Crushing Live Poker With Twitter

February 26 — When you flop the nut flush deep fast playing can be the most deceptive line (concept revisited)

One of the first articles that I ever wrote for Card Player came from early 2012 and it had to do with playing a flopped nut flush fast in order to maximize your value. Although this spot does not come up all that often, it continues to be one of the most misplayed situations that I observe in no-limit cash games.

There are number of reasons why fast-playing the nut flush is a sound approach. Firstly, people tend to not mess around on monotone boards. I have discussed in previous articles how monotone boards can actually be good continuation bet bluffing boards because usually people do not call light. On a board like J 8 5, you usually will not see a player peel with a hand like 8 7, whereas on a two-flush or rainbow board you will oftentimes see a player continue on with second pair especially if the flop gets checked through. So checking a made strong hand on a monotone board really does not get you anywhere. This may seem a bit counterintuitive, as I am saying that players will fold second pair if you bet but in reality you are not going to get any more action out of them if you check. We are trying to value-target strong hands like two pair, sets, top pair, and draws and other flopped flushes.

Secondly, and usually most importantly, whenever you suddenly wake up later on in a hand, whether that be on the turn or on the river, anyone with a non-nut holding on a monotone board instantly goes into a check-call shell and you may very well lose a ton of value. Let us take a look at a hand that I witnessed at the $5-$10 no-limit hold’em game at the Commerce Casino last week. Effective stacks were about $2,300 and the under the gun player raised to $40. Two people in the field called, as did the button. The flop came out 10 9 5. The preflop raiser bet out $90, both players in the middle folded, and the button called. The turn brought the 2 and the preflop rasier bet $200. Once again, the button called. The river was the J and the under the gun player now bet $400. Almost immediately the button raised to $875, which was quickly called by the preflop rasier. The hands were turned over and the button showed A J versus the under the gun’s K Q.

This situation was an absolute catastrophe for the button. He flopped the nuts over the second nuts and did not get all of the money in. His call-call-raise the river line appeared so strong that the preflop raiser only called, scared of the nut flush.

Now what if the button had instead raised the turn? Still many players would only call with the second nut flush and fall into a check-call shell. If, however, he had fast-played the flop and raised the preflop raiser’s bet, he certainly would have been able to get all the money in and a lot of times would have faced a reraise from the out of position player. I have been observing and playing no-limit for almost 10 years and it never ceases to amaze me how frequent this type of thing happens, even with experienced players.

Of course there is a third reason not to slowplay the nut flush, because action-killing cards can come out, such as a fourth suit or the board pairing. But the simple fact of the matter is that you are only really going to win a big pot on a monotone board when someone has a big hand along with you and the best way to play your hand the most deceptively and to guarantee that you get all of the money is by playing the hand fast, end of story.

February 22 — If you can get someone to fold with a certain board run out it can be sometimes better to turn your hand into a bluff than check back with good showdown value.
 
During one of my Crush Live Call-In shows that streams live on Twitch.tv at 4:45 p.m. PT on Sundays, a listener called in about the following hand. He had called a preflop raise of $20 in a $2-$5 no-limit game with K-10 suited and a $1,200 effective stack against a player that he thought was very likely to pay him off if he hit big. Two other players called behind him and they saw a K 10 6 flop four ways. The preflop raiser bet out $90, which indicated to the caller that he was extremely strong. With top two pair, he raised to $225 and both other players got out of the way, while the preflop raiser called. The turn brought out the 6 and the preflop raiser checked. The caller got concerned that the preflop raiser might have a hand like A-A and checked back. The river was the Q, completing the frontdoor flush and the preflop raiser checked once again. The player with K-10, still scared of A-A and now the possibility of his opponent having K-Q or a flush was happy to check behind and see a showdown, and dragged the pot in versus A-K.

I have several issues with the way that this hand was played by the player with K-10 and it brings up a good point about turning some made hands with showdown value into bluffs. First of all, I agree with the raise on the flop in order to build a pot up against a likely strong hand. Usually in this situation, the preflop raiser has the nut flush draw as the bottom part of his range when he continuation bets such a large amount on a wet board into three people. We want to get value now and not have anything come that could possibly scare him away. In terms of made hands, he could easily have A-K, K-Q, K-J, or A-A. When the turn pairs the six, we only now lose to A-A, but by betting, we would continue to get value from all of the other weaker kings and the nut flush draw. If I were in this player’s spot, I would certainly bet again here and bet most rivers small for value. Many players lose too much value by checking back turns and cannot make up for the lost value when their opponents miss draws at the end.

However, the reason why I think that this hand is so interesting has to do with what came at the end and the decision to check back the river. If I had checked back the turn and was faced with another check on the river, I very well may have decided to turn my hand, which has a decent amount of showdown value, into a bluff. The reason why is because when the third spade comes in at the river and we assume that our opponent would not check a flush to us, his range consists of the made hands — A-A, A-K, K-Q, and K-J. Now, we lose to two of those hands in the form of A-A and K-Q and we beat K-J and A-K. Is it better for us to just check back and sometimes lose against A-A or K-Q, if we think that we can get the player to fold with a bet? Of course not! If we think our opponent is capable of folding such a hand, we should bluff in this spot.

Now I caution you—most of the money that is won in live no-limit hold’em is through value betting, not bluffing. Recreational players are not in the business of driving to the casino to fold hands, but there are certain situations where you look so strong you can fold out someone’s entire range. Here, by checking back the turn we represent either that we were on a spade draw that got there or we filled up and were slowplaying. The fact that we still had the best hand on the river is actually irrelevant. If we think he would have folded to a large bet, it would have been a disaster for us if our opponent had turned over K-Q or A-A. ♠

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.