particularly if you expect your opponent to bet a wide range of hands against your check. You’re calling for the triple chance to win a showdown with your pair, to spike a set (or runner-runner straight or flush), or to run a bluff.

Sometimes, I would fold to a flop bet. Whether I would call or fold depends on the bet size, stack sizes, and my opponent’s betting frequency.

A 3 2

I’d bet this flop. You want to give overcard hands like Q-J a chance to fold. Furthermore, there’s plenty of room on this particular flop to get action from weaker hands like 7-7, 5-5, and so forth. If called, I’d likely check the turn.

K 7 5

With a pair and a flush draw, only a couple dozen plausible hand combinations have you in real trouble. Because of the overcard factor, I’d tend to bet 9 9, while I’d likely check J J and possibly even A A.

10 8 8

There are arguments for betting or checking this flop, but I would tend to check and call more often than not. I would expect the button to want to put in action frequently. You’ve got blockers to the open-ended straight draws, and you’ve got backdoor straight and flush draws. All of this makes betting and getting raised fairly painful, as you’ll wish you could call, but you likely don’t quite have the hand for it.

Since the hand is not strong enough for two streets of value either, only protection against overcards argues for a bet. On this flop, I don’t think that reason is compelling enough.

K K 7

This flop I would bet. You can easily get called by worse, you’re protecting against overcards, and the paired kings make it less likely your opponent has one.

10 8 7

Bet. You can get value from worse, you have blockers to the straight, and you protect against overcards. And obviously you are open-ended if you get called.

A Q 10

Sometimes it’s just not your day. Check and fold. ♠

Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.