We’ve looked at how and when to bet from time to time during this guide so far, but as it’s the main aspect of the game (you could argue that how much and when to bet IS poker), it’s worth looking at the subject in much more detail.

How much should you bet? You should keep the Fundamental Theorem of Poker in mind when determining this – bet enough so that if they call, they are making the wrong play mathematically. If they get a positive EV from calling, then you have a negative EV from them calling. If you bet sufficiently high, you will be happy for them to call (since you will win more money than you lose, on average), and happy for them to fold (since you win the pot).

That said, betting too much is the same as throwing chips away. Consider this example:

You have:

And you believe that your opponent has a pocket pair below a Jack, perhaps Nines:

If the pot stands at £100 after the Turn, what should you bet on the River?

The table looks like this:

You are ahead if their pocket pair is Threes, Fours, Fives, Eights, Nines or Tens, but behind if they have Twos, Sixes or Sevens. For the sake of argument, assume that they didn’t give away any information on the Flop (see later to find out how to avoid this). How much do you bet?

If they have missed, then the chances of them hitting their card on the River are 2/46. Assume that if they hit the River, they’ll win the pot, but there’s no extra money in it for them, since you’ll fold to a bet.

So, there’s a 2/46 chance of them winning £100 plus your bet, and a 44/46 chance of them losing the value of your bet. In this case, a bet of even £10 is enough to make them fold – the EV would be (2/46 * £110) – (44/46 * £10) = £4.78 - £9.56 = -£4.78

So a small bet will win the pot if they haven’t already hit their hand. But if they have, a large bet still won’t make them fold. So betting more than £10 here won’t win you any more money if they haven’t made their hand, but it will lose you more money if they have hit their hand. There’s no benefit to you.
Note that a bad poker player in their position would call the £10, figuring that it’s a small price to pay to see the River. That’s fine – they have a negative EV, so it’s in your interest for them to call. On the other hand, a very aggressive player may call or even reraise you, hoping to convince you that they’ve hit their hand. This is a bad place for you to be in, and shows the advantages of playing aggressively – it makes it harder to tell whether you’ve hit your cards or not.

When To Bet

There are a number of reasons to bet. You could be trying to get more money from a winning hand, bluffing, or trying to get some information about your opposition’s hand, for three. But you should never make the kind of bet that we just saw the ‘bad player’ consider. It’s a big pot, and a small bet, so why not see if I can pick up the card I need?

Similarly, don’t limp in just to see a flop, unless you know what a good flop will look like. If you’re at a full table, and you pick up:

In an early position, you should fold it. The chances of hitting a straight are very slim, so what are you really hoping for – an Ace?

With eight or nine other players at the table, there’s a good chance that one of them has an Ace as well, and it’ll be better than yours. On the other hand,

Is a much better hand. Your Ace is probably good if an Ace lands, a Jack-high Flop will probably put you in front, and even two Hearts or a King and a Queen will give you a lot of outs. There are plenty of ways that you can see this hand being in good shape after the Flop, so you should consider playing it (though your cards are only one consideration out of many when making that decision, as we saw earlier).

Limping

If you’ve never read a poker book in your life, you probably limp into a lot of hands pre-flop. If you’ve read about poker before, you’ve probably got the impression that limping is bad.

Neither of these is really true. Like any other bet, there is a time and a place for limping.

1. You’ve got a low pair, or low suited connectors, and the chances of a raise after your limp are low. In this case, there’s a chance of making a big hand after the Flop that’s hard to identify for your opponents. The cost of the bet is relatively low, and there is a decent chance of making a hand on the Flop. For example, with a pocket pair, the chances of hitting Trips on the Flop are 12%. If you can win eight times the big blind when you hit, you will get a positive EV. Potentially, you can make far more, if a King or an Ace hits the Flop as well.
2. You’ve got a monster hand, and the other players at the table are very aggressive. In this case, you can disguise your hand by limping – showing weakness – and let them make all the aggressive moves. A player that appears weak is what any aggressive player dreams of, and flat-calling their bets will get you far more chips than showing strength will (just don’t do this every time, unless you are trying to create a false persona, and intend to bluff like this in the future).
3. If you’re playing against weak players, who will fold to a bet if they miss their flop (or even if they hit it in some cases), you may be able to justify your call because you are confident that you can outplay them after the flop.

Remember that if you often limp with relatively weak hands, you are far more likely to be able to get away with slow-playing a big hand. If you are playing conservative poker, and you suddenly limp in, the other players will be suspicious.

You shouldn’t limp in unless you are confident that nobody after you will raise (unless you are slow-playing a big hand). If you are looking for a cheap flop, but somebody after you raises, you’ll generally have to lay down your hand, and lose your chips, with nothing to show for it. Limping works best against conservative players, or when there are only very few players to act.

