Real Poker: Betting Strategies: When You Flop An Ace!

Game Theory Optimal (GTO) strategies dictate how you play situations in an unexploitable manner. But in low to medium stakes, few, if any of your opponents are thinking on a GTO level. In those games the optimal strategy is mostly a function of how your opponents are going to react. The options are many, and your read of your opponent is important. But once you get good at it, you’ll dominate those games.

Say you’re playing no-limit hold’em, you raise a limper in position with A-K. Everyone else folds, and he calls. The flop comes A 2 2. He checks to you. Should you check or bet? And if you bet, how much?

You could check, but if your opponent is one who won’t call three streets with an ace, what level of action will he provide if you give him a free card with a hand like Q J, and he catches a queen or jack? Checking with an opponent who will call three streets loses one street of value. Can you offset that the few times he catches an undercard? Likely not! And checking also creates the risk that he will beat you with a hand he would have folded. If he’s the sort who will often bluff the turn if you check, checking can be optimal, but that texture of player is rare, particularly in low-medium no-limit games.

It most cases it’s a binary option. Your opponent has to have an ace or better, or choose to bluff to continue. With few deuces in his range, his calling range is mostly aces. He’s calling with an ace and folding the rest of his range.

So, how much do you bet? Assuming your opponent has no read on you, bet big. He’s either calling, or he isn’t. That said, you don’t want to bet so big that you scare him and have him fold an ace, but bet the biggest amount he will call. Once again, that requires judgement about your opponent.

This scenario happens often and is a high-equity situation making optimum play of it important for your overall results. Keep in mind that betting big and getting called on the flop increases the value of your hand on the turn and the river. The bigger pot creates bigger turn and river calls.

All that said, there is a paradox in this situation you need to keep in mind. You’ll also want to bluff when you raise in position with non-ace hands, and an ace hits the flop. Since calling is mostly a binary option with many players, betting small with a low assumption of risk is generally the better bluff play. You’ll have to read how your opponents are reading you to optimize these two concepts.

Will your current opponent read you for a bluff if you bet one-third pot with an ace? Conversely, will he read you for a strong hand if you bet three-fourths pot? You can’t allow him to effectively read you those situations. Sometimes your opponent will have no information history on which to establish the read. In those cases you can make the optimum play. But if you calculate that your opponent has determined your strategy, you need to counter by sometimes betting one-third pot when you have it and bluffing three-fourths pot. Once you’ve determined he knows you have adjusted, you adjust back. If you don’t understand, reread this paragraph and think it through.

These situations speak to optimally playing the meta-game with low-medium level players. You always need to be thinking about how your opponents are thinking and calculate the best strategy based on their thinking. These examples are clear cut and many more complex examples will present themselves.

It’s important to your bottom line that you think about situations, think through how your opponent thinks, and how you can optimize your strategies based on their thoughts. You have plenty of time to think and plenty of situations to observe while you’re sitting at the table.

So, put down your phone and concentrate. It will do wonders for the growth of your game. ♠

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].