Learning No-Limit From Scratch ­- Fatal Flaws In An Otherwise Good Situation

The value of poker plays varies with the situation. The most important variables are the strength of your opponents’ range and the texture of your opponent(s). What/how are they playing? How will they react? Does the play you plan to make conform to your opponents’ weaknesses and the current situation’s texture? If not, the play has likely lost a lot of its value and you may not want to make it!

I was in a nine-handed, highly aggressive $2-$5 no-limit hold’em game at the Venetian. A loose, overly-aggressive player more than $1,000 deep who read situations well, played accordingly, and always opened with a raise, raised from early position for $20. It folded to me in the hijack, I looked down at A 5 and pondered my decision.

Suited ace-little hands are great three-bet semibluff hands for situations similar to these. The fact that you hold an ace lowers your opponent’s odds to hold A-A by 50 percent and A-K or A-Q type hands by 25 percent. That eliminates a significant percentage of the hands your opponent would call or four-bet you with that have your holding in substantial trouble. If you get called by wired pairs under an ace, your ace, flush and straight draws add considerable equity. A 5 is only about a 2-1 dog against K-K, although that assumes you run it to the river, something you’re unlikely to do if the stacks are deep. But it still has significant equity.

But in this particular situation, we need fold equity in order to three-bet profitably. Not only does Mr. Overly-Aggressive raise a lot preflop, he also calls often when three-bet, makes a lot of effective trap plays, and he makes a lot of aggressive plays postflop that limit the value of continuation betting on the flop.

When you three-bet semibluff, you’re hoping to win the pot immediately. But the times you don’t, your holding still has equity, no matter what your two cards are, you can still make the best hand. And you might still win the pot if you both miss and you continuation bet the flop. So, your three-bet semibluff doesn’t have to be profitable mathematically due to immediate fold equity in order to for your three-bet to have positive expected value (+EV). The added positive or negative EV of possibly making the best or worst hand and outplaying or being outplayed by your opponent also has to be factored in. How much additional equity you have depends upon the value of your hand against your opponents’ ranges, the quality of your play, and the quality of your opponents’ play.

For example, If your opponent is going to get stacked every time he holds K-K and you flop an ace, then playing your hand without any fold equity would be correct. But if you are going to get stacked every time you both flop an ace and your opponent holds a better kicker, you’re losing more hand equity than you can make up the times your opponent(s) fold. Yes, those are extreme examples, but they do make the point. Conceptually, the more calls you get when you three-bet, the more play of the hand equity you need. That equity is the combination of your hand strength against your opponents’ range, and your ability to outplay your opponents. The stronger your opponents’ abilities, the greater the chance your hand is in bad shape if called, and the lower the level of the fold equity, the less you should three-bet semibluff.

In this case, since my opponent would correctly read me for having part of my range being three-bet semibluffs, and he tends to call three-bets too wide and is liable to make a lot of effective plays postflop, the value of a three-bet semibluff decreased significantly. Additionally, there were several other highly aggressive players in the game and facing a four-bet, including one that had semibluffing texture was a real possibility.

I thought about flatting, but in this game there was too much three-betting potential behind me. I tossed my A 5 into the muck. Mr. Overly-Aggressive was three-bet by the button, check-raised Mr. Button’s continuation bet, and took the pot right there. I didn’t see anyone’s hand.

Had Mr. Overly-Aggressive been a tighter, aggressive opponent who was in a steal position or was an overly theft-inclined individual, he would possess a wider range of hands. And should he be of the texture to fold a significant portion of his range to a three-bet or play his hand badly after the flop, the three-bet semibluff would have hugely different value and be the play to make. Additionally, when considering a three-bet semibluff, take into account both yours and your opponents’ stack sizes and how those sizes will affect their calling or four-betting propensity.

The hand speaks to adjusting your play based on the situation, the texture of your opponents yet to act, and the texture of the opponents who have already acted. Every situation is different. It’s up to you to define the one that’s current and how you should adjust to it.

I do this by creating a baseline. An example might be a given opponent’s odds of folding to a three-bet. Online programs calculate this for you, but in live games you need to be able to quantify this yourself. Obviously, someone who folds to a three-bet 60 percent of the time provides you immensely more fold equity than those who never fold to a three-bet. So, say I take 60 percent as a baseline. Does the current situation play wider or narrower than that?

Then I think about what other factors come into play that I may need to adjust to and what hand range I need to make the play profitable. Three-bet semibluffing with A 5 is much stronger than doing it with 7 6. That said, both hands may have profitable opportunities, opportunities you want to acquire the edge generated from them. By doing this in all situations, including the ones I’m not in, over time, my thought process becomes automated. I can then utilize the released brain capacity to develop other parts of my game.

And if you grow your game every day, you’ll develop into a good player. It’s a process, much like weightlifting. You grow stronger every day; then eventually, one day you’re a hulk. ♠

Roy Cooke played poker professionally for 16 years prior to becoming a successful Las Vegas Real Estate Broker/Salesman. Should you wish any information about Real Estate matters-including purchase, sale or mortgage his office number is 702-376-1515 or Roy’s e-mail is [email protected]. His website is www.roycooke.com. You can also find him on Facebook or Twitter @RealRoyCooke