Of course, if somebody has already limped into the pot, there are a number of good reasons to limp in yourself.

1. You have position on them after the flop. If you use this correctly, you should expect to turn a tidy profit, on average.
2. You are offering great pot odds for other players, particularly the blinds, to call. If you connect with your hand, you can make a lot of chips.

Always Have A Reason

Whatever decision you make, always have a rational explanation for it (if nothing else, it makes it easier to accept when it turns out to be the wrong move!)

All of your thinking should come back to the Fundamental Theorem Of Poker – either make the right decision for yourself, or try to draw your opponent into making the wrong decision. There are a number of special ‘types’ of bet, that we look at later, such as Probe Bets (where you try to learn what other people have), Continuation Bets (telling other people that you’ve hit your hand, when you haven’t), The Squeeze Play (where you can semi-bluff multiple players off the same pot), Value Bets (simply betting because you have a good hand), the Slow-Play (feigning weakness to get chips from an opponent with a weaker hand) and Check-Raising (again, feigning weakness to build a pot). All of these moves can be boiled down to one of a few reasons for betting:

• Iwant to make the right move, given everyone’s cards
• I want to make an opponent with a weaker hand call or raise me
• I want to make an opponent with a stronger hand fold
• I want to find out where I stand, so I can play my hand correctly

Either you want to make the right move, or you want your opponent to make the wrong move.

Betting because you think you probably should, it feels cheap, you might be ahead, you haven’t bet for a while or you’re annoyed about losing the last hand are all bad moves. They’ll cost you chips, and won’t make you feel any better...

Pocket Pairs And Suited Connectors

Anyone can make chips playing a pair of Aces. Anyone can throw away a 2-7 offsuit. In the long run, it probably won’t be your ability to play exceptionally good hands, or fold bad hands, that will determine your success at the table. Playing difficult hands well will win you far more chips in the long run, and misplaying them will cost you.

Consider this. If you consider a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces, Ace-King down to Ace-Ten, and King-Queen to be premium hands (and that’s a very generous selection), then out of the 1,326 possible hands that you can be dealt, you’ll be looking at a premium hand 104 times (6 possible hands for each pair, 16 possible hands for each non-pair). That’s just under 8% of the hands.

But if you consider the other pocket pairs, and suited connectors (Tens down to Twos, Queen-Jack suited down to Three-Two suited), there are another 94 hands to play, taking you up to 15% of the hands you are dealt.

Why are these additional hands so good? Clearly, it’s not because they are likely to win – Seven-Six suited is second-favourite against almost any decent hand. They key is that when they do pay out, they usually pay out big. If an Ace lands on the flop, and your opponent doesn’t have one, he’s not likely to pay you a lot if you do. But if the flop comes up Six-Six-Two, or Six-Five-Nine, then your set or straight are very hard to recognise, and are far more likely to get paid.

Consider this example:

Your opponent limps in to the pot (paying £20), and you are on the big blind, holding:

Everyone else has folded, and your hand isn’t a monster, and you decide to turn over a flop, to see what happens.

The pot is £50, and it’s you to act.

It was a very good flop – you’ve got top pair, and a big kicker. Your opponent was limping in, so it’s unlikely that they had Aces, Kings, Queens or Jacks, so you’ve every reason to feel you’re ahead. But it’s possible that they could have an open-ended straight draw (with Six-Seven or Nine-Ten) or a flush draw (with two Hearts), so you want to be certain that you don’t give them pot-odds.

You bet £100, and your opponent calls you.

Clearly, you’ve got caught out here – in this instance, he was playing a pair of Fives, and hit trips on the Flop. But a smaller bet would have given the drawing hands the required pot-odds to see another card.

Because your opponent has been playing suited connectors and smaller pairs, they have put themselves in a position where they will get paid off whenever they hit. In this case, they’ve taken £120 of you, whilst only risking £20 of their own – and that’s if you don’t commit any more chips.

Playing these hands will cost you a few chips a lot of times, but win you a lot of chips occasionally. So, should you play them?

To answer that, you need to assess your opponents, and your own image at the table. If they are likely to push large bets in to try to steal pots after the flop, then you’ll get paid much better than if they are cautious. If you have an image of being the sort of player that plays these marginal hands, then they aren’t as likely to bet if dangerous flops (like the one above) appear.

Ultimately, varying your play is the key to being successful at poker. If your opponents know what you’re doing, they can make the right moves, mathematically speaking, or bully you off hands when you are ahead. Play these hands sometimes, fold them other times. And always be aware of their danger when you are assessing the flop.

