Head Games: Now What? Unique Answers to Common Situations In Tournament Play

Craig Tapscott: You started with two big cards and raised before the flop from mid-position and got called in two spots, but you have missed the flop. Now what?

Chris Wallace: This situation breaks down to two questions. Can I win this pot? If the answer is yes, then how do I make that happen? I think it’s important to recognize when it’s not profitable to continue to fight for a pot. If you flopped nothing, not even a backdoor draw, your opponents may have you out-kicked if you do make a pair, and they are not very likely to fold, then you have to check and fold here and move on to the next hand.  

The most important thing here is to know your opponents. If you are playing against two older men in a $1-$2 game at 11 a.m. in a small card room, and they have been sticky, then betting out on the flop is never going to get them to fold. That doesn’t mean the pot isn’t winnable, just that your standard continuation bet isn’t going to work. If you check the flop, one player bets, and the other folds, you may be able to call and then check-raise the turn. Players with this profile are likely to see this line as an indication that you flopped a big hand and decided to slow play it and they will fold unless they have at least top pair with a good kicker or a big draw, and some of them will fold hands as big as bottom two pair. You just have to know what looks strong to your opponents, and often this means knowing what the typical plays are in this game with various hands that you may want to represent. 

Against opponents who play “fit or fold,” you can simply make a continuation bet around two-thirds of the pot and take it down more than often enough to make the bet profitable. If you are dealing with opponents with lots of physical tells, then you can often bet even if they haven’t given anything away yet, mainly because they probably will indicate how strong their hand is when they call your bet or when they see the turn card.

You can bet more often if your opponents are passive and you are in position so that you can check behind and take a free card sometimes on the turn, and you can almost never bet against tricky aggressive players who may raise with nothing. The possibility that they have a hand, combined with the possibility that they will bluff-raise you, takes all of the profit out of a bet. It’s also easier to take down the pot on a dry board. You aren’t going to get folds on a 8 7 6 board nearly as often as you would on a 5 2 2 board, where no one probably has anything. 

If you consider position, your knowledge of your opponents, your table image, their likely responses to your bets, how often their preflop calling range will have hit the board, the combinatorics that tell you how often they will have a hand strong enough to call a bet, and any physical reads you have on them, you should have a pretty good idea how to answer both questions. 

Eugene Katchalov: There are a multitude of factors that I will consider here. The following are just a few:  My actual opponents, as in how I perceive their ranges from the specific calling positions and with their specific stacks.  These ranges can be drastically different based on both these factors. Next, I consider how well these opponents play post-flop and how stubborn or bluffy they are. Flop texture is also crucial as a dry board (K-7-2 rainbow) will play very differently from a wet board (J-10-7 with two suits).

Another important thing that I tend to try to do here is picture to myself how I would play a flopped monster and perhaps play my hand that way as long as I think that my opponent is capable of perceiving it the way that I’d like.

Nicholas Palma: I would be continuation betting most flops for a lot of reasons. One reason is we want to be controlling the pots we’re in. Most flops, our opponents will whiff just like we did. And, by betting, we will also eliminate one of the players, if not both. If one of the players does stick around, there will be a lot of scare cards on the turn such as Broadway cards or an ace. We will also be able to, in most spots, have position on the one caller and can check down for showdown value and have only lost in the 4-7 big blind range.

A lot of our decisions will be opponent-based. If our opponents are tighter, they will be playing better holdings. So, if they call the flop and we don’t get good turn cards, we can shut down, knowing they most likely have a good pocket pair or good value hand. But, if we know they are the type of player capable of “floating” and you notice they call a lot of flops and fold to second barrels or just play a much wider range of hands, we will definitely be more prone to keeping the pressure on.

Craig Tapscott: You started with a big pocket pair less than aces and raised preflop, and got called by the button. An ace comes on the flop. Now what?

