Fixing Common Cash Game Leaks With Kevin Rabichow, Jon Van Fleet, Peter Cross, And Brian Hastings

PREFLOP: Kevin Rabichow

The most common preflop leaks I’ve seen lately are related to bet sizing. It’s not that players are three-betting or four-betting to poor sizes, it’s that they’re not prepared to respond to any size other than the one they’ve studied. The mentality that a suboptimal size “isn’t a thing” often leads to the belief that it isn’t essential to study that thing.

I believe this has led to several groups of very good players trying new tactics, including min-raising from all positions even when out of position, three-betting very small from in position, and three-betting two different sizes on the button. You have to play a good response to these tactics, or else you’ll lose the battle! It’s not enough to know that it’s a poorly chosen theoretical size. It’s quite possible that if you haven’t studied how to respond to an unusual size, someone out there is using it to exploit you.

A related leak that comes from the same place, is using poorly adapted preflop strategies against recreational players. It’s normal now to follow a set of charts for preflop strategy rather than building from logic and exploitative ideas. One advantage that’s lost by studying this way is that we underemphasize the importance of adapting around the worst player at the table.

Every preflop spot is unique! Are you certain that the cutoff opening frequency is 28 percent when the button is playing 75 percent VPIP? Perhaps they aren’t adjusting, but even if so, what should you squeeze in the big blind when the button calls? It certainly shouldn’t be the default range you’ve pulled from a six-max cash preflop pack. 

Sticking with the theme of process-oriented leaks, getting the correct mix of calls vs. shoves when facing a four-bet really doesn’t matter. This is an extreme example, but overall, I see players far too concerned with matching the frequency of their preferred solution and not nearly concerned enough with what’s happening at the table in front of them.

If a hand is close between call and fold – ask yourself what you know about the player who three-bet you before you click the RNG! Every mixed frequency spot is an opportunity for you to make the best decision.

FLOP: Jonathan Van Fleet

One big leak is that players can get too front-heavy with aggression. Players will continuation bet out of position with too weak of a range and end up folding by the river.

Another leak is betting too big in multiway pots. You rarely have much equity, so it doesn’t make too much sense to throw money in until you’re heads up. Also, you want to be able to target people’s auto-folds with smaller bets.

And finally, players will bet too often in position versus the small blind. The small blind often has a stronger range and more nut hands on boards like K-Q-9 and a few others, so the in-position player cannot execute a bet small with range strategy like you can versus the big blind.

TURN: Peter Cross

Everyone and their mother knows to continuation bet the flop at a decent clip, but many do not know what to do on the turn. It is important to get a decent baseline of turn strategies so that we are not just putting in dead money on the flop, especially because players across all levels have become adept at playing against flop c-bets.

Turn play is heavily affected not only by the actual turn card but also by the flop action. It is an extremely dynamic street with many changes happening, so the only way to go is to play and study numerous situations and see general heuristics, which are usually derived from logic, such as folding top pair.

What?! Folding Top pair!? This must be a typo, right? Well, it isn’t, and at equilibrium, there are spots where the top pair should hit the muck on the turn. Let’s take a look at two examples.

Example A: A single raised pot 100 BB effective LJ vs. BB on 10-3-2 rainbow flop. After a check and half-pot bet, on turn 7 with no backdoor flush draw coming in, the preferred size for the LJ after another check is 175 percent of pot. To this size, many tens (unintuitively the higher kicker 10-x such as J-10, Q-10, K-10, blocking the LJ’s bluffs) find some folds.

Example B: Another example from the same positions on A-10-4 rainbow flop. After a flop check from BB and a 75 percent pot bet from LJ, on a turn 2 with no backdoor flush draw coming in, the preferred size for the LJ after another check is 125 percentage of pot. To this size, the BB mixes folds with A-6 suited thru A-9 suited and A-8 offsuit through A-J offsuit.