Special Types Of Bets

The Gap Effect

This isn’t really a special type of bet, but it’s something to be aware of when making any bets pre-Flop. It takes a bigger hand to call a raise than it does to make the raise in the first place.

Why? Well, first bear in mind that the earlier you are to act, the more players a raise has to get past, in order to succeed, so you need a stronger starting hand to raise, the earlier your position is. As a result, your opponent should have a stronger hand than your minimum (so your minimum hand should reflect theirs). But even if they play the same range of hands as you, you still have a higher requirement to call than they do to raise.

Suppose that they will raise with any pair, Tens or higher, any Ace down to Ace-Nine, any King down to King-Jack, or Queen-Jack suited.

That’s 146/1326 hands, or 11% (not unreasonable, given that you’ll have the best hand 11% of the time if there are nine players at the table).

But on average, he’ll have the 73rd best hand, and you only want to play against him if you’ve got a better hand than him. So in this case, you’d probably only play Aces down to Ace-Ten, Kings down to King-Queen, or a pair of Tens or better. You wouldn’t play the more marginal Queen-Jack, Ace-Nine, etc, as he’s almost certainly ahead of them.

OK, so it’s a bit more complicated than that. If he’s got Ace-King, you’re far more likely to win with Queen-Jack than with Ace-Jack, but there is an important point here.

• Don’t call a raise if your hand was only marginal for raising, unless you think your opponent is playing a lot of hands, or you think he’s bluffing.

The Sandwich Effect

The Sandwich Effect is related to the Gap Effect in that you are in a position where somebody has raised ahead of you pre-flop. Here though, there are still players to act, who could call or raise. In this case, since you may be facing other players with bigger hands than yours, you need to be more cautious than if you are the last to act – in which case, you’ll know that you’re seeing the Flop with just one more person. The earlier your position when somebody else raises ahead of you, the stronger your hand needs to be in order to call them.

The Value Bet

This is the type of bet that we’ve been discussing this far – you make a bet based on what you have, and what you think your opponent has.

You had decent cards before the flop, and now you think you’ve got the best hand. Aside from the occasional slow-play here, you’ll generally make the most money here by making a sensible bet, and hoping that somebody with a smaller hand calls you.

The objective here isn’t to chase people away – if you’re ahead, you want to maximise the size of the pot (though you want to chase away any drawing hands). Typically, giving your opponent pot-odds of between 2:1 and 3:1 is a good bet (this equates to a bet of 50% to 100% of the pot). They won’t call you unless they’ve got something, but if they have, there’s enough in it for them to make the play sometimes.

Early in a tournament, the Value Bet makes a lot of sense. With time on their sides and healthy stacks, other players are likely to be more cautious, so slow-playing is less likely to work. Later in the tournament, it’s unlikely that if you check, everyone else will do the same, so you can slow-play more often, and get paid.

The Probe Bet

Suppose that you haven’t got a powerful hand before the flop. You don’t show strength, and when the Flop comes down, you have a decent hand, but not the nuts. Your opponent checks, and since he showed strength before the Flop, you have no real idea whether he’s ahead or behind you.

This is where a Probe Bet comes in. You bet, and by betting, you force your opponent to tell you about their hand. If they call or reraise you, then it’s likely that they’ve got you beaten. If they fold, then you win the hand, even if you aren’t ahead.

This is an easy play to read, but quite difficult to play against. If you raise on every flop when your opponent checks, it makes life quite difficult for them. They know that you are betting whether you’ve hit your hand or not, and since they will have missed more often than they hit, they end up in a position of either folding to your bets most of the time, even when they are ahead, or playing a hand when they don’t have anything.

This highlights the importance of position – since your opponent acts first, you have the opportunity to make this play. If you were first to act, it would be more difficult, as you haven’t given your opponent the chance to bet if they make their hand (which they will do most of the time – slow-playing is something people will only do occasionally). Since they are showing weakness, you can claim a lot of pots by showing strength. And if they are slow-playing, then you find out quite quickly and cheaply that they have the best of things.

Note that the size of the bet should be quite low here, since it’s clear exactly what you’re doing when you routinely bet in this way. If your opponent has missed their hand, you need to bet enough to ensure that they fold a drawing hand, but if they’ve hit their hand, you don’t want to give them free money. Four suited cards would turn into a Flush 19% of the time on the Turn, and a Straight Draw will turn into a Straight 9% or 17% of the time (depending on whether you were drawing to one or two numbers). Allowing for Pairs turning into Trips, suppose that 20% of the time, a drawing hand will be completed on the turn. According to some rough mathematics, you need to bet at least 2/3 of the pot to force them off the hand (though this will vary depending on how much action you expect during the rest of the betting).

