Thinking is important.

It's a wonderful autumn day in Calgary, Alberta. Much too nice to go in to a casino, right? Ah, but I just feel so good that I know I'm going to play well...so it's off to play a little 4/8 limit hold'em!

Yes, I just got back from my 3 1/2 hour session and I'm feeling pretty good about making $145 today. I played really well, and by that I mean I only made a few mistakes, and the mistakes I made were not very costly.

I would like to relate one hand in particular because it illustrates the importance of always thinking about what cards your opponents may be holding.

This is limit hold'em, with a $4 big blind and a $2 small blind. I was in the small blind with QQ. The guy under the gun limps in and four guys call him. How sweet is this? It is very unlikely any one of them is holding AA or KK, and odds are also in my favor that neither an Ace or a King will flop. With $26 in the pot already, I know I will get callers if I raise here, so it's only costing me another $6 to build the pot up even more. So I raise it up to $8.

Now let's just stop and think about what I've done and what the other players must think about my hand. Raising in this position is showing a lot of strength - I'm saying I like my cards so much that I'm willing to bet they will still be ahead of five other guys (maybe six, if the big blind joins the party) after the flop. I had not made a single pre-flop raise up until this point and I had been playing very tight. A bet like this, with the tight table image I know I have established, can only mean I'm holding AA, KK, QQ or AK. Even if I had AQ or JJ I probably would not make such a move, and good poker players would probably know I'm most likely to be holding one of the four hands I've just named.

Back to the hand: the big blind folds, and every single one of the five remaining players calls my raise. There is now $52 in the pot, and I'm even more certain that nobody has AA. Anybody holding AA would re-raise to build the pot, confident of getting at least one caller (me) and probably a few more. KK is also very unlikely for the same reason. So everybody is just drooling over that $52 pot and hoping the poker gods will smile on them.

The flop: Jd 9h 6d

So, there are possible flush and straight draws. It's also possible that somebody has pocket Jacks, Nines or Sixes, so my over pair may not be good. I have to act first, so I decide to place the $4 bet (In limit hold 'em I am limited to betting or raising $4 at a time before the turn, and after the turn the bet has to be $8 - that's why they call it 4/8 limit.) My reasoning is that I am probably ahead, and if one of my opponents has the trips they will likely re-raise me. If nobody re-raises, then I'm probably good. I also think anybody who missed the flop completely will fold and I'm happy to narrow the field here.

What must my opponents think of my hand now? They must know that unless I've suddenly gone crazy, I've got a big pair. AK has just been eliminated from the likely cards I'm holding because it would be way too risky to raise against five guys without even a pair! Still I get two callers (no raise - so I think I'm okay) and the pot is now $62. What do my opponents have? Ace-something, probably. Maybe two diamonds and they hope to hit the flush. I hope the turn is not a diamond or an Ace.

The turn: Ace of Clubs.

Well, durn. I think I may have just fallen behind here. I don't think I'll bet because the chances are just too great one of these guys has an Ace. So I check.

And now I'm going to let you in on a little secret. One of my opponents is holding AQ. I don't know this yet, but I'm about to find out. So here is this guy holding AQ, which he pays $8 to see the flop with. He misses the flop but he pays another $4 to see the turn, and he hits his ace. Now if he had been thinking about my hand, he should think I've got AA, KK or QQ, so he should figure he is a 2/3 favourite to be ahead. What does he do? He checks. Now I don't want to say this was a stupid thing to do, but it was a stupid thing to do. Here is my advice to him (assuming he reads my blog) and to all of you: If you think you are ahead, but vulnerable, then for God's sake bet! By simply checking he is putting himself in a tough position if the river completes the flush draw or straight draw (If he hasn't been playing attention he might think I'm drawing to one of these). If he has been paying attention and has me on KK or QQ (If he thought I had AA he would have folded by now) , then by checking he'll have a tough decision to make if the river brings a King or a Queen.

And the other guy checks too. Sweet, I don't have to make a difficult decision with the Ace on the board.

And the river is a big, beautiful Queen of Hearts.

I don't even consider checking to "lay a trap". I might do that in no-limit, but in limit all that bluffing and trapping stuff is ineffective. I bet $8. My inattentive friend gleefully raises to $16 with his two-pair. The other guy can't fold fast enough. I announce raise, but I haven't been paying very close attention myself - I can't raise because my opponent has no chips left to call with, so I have to just call. He turns over his two pair and I show my set of Queens and rake in the $94 pot.

And he is very upset. Apparently I am just a lucky jackass who can't win a hand unless he rivers a set.

Am I? I think I played that hand perfectly. If he had been paying attention and figured out what cards I was probably holding (how many clues do I have to give him?) then he would have saved himself a big loss. And if I rivered a set, well he let me see the river for free didn't he?

(Yes, in poker "river" is a also a verb.)

Luck revisited

I know I wrote a post called The Final Word on Luck and so you might expect I had said all I wanted to say on the topic. But I'm not sure I want to leave it there. I said I don't believe in luck, but that's not entirely true. Of course I believe in the existence of luck, I just think you should put your faith in your skill instead.

I have just finished the fantastic poker memoir For Richer, For Poorer by Victoria Coren. A passage in the book perfectly describes the proper relationship one should have with luck:

At the card table and off it, luck is a bucking mechanical bull, but you can learn to keep you bum in the seat. As soon as you start putting your faith in the bull, rather than the bum, you are sunk.

Exactly. I love that she points out that this this true away from the card table as well. Everyone please go purchase a copy of Victoria Corens' book. It is great.

What does it mean to put your faith in the bull? If you are play Q7 offsuit because you have a feeling you are going to hit a full house on the flop, then you are putting your faith in the bull.

Try to understand the motives for your actions - if you have a good reason, not just a hunch, for making a particular move, then you are putting your faith in the bum. Being able to discern the difference between the bull and the bum means being honest with yourself.

The Power of Position - A New Experiment.

I knew when I started a poker blog that sooner or later I would have to address the issue of position. According to every poker book I've ever read, position - where you are sitting at the table in relation to the blinds - is vital. Some players even say its just as important as the cards themselves.

While I wish I could write with authority on the subject of position, I'm afraid I don't really understand why position is all that important. Sometimes when I'm playing poker and I've just won a big hand in a showdown, another player will say something like, "You must have been so happy to get pocket kings in the big blind! That's an awesome hand to play out of the big blind." I smile and nod sagely, but I'm thinking pocket kings are great in any position you dipshit, what does the big blind have to do with it?

I've never quite seen what all the fuss is about with position. As you may have guessed from the fact that I devoted four straight posts to the subject of continuation betting, I'm fairly comfortable with the notion of acting first - that is out of position. I believe in the old poker saying that it takes a better hand to call than to raise, and I'm happy to act first (provided I'm facing only one opponent after the flop) and force my opponents to make difficult decisions.

The time I like to act later than every one else is before the flop. Then if I'm dealt a drawing hand ( A5 suited say, or 55) I can better judge by the number of players who have already entered the pot the likelihood of a big payoff should I hit. But the gurus all say that position matters most after the flop - and that's just where I don't care too much about it.

I'm enough of a realist to know that it is likely I'm wrong and everybody else is right. So I'm going to embark on a new experiment to teach myself the power of position. In this experiment I will play the same range of starting hands I did in my Tight is Right experiment, only this time I am going to play these hands without restriction to where my position is. I will then measure how much I made or lost from early position, middle position, late position, and the blinds. I will also allow myself to play good drawing hands like suited aces, and even small pocket pairs. The point is to see how I do playing from each position. Again I'll play 1,000 hands of play-money ring games.

Results should be ready in about three weeks.

Tight is Right: The Conclusion

In my post Tight is Right, I outlined an experiment to only play certain cards in certain positions over 1,000 hands of play-money hold 'em. To review, my playable hands were as follows:

From Early Position: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, AQs, TT, and AKo
From Middle Position: all of the above hands, plus AJs, KQs, 99, A10s and AQo
From Late Position: all of the above hands, plus KJs, 88, QJs, K10s, A9s, AJo

It was really difficult at first to discipline myself to only playing these cards. Everyone folds to me on the button and I'm holding KQ off-suit? I guess I gotta fold. I have four players calling a limp ahead of me and I get dealt 77? I guess I gotta fold. This exercise was a great way to discipline myself to making tough folds pre-flop. I even folded some of the hands my rules would have allowed me to play when another player showed significant strength. You re-raised my big raise? Okay, I can fold QJs here.

The results? After 1,000 hands I finished ahead by 893 bets. In my $50 play-money game that comes to $44,650. Yes that's play money. People play better when it's real money, so you can't expect the same results but it still illustrates the general principal that playing tight poker is the foundation you should build your game around.

