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October 22 – Proper bet sizing with nutted double barrels on scary boards like 1 liners or 3 flushes often induces inexperienced players to bluff

One of the things I have noticed over the last few months since I’ve started playing full time $5-$10 no-limit hold’em again is how often weaker players make hand reading mistakes on the turn from out of position. If you are playing against a skilled, experienced player and they double barrel a scary turn, a turn that could easily hit your check-calling range on a draw, there is a very good chance that they are indeed strong.

One of the things that you can do when you turn a premium hand in position as the preflop raiser is to bet small. For some reason, this seems to give weaker players the green light to bluff. This happened to me yesterday in my normal $5-$10 game at Commerce Casino, which has a $1,500 cap buy-in. The stacks were about $700 effective and it folded to me in the cutoff. I raised it to $35 with K Q and the button and the big blind both called. Much to my delight, the flop came out J 10 9, giving me the stone cold nuts. The big blind checked, I bet $70, the button folded, and the big blind called. The turn brought the 7, completing the rainbow. At the time, I thought that this was an interesting card for me because anyone with an eight would have a lower straight and my opponent might be curious if I bet what would appear to be one of the scariest cards in the deck. With the pot around $240, I decided to bet small—only $75—after the big blind checked to me again. After some deliberation, I was very pleased to see my opponent go back for his stack and announce “all-in.” Obviously, I snap-called and the river brought out the 2. The villain in the hand sheepishly turned over Q 10 for a flopped middle pair and an open-ended straight draw. The key to inducing his bluff was my small, “weak” sizing on the turn. He did not recognize that, if I had the strength to in fact bet that scare card, I probably was strong.

The next time you turn a strong hand after being the pre-flop raiser, pay attention to how easy it is to trick your opponents through bet sizing. Here is another hand that I played from the same game from a few nights ago. With about $850 effective stacks in a six-handed game, I raised the button to $35 with Q J. The big blind defended and I saw a monstrous flop of 10 9 5, giving me an open-ended straight flush draw. The big blind checked, I bet $55, and he called. The turn was the 6, one of the most draw-completing cards in the deck. My opponent checked again and, this time, I decided to bet on the larger side because I did not think that he was going to fold any hand that he called the flop with and I wanted to set up a large river value bet. Again, much to my delight, my opponent raised me to $400 with about $200 behind. Now, it was possible that the big blind had a higher flush than me, but, with these stack sizes, there was no way I was ever folding. There were also many other hands he could have that were worse than mine, like smaller flushes, two pair, sets, or straights. Because he had so little money left after the check-raise and I thought he would never fold, I decided to just move all-in over the top to prevent the off chance of a fourth spade coming, killing my action. Incredibly, my opponent folded! He must have had a stone cold bluff. I am not disappointed that I did not just call the turn, because at that point I really doubt that he would have bluffed his last $200 on the river.

So, you can see that you can play deceptively sometimes by betting small with your nut hands on the turn or playing them straightforwardly. The turn is a very important street to barrel and you are not losing all that much by only betting it when you have a hand on a scare card that fits your opponents’ range.

October 21 – Making plays for balance sake in live poker is vastly overrated. The game moves too slow and the same situations are infrequent

Many years ago, when online poker still existed in the U.S., I remember watching a lot of advanced, high-stakes training videos from Phil Galfond. In certain close spots, he would make mention that he might not make the most immediate plus Expected Value (EV) play, but would pick a different alternative for the sake of balance.

This makes a lot of sense when you are playing with a small, skilled player pool over and over again and hand history information is readily available for study. I mean, there are tools like Hold’em Manager, where you can run analysis programs to find out someone’s turn check-raise percentage in three-bet pots. These types of statistics just do not exist in live poker.

Most importantly though, is the difference in the two paces of the games. If you are multi-tabling five six-max games online, you could see up to 20 times the amount of hands per hour that you see playing live. This leads to almost infinitely more situations where balancing your lines can be profitable to deceive your opponents. In live poker, you might only see a check-raise in a three-bet pot once every six months. Also, the player pool in your particular game might be much larger than the pool of regulars in an online game. I mean, there may be up to eight or nine $5-$10 tables going on a weekend night here in Los Angeles. It would be very rare for me to need to make a play for balance’s sake against my typical recreational opponents.

It comes to a point when you are making these plays, especially against people that are not paying attention, that such plays really become a leak. That is why some people have trouble transitioning from online poker to live games, even if they were winners in online poker. And usually we can all agree that the “skill level” of poker theory is a lot higher online. However, it takes a different skill set to be a winner at live poker and a lot has to do with patience and recognizing that recreational players usually do not drive to the casino to fold hands. These recreational players also very rarely study the game at the same level as big winning players and to play spots as if they are thinking on the same level as you is a mistake.

I have one young, female poker professional who is a subscriber to my training site CrushLivePoker.com that plays out of Las Vegas that constantly “out-levels” herself. She puts herself in the situation of her opponent and makes an action that would get someone of her ability to call or fold. The problem with this thinking, of course, is that most players at $2-$5 are not thinking on a professional level. You have to think on their level and figure out the patterns that you see these types of players make through watching them over and over again. This is not to say that you cannot set up some sort of image of being a maniac or being a bluffer, but things like “merge betting” for the sake of future metagame usually is not going to be the best play against people who are not thinking on your skill level. ♠

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.