Chris Wallace: Many of the same answers from the first question apply here, partly because the nature of any fairly vague poker question is “It depends.” In this case, you are mostly interested in whether you can represent the ace. Against typical players, you can just bet out here, and if no one has an ace, you will win the pot. If the board is suited and semi-connected, like A 8 7, then you are going to have a tougher time taking it down and you may have to play a fairly big pot against a draw if you believe that you are only facing a draw. If the board is dry, like A 8 3, then you are much more likely to take it down with a continuation bet, and if you get called, you are often facing an ace. 

Sometimes when you make that bet and get called, you can still win the pot. Your opponent will often indicate how much they really like their hand, and, if you know they can fold a hand, then you can bet them off a weak ace or a middle pair by putting in another bet on the turn. Players who will never call a second bet without a real hand are fairly common. They think you wouldn’t be betting a second time unless you have at least a big ace. 

If you bet the flop, and you get a caller, you should often give up. But, if you always fold, you are giving up far too much value. Learning to make a good guess from physical tells, facial expressions, knowledge of your opponents, hand ranges, and any other information gathering methods you can use, will allow you to win this pot sometimes, even when you are called. If you are in position, you can always bet the flop and bet the turn again if you sense weakness or suspect a draw. Then you can check behind on the river and find out if you are winning, or make a big bet to blow your opponent off their hand if you suspect a weak ace will fold. 

If you are out of position, then you are probably better off checking the turn in most cases when your flop bet is called. You can reassess the turn to decide if you want to check-raise, fold, or check-call by watching to see what your opponent does and how they do it. Because you are out of position, you can’t bet again on the turn as often because, if you are called, you will be forced to check to your opponent on the river and then you will be facing a tough decision when they bet. 

In both of these hands, it helps to think about how the hand is likely to play out and consider every option. If you think about every line you can take through the hand, your opponent’s response to those lines, and where each line will lead, you should be able to determine whether you can win the pot, and if so, how to do it. 

Eugene Katchalov: When you are starting with a pair, you are almost always a small favorite vs. another hand overall. Two random cards should only flop a pair about one out of three times. Taking this into consideration, it is rare that I will be giving up on flops that contain an ace, as my opponents’ range should generally be much wider than just Ax.  Having said that, again my first job is to figure out a specific opponent’s range and the type of player he is and go from there. It is also important to have some sort of an idea how you think your opponent will perceive or react to your checks or bets based on your range.

Nicholas Palma: I’m also continuation betting in this spot pretty much every time. As the preflop raiser, we can easily represent an ace and we would bet whether we had an ace or didn’t. Also, when our opponent flats the button, he can have a lot of different hands like suited connectors, Broadway cards, pocket pairs, and weak to medium strength aces.

If we do bet and get called, there are a few things we need to evaluate. How has the player been playing up until this point (if the player is loose/tight, what age the player is, if you have a specific tell or read on the person, or maybe you’re talking to them verbally and getting information from them) will determine if we continue betting in the hand or shut down.

A big piece of information we do have is that when the player flats the button, very big aces are normally out of their range, such as A-K, A-Q, and A-J. Without those hands and two pair hands, it will be very hard for them to continue after a second barrel is fired. But it all depends on your read and hand range you put your opponent on and if you feel it is worth the risk to try and take the pot down at this point. ♠

Chris Wallace is a coach at IveyLeague.com, a featured writer for PokerUpdate.com, and a member of the Blue Shark Optics pro team. His book, No Limits, all about no-limit cash games, is available at nolimitsbook.com. Wallace won the 2014 World Series of Poker $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship.    

Eugene Katchalov won the 2007 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic main event and in 2011 captured the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure super high roller event title. He has more than $8 million in career tournament cashes.

Nicholas Palma started playing cards at 14-years-old online and instantly knew he would play for the rest of his life. Now, everyday he feels like he is just living his dream. He works hard daily to be one of the most respected and feared players to come out of the East Coast. Palma won the 2014 World Poker Finals main event.