Once you have disciplined yourself to play tight, then you can start adding other weapons to your arsenal. You will learn the best times to steal the blinds, when and how to defend your blinds, when to raise with a strong hand and when to check with a strong hand. You will learn who you can bluff and who you can't and you will learn when someone is likely to be bluffing you. But as you learn all of these things you must never forget that tight poker is the foundation your game is built upon. You will not do silly or reckless things. You will be able to wait for as long as it takes to set a perfect trap, or to make the effective bluff. You will have more patience than those you play against and that will make you a great poker player.

The Case Against Limping

I never limp on the button, one off the button, in super high ante structures, with high cards, when it is my birthday, when I'm drunk and I could go on. Bottom line: I'm not a big fan of limping. - Gus Hansen.

In an earlier post (To limp, or not to limp?) I suggested limping was a bad idea. My anti-limping stance is getting stronger. I now have a little evidence to back up the idea that limping in and allowing the big blind a free look at the flop is a very bad habit.

Earlier this month I wrote a post (Tight is right) promoting the idea of playing tight poker. I committed myself to playing only certain hands in certain positions for 1,000 hands of poker to see how I would fair. As I started my experiment, I realized I had a problem - how would I count hands I played from the big blind when I got to see the flop for free? Obviously most of these would not be premium hands, so how did they fit into my experiment? I decided simply to track the number of times I got to see the flop for free and whether I made or lost money over-all from this situation.

Well folks, I've played the 1,000 hands and the results are in. 43 times while in the big blind I was allowed to see the flop for free with hands I normally would have folded. It is important to understand I am not counting the times I was dealt a playable hand in the big blind - I'm only talking about hands I definitely would have thrown away (because I forced myself to stick to my experiment) had I not been allowed to see the flop for free.

So how did I do in this situation? Obviously I ended up losing most of these hands, I had bad cards and was playing out of position after all, but almost all of these losses were folds right after the flop, so I only lost the one bet of the big blind and I would have lost this to any pre-flop raise anyway. Here's the interesting thing; the hands I won from this position had big enough pots to more than make up for all the hands I lost. In fact I came out ahead by 160 bets just because I got to see the flop for free. For my $50 big blind (play money, mind you) this came to a total profit of $8000. Okay, yes. It was play money. But still it illustrates a point - don't limp! You are just giving the big blind a free pass! Over time the big blind will profit every time he or she sees the flop for free, so do not let that profit come at your expense.

How many times has something like this happened to you: You are in the big blind with 4c 2d. Some guy limps, there are a couple callers and you just check, getting to see the flop for free. The flop come Kh 2h 4d. Sweet! The original limper bets half the pot, everyone folds except you. You call. The turn comes 4h. He bets. You raise. He goes all-in. You call. He shows Ah 8h - an Ace high flush. You turn over your full house and he goes nuts! He starts screaming "You played 4-2 off suit!?? Are you an idiot?" Then you remind him you were in the big blind and saw a free flop. Ha ha.

This happens a lot, particularly on the internet where so many hands come so fast people easily forget who was in the big blind. You can hit all sorts of weird hands that nobody will put you on, and you can win very big pots.

It happens. Just don't be the dumb sap on the other side of the story.

Never limp.If someone limps before you, and you have a hand worth playing, you should strongly consider raising.

Tournaments are fun...and unprofitable.

Today's terms: Ring game, rake, bubble, coin-flip.

I like tournaments. Being a lover of fiction, I relate to their narrative arch. Tournaments have beginnings, middles and ends. They often have heroes (you) and villains (other people). Bravery, cowardice, chance and skill - all the regular dramatic elements of poker are set on a time-line. As the number of players dwindle, the layers of thought behind every decision increase. Bold moves, which might never be attempted in a ring game (the regular tables where players come and go and the blinds stay constant) may have sufficient up-side to be attempted when the stakes get high enough. In a tournament, although many might finish in the money, there is only one winner. If you have a strong competitive nature (and what poker player doesn't?) these survival-of-the-fittest contests are very attractive. But if you approach poker as a business, they don't make financial sense.

I dropped into a casino one morning, hoping to find bleary-eyed players who had been up all night, and instead found the poker room empty save for a lone employee. I asked when the games started up.

"Usually we don't get games going until around noon," she said. "But we have a tournament starting in half an hour."

I was itchy to play poker and didn't have the time to wait until noon, so I signed up for the tourney. It was a small affair - only 18 players were competing. Each of us paid an entry fee of $60 and only the top three got paid. I can't recall the exact pay-outs, but I think it was something like $380 for first, $260 for second and $145 for third. This structure is the first clue that tournaments don't make financial sense - the total prize pool was $785, whereas the casino took in $1080 in entry fees. Granted the casino has overhead to pay to run a tournament - most notably the have to pay the dealers - but I'm pretty sure that the $295 they kept is more than the they'd make in the rake ( a small amount taken out of the pots - this is how the casino makes money running the game) over the same length of time. The whole tourney just took less than four hours.

Anyway, I took my seat. We started out with $5,000 in tournament chips each, and the blinds started at $25/$50. I won't bore you with the details, but I played well and got a lot of good cards. By the first break I had the most chips at my table - exactly $14,000. Instead of being elated I felt a little depressed. I had sat at the table for 90 minutes and had nearly tripled my starting chips, and I had nothing to show for it. Sure I was a front-runner, but there was still fourteen people left in this thing. I had to out last eleven more players just to make any profit at all. I was depressed because I knew that if I had been playing a regular ring game and had gotten those same cards, I would have made at least $200 by now. Instead I had to play a lot more poker before I could even get a sniff at $200.

Yeah, yeah. Breaks' over. Stop crying and get back to the table.

The blinds had come up to $250/$125 - five times what we started at. With the blinds so high, the smaller stacks had to start looking for a spot to go all in - either double up or go home. So the number of players started dropping of quickly. My hot card streak continued, and I even managed to knock out two players myself. Sooner than I had expected we were down to ten players, and the two tables merged into one.

Looking at the stacks in front of the players from the other table, I see that I have more than anybody. Can I just cruise into the money by folding everything? Not quite. The blinds are $1000/$500 so even my $18,000 could get whittled away pretty fast. I decide to bluff a little, push the little guys around. Not nice, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Unfortunately a lady with a stack just a little smaller than mine has got the same idea, and what's more she's a much more effective bully than I am. She seems to be betting and raising everything! Does this woman know she's allowed to fold now and again? Still, I'm able to pick up enough small pots that my stack stays about the same.

We get down to four: The aggressive lady, a tight guy who I believe would love to just make it to third, a loose guy who is very short stacked, and yours truly. With one player still to go before we are "in the money", we are now "on the bubble". The next guy out bears the ignominy of being the "bubble boy". In the logic of poker, it is better to be the first guy knocked out of a tournament and get nothing than to sit at the table for hours only to get knocked out on the bubble and still get nothing. Mr. Tight suggests we all kick in $20 for the bubble to take, so that the bubble at least gets his or her entry fee back. This seems fair to me, so even though I'm unlikely to go out next I agree. That's $80 I've put into the tourney now.

A couple hands later I'm dealt AQ off-suit. Loosey Short Stack raises and I call and the flop comes 9h Qd 5s. Loosey goes all in, I make the no-brainer call. Loosey shows his K9 and says, "I had to go all-in. I had no choice," and really he didn't. The blinds wound have wiped him out. This doesn't make me feel sorry for him when he fails to improve on the turn or the river however. So long Loosey. Now I'm in the money with about the same number chips of chips as Lady Pushalot. Tighty is far back in third.

Next hand I get Q 10s, not a good hand normally but when you are down to three it's just fine. I raise, Tighty folds (of course) and Lady P. calls (of course). Flop is Kc 4d 5d. I missed, but what the hell, she probably missed too. I make a massive raise - about one third of my remaining chips. That should scare her!

She immediately goes all in.

Shit. I pretend to agonize over my position for a long time before folding. No sense letting on I had nothing right? I am pissed off though. Mad at myself. Mad that this lady showed no respect at all for my raise.

This anger leads to my demise a few hands later. I get dealt AJ off suit and Lady P. makes a very big raise ahead of me. A very ungentlemanly thought passes through my head and I decide to take my stand right here and announce all-in. Lady P. calls (of course). I show my hand and she shows 99. We are in the classic coin-flip situation; a pair vs. two over cards. She is a 52% favourite - close enough odds that this is called a coin-flip.

No Ace or Jack hit the board for me, and that's that. I finish third, go to the cage where I'm given $145. I subtract the $80 I put in and see that for my 3 1/2 hours of really good poker I've only made $65. Maybe I'm being a sore-head, but that kinda sucks.

One can never say how things would have gone if, in an alternate universe, I'd played a ring game. But in my guts I know I would have made much, much more.

Tournaments are fun. Making money is even more fun.

The continuation bet: the final chapter

I've been feeling very uneasy the last few days about my previous posts regarding continuation bet bluffs. My unease centers around having given very general advice on situations when all sorts of specific circumstances could make my advice worthless, maybe even costly. Always remember that you are ultimately the best judge of what to do in any given situation.

