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July 15 — If your opponent is polarized and there are bluffs he can have… call!

One of the most frequently occurring situations in no-limit hold’em is raising from late position and taking a pot heads-up against the big blind. Button raising ranges and big blind defending ranges should be fairly wide and that leads to some interesting scenarios.

One of those spots happened to me just last night in the Commerce $10-$20 no-limit, uncapped game. The villain in the hand was a mid-forties, somewhat tight player and we both sat over $5,000 deep. The hand was folded to me on the button and I raised to $60 with 9 6. The small blind got out of the way but the big blind defended and we saw a flop of A K 9.

The big blind, as almost always at this level, checked to me and I decided to check behind with my bottom pair and a back door flush draw. I saw no real reason to bet this flop as I would only get called by hands that were better than mine. There are cases for making thin value or protection bets big blind versus button but here I think that a check back was warranted.

The turn brought out the 7 and my opponent bet $80. This bet was somewhat interesting, as I did not think that my opponent was a particularly thin value bettor. t was definitely possible that the big blind had an ace, but it was also possible that he had some sort of draw like Q-J. I thought that it would be much too weak to just fold to a single bet so I made the call.

On the river a second king fell completing a board of A K 9 7 K. Now, my opponent came out and bet $250, almost the entire pot size. I thought that this river was extremely interesting because rarely would my opponent bet the turn with a king only. It was possible but unlikely. You see, so many of my players in my position will check back a weak ace on the flop, such as A-3, after raising in late position. Players in the big blind’s spot recognize this and counter by checking a king down and putting that into their bluff catching range.

Also, as the preflop raiser, I have a lot of kings that I may have checked back on the flop. So even if our opponent came out and bet on an ace turn, he would most likely check the river when the king paired. So we have a scenario where we do not think our opponent is arriving at trip kings at the end because of his turn bet and we also do not think he has a single paired ace because of his river play.

If we have hand read this scenario properly then our opponent is truly polarized, meaning that he is going to show up with a full house or a bluff. But this board is much different than a ragged board. We have to expect the big blind, especially at $10-$20, to three bet certain hands preflop versus a button open. Hands such as A-A, K-K, A-K, and to some extent pocket nines are almost always reraised preflop when someone raises in late position. So there just are not many full houses that he can have given the preflop action.

Maybe, he might show up with K-9 suited or pocket sevens because of the lack of flop betting but that is still an extremely thin value range. If he is betting any flush draw or Broadway straight draw on the turn then he has over fifty combinations of bluffs that he arrives with (16 combos each of Q-10, Q-J and J-10). Whenever you can deduce that your opponent is polarized and you can find more bluffs than value hands in a given scenario you end up with a profitable calling situation. I finally did make the call and my opponent showed 10 8 for a missed flush draw and straight draw.

Beware of pressure of Q-J-10 as the preflop raiser…

Typically, no matter what the stakes are, players that just called preflop are scared of A-K. This leads to some very profitable bluffing scenarios when we are the preflop raiser. Players fail to recognize however, that preflop raisers, especially from later positions, have a much wider opening range than A-K.

When trying to figure out the strength of an opponent’s hand it certainly is important to recognize what position they raised from. Last week I played an interesting spot where I was the preflop raiser from under-the-gun (UTG). I opened to $35, $1,300 effective with Q Q. Usually I sit at least $1,500 deep (the cap in the game) but I had not had the chance to “top off” before the hand and I had lost the hand immediately before.

The button, a super aggressive, recreational player called my raise as did the player in the big blind. We saw a flop of Q J 7 giving me top set. I bet $65 after the blind checked to me and both players called. I thought that this was fairly interesting, as usually you do not get multi-way action when you flop top set. But I knew that the button was so loose post flop that he could be peeling with any piece of the board.

The turn brought in the 10 and it was checked to me again. This time I bet $200 into a pot of about $300. The button paused and quickly made it $500. The big blind folded and the action was back on me. I always think it is peculiar, even sometimes borderline bizarre, when someone puts pressure on a board like this, especially when it can hit the preflop raising range so hard. I mean a raise when A-K becomes Broadway looks like the opponent is not concerned about A-K, or in this specific example looks like he is not concerned about me having a set.

Taking the hand back to preflop (where a lot of good hand reading starts from) I can say with almost 100 percent certainty that the opponent on the button would three-bet preflop with A-K, even against my UTG open. Usually he would three bet J-J as well and mostly call with 10-10. He is also very, very loose and would call with hands like K-9 or 8-9 preflop.

This is really where you have to pay attention when doing specific hand reading versus a player. The players that will only call with reasonable ranges preflop are not going to show up with 8-9 offsuit or K-9 offsuit versus an UTG raising range. Even if they called with those hands suited, it is the difference between having 16 combinations of each hand versus just four.

But the reason why I bring this hand up is not to count the combinations but to point out that because everyone is scared of A-K, they are going to rarely if ever raise with hands like two pair. Also if they were slow playing a set of sevens on the flop they still may not raise when the 10 appears completing Broadway.

In this case, because I was so short and my opponent was so wild post flop, I decided that I was almost never going to fold the river anyway and wanted to get value from hands that he would stack off with on the turn but might check behind with on the river. If I had been slightly deeper I probably would have called and checked on a blank river. This opponent was the type that might be raising the turn with a draw, but he also could be peeling with 9-8 or K-9.

Unfortunately for me, in this case, after getting it all in my opponent tabled K-9 which held and I lost close to a $3,000 pot. But the moral of the story here is to be cautious when a field player is putting pressure on a board of Q-J-10 when usually they should be scared of your strong range. ♠

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