For example, if the pot is £100 before the Flop. You expect that if your opponent makes their hand, it’ll cost you another £100 in bets on the Turn and River. If they make their hand 20% of the time, a £50 bet from you would cost them £50 80% of the time, and win them £100+£50+£100 = £250 20% of the time, giving them an EV of £10 (so they’d call). A bet of £75 would cost them £75 80% of the time, and win them £100+£75+£100 = £275 20% of the time, giving them an EV of -£5 (so they’d fold).

Since players tend to be more cautious in tournaments when they’ve missed their hands, a bet of 2/3 of the pot will generally see these hands off, so this should be the size of your Probe Bet. Betting more won’t chase away many more people, it’ll just pay off the ones who’ve hit their hands already.

Continuation Bets

This is very similar to a Probe Bet in some ways, and very different in others.The main purpose of a Probe Bet is to force your opponent into telling you what they have, and this is also true with a Continuation Bet. With a Continuation Bet, you’ve shown strength before the Flop, and nobody has acted yet.

For example, if you’ve got:

You will probably bet. If your opponent calls, and the flop comes down:

You are in a tricky position (assuming that you’re first to act).

Your opponent may or may not have the Ace. If you check, they will either make a Probe Bet (if they don’t have an Ace), or a Value Bet (if they do). Either way, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to fold.

But if you bet, they can only call if they have hit the Ace. Since you’ve shown strength before the Flop, they have no reason to think that you don’t have the Ace, so they will almost certainly fold. If you didn’t show strength before the Flop, there’s a good chance that this won’t work, since they’ve no reason to believe that you have the Ace you are claiming to.

Inconsistent Betting

How do you know if your opponent is bluffing? One way to tell is to look at their bets pre- and post-Flop. Do they make sense? Did they limp pre-flop, only to bet aggressively when an Ace hits the table? Did they make a big noise pre-flop, then check when an Ace or a King lands? If so, then they may be playing games with you. Don’t assume that a check means weakness after the Flop, if their pre-Flop bet indicates that they have a big hand.

Similarly, make sure that your bets make sense. If you haven’t shown strength pre-Flop, then there’s a good chance that a Continuation Bet won’t be believed. If you’ve shown strength, then expect suspicion when you suddenly start checking.

If you call a bet pre-flop, then make a bet on the Flop, your opponent will have great difficulty knowing whether you are making a Continuation Bet or a Value Bet. In general, you might want your Continuation Bets to be larger, as you want to encourage people to fold, but varying the amounts that you bet on both Continuation Bets and Value bets will make the two virtually indistinguishable.

At this point, you have asked your opponent a question, and told them nothing about your hand. They will generally have to play the hand that they’ve got, and since they’ll miss the Flop the majority of the time, you should make a tidy profit.

However, there is one small problem here…

Reading The Flop

We saw earlier that particularly if you are playing against opponents who play a lot of hands, seemingly innocuous Flops can be dangerous.

Looking at the Flop, to assess potential dangers is a critical part of the game. Whilst there’s always a possibility that your opponent has hit something unlikely (a Pocket Pair can turn into Trips whatever the Flop looks like), some Flops are more dangerous than others. In these cases, it’s essential to find out whether your opponent has hit, by asking questions with your bets.

Consider the following hand.

You’ve got:

(nice!)

And the Flop shows

You’ve got top pair, and top kicker. Which is great. Assuming that you raised pre-flop, and your opponent called, it’s unlikely that he’s hit Trips, so unless he had Pocket Kings or Aces (unlikely, since he didn’t reraise you), you’re ahead right now.

Unless he had two Hearts. There’s a good chance that he’s got two picture cards, since he called your bet pre-flop, and of the thirteen remaining, three are Hearts. There’s a decent chance that he’s got one Heart, but two is unlikely, if you made a strong bet.

If you didn’t, then now you’re paying for not asking a difficult question pre-Flop, and he could have Trips, Straight-draws, a Flush, a Flush-draw or almost anything. Learn from your weakness – it’s no coincidence that weak players pay out more ‘lucky’ hands than strong players; they don’t know what cards their opponents have.

So, your opponent has one of a few hands. He could have

• Nothing. He missed the Flop. Maybe Ace-Jack of Clubs…
• A Flush Draw. He’ll want to see a cheap card – if he gets another Heart (9/47 chance) he’s almost certain to have the Nuts, and your strength could pay him off.
• A Flush. Almost certainly not, but a possibility. Maybe he had 10-Jack Suited (on Hearts).
• A Pair Of Kings. He will be confident that he’s ahead, but not certain. You’ve got him dominated, so you want to get as many chips as possible.
• Exactly the same as you. Doesn’t really matter what you do here – you probably can’t get rid of him, and he can’t get rid of you (as long as your nerve holds).

