Hand Decision Point

Hand Decision Point

Let’s put you in a tough situation:-

In the early stages of a tournament, we are playing a stack of 8,000. We are happy to look down at , and raise to 350 in early position. We have caller on the button. We put him on a good hand, but within a wide range at this early stage. The flop is a decent looking , and we bet out for 600. The caller now raises to 1,800. A call here would leave us with 5,850. It is time to think…

Whenever you have the crucial decision in a hand like this, take the time to put your opponent on a range of hands.

As we have shown strength, our first assumption here will be that our opponent is playing some kind of good hand. It is reasonable to say that our opponent is most likely to be playing one of five hands:-

-  or  for a set
-  for two pair
-  for top pair
-   for top pair

In this list, we can only beat the bottom two hands. However, pocket pairs are dealt little more than half as much as a non-pair hand, and the likelihood of  or  is cut in half by the  and  on the flop. So, it is still very possible that we are ahead, but we have a big decision to make about our position in the hand…

The crucial decision

In this situation, it is absolutely crucial to have clear thinking, and to make one crucial decision – do you want to give yourself a chance of getting away from the hand? This includes both the possibility of passing now, or deciding to pass on a later street if your opponent continues to indicate that he likes his hand.

Even when there are possibilities to be beaten, very often the answer to this crucial question is “No, I have to commit myself to the hand, despite the knowledge that I may be beaten.”

I would say that this spot with  is one of those situations. My first action would be to make the clear decision- I do not know whether I am beat, but the probabilities are in my favour, and I am not going to pass the hand.

Many good players do the right thing of thinking about the list of possible hands, but get caught in the confusion and worry of not knowing where they are in the hand. Very often, they wrongly convince themselves that they might be able to pass on a later street. Realistically, however, they have committed themselves to the pot with the flop call and will never pass. Their unclear thinking can lead to them either doing the wrong thing on the flop, or not getting proper value from the hand if they are ahead

The lesson

There are many spots in poker where you should continue with a less restrictive read, and continue to the turn without putting your opponent on a definite hand.

However, in a spot like this where the pot has got large relative to the stacks, it is absolutely crucial that you realise that you are at the decision point.. If you can implement this clear thinking into your game, it will be a good advