Poker Strategy With Jonathan Little: Taking The Conservative RouteDevelop Your Poker Skills And Learn How To Crush Games At PokerCoaching.com/CardPlayer |
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Jonathan Little
I recently played an interesting poker hand in a tough $5,000 buy-in event that demonstrates how to play a strong, but non-premium hand from out of position.
At 1,000-2,000 with a 2,000 big blind ante, everyone folded around to a loose, aggressive player in the cutoff who raised to 4,000 out of his 150,000 stack. A 50-year-old player in the small blind called, investing 3,000 more out of his 21,000 short stack.
I picked up A
7
in the big blind with a 300,000 stack. While I was concerned that the small blind could easily be trapping with a premium hand, I decided to call 2,000 more to see a flop.
When calling with hands that are easily dominated, such as A-7 offsuit and K-8 offsuit, you must be careful to not put too much money into the pot after the flop, even when you improve to a decently strong hand like top pair.
The flop came A
K 5
, giving me top pair with a bad kicker. The small blind checked.
On boards that should be good for the preflop raiser and bad for the players in the blinds, you should check with your entire range because on average, you will be at a disadvantage. If the cutoff bet and the small blind called or raised, I would make an easy fold with my weak top pair.
I checked, the cutoff bet 6,800, and the small blind folded.
While my hand is not overly premium, it is simply too strong to fold at this point. If you frequently find yourself folding top pair to only one continuation bet against only one other player, you are playing far too tightly.
I called. The turn was the A, improving me to trips with a bad kicker.
While it may appear that betting both for value and protection is a good idea, when your opponent has you beat, he will almost certainly double up, which would be a disaster. By checking, you force the cutoff to stay in the pot with his entire range, which should result in him bluffing some portion of the time.
I checked and the cutoff bet 15,300 into the 28,300 pot.
This is a situation similar to the flop where if you raise, your opponent will almost certainly play perfectly, calling when he has you beat and folding when he doesn’t. While he usually has some number of outs, it is worth it to let him draw to them in exchange for not opening yourself up to doubling him up when he has the effective nuts.
I called. The river was the 6.
I again checked for the same reasons as on the flop and turn.
The cutoff bet 43,800 into the 58,900 pot.
At this point, even though I have trips, my hand is just a bluff catcher. If my opponent was a tight, passive player, folding would be a reasonable option. However, since my opponent is loose and aggressive, I have to make the hero call.
Having an ace blocker is powerful because it takes many of the value betting combinations out of my opponent’s range. If I had a slightly worse bluff catcher, such as K-Q, I would probably fold because then, it would be too likely that my opponent has an ace.
I made the call and was pleased to see my opponent muck his cards, awarding me the pot. I have no clue if he was bluffing with a busted flush draw or if he had something much worse, such as Q-10 or 8-7. Either way, if I raised at any point throughout this pot, I would have won less money while opening myself up to losing a huge amount of chips if my opponent happened to have me crushed.
If you want more resources to help you improve your game, I put together a course called Master the Fundamentals. This course covers the basics, preflop, post-flop, multiway, turn and river strategy, and much more. This course is completely free inside Card Player Poker School!
When you join the Card Player Poker School (it’s free to join), you’ll also get:
Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT winner and the 2024 PokerGO Cup champion with nearly $9 million million in live tournament earnings, best-selling author of 15 educational poker books, and 2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year. If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush the games, check out his training site at PokerCoaching.com/cardplayer.
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