So you want to bet enough to chase away the drawing hands, and keep the rest in. If he’s got the Flush without an Ace, he won’t want to give you another card (in case you’ve got it), so he may reraise you. Otherwise, you’ve got him where you want him. I’d make a slightly smaller bet than my average Value Bet here – possibly, he’ll think I’m making a Continuation Bet, and he’ll call me with a weaker hand, but he’ll still have to fold a drawing hand. So if he calls, I’m almost certainly ahead.

Consider another Flop that you could have seen with the same cards in your hand:

This is a horrible Flop for you. You’re behind a Queen, but he could call your bet with a King, or even a hand like Ace-Jack Hearts, Ace-Ten Hearts or Jack-Ten Hearts – where he’ll have 12, 12 or 15 outs respectively. Be very careful with this hand – but remember that he could put you on all the same hands that you could put him on.

This is a good point – you can bet on the texture of the Flop. If you had pocket Queens (no Hearts), that first Flop we saw would have been a bad one, with an overcard to your pair, and Flush possibilities. But you can still play it, if you can convince your opponent to fold. Betting a larger amount will force him to put down anything less than a big hand.

An interesting point here – you may have noticed that you are betting less when you’ve got a hand than when you aren’t. This seems a little strange, but remember that the better your hand is, the bigger you want the pot to be. Play big pots when you’ve got a big hand, and smaller pots when you’ve got a smaller hand, and you’ll do well. Make sure that you build pots, or encourage your opponents to do so, when you’ve hit your hands, and try to end the hand quickly (one way or the other) if you’ve got a weak hand. There’s nothing worse than looking at the River card, seeing a big pile of chips, and realising you’ve got no hope of winning the hand.

Betting After The Turn

After the Turn card, there’s only one card remaining. If a player has a drawing hand, they are unlikely to make it on the River, so they’ll have to fold to any reasonable bet. So, if you think you’re ahead, and there’s any chance of your opponent being on a drawing hand, you should bet most of the time, to chase them away. How much to bet really depends on the situation.

If you think they are likely to call a bet with a drawing hand, then perhaps you should keep the raise small enough to keep them in the hand. You’ll get your fingers burned from time to time, but since your opponent is making the wrong play (assuming that you’ve bet enough to make it the wrong play – maybe ½ the pot), you’ll turn a tidy profit in the long run. Don’t bet like this if the Straight and the Flush are both possible – that’s just too many outs to allow your opponent to draw to (and too many potential ‘scare’ cards on the River); make a pot-sized bet and take the hand down then and there.

If the Turn card was a ‘scare’ card, then you’re in a tricky position (but then again, so is your opponent, potentially). If you’ve been aggressive up to this point in the hand, it may be time to let your opponent act first. It’s a very common play to check-raise if you’ve hit a good hand on the Turn, and a good opponent will rarely try to steal the pot here, unless they’ve hit their hands. Against a weaker player, perhaps it is reasonable to continue to play aggressively, as long as you’ve got a good hand to bet.

If I’ve been playing quite passively pre-Flop and on the Flop, then I will generally try to be aggressive here, whether the ‘scare’ card has helped me or not.

I would recommend against bluffing too often at this point. If your opponent has a good hand, then there’s a strong possibility that they’ll call, since they’ll have good pot odds (unless the pot is very small, and you over-bet it significantly). If they don’t have much of a hand, then assuming that you’ve got something, you are probably ahead of them – and you should have some idea after the betting on the Flop as to whether you are ahead or not. Finally, if you haven’t got any kind of a hand, you may well be able to pick up a free card, and make a hand on the River. If you’ve been playing quite passively up to this point in the hand, but calling bets, your opponent might believe that you are ‘Trapping’, and be cautious about committing any more chips to the pot.

Betting On The River

If you’ve been paying attention, then you should have a reasonable idea of what cards your opponent has. It’s an important skill to learn, perhaps the most important skill, and it’s one you can practice even when you aren’t in a hand – useful to keep you alert when you’re card-dead!

You’ve seen their betting pre-Flop, on the Flop and on the Turn, you know how they’ve been playing previously in the game, and if you’re playing in a casino, you may have picked up a tell from them.

If you can learn to read other players’ cards from their actions, you’ll generally know where you stand once the River card’s dealt, so you’re rarely left with a difficult decision.

The River is the place where weaker players tend to make the most, and the most costly, mistakes.

Firstly, they check on the River with a strong hand, hoping to induce a bet. Are they hoping for a bluff? Do they think that their opponent will think that they’ve had nothing all along? Unless their opponent has a very strong hand, or a brain the size of a walnut, they won’t bet. Of course, if your opponent has got a brain the size of a walnut, they’ll probably call your bet anyway, so why play games?