I'm also uncomfortable with my statements that such-and-such has a 65% chance of making an opponent fold, whereas so-and-so has a 75% chance. Where did I get these stats? I dunno, just guessed from my own experience. The truth is I pulled these stats out of my ass to try to illustrate how opponents act, so just take them as ballpark figures, okay?

I'll steer away from questionable stats completely today

I want to finish this little lecture series by examining the best time to make a continuation bet - when you actually have a good hand! Because continuation bet bluffs are so common, you are pretty likely to get a call on a continuation bet if you do it properly. Just as you should not bluff into a big pot that your opponent has already invested a lot of chips in, this is the perfect pot to continue betting into with a strong hand. Your opponent will not want to fold and give up on the chips he's already bet and he is likely to convince himself you are just trying to steal the pot. He will want to believe this, so you should encourage his suspicion that you are bluffing. A great way to make people think you are bluffing is to draw a little attention to yourself. This is what I do; I take an extra 3 seconds to ponder my bet, then I announce "raise!" in a slightly louder than normal voice, and push my chips forward in a slightly more aggressive fashion. The point is to create a bit of confusion in your opponents mind. Get him thinking about what you are trying to get him to do. Of course I can use this trick only once in a while, but that's okay - the next time I want to get an opponent to call I'll do something else. Pull on my nose. Say "I never fold this hand'. Burp. It really doesn't matter what I do, as long as I draw attention to myself I am helping my opponent reach the conclusion that he wants to believe - that I am bluffing.

The truth is that it is a lot easier to get an opponent to call than to fold. This is another arguement for making those continuation bet bluffs - they set you up for the times when you really have the hands. If you have gotten away with a few continuation bet bluffs, you'd better be aware that the other players at the table suspect that you were bluffing (poker players are an untrusting lot!) so if you have planted that seed in their minds you are a gambler, then you can reap the rewards of their bad calls when you do have a hand.

Always think about what your opponents think about you.

The continuation bet: Part 3

If you've read parts 1 and 2 on the continuation bet, then you know that this post is going to be about the best time to make a continuation bet bluff.

The point I was trying to make in my last post is that the money your opponent puts into the pot before the flop acts like glue, sticking them to the pot even after the flop. The more money they put in, the more "stuck" they are to the pot and more difficult to push off with a continuation bet - be it a bluff or not. The opposite is also true and can make you money.

Let's say you are the first to act in a pot and raise only twice the big blind. Like in our last example, you get one caller and the blinds both fold. So now there are 5.5 bets in the pot; the 2 you put in, the 2 the caller put in, 0.5 from the small blind and 1 from the big blind. The flop comes and you miss it. Just like last time, I'm going to put the question before you in a larger font and italics:

Should you try to take the pot right here with a continuation bet bluff?

Unlike last time, when we do the math on this example we see the answer is yes.



In my experience, opponents are less likely to defend small pots that they have not invested a lot in, so you can expect have opponents to fold 75% of the time in this situation. So let's say you make your continuation bet about 3/4 the pot - that's another 4 bets you are putting at risk to win 5.5 bets.



If your opponent folds, you have only won an additional 3.5 bets more than you started the hand with - 5.5 minus the two bets you put in yourself. Run this 100 times, then 75 times you should win 2.5 bets. You can therefore expect to win 75 x 2.5, or 187.5 bets over 100 hands.


If the opponent doesn't fold, as he won't do 25% of the time, the situation is not as dire as it was the previous example - you still have a good chance of winning some pots. Still let's be very pessimistic and write them all off as losses; you'll lose the 2 bets you made before the flop, plus the 3.5 bets you made the continuation bet bluff for a total 5.5 bets you lose. Run it 100 times, then 25 times you should lose 5.5 bets. You can therefore expect to lose 25 x 5.5 or 137.5 bets over 100 hands. Subtract 137.5 bets from your winnings of 187.5 and you come up ahead 50 bets. So you profit.



Now before you go running off making this play all the time, expecting to make money, there are a few other things that have to be in place before you make this play. You know that 75% success rate? It only applies if all the following factors are in place:



1) Your opponent is tight. Meaning he plays few hands and only continues if he thinks he is ahead.



2) Your opponent must believe you are a tight, methodical player. In other words you have to have been at the table for a while and shown yourself to be someone who only bets when they have the cards. Once you feel that the other players see you as ultra-conservative, then you can begin to take advantage of your image. If you have been gambling and bluffing -and everybody knows it- you won't get many folds. In fact a good player might re-raise you with nothing in their hand because they know you are bluffing.



