Crushing Live Poker With Twitter

May 4 — You can break strict mathematical preflop flat-call rules if you have a plan and usually position

If you have read some of my columns before or are familiar with my training material over on CrushLivePoker.com you know that I strongly believe that in most live, restricted buy-in, no-limit holdem games most mathematical mistakes are made by calling with the wrong types of hands preflop. People do not realize that most of the time the effective stacks are not deep enough to call with implied odds types of hands such as 8-6 suited. However, even in capped games, if you have a plan for the hand, especially with position, you can sometimes break these mathematical rules if you think there are other ways to win besides getting to showdown with the best of it. 

A few weeks ago I played such a spot at the $5-$10 $1,500 capped no-limit game at the Commerce Casino. The game was a little bit shorthanded and I found myself in the cutoff with A 4. A couple of extremely tight players were in the blinds so I opened to $30 with $2,100 effective stacks. The small blind (SB) three bet me large to $200. Now about 99 percent of the time this is either a fold or a four bet for me — weighted way more towards a fold. The reason why I would four-bet with some frequency is that for some players this large sizing preflop represents a hand like nines or tens that does not want to see a flop and that will fold to another reraise. But for this particular player, this sized reraise also represents the top parts of his value hands too, as he does want to play out of position against me. He also does not have much of a three-bet bluffing range. 

So why would I want to call $170 more against a probable tight range only $2,100 effective with a hand like A-4 suited? Because I was thinking that on certain boards I could bluff him out of the hand. I was also very familiar with this opponent’s playing style and knew that he always pot controlled one-pair type hands after the flop and that he would sometimes allow me to realize my equity on the river after giving a lot of free turns. So with this plan of action I decided to call. The flop came out J 5 3 give me a gutshot-straight draw and a backdoor-flush draw. I also had an overcard to a hand like Q-Q or K-K. Much to my delight, my opponent bet out only $200. Against some players I would perceive this as weakness, but against this particular player I read the situation as him not wanting to build a giant pot up with one pair. So the pot laid me about 3-to-1 as it was $600 for $200. If we count the ace and the backdoor flush draw as outs we have eight. If we also assume (and this can be a stretch but I thought with this particular player it would happen with a high frequency) that our opponent would check the turn we can look at our equity on the flop as if we are going to see two cards — similar to an all-in. A short cut way of doing this is to multiply our number of outs by four giving us 32 percent equity. When he gives us 3-to-1 on the flop, and we see a free turn, we only need 25 percent equity, so I am getting the right price to hit even if I do not make any money later on in the hand. 

Obviously this “free turn card” is a pretty big assumption, but I have played with this particular opponent for years. He is definitely a small-to-moderate winning player and has been a long time professional rounder. However, I know that he is averse to high-variance situations and that he likes to avoid good players. I also know that if a spade came in the turn and I bet/bet to the point of putting him all-in on the river, it would be extremely difficult for him to call. 

I ended up getting one of the best scenarios for me on fourth street. The turn was the 2. He checked and I elected to bomb, betting $600. He didn’t take too much time and check-raised me all-in. Unfortunately the river brought out the 4 and I chopped the pot versus A-A. 

The result really does not make any difference. The reason why I bring the hand up is because I think that I had a proper plan for the situation and in this unique scenario it was profitable for me to make what usually is an unprofitable preflop call. I will caution you, however. You should not make it a general game plan to try to bluff people off of big hands at the lower stakes of no-limit. 

May 6 — Blockers in your own hand should sometimes determine whether or not you should bluff catch — not your absolute hand strength

Like most situations in no-limit, when determining whether or not to bluff catch, you should be thinking more about your opponents’ ranges than your own. This will sometimes lead to spot where you make calls with weaker hands in terms of absolute strength due to the blockers in your hand and folds with hands that are stronger due to the lack of blockers. 

There is a perfect example of this concept from a hand I played once again from the Commerce’s $5-$10 no limit table. The villain in this particular hand was an opponent I had caught bluffing the previous week when I called his check-raise on the turn with ace-high and called again, all-in, on river. A few hands prior he had commented about that hand and I had an overall sense that he was trying to come after me specifically. 

This particular player plays about 35 percent of his hands preflop. After he limped in under the gun (UTG) plus one, I decided to raise in middle position with A 10 to $40. A tighter player to my direct left called in the cutoff, the big blind (BB) called and the villain-limper called. The flop came out Q 10 3. Both the BB and the limper checked and I decided to bet $90. This flop decision was close. With some frequency I will be checking this flop and with some I will be betting. The tipping point for me in this spot was that it was multiway, I wanted to buy myself position, I thought I could fold out some better hands and there was a case to be made for a little bit of equity protection. If the hand was specifically heads-up, with position I would be checking back the flop with a high frequency. Much to my dismay the tight player to my immediate left called, the BB folded and the limper check-raised to $350 with about $750 left in his stack. Obviously my immediate reaction was to fold. I was almost certain that the guy behind me had me beat unless he had K-J or J-9 and usually players do not put this type of money in the pot at this level without some sort of hand. However, I took a moment and gauged the situation.

Because the limper did not raise preflop, and to a lesser extent did not limp-reraise after several players called, I dismissed him having pocket queens or pocket tens. Also because I had a ten in my hand it was far less likely combinations-wise that he held Q-10. I also did not think that on a rainbow board he would play pocket threes quite this fast, as I thought his raise size was quite large. This also wasn’t the type of player to check-raise just a queen. So if he did not have a value hand, that left K-J and to a much lesser extent J-9 (from my experience players don’t semibluff bottom open-enders). I felt like if I called his check-raise it would make it almost impossible for the tight player to overcall with just a queen, so if I wanted to continue on with the hand there was no need for me to reraise.

Now let us pause for a moment and imagine that instead of A 10 as our holding we had K-K. Obviously our absolute hand strength is stronger but do you see how bluff catching with K-K would actually be worse against the range that we assign this villain’s check-raising action?  Not only would he have fewer combinations of K-J hands, but he would also have more combinations of Q-10s. And, by the way, I think that this type of sizing is more consistent with two pair than it is a set as players want to protect against bad beats. However, almost all of the time you will see players snap fold A-10 in this spot yet continue on with K-K, not considering their opponents’ hands or their blockers.

I ended up putting all this together and decided to call. My plan worked out nicely and the nitty guy folded behind me. The turn was an offsuit deuce and the limper shoved in the rest of his money. At this point I had to continue to go with my read and I called. Unfortunately, this time I was dead wrong and my opponent tabled 3-3. 

This was definitely a very high-variance play and some could make the case that it is not necessary at this level. However, it does prove an important point. The absolute strength of your own hand is not the most important factor when determining whether to call, especially if an opponent is polarized and you block a lot of his value hands based upon the cards that you hold. ♠

Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on Twitter @CrushLivePoker and @BartHanson. Check out his poker training site exclusively made for live cash game play at CrushLivePoker.com where he produces weekly podcasts and live training videos.