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Sept. 2 – If you can do some proper hand reading, raising river “block” bets can be very profitable

Sometimes when you face a small bet on the river by your opponent, you just know that he is not strong. A lot of bad players put out block bets on the river from out of position to name their price to make sure that they can showdown their hand. They do not want to get bluffed out of the pot so instead they bet an amount that they are comfortable calling.

There are a number of reasons why block bets usually are not a good approach to scary rivers. First, if your opponent is going to bluff why would you prevent him from bluffing through block betting? I never really understood this line of thinking by low and sometimes mid-stakes players. Secondly, if you think your opponent has you beat because of his bet sizing and his hand looks like value, then fold.

There have been many times that I did not know quite what to do on the river until I saw how my opponent acted. Often times I hear players say, “I didn’t want him to bet too much because then I couldn’t call.” Do you see what is wrong with this line of thinking? It doesn’t matter how much your opponent bets at the end, it only matters if you think you have the best hand given the pot odds. Poker players that are thinking about folding because their hand is not a $200 hand are not thinking about the game in the correct manner. You should not be examining your own hand strength in an absolute sense, but in whether or not you have the best holding. Sometimes I may fold top set on the river. Sometimes I might call with king-high. But to say that I want to prevent my opponent from betting a lot is ludicrous and it stems from people always wanting to get to showdown.

If you are good at hand reading, you can really exploit block bets through bluff raising. Sometimes players will convince themselves to call anyway so be careful. This reminds me of a hand that I played at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open this week. We were in the early stages of the tournament and a player from under the gun (UTG) raised to 2.5 times the blind. I was in the cutoff with 10 9 and called, and a very big fishy player also called in the small blind (SB). The flop ran out K Q 5. The SB checked and the preflop raiser made a standard continuation bet (c-bet). A lot of the time I fold here, but I thought that if I floated this board the preflop raiser would just check/fold the turn, so I called. Much to my dismay, the SB called as well. His range was extremely wide — a king, a queen, a flush draw or a straight draw were all in his possible holdings. The turn came the 2 and the SB checked again. This time the preflop raiser also checked and this gave me the green light to stab at it and win a nice-sized pot. I knew that the deuce did not change anything but also brought an additional draw to the board. I thought that if the preflop raiser had at least top pair he would almost certainly bet again to win the pot or get value from the draws. Unfortunately the stubborn SB took some time with it and called again and the preflop raiser folded. I really thought that the SB now either had a weak king or combination flush draw plus pair or straight draw. The river came the Q for a final board reading K Q 5 2 Q.

Now to some that may have looked like a scary card. But in reality I actually thought it was not that scary at all. There is no way that this guy was holding on with just a queen the whole time and the fact that the river was the Q meant that he couldn’t have a flopped middle pair that turned a flush draw. If I was certain that this guy wouldn’t fold a king if it was checked to me, I most likely would have under-bluffed the river as my hand had no showdown value. However, surprisingly he came out and bet about one-fifth pot which was 1,800. I just didn’t believe that someone would bet so small when they made a backdoor flush and correctly sussed this out as a blocker bet with a king. I then had to determine if I thought he would fold a king, as many players will block the river yet still call a raise even though the action is counter intuitive. But here I figured if I made it 15,000 which represented about half of his stack, he would fold. He ended up taking a very long time with it and eventually dumped his hand.

So you can see that his weak sizing at the end coupled with my ability to read his hand really created quite a profitable bluff-raise situation.

Sept. 3 – If you think someone is making a play at the pot you can sometimes bluff raise them or float in between

Sometimes you can “feel” when someone is making a move on a pot. It is like a sixth sense. Some inexperienced players take this too far and play too much off of their reads while dismissing some important information laid out in front of them.

One of the biggest clues that you can observe in a certain situation is when you think that someone would not play a hand fast due to the lack of draws. Let us take a look at a hand that I played last week at the Seminole Hard Rock casino in Hollywood, FL. The game was $5-$10 no-limit hold’em and I had just busted from the $10 million guarantee tournament. I did not know any of the players at this cash-game table so I was forced to stereotype based upon looks. The gentlemen that I got involved with in this hand was in his mid 50s and I had listened to him talk with someone on the phone about his business. I made the conclusion that he was most likely a recreational player.

In this hand he was in the SB and I was in the BB. The pot was raised from UTG+2 to $40, the SB called and I called with Q-J offsuit. We were all $2,000 deep. The board came out 10 4 4 and both of us in the blinds checked. The preflop raiser bet out $50 and the SB immediately raised to $125. It looked to me like the c-bettor’s sizing was rather weak and even though I did not necessarily think that the SB was bluffing, I dismissed the fact that he would fast play trips on such a dry board facing a weak bet. It was more likely that he had a 10 or some sort of pocket pair like sevens. Identifying this situation, I thought that this was a perfect opportunity for me to take this pot down with a bluff check-raise three-bet.

I pondered if it would better for me just to call in between. Which play would look stronger — a raise or call? I decided to raise because I believe that players get scared of playing big pots with marginal holdings. I wanted to put the fear in him that more bets were coming and did not want to give him the opportunity to check/call with a 10 if I only called his flop check-raise. I also thought that on the outside chance that the preflop raiser actually had an overpair, he would be forced to fold now. So I decided to make it $375. The preflop raiser quickly folded and the the SB thought for a bit, said “show me your four,” and folded a 10 face up.

There was another spot in a tournament last year where I made a similar play from out of position. This time the villain was on the button and raised a preflop raiser’s c-bet on a 9 9 2 board. I flat-called the flop raise from the big blind with 10 8 and the preflop raiser folded. I thought that my call would be super scary to the button and sure enough he checked back a J turn. On the river a K came, and I made a modest one-third pot-sized bet. The button grimaced, quickly folded and I knew that I had represented a nine well. ♠

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.