3) You don't pull this move too often. People will catch on.

4) Your opponents stack size is important too. If your opponent has a big stack, she will be more willing to continue the hand for a small bet, so be careful. If your opponent has only a very few chips left, then they might also call - they have lost so much already they don't care about losing a bit more.

5) Even though you missed the flop, it is best to try to take the pot post-flop when you have some kind of draw. That way if you do get called, you still might hit your draw and win a larger pot.

My next post will be my last on this topic. I promise.

The continuation bet: Part 2

Required reading for today's lesson is The continuation bet: Part 1.

Today, instead of using examples with dollar figures, I'm going to talk in terms of "bets". Let's say the amount of the big blind is "one bet" and the small blind, therefore, is a "half-bet". It doesn't matter if the big blind is $500 or $2, for the sake of the examples we are going to use. A bet is a bet. Thinking of the size of pots as bets rather than actual dollar amounts is a good practice to get into because you are more likely to make proper poker decisions when you see things mathematically, rather than emotionally. People tend to get emotional when they see the size of the call they have to make as, say, a mortgage payment. Generally in poker, what is true is true regardless the size of the blinds.

As promised I'm going to look at when a continuation bet bluff is most profitable and when it is least profitable. Please bear in mind I'm making general statements here - I'm talking about what works and doesn't work most of the time.


That said, you want to make a continuation bet bluff in situations you feel your opponent is most likely to fold. This sounds obvious, but it is not always easy to identify the situations where you are most likely to get your opponent to lay their cards down. By far the biggest single factor to consider is:


How much money has my opponent already put into the pot?


The more he or she has put in, the harder it will be to get them to fold.


Let's say you raised the pot 4 times the big blind, get one caller, and the blinds both fold. Now their are 9.5 bets in the pot; the 4 you put in, the 4 the caller put in, 0.5 from the small blind and 1 from the big blind.


The flop comes without an Ace or a King, so you feel fairly confident your opponent missed, which his good because you missed too. At 8.5 bets, this is a nice pot (if the big blind was $10, for example, the pot is $85) so the question you have to answer is;

Should you try to take the pot right here with a continuation bet bluff?

If we only consider the math behind this puzzle, then I'm afraid the answer is no. Let's do the math:

I have previously stated that continuation bets (whether you have a hand or not), cause opponents to fold 70% of the time, and I think this is true on average, but the bigger the pot, the harder it gets to push people off it and when you opponent has already put up 4 bets, he is not likely to fold very easily. With a pot this big, I think a 65% success rate is more realistic. So let's say you make your continuation bet of 3/4 the pot - that's another 6.5 bets you are putting at risk to win 8.5 bets. With a 65% chance of success, this seems worthwhile until you run the numbers.

If your opponent folds, you have only won an additional 4.5 bets more than you started the hand with. True the pot you stole was 8.5 bets, but remember you put in 4 of those bets in the first place.

If we imagine running this situation 100 times, then 65 times you should win 4.5 bets. You can therefore expect to win 65 x 4.5, or 292.5 bets over 100 hands.

But what if the opponent doesn't fold, as he won't do 35% of the time? Well, to put it rather bluntly, you are probably going to lose most of those hands. And not only are going to lose the 4 bets you made before the flop, you are going to lose the 6.5 bets you made the continuation bet with, that's 10.5 bets you lose.

If we imagine running this situation 100 times, then 35 times you should lose 10.5 bets. You can therefore expect to lose 35 x 10.5 or 367.5 bets over 100 hands. Subtract 367.5 bets from your winnings of 292.5 and....oh my, you lose 75 bets over 100 hands.

Okay I've maybe simplified things a little too much to make a point. But I believe the point is valid - how much you have to put at risk to win a pot, and what percentage of the time you can expect your move to work, are vital considerations you can't ignore if you want to show a profit in the long run.

My next post will show a much better time to use the continuation bet bluff. One that is profitable.

The continuation bet: Part 1

Because I don't like to limp, I will sometimes raise with borderline cards in middle or late position. Often I can steal the blinds this way. I don't do it too often because my opponents will catch on, and I usually only do it if the players acting after me are tight. Often, as I say, I can pick-up the blinds, but just as often I will find I get a caller, so I will see the flop against one opponent.