Secondly, players bet when they are out of position, and they haven’t got a very strong hand. This kind of bet will only get called (or reraised) by a player who’s got a stronger hand than them. You win nothing extra if they are behind you, and lose extra chips if they have you beaten. If they’ve got a weak hand, they know they are going to lose the pot, so often they’ll make a bluff – this generally pays out better than if you bet, and they fold.

Bluffing with a weak hand rarely makes sense. The sort of bet that you’d have to make, in order to chase off an opponent makes it very expensive, particularly if they know you might be bluffing. I’d advise against it, unless you’re confident that it will work.

Drawing Hands

We’ve discussed that the best way to play against somebody with a drawing hand (needing a card to complete a flush or a straight, usually) is to make a significant bet, and force them to fold by denying them the pot odds that they need in order to see any more cards.

If you’re the one with a drawing hand, clearly, you want to see additional cards as cheaply as possible. But if somebody bets at you, should you call? We’ll look at an example, when you need to call or fold to a bet after the Turn.

Example 1

You are holding:

You are on the button, and it folded around to you. The blinds were £5 and £10, and you put in a raise to £30. The small blind folded, and the big blind called.

The Flop came down:

.
The Big Blind check. It’s difficult to think of any hand that your opponent could put you on that would have improved with this Flop – maybe a pocket pair. You decide not to make a bet, since your opponent is almost certainly ahead of you (he called you pre-Flop, remember), and you he probably knows it. So you check.

The Turn comes up:

And your opponent bets £65 (the size of the pot). Should you call?

Firstly, count your outs. You have the remaining nine Spades, the other three Sevens and the other three Queens (don’t double-count the Seven or Queen of Spades), so fifteen (out of forty-six) cards in total. It’s possible that a Ten or a Jack may win you the hand, but they may just cost you more money, as your opponent may have a bigger kicker, or a Seven (a Ten would complete a Straight).

The EV here is very slightly negative, unless you can pick up some money on the River. You’ll win £130 15/46 times, and lose £65 31/46 times, giving you an EV of -£1.41. But there are certainly some cards that would make your opponent’s hand, but give you a better one.

Suppose that he was playing Ace-Nine. An Ace would give him two pairs, so the Ace of Spades would look like a good card to him, and he’d probably call a bet. This would certainly fit his betting pattern – calling pre-Flop, checking on the Flop, and raising on the Turn (when he hit his pair). Alternatively, he could have been playing Ace-Four or Ace-Six, and bet the Turn when you didn’t show strength on the Flop.

On the other hand, a few possibilities would complete your hand, but give him a better one. If he had pocket Fours or Sixes, he probably wouldn’t have called you pre-Flop, but plenty of players do, particularly if they think you’re trying to steal their blinds. He could have two Clubs, in which case the Seven or Queen of Clubs are very bad cards for you.

Overall, it’s more likely that you’ll win chips than lose if you hit the River, so you need to include this in your calculation. On average, we’ll say here that you can get an extra £30 if you hit one of your 15 cards, which pushing your EV up to +£3.48 – so you call.

There are a couple more points to consider here. It’s possible that he was slow-playing a monster here. In this instance, you’ll beat pocket Aces, Kings or Queens if you make your hand, but it’s something to bear in mind.

Secondly, some players will see the size of the pot after the Turn, and pay out a small bet on the River even if they don’t have much – either to see if you’re bluffing, or to gain some information about how you are playing your hands. If you think your opponent is one of these, factor it into your calculations.

Finally, remember if making a decision on the Flop that you don’t necessarily have two cards to make your hand. If your opponent bets after the Turn, you may have to fold, so you’ll only get one card to make your hand. It’s difficult to do the sums here, but I’d err on the side of caution, particularly in a tournament. You’ll get plenty of better, safer chances to make some chips than this…

Free Cards

Clearly, free cards are important. If you think you are behind, but certain cards will put you ahead, then you want to see more cards as cheaply as possible. If you are ahead, but your position is vulnerable to certain cards, then you want to end the hand there and then, or at the very least make the pot odds poor enough for your opponent that they will have a negative expectation if they call.

This all sounds very sensible, but it can make two special plays, slow-playing and check-raising questionable tactics. We will look at these moves in a moment, but here are a couple of examples of when you should bet, when you should call a bet, and when you should let a hand go.

Example:

You have:

And the board reads:

The blinds were £10 and £20, and you bet £50 in late position, and were called by the big blind. So, the pot is at £110.

The fact that the big blind called you doesn’t mean that they had a great hand – it cost £30 to enter into a pot worth £80 (that’s what you get for making a weak raise).

After the flop, he checks.

