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Looking past pre-flop poker
2008-11-04 17:51:11
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 Ryan Fisler |
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I received a lot of good feedback on my recent M article and students are saying that they are learning how to play pre-flop poker better but still struggle with how to play optimally post flop in tournament poker. It is true that you can play perfect pre-flop and still do terrible if you are not playing well post-flop. There is obviously not enough space for me to extensively cover playing post flop in 1 article, so this is the first in a series of articles on post flop play, and to me the most important aspect. Control the size of the pot. Keep the pot small with your vulnerable hands, by doing more check calling and half-pot sized bets with hands that have some value for a showdown but not worth committing much of your stack. This can make you lose less when your opponent has a slightly better hand, and it can actually make you win more by getting your opponents to put you on a weaker range and make a bluff with air you can call. As an example assume you have KQs on a Q93 rainbow board, your opponent who opened pre-flop makes a continuation bet. You should elect to just call here and not try to play a big pot, because your opponent can't call a re-raise with any hands that you're ahead of. If you re-raised it would also not getting any hands your ahead of too fold very often. So the best thing to do is smooth call the continuation bet. Then if he bets again of the turn, you have to go with your read of the player and consider the size of his bet, your stack size; whether there is a draw or 2nd pair he could be betting etc... and it can go either way. If he checks the turn, I say check it behind him and keep this pot small because your hand is vulnerable. If he checks the river to you, you need to value bet. If he bets the river after checking the turn you need to call it down. When he has AQ you're going to lose fewer chips or get away on the turn, and when he has AK you are going to get him to take an extra stab on the river that you can easily call. Create large pots when you have big hands. Your goal should be to get all your chips in the middle when you have a clear edge. This sounds quite obvious, but it is something that many players forget all the time, by not playing the hand in a way that can get all of the chips in. This can mean that they are either betting a too large an amount on the flop, when they should be betting less and getting them in gradually by the river, or they are betting too small and the pot size does not become big enough to make a bet on the river that will get the rest of the chips in. Example: You have 99 and open to 300 at 50-100 blinds with a 10k stack from utg, two opponents with 10k as well call from the button and SB. There is 1000 in the pot now, and the flop is A93, the sb checks and it's your turn, and you just check because "you don't want to scare anyone off the hand" and the button bets 500, the sb folds and you call 500. Now the turn comes up a K. You check to the button because surely he has an ace and will bet again, but now he checks the turn as well. On the river you now realize you need to bet and you put in a pot sizes bet of 2k and your opponent calls with AQ. You add 3200 chips to your stack. Or say on the flop or turn but you make a small size bet that just gets called down... You're not sizing the pot correctly to get all the chips in. In this spot you should realize that out of 2 opponents it's a good chance one of them has an ace and will call a flop bet. So bet the size of the pot with 1k and then when they call 1k the pot is up to 3k, then on the turn bet 2/3 of the pot for 2k more and he calls and now the pot is 7k. Now you can bet your last 6700 into the 7k pot and if he calls you are going to double up and win a much larger pot. Yes sometimes you might scare off some hands that would call, but many players make a decision to call based on their hand strength and not the size of your bet, in fact they often read large bets for weakness. You will make vastly more chips in the long-run if you try to size the pot to get all-in with monster hands. This does not mean to always bet big with your big hands, sometimes the only way to get your opponents chips in is to play it slower, and sometimes betting big with your big hand is not the right play. If you are up against a laggy player who you know will play the hand hard all the way if you take a weak line, then that can be the right thing to do. It is sometimes worth "letting your opponents catch up" so they make a hand they can comfortably call your monster with. These can all be techniques to maximize value and still fall into the same principle as playing the hand in a way to get all of the chips in when you have a clear edge. As an example: Let's say stacks are again 10k and blinds 50-100. If you have AA preflop In mid position, and an early raiser makes an open raise, it can often be the right play to just smooth call and see if someone else 3-bets and have a disguised hand going into the flop.. This may keep the pot smaller in the immediate present but it can make sure that there is a pot at all. If you 3-bet pre then your range is narrowed down to hands similar to what you have and there is much less chance you get any action from the remaining players. So you go ahead and smooth call the AA as I'm recommending and the flop is A44 with 2 hearts. Your opponent is an aggressive regular and makes a continuation bet into the flop of 500 into 750, you should obviously just smooth call here and see if he can hit a flush or something or of he keeps betting. If you raise him here to try to build the pot that would be a mistake. If you get checked too here it would make sense to check behind and on the turn bet less and try to get value from underpairs or weak aces that will fold to a larger bet but might look you up. By playing strong hands this way sometimes you can get value from complete bluffs that would otherwise not play the hand. It's up to you to determine what type of spot you are in and what line to take for the most value. As you can see , you should adjust your pot sizing strategies based on the type of opponent you are playing against, want to make manipulative plays against weak players to get them to do the predictable thing. When against good players you want to be slightly sneakier and try to take a line that will make them misjudge your range and therefore make mistakes. This takes me to my next topic for next month. - Play differently against good players then against unknown players. |
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To Post a Comment!
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tippergfunk Says:
Probably the best general post-flop article I've read that has over 32 misused prepositions.
Posted On: 2008-11-08 08:23:57
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Len Says:
Ryan, I think you have the most perfect strategy with your M play. It takes all the guess work out of "what should I be doing now" as the blinds go up and your M goes down. As you say however, the after flop play must be fashioned so that you do not spew chips with stupid play. That is more easily said than done but I would get there a lot faster if you made more videos. I have learned more from the few you have contributed than a hundred hours of other videos. With the great play you demonstrate, it won't be too long before you are too rich to continue training. Anyway I will enjoy your teaching until then. LCR
Posted On: 2008-11-06 00:54:26
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