How A Plan Came Together

Of all the threads in the beautiful tapestry that is our game of poker, one of my favorites is how every action informs and affects every other. Thanks to the whims of our opponents, no two poker hands are ever really the same. No strong river strategy can exist without a strong turn strategy, no turn strategy without a flop strategy, and no flop strategy without a preflop strategy. Given all the different paths a hand can take, it’s near impossible to prepare for every contingency. You have to think on the fly, and I love that.

I didn’t love this interconnectedness, however, when I was trying to craft a set of rules for recreational players to achieve no-limit hold’em tournament success — a task I assigned myself when I wrote my new book, The Game Plan. One of the toughest requirements was to make sure each rule worked with every other rule to create a reasonable overall strategy. If I wanted to give my readers several choices for what to do on the flop, I needed rules to cover all the different routes they could find themselves on to get to the turn and then the river.

To solve this problem, I went back to basics. I needed to remember that my whole purpose in writing the book was to come up with the simplest guidelines that could be learned in the shortest amount of time that would prevent the reader from making any huge mistakes. As such, I avoided poker nuances, and tried to keep The Game Plan as straightforward as possible.

For example, a Game Plan player who raises preflop and gets only one caller, bets the flop when checked to 100 percent of the time (RULE 15, Continuation Bet). This stripped-down flop strategy made it easier to craft a turn strategy as I tried to construct the overall approach. I didn’t have to worry about what range my readers checked back heads-up, because they never did! The beauty is, there was very little cost to this simple plan of attack. Continuation betting is almost always the right move in this spot anyway, since real-world opponents fold too often on the flop. I therefore felt justified in telling my readers to bet 100 percent of the time here. They wouldn’t lose much compared to so-called best play, and their decisions would be a million times easier.

With the flop rule in place, I then added a common sense rule for how my readers should continue on the turn. “If you have the initiative on the turn, bet with your Good Hands and your Draws. Check your other hands.” (RULE 17, Turn Bet) By having the initiative, I mean that you were the last aggressor on the flop. To find out how I define “Good Hands” and “Draws,” you’ll have to buy the book, as I don’t have space for that here. After betting the flop and getting called, any sensible strategy would then pare down the collection of hands that bet the turn. I had to make sure the Game Plan would as well. On the turn, therefore, The Game Plan reverts to something much closer to “correct” strategy.

On the river we bet with our good hands and a few bluffs (check out my previous column for more detail).

If you want to see how it all comes together, here’s an example from the book.
Let’s say you raise in late position with the 7 6, and only the big blind calls. (Assume everyone is very deep, and we won’t be close to going all-in if we simply bet half-pot on each street.) The flop comes A Q 5, and the big blind checks. What do you do?

According to The Game Plan you bet (RULE 15, Continuation Bet) here 100 percent of the time, including when you have nothing (as you do in this case). The prospect of only having to get through one opponent almost always makes a bet worthwhile, and it’s better for recreational players not to waste time looking for the exceptions.
If you bet half the pot on the flop and the big blind calls, what do you do when the turn is the 8 and the big blind checks?

The Game Plan has you bet again. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I now define this hand as a draw. We have an open-ended straight draw that uses both hole cards, and there is no possible flush on board. Notice that even though we had nothing on the flop, we’ve hit a turn card that allows us to keep firing. This is another reason I like to have Game Plan followers always bet the flop heads-up. Thinking about which “nothing” flop hands can become semi-bluffs on the turn is beyond the scope of most beginners. Better to just have them fire away.

If you bet half the pot on the turn, and once more the big blind calls, what do you do when the river is the deuce of hearts, and your opponent continues to check?

The Game Plan says to bet a third time. As my last column explained, we want to bluff the river with our very weakest holdings, and this one certainly qualifies. The plan is designed to make my more passive readers a bit more aggressive.

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting a little insight into how the rules I’ve constructed complement each other and make sense when taken together as a unified strategy. It really was a challenge to come up with a plan I was happy with, and I’m pleased to finally be sharing the results. ♠

Matt Matros is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, poker instructor, and the author of the strategy/memoir The Making of a Poker Player. His new book, The Game Plan, is available now from Amazon. Want to see how the Game Plan would apply to a hand you’ve played? Write Matt at [email protected].