So, what do you do? You’ve missed your hand, and an Ace or a Jack would give you top pair. A Spade would give you a flush draw, and a King or a Queen would give you a straight draw. In fact, of the 47 remaining cards, 22 would improve your hand, of which 6 would make your hand very strong. Another Ten, Six or Four would make little difference (if your opponent has one of these, they are ahead already, and probably realizes it). Only a Two, Three, Five, Seven Eight or Nine, not of Spades are likely to give your opponent a decisive advantage, if they are currently behind (though if they are aggressive, they can take you off a straight or flush draw). So, on the one hand, another card is as likely to help as it is to hurt you. On the other hand, you are probably ahead already – if so, then another card can only serve to reassure you or to cost you chips.

In this case, I’d bet. If there’s a good chance that you’re ahead (which you are unless your opponent has a pocket-pair, a Six, an Eight or a Four), then why not take the pot here? You probably won’t get any more chips out of the pot if you see another card, unless it helps them. So take the pot down now.

This is an important lesson. If your opponent has a very weak hand, they are unlikely to commit any more chips to the pot. In this case, there is no good reason to show weakness – unless they are likely to bluff, then you have nothing to gain. And the weaker your hand, the more aggressive you need to be, since it would be harder to call a bluff with a weaker hand.

Example 2

This time, you are on the small blind. You have

And the blinds are £25 and £50.

It folds around to you, you call, and the big blind checks, so there is £100 in the pot.

The flop comes down:

You missed your hand completely, and there really is little chance of you winning this hand. You are out of position, as you have to act first. If you check, your opponent will probably bet, and you’ll have to fold. He didn’t show any strength before the flop, but he could have a rag-Ace, in which case, you’ll lose – you didn’t show enough aggression before the flop to pretend that you’ve got an Ace.

You could have limped in with a Queen, however. Your decision here comes down to one simple question. If you bet, will he call if he’s missed his flop? If you think so, then you have to fold. If you think he’s fold, then you have to do a quick calculation. What are the chances, given his play, that he’s hit enough of this flop to call. Since he is effectively playing this hand for free, I’d give him about a 1 in 5 chance. He’d probably have bet with an Ace, and there are a lot of hands without Queens or Sixes in (and could he call with a Six, if he had one?).

So, if you bet £50, then 4 in 5 times, you’ll win £100. 1 in 5 times, you’ll lose £50. So it’s an easy decision to raise. Even if there’s a 1 in 5 chance that he calls because he thinks you’re bluffing, this is still an easy raise. A free card gives you nothing, even if he checks (which he won’t).

Example 3

You have:

And you are on the button. The blinds are £1 and £2, and the second person to act raises to £6. You call, and the blinds fold, so the pot is £15.

The flop is:

The other player checks, and the action is on you. You’ve been watching this player very closely in the game so far, and know he’s a very trappy player – he could bluff or slow-play almost any hand. What are you going to do?

You are losing only if your opponent has a bigger pocket pair than you, or a Nine. Would he have raised with a Nine in early position? Even Ace-Nine is a marginal hand under those circumstances. So it’s unlikely. What about the pocket pair? Plausible, in which case, you’re behind, and only a Six will save you. Almost any other hand will give him two overcards to your pair, and he could hit them if you give him another card. So, what’s the move?

What happens if you take a free card? If he’s got a pocket pair or a Nine, then the only cards that help you are the two remaining Sixes. If he’s got two overcards to the table, then he’s currently behind, and has six cards to overtake you. If you check here, then you still won’t know where you stand after you take another card. Were you behind or ahead? Did the card help him? If you show weakness, he could easily bet the Turn with nothing, and force you off the hand. If you bet, then he’ll only call if he’s got something (which will put him ahead of you). The only way that you’ll get any chips off this hand is if he’s got a Nine or an overpair, and a Six lands on the Turn. If he’s got two overcards, he’ll have to fold to a bet, unless he hits his card, in which case he beats you.

Do some quick sums. I would say that in this case, he’ll have two odd overcards 3 times in 4, and a pair or a Nine 1 time in 4.

If I check, and see a free card, then if he was ahead after the Flop, he’ll still be ahead 45/47 times. If he was behind, he’ll still be behind 41/47 times. If he was ahead, and I overtake him, I may take another £15 off him from later bets.

If I bet £7.50 now, and he’s ahead, he’ll call (75% of the time?) or reraise me (25% of the time) (to which I’ll fold). If he calls, then the Turn will help me 2/47 times. If he’s behind, then he’ll fold to my bet.

So, what’s my EV if I bet?

