Poker Strategy With Rep Porter: Playing Postflop As The Aggressor

In my last column, I asserted that having position and being the aggressor is the most profitable situation you can find yourself in as you move to the flop in limit hold’em. I suggested that when you are entering the pot, you should almost always be raising. You should be trying to limit the amount of players who enter the pot behind you.

Today, I want to look at why having position and tempo puts you in a more profitable situation. Having the tempo simply means you were the last aggressor on the previous street. I think the best way to start looking at a situation is to look at both ends of the spectrum. The alternative to having position and the tempo is to be out of position and to have called to close the action on the previous street. Let’s start by looking at heads-up play.

If you called a raise out of the big blind, you are out of position (unless it was the small blind that raised) and without the tempo. When you are in this spot, you almost always correctly check the flop. When you have made a hand, you want to ensure that your opponent puts at least one more bet in on the flop. It is also bad to bet your hits and check your misses. This makes it far too easy for your opponents to play against you.

Getting a c-bet from the preflop aggressor is pretty standard in limit hold’em. So usually you will find yourself facing a bet on the flop. If you have missed, you usually will have to give up. You may be able to call once or twice with a draw or a weak pair hoping to improve, but you will lose this pot far more often than you win. You only flop a pair or an eight-card draw with suited connectors about half the time. Not all of those hands win the pot. Suppose you had 8 7. You defend against an early position raiser. The flop comes A-8-3 rainbow. You have a pair. But against the early position range, you are in a lot of trouble. You can only beat hands like K-Q, K-J, and 7-7. Some people don’t even play those hands in early position. You can probably call the flop bet and look to improve on the turn, but you are likely to have to fold to another bet.

From the other side of the fence, the situation is much more promising. You just raised in middle position and only the big blind called. You feel like you’re winning already. Regardless of the flop, you are going to get to make a profitable c-bet. The pot is 4.5 little bets. You get to bet, and your opponent has to fold when they have missed. If they call with all their pairs and draws, including some gutshots and overcard hands, they are still folding more than a third of the time. This means you need 2-1 to make a break-even c-bet and you are getting 4.5-1. So right away, being the preflop aggressor has put you in a position to make a profitable bet.

Often if your opponent just calls on the flop, they will check the turn. They may do this to check-raise, or they may be willing to check-call down, or maybe they are going to fold. Their motivation isn’t as important as the end result, that result being that you get to decide if more money is going into the pot on the turn. You can bet if you have a strong hand and you can bet if you think your opponent will fold at a decent rate. You will be getting just over 3-1 from the pot at this point. You can check if you have a hand you want to draw to or just get to showdown cheaply with.

You can probably see that being the player in position and with tempo is a much better place to be. This is true when you three-bet the original opener as well. The dynamic plays out in a similar fashion. If you just call, now the original opener gets to make the profitable c-bet on the flop. Just getting to be the c-bettor should be enough of a reason to want to be the aggressor, but the fact that raising also increases your chance of having position should make it an easy choice. Each street, the player with the tempo from the previous street is at an advantage. This advantage is amplified when that player also has position. So, in limit hold’em, my best advice is: when you find a hand you want to play, be aggressive, very aggressive. ♠

Rep Porter is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner and is the lead instructor at ThePokerAcademy.com, whose mission is to help poker players achieve better results through better decisions and that is done by teaching poker in a way that makes learning easy and enjoyable with high quality courses taught by professional players.

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