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February 22 — Against early position limpers you can play for big pots with a flopped two pair out of the blind on disconnected boards

One of the most commonly misplayed hands in no-limit hold’em is when you flop two pair out of the blinds. A lot of players get lost in these situations and will commonly put themselves in way ahead/way behind spots through their action or get scared when draws complete and do not properly maximize their value. In general, I am not a huge fan of check-raising two pair out of the blind unless the top card is a high card such as a king or an ace that will most likely continue to be top pair throughout the hand. You do not want to check raise a hand like 10-2 out of the blinds on a 10 6 2 board, as it gives a player that might bet a hand like 10-9 a very easy way out. Rather, if you lead, oftentimes a ten will call you on multiple streets. And there is nothing like winning a large pot when the action has been limped.

But what about when we lead out with two pair and get raised? I think people get overly cautious with a hand like bottom two and try to follow the adage of not wanting to go broke in a limped pot. Now, of course, not all boards are alike. For example, if we lead out with 4-3 on a 5 4 3 board, we lose to many different hands, all of which are in a limper’s range. Two combinations of straights, two two-pair hands, and, of course, all of the sets. Also, if someone has a flush draw with a deuce or a six in it, an ace or a seven, or a pair plus straight draw or flush draw, we really are not that far ahead. However, there are certain situations where we can deduce that we are almost always ahead with two-pair.

Let’s take a look at a hand that I played last week at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10 no-limit hold’em game. The pot got limped around five ways and I looked down at 7 3 from the big blind and checked. The board came out Q 7 3, giving me bottom two pair. Going with my contention that I did not want to blow someone off of a weak queen, I decided to lead out at the pot for $40 into $50, expecting all queens and club draws to call. The under the gun player, who was a gentleman in his late thirties who started the hand with about $1,100, raised to $170, and it folded around back to me. This is where positional hand reading and combinatorics become really important. First of all, I was not concerned about him having a set of sevens or a set of threes because of the blockers that I had in my own hand. And I’ve also found through my experience that if someone limps in with a big pocket pair intending to limp reraise and they do not get the opportunity to do so, they very rarely will raise top set on the flop. However, if they limp in with a big pocket pair that ends up being an overpair to the board, they certainly will drive flops, especially draw heavy ones. So, a hand like A-A or K-K definitely made sense.  Also he easily could be overplaying something like A-Q, which he is protecting so that he will not get drawn out on. 

Even though I was not super familiar with this player, it is not too much of a jump to assume that he was not limping in from under the gun with Q-7 suited or Q-3 suited, especially when I block a lot of those hands. The other type of holding he could have would be the nut flush draw or a pair and a flush draw. Some people certainly will play those hands fast, but I specifically looked back at my cards to find that I had the 7 in my hand so pair plus flush draw was impossible. I took in all of this information and determined that, against this particular player in this position with the action and texture of the hand, I had the near nuts. The only question now was how to extract the most value. 

To be honest, of all the hands that I mentioned, I did not think that he would fold any of them. So I thought a reraise was definitely in order so that an action-killing card would not come on the turn. The stacks were a little awkward, so I decided to actually put the hammer down and made it $600, looking like I was committing myself. The under the gun player did not take too long and shoved all-in and I ended up scooping a huge pot vs pocket aces.

The lesson that you should learn here is that when you flop two pair out of the blinds and get heat from an earlier position limper and the board is disconnected, making two pair impossible for an upfront limper, then you almost always have the best hand and oftentimes the early position player will have “top top” or a limped-in big pocket pair.   
February 18 — It’s very important to notice the stack sizes of your opponents when considering C-BET bluffing

A few articles ago, I talked about how important it is to notice the number of players in a hand when you are considering bluffing at the pot on the flop after being the preflop raiser. In fact, the number of players in the hand is probably the most important factor when considering conitnuation-bet bluffing. However, there is one other variable that can actually trump number of players—noticing your opponents’ stack sizes.

You see, when we make a continuation-bet bluff and we get called, we have other ways we can win the hand. We can bluff people out of the pot later on using scare cards or we can actually realize our equity and make the best hand. However, when you are up against an extreme short stack, say someone that has less than one or two pot-sized bets left, most of those ways of winning the pot are taken away if he decides to either fold or move all-in. In fact, I have even not continuation-bet bluffed heads up against certain short stacks because I felt that I would get priced in to calling with two overcards.

Usually where people miss out on this variable, however, is in multi-way pots and not being zoned in to everything that is going on at the table. It is very easy to notice the two opponents that may be deeper in a hand, say over 100 big blinds, but hard to recognize that one of your other opponents is extremely short, especially if you are called on the flop. Oftentimes, people that have started with under 50 big blinds will have less than two pot-sized bets left on the turn and will make their decision to go with it there.

So when you are playing against short stacks and can only really play the first two streets, your frequency of continuation-bet bluffing should go down and, conversely, your frequency of value betting should increase due to the wide nature of a shorty “getting it in” with you. ♠

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.