• He’s ahead, and I overtake him on the Turn: ¼ * 2/47 * (£7.50 + £15 + £15) (he’s ahead 1 time in 4, I overtake him 2 times in 47, and win £7.50 from this bet, £15 from later bets, and the £15 pot) = £0.40
• He’s ahead, and I don’t overtake him on the Turn: ¼ * 45/47 * -£7.50 = -£1.80
• He’s behind, and folds: ¾ * £15 = £11.25
• Total = £0.40 - £1.80 + £11.25 = £9.85
• So what’s my EV if I check?
• He’s ahead, and I overtake him on the Turn: ¼ * 2/47 * (£0 + £15 + £15) = £0.32
• He’s ahead, and I don’t overtake him on the Turn: ¼ * 45/47 * £0 = £0
• He’s behind, and overtakes me on the Turn: ¾ * 6/47 * £0 = £0 (assuming he doesn’t trap me).
• He’s behind, and doesn’t overtake me on the Turn: ¾ * 41/47 * £15 = £9.81 (assuming he knows he’s behind).
• Total = £10.13.

Before you get too excited, remember that you already put £7.50 into the pot, and there’s a 75% chance that you’re ahead, so the EV’s should be very positive either way!

If you are winning after the Flop, and still winning after the Turn, then unless your opponent bluffs, it makes no difference what you do – you’ll still just pick up the pot.

If you are losing after the Flop, and still losing after the Turn, then betting on the Flop just costs you your bet.

Betting only pays off if you are behind, and overtake your opponent on the Turn (or they call your bet, and then lose because they think you’re bluffing).

Checking doesn’t win you any extra money unless your opponent bluffs, but it saves you the lost money from the wasted bet if you were behind.

So the bottom line is this: If you are confident that you are ahead, then bet it – there’s little to be gained by checking, unless it will induce a bluff. If you aren’t sure, then check – you’ll lose money if you are behind, and gain nothing (most of the time) if you’re ahead.

Similarly, you should only give a card if you are confident that you are still going to be ahead after that card is dealt. Under these circumstances, you know you’re going to get paid, and want to get as many chips out of an opponent as possible.

In the above example, it would be more profitable to bet, if I thought I was ahead at least 79% of the time. The further I drop away from this, the better the free card looks…

Slow-Playing

This is a simple concept, really. You know you’re ahead, and you know that if you bet, your opponent will probably fold. You want some more chips from him, so you check, and hope that he’ll put in a bet. You repeat this, calling any bets, until all the cards are dealt.

Clearly, if you do this a lot, people will start being more cautious with their bets (at which point, you can pick up a lot more free cards).
In order to be the right time to slow-play, a number of conditions must be met.

1. They will fold to a bet. If not, then you’re better off betting – it’s a more reliable way to get chips in the pot. Have you been caught bluffing recently? Mixing bluffs with slow-play won’t get you paid very often.
2. They have a chance to improve their hands to something worthwhile. If they know they can’t catch whatever hand you’ve got, they won’t bother. If an Ace and King hit the flop, and they have neither, they probably won’t bet even if they get a pair later on.
3. They aren’t likely to overtake you. How many times will I watch somebody slow-play a pair of pocket Aces, even when there are straight and flush possibilities on the board, or the board is paired?
4. The pot is not too large. If it is, just take the money. It’s not worth risking a lot of chips for a few more. And a bet is far more likely to be called with a lot of chips in the middle.

Check-Raising

This is similar to slow-playing, but with the intention of winning the hand quickly. The idea is that you check, your opponent bets (sensing weakness) and you reraise him. He realizes he’s beaten, and folds.

If you have a monster hand, then you are probably better off slow-playing, it’ll get you more chips on average. But if you have a good hand, and your opponent is likely to bet at you if you show weakness, then check-raising can get you paid very well.

As with all things in poker, you need to mix up your play. If you are predictable, you will lose – the Fundamental Theorem Of Poker makes that clear, since your opponents won’t make mistakes, and can force them from you. Try slow-playing sometimes, and playing aggressively other times. That will make all your plays more profitable.

Attacking The Blinds

This is a very popular move amongst intermediate players. If you’re in late position, and nobody has bet yet, then push in a big bet with almost any hand, and pick up the blinds. Here’s an example.

You are on the button with:

The blinds are £5 and £10, and it’s folded around to you. You wouldn’t normally raise with this hand, as you’ve been quite tight. But £15 is quite a nice little sum, so you push in £45.

The small blind has to pay £40 to play for a pot currently at £60. Unless he’s got a very nice hand, he’ll fold. The big blind still has to pay £35, so he’ll fold a mediocre hand as well.

The only times that blind-stealing won’t net you a profit in the long run are very loose tables, where you keep getting reraised, and have to fold. In these cases, do what they do, and steal the raises from people ahead of you.

But on a tight table, stealing the blinds once per round will take the pressure off you to win pots. You’ll be breaking even, so you can wait for a good hand before making any big moves.