While equilibrium play may differ in comparison to live or even some online games (for example, one may never see a 175% pot turn bet on a 10-3-2-7 board at a local $5-$10 game), I would argue that often, these turn barrel ranges don’t contain the appropriate amount of bluffs. If you feel like you always pay off in these turn spots with these types of weak top pairs and always get shown better after calling river or always feel like you are check-folding to a river bet, it may be prudent just to let it go on the turn as even some of the profitable turn calls are only pushing marginal EV.

Another leak is not value betting thin enough due to “scary turns.” Depending on the flop action, even the same turn can implicate different EV shifts in ranges. I see players check too often on a “scary turn” that, in reality, is not that scary.

It is important to remember that the turn is a street that is easier to extract value from than the river, as often the calling player will have hand classes in their range that are “drawing” to hit a river. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Example C: A single raised pot Button vs BB 100 BB effective on 9 6 2 after a check and 75 percent pot bet, on turn ace or turn king where an overcard comes. After the BB checks again, it may be tempting to check back a region of 10-10 through Q-Q, strong 9-x and such due to the overcard; however, the reality is these hand classes get enough value from worse and can use the protection.

While the BB will have some top pairs, such as nut flush and second nut flush draws that called flop, as well as more ambitious floats, only about 20 percent of their range is better than top pair. Another added perk is that now we can check back river since we have maintained the initiative instead of facing big river bets.

Even if our opponents know we can go thin, our range is also supported by numerous A-x and K-x that continuation bet the flop, so the BB cannot raise strictly to challenge our thin value bets as they run the risk of running into our stronger hands on these turns.

Example D: A three-bet pot SB vs. Button 200 effective on 10 7 3 after SB bets 33 percent pot and button calls on a turn 2 completing the flush draws. Scary turn, flush draw completes, and we are 200 BBs deep.

That may be the first instinct, and while it is somewhat correct logic (SB checks ~60 percent at equilibrium), it is still essential to find the thin value bets. Overpairs without a spade still bet close to pure, and A-10 suited and K-10 suited are still mixing in bets as well. Similar to Example C, it is important to remember that our range is protected by the numerous A-x suited hands that we have, and these thin value bet hand classes still get called by worse very often and can use the protection.

RIVER: Brian Hastings

I’ll run through what I think are the top three leaks players have from my experience on the river.

The first is not bluffing enough. That sounds pretty self-explanatory, but many players under bluff the river, which makes it easy to exploit them by overfolding and results in them not getting paid off enough on their strong hands.

The second leak is not finding enough raises. This can often be a function of not getting to the river with balanced enough ranges to find good raising candidates. Many bets our opponent makes on the river are value bets with good, but far from nutted hands. We want to respond to them partially by raising a balanced range of value hands and bluffs in addition to the much more common calls and folds.

The third is not considering one’s opponent enough. Often, a player will call or fold against a river bet with the logic of “top pair is just too good to fold there,” or “fourth pair is too low in my range,” and so on. While these thoughts matter, we also must consider our opponent and the story we are being told.

Maybe top pair is high in our range, but if our opponent is very tight and doesn’t have enough bluffs or any worse hands for value, we need to adjust and find the fold anyway. ♠

Kevin Rabichow is a high roller with more than $4.5 million in live tournament cashes and teaches the Game Plan, a course that customizes your poker training to increase your bottom line on RunItOnce.com. He offers private coaching and can be found on www.kevinrabichow.com. Follow Kevin on Twitter/X and IG @krabichow.

Jonathan Van Fleet is an accomplished tournament and high-stakes cash player with more than $20 million in career online cashes. Jonathan is an ambassador for WPT Global and has been privately coaching players for over 10 years. You can follow him on Twitter/X @apestyles and IG @apestyles1.

Peter Cross is a professional cash and MTT Player, poker coach, and commentator with more than $1 million in career earnings, including a victory at the 2022 WPT World Championship at Wynn. You can reach Peter for coaching at [email protected] and follow him on IG @Hapagto.

Brian Hastings is a six-time WSOP bracelet winner with more than $5 million in live earnings, who has also been a consistent winner in the top online cash games. Hastings teaches a popular mixed game course at RunItOnce.com, and also does private coaching through OctopiPoker.ai. Follow Brian on Twitter/X @brianchastings.

*Photos by World Poker Tour.