The flop is dealt and I miss it completely. But this is not a tragedy, because my opponent probably missed it completely too. That's just the way it goes in poker - if you are playing against one guy, then he probably doesn't catch anything on the flop (but if you are playing against two or more, then chances are that one of them caught a piece of the flop). So what do I do? I bet about 3/4 the pot. This bet is commonly referred to as a "continuation bet". Before the flop I showed strength by raising, so now I continue to show strength by making a healthy bet.

I do not have statistics, but I would say that my opponents fold 70% the time when I make a continuation bet like this. Those times when my opponent calls, well then I must proceed with caution. Too many situational differences exist for me to make a general statement of what to do here. When an opponent re-raises you, you are sure to be behind and should fold.


Don't continuation bet indiscriminately. It works best against the tight opponent; one who does not play a lot of hands and who will not continue a hand unless they have a good chance of winning. There certainly situations when making a continuation bet without a good hand is a bad idea. In the next few post I will examine when, and when not, to continuation bet when you don't have a hand.

Lose the battle, win the war.

When I was just starting out, I would make the following mistake all the time.

I would be dealt pocket queens, see a flop with a ace or a king in it (sometimes both), and I just couldn't fold my queens when an opponent made a big raise. Again and again I lost when it was obvious that an opponent had a higher pair than me. How could I have been so stupid as to make this call - and to make it repeatedly? The only way I could be ahead in this situation would be if my opponent was making a stone-cold bluff, and that is improbable. So why did I do it? I think it was because I was so excited to have a good hand pre-flop that I didn't want to admit to myself I was beat post-flop. I chose to ignore a cardinal rule of poker:

It is not the absolute strength of your cards that matter - it is the relative strength.

Pocket queens are, in absolute terms, excellent cards pre-flop. Only two hands are better, and the chances an opponent has AA or KK is less than 2%. But when the flop comes down with an Ace or a King in it, and one of your opponents seems very happy with that flop, then the relative value of your ladies is now very low.

Sure an opponent could be bluffing. But if the pot was raised pre-flop, then odds are good someone is holding an ace or a king. The fact is you are much more likely to talk yourself into believing your opponent is bluffing, than for him to actually be bluffing. This is because:

People want to believe in the best case scenario, even when it is unlikely.

In my last post I told about losing a big pot with JJ because I just didn't want to believe I was beaten. I was so intent on winning that hand that I put my remaining chips at risk. But poker is not about winning as many hands as you can, It's about winning the biggest pots you can and losing the smallest pots you can.

Once you have put chips into a pot they no longer belong to you. If you try desperate things to get back your chips, you are throwing good money after bad.

I remember clearly the first time I found the strength to throw away the ladies when an ace hit the flop. I lost that hand, of course, but a small thrill went through me as I realized I had taken the first step to becoming a good poker player.

Good players make good lay downs. The QQ example is just the beginning. As you get better, you will learn to recognize when your jack-high flush is worthless, when holding the "bad-end" of a straight is not good, and when your ace-high flush is beat by a full-house. You will be a great poker player because you will recognize the true relative value of your hands, and you will not throw good money after bad.

Don't blame the fish hooks.

Todays words: Over bet, Pot committed, Fish hooks.

Most poker players have favourite hands and hands they just don't like that much. The hand that gets the most scorn seems to me to be JJ. All the time I hear people say things like "I hate fish hooks (JJ)! I never win with them." At first I didn't understand why, then I lost $400 in a single hand playing JJ - by far the biggest amount I have ever lost in a single pot. See my post Bankroll Management Part 2 to read that story if you like.

The second time JJ did me in was at the Mirage in Las Vegas. I took $300 to a $1/$2 no-limit table. I was down $50 after thirty minutes and was perhaps a little over anxious to get back on the winning side. I was sitting on the button when I was dealt JJ. The thought that went through my head was "I very likely have the best hand right now, but if a Ace, King or Queen flop I might be in trouble. I should make a big raise here. If anybody calls, then I just hope I don't see anything higher than a Jack on the flop."

So I raised $50.

Let me stop my story and say that my thoughts and actions are typical of people who get dealt JJ. They are comfortable with the idea that they have been dealt the best cards, but they think it is possible a higher card will hit the board, so they "protect" their hand by over-betting; forcing their opponents to fold or pay bad pot-odds to continue. This strategy - the one I followed at the Mirage - is really pretty bad because what you are doing is limiting yourself to a small win (picking up only the pre-flop bets) and exposing yourself to a big loss. How are you exposing yourself to a big loss? Well, if you are making a really big pre-flop raise (mine was 25 times the big blind!) the only hands that are going to call you are probably AA or KK, at least if you are playing with good opponents. Keep this in mind.

