[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
opponents to try to defend themselves. But you can employ a little
subtlety in your bet sizing. You don t have to fire the pot every time
it s your turn to bet. Often a smaller bet will work just as well.
Your opponents will often think in binary terms on the flop either
they hit the flop, or they didn t. If they are feeling like they didn t hit
the flop, they may be willing to fold even to a very small bet.
Whereas if they feel like they hit the flop, they may be likely to call a
pot-sized bet, since in absolute terms, even pot-sized flop bets tend to
be relatively small.
The result of this tendency for binary thinking on the flop is that
half pot bets are often nearly as good at stealing the pot as larger bets.
Some scenarios in particular promote binary thinking. If the flop
comes K22 rainbow, for instance, your opponents will either have
strong hands, or they ll have nothing. Only medium pocket pairs
like 77 can fall into the ambiguous middle.
Thus, there s little reason to bet full pot on a dry flop like this one,
even if you happened to flop a strong hand. Limiting your c-bets to
half pot on dry flops like this one will have you winning nearly as
often as a full pot bet would, while losing just half as much when
things go wrong. In fact, smaller bets often work well too.
Another situation where binary thinking often takes hold is in pots
that were 3-bet preflop. In these bloated pots, your opponents will
often tend to evaluate their hands as either good enough to stack off
with or not good enough. Since the pots are large compared to the
remaining stacks, there s little room to maneuver, to chase a weak
draw, or to employ any wait-and-see tactics like floating.
BARRELING 69
You can harness this binary to commit or not to commit thinking
to your advantage when c-betting by choosing a small bet size. Sure,
blasting a pot-sized $50 bet at a 3-bet pot will tend to get your
opponents off their marginal hands. But firing $25 or $30 will often
do the trick nearly as well. These bets are small compared to the pot,
but they are large enough compared to the stack sizes that your
opponents will usually revert to a fit-or-fold strategy.
When the pot is small compared to the starting stacks, and the
board is fairly coordinated (also called a wet board), binary thinking
begins to break down. The bets are relatively small, and many hands
can catch a weak piece of the flop gutshots, bottom pairs, overcards,
backdoor flush draws, and so forth. So in these situations, you should
tend to make somewhat larger continuation bets with an eye toward
following up with a possible second barrel to force opponents off all
their marginal flop calling hands.
Example 3. A 20/17 player opens from the button for $7. You 3-
bet to $24 in the big blind with 3c& 3`&. Your opponent calls. You
know that this player tends to 4-bet with his premium hands, rarely
choosing to trap with them. And you also know that he tends to adopt
a fit-or-fold strategy postflop after calling a 3-bet.
The flop comes 9`&7f&2f&. You can bet about $25 into this $49 pot.
That bet size should be enough to get your opponent off of his
whiffed overcard hands like KQ. And if your opponent happened to
catch a lucky set or big flush draw on you, you ll extract yourself
from the situation without losing over a quarter of your stack in the
process.
Principle 3: Back Off Against Strong Players
Occasionally you will come up against a player who will try to use
your prolific continuation betting against you. Watch out for these
signs:
A normally-aggressive player who starts to play a trapping
game against you with hands like top pair or an overpair. For
example, you 3-bet preflop, half-pot bet the flop, half-pot bet the turn,
and shove the river, and the player calls and shows pocket aces. If this
70 SMALL STAKES NO-LIMIT HOLD EM
is a player who would typically put in action sooner with pocket aces,
he may be adjusting to your aggression by trapping more often.
A player who begins checkraising the flop frequently against
you. Generally speaking, the flop checkraise is a play used sparingly
by most small stakes no-limit players. If one player seems to be
checkraising you much more frequently than usual, there s a good
chance he s trying to exploit your weak continuation bets.
A player who begins floating your flop bets frequently or
raising with position either on the flop or on a later street. As with
the previous sign, good players can add more floating to their games
against a player who fires off too many c-bets.
If someone seems to be taking one of the above countermeasures
against your continuation betting, you should bet fewer hands. In
particular, consider the following guidelines:
Check more often when out of position than when in position.
It s much easier for your opponents to exploit your loose continuation
betting when they have position on you. If you 3-bet from the blinds
and a tough player calls you (someone who is likely either to try to
trap you or to try to steal the pot), you should frequently check the
flop, and you should check with your bad and good hands alike.
Checking bad hands saves money, and checking good hands reverses
the trapping play on your opponents if they try to steal the pot after
your show of weakness.
Against a good player, you can check more than half of your out of
position hands on the flop. When you have position you should still
be betting more than half of your hands. Also, when you do c-bet
from out of position and are called, check the turn more with your
made hands. This punishes floaters.
Check more often when the board connects well with your
opponent s hand range. When TAG players call your preflop raises,
you can make some assumptions about their hand ranges. They likely
have a big card hand, a small or medium pocket pair, or a connected
hand (usually suited). Therefore, your continuation bets will succeed
less frequently on coordinated and big card flops, and you should be
willing to check more often. As when out of position, you should also
check some good hands on those flops to balance your range.
BARRELING 71
Be more willing to rebluff. Say you raise preflop, and a 26/24
opponent calls out of the blind. The flop comes K52 rainbow. He
checks, you bet a little more than half-pot, and he checkraises half the
pot. Sometimes (but not always) you should reraise as a bluff. Since
the flop is dry and hits relatively few hands, your opponent can be
testing you in this situation with nothing. By occasionally rebluffing,
you help protect yourself from being outright exploited.
Also, when out of position, instead of continuation betting on a dry
or semi-coordinated board, you could sometimes check with the
intention of checkraising as a bluff. Deploying this play occasionally
will prevent your opponent from showing an automatic profit by
playing a bet when checked to strategy.
Earlier, we made the case for keeping bet sizes small when
bluffing. But aggressive opponents will sometimes pounce on weak
bets harder than strong bets. When this is the case, bet larger when
you don t want your opponent to play back at you, and bet smaller
when you do at least until he begins to figure this pattern out.
Again, you shouldn t have to use these countermeasures too often
when playing at $1 $2. Most players at that level aren t sophisticated
enough to begin trapping you or bluffing and rebluffing you to defend
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]