A Simple Play

Here’s a play that works in live games. It’s one I use frequently when the opportunity arises. It couldn’t be easier, and if you pick your spot and opponent with some small measure of savvy, it shows an automatic profit.

It’s a play made from the blinds against a steal raise. The steal raise could be someone opening from the cutoff or button with a wide range of hands. Or it could be an isolation raise that aggressive, pro-like players make after a limper or two. For the purpose of this article, let’s assume you’re up against the isolation raise.

Say you’re playing $2-$5 no-limit hold’em with $1,000 stacks. There’s a limper, and then an aggressive player makes it $25 on the button. You make it $75 to go from either the small or big blind. The limper calls and the pro-like player calls.

The flop comes. You bet $80, the original limper folds and the pro-like player calls.
The turn comes. You bet $250, and he folds.

This play works — that is, it shows a profit with many hands on most flop and turn cards — given a few assumptions.

1. The pro-like player is isolating with a quite wide range of hands.
2. The pro-like player doesn’t expect to get three-bet very often, yet you three-bet him.
3. The pro-like player expects the turn to be a decision point for you. That is, he expects you to give his flop call credit, and therefore, he expects you will give up on many of your bluffs.

If these assumptions don’t hold, the play may not be as profitable. But, they will commonly hold against many pro-like players if you tend not to overuse the play.

Why does it work? It’s simple math. Let’s say the button will raise 40 percent of his hands. This corresponds to a range that includes hands like K-5s, J-8s, K-9o, and better. This is a fair expectation. If you play with these guys enough, you’ll see that they are raising perhaps half (or just a bit less) of their buttons. That’s the kind of preflop range we’re targeting.

You make it $75. For the sake of the math, let’s say you’re in the big blind, though you can also run this play from the small blind. You are raising $70, and there is $37 in the pot when you do it. If your opponent were to fold 67 percent of the time, you should show an automatic profit from just this initial raise.

But he’s not going to do that. In fact, quite the opposite, you should expect this player to call with most of his hands. He might fold some of the weakest offsuit hands, but he’ll tend to call the three-bet with his pairs, suited hands, and stronger offsuit hands. Let’s say he calls with 28 percent of his hands that looks something like this:

2-2+Axs, K-5s+, Q-8s+, J-10s-4-3s, J-9s-53s, J-8s-10-7s A-9o+, K-10o+, Q-10o+, J-10o
I’ve asked my computer to generate a random flop for this exercise. It picked:
Q 7 4

On this flop, our opponent has something (i.e., a pair, two overcards, or a straight or flush draw) about 60 percent of the time. Let’s say that he calls with all these hands and folds the other 40 percent.

The randomly-generated turn card for the example was the 6. On this turn card, our opponent has top pair or better 43.97 percent of the time. Of these hands, 27.3 percent are top pair and 16.67 percent are overpairs or better.

In addition, he will have a flush draw 21.2 percent of the time (overlapping with some of the top pair hands) and an open-ended straight draw 9.6 percent of the time. In total, he will have one of these hands 66.7 percent of the time.

Typically, the player won’t call or raise with all of these hands. You will get folds from weak flush draws and straight draws. You may also get folds from weak top pair hands such as Q 8 and Q 10. After all, you have three-bet preflop, bet flop, and then bet turn big. You are certainly repping that top pair, no kicker is beat.

So let’s assume that the player will proceed with all of the 16.67 percent of hands that are overpairs and better. He will proceed with two-thirds of his top pair hands and one-third of his drawing hands. This has him continuing with 42.5 percent of hands and folding 57.5 percent of hands.

Now we can run the math on this play. Let’s assume that all of our bets are completely lost (i.e., that we have zero equity in the pot) when called on the turn. When not called, obviously we win the pot. Thus far, the EV of the hand is:

(0.3)($37) + (0.28)($87) + (0.24)(+$167) + (0.18)(-$400)
= $11.1 + $24.36 + $40.08 – $72 = +$3.54

With these assumptions, the play shows an automatic profit of $3.54 per attempt.

But it’s better than that. First, we have assumed that you have zero equity when called on the turn. That’s not true—not true at all. You will, at this point in the hand, frequently have things like flush draws, straight draws, pairs, and even better hands just by accident. You will win a fair number of these pots even when you get called on the turn.

Second, we haven’t accounted for raising. The button can raise either preflop or on the flop. This can be either good or bad for you. It’s decidedly good for you if he tends to raise his premium hands and doesn’t bluff frequently enough. The reason that’s good is that his raise acts as a warning that he’s got one of the overpair or better hands that is destined to call you down, and you get to save your $250 turn bet.

Raising is bad if he mixes in an appropriate number of bluffs at each juncture. This is where our assumptions come in. We’re assuming that he doesn’t expect to get three-bet, and he’s expecting you to “show your hand” so to speak on the turn by checking or betting small with the hands you’re not so sure about. With these assumptions, you should expect most players to adhere generally to the raising strategy that benefits you.

That’s the play. Your opponent makes a steal or isolation raise from late position. You’re in a blind and you three-bet. Then you bet roughly half-pot on the flop and follow up with a closer-to-pot-sized turn bet. It shows an automatic profit against most players in typical $2-$5 and $5-$10 live games, provided:

1. The game isn’t too crazy with money flying everywhere.
2. You don’t overuse the play.
3. You choose to run the play with preflop hands that have something going for them. For instance, you use Q 6 instead of 9 2.
4. You put on the brakes when the board comes something like 10 9 7 where premium preflop hands lose value (i.e., he’s not afraid of your 3-bet anymore) and equities run much close together.

If you apply this play sensibly, it’s a terrific defense against those chronic button raisers. ♠

Ed’s newest book, Poker’s 1%: The One Big Secret That Keeps Elite Players On Top is available now at his website edmillerpoker.com. You can also find original articles and instructional videos by Ed at the brand new site redchippoker.com.