Back to the story. I raised $50. The big blind raises another $100. Everyone else folds. Now I'm thinking "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." I know I'm in trouble, but I cling to the hope I might still be able to bluff him off pot later. Or that he's holding AK and is behind me. I make a stupid call.

The flop comes down small cards. He bets another $100. All I know is that I have put $150 into this pot and the thought of folding just doesn't seem like an option. I am, as they say, pot committed. In desperation I go all-in, and he actually thinks about it for almost three whole seconds before calling. I turn over my suddenly puny-looking Jacks and he turns over AA. Now I'm thinking "What the hell else could he have had, moron?". The turn and the river did not bring a miracle Jack, so I kissed my $250 good-bye and left the Mirage.

This was the second largest pot I have ever lost and like the largest, I was holding JJ. If I could have the $650 I lost on those two hands back, I would be a net winner at poker instead of the net loser I still am. Two hands, both JJ.

But the problem was the way I played, not the cards. I made the mistake so many people make by grossly over-betting, making it so that I was either going to get a small gain or a big loss.

Better to play with smaller raises pre-flop. Raise an amount that people holding 10 10, 9 9, or KQ will call. Statistics show that you are a favourite not to see an Ace, King or Queen on the flop and even if you do you might still be ahead.

Just don't go crazy with the massive pre-flop raises and you won't be one of those shlubs saying how much they hate fish hooks.

The Straddle

I was playing $1/$2 no-limit hold 'em at a Casino a week ago. My experience playing this game live led me to expect a very tight game. In Las Vegas I sat at the poker tables for about 15 hours, and saw very few big raises pre-flop. Here, however, I suddenly found myself in a very loose game. Players were frequently betting $20, $4o or even $60 before the flop. In addition many were also "straddling" - something I had never seen before. It took me awhile to figure out how the straddle works, but eventually I clued in.

How it works is this; the player under the gun (The guy sitting to the left of the big blind - the first to act) can announce "straddle" before the cards are dealt. He then puts up a specified amount (in our game it was $5, which was 2.5 times the big blind). The cards are dealt, but the guy who straddled - who was under the gun - now does not have to act first, that honour goes to the guy on his left. Now, with the straddle on, the remaining players no longer have the option of limping in at the price of the big blind ($2) but now have to cough up a minimum of $5 (in our example) to see the flop.

It seems that straddling is a way loose gamblers try to juice up the pot a bit. Or, perhaps players who are confident they will be able to push others out of the pot later will straddle.

To me it just doesn't make much sense. Why risk more of your money than you need to before you even see what cards you have?

I do see one use for the straddle. I am a very tight player, but after a while other players clue in that I just don't play loose, and so they just fold to me when I play a hand. What I need is a way to look loose while remaining tight. Straddling might just do the trick.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Tight is Right

The formula for making money playing poker is very simple but human nature is such that most people find it almost impossible to follow the very simple formula. In a way it is like losing weight. Most of us could lose weight if we followed the simple formula: eat less and exercise more - yet it is very difficult to actually make yourself do it. The formula for winning money at poker is playing "tight"- playing when it is likely that you are holding the best hand and making your opponents pay for holding worse hands. Only playing good starting hands, and only continuing to play when it is very unlikely someone has you beat, is to play tight. A tight player does not bluff frequently, and against certain opponents (maniacs) will never bluff at all.

Play tight. Wait for the good cards. Let others bluff at you when you have the monster hands.

Sounds boring, I know. Bluffing, chasing draws, going all-in with a chance of being second best - all these things are exciting. True. You know what else is fun? Winning. If you are playing poker because you are an adrenaline junky, go ahead and play as loose as you like. If you want to make money I suggest you play tight.

The key to playing tight is to establish before you even sit down at the table what hands you can play from which position. When I'm in tight mode, these are the only hands I will allow myself to play:


From Early Position: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, AQs, TT, and AKo

From Middle Position: all of the above hands, plus AJs, KQs, 99, A10s and AQo

From Late Position: all of the above hands, plus KJs, 88, QJs, K10s, A9s, AJ

That's it. I will leave the blinds out of it for now. Playing from the blinds requires a separate discussion.

If believe you restrict yourself to these starting hands, you will improve your chances of winning dramatically, particularly if you are playing against weak opponents. To test my theory, I am going to play 1,000 hands on-line restricting myself to these hands. Okay, I'm going to be playing for play money, but it should be interesting to see what happens.

(Note: results of this experiment were posted Sept.22/10 in Tight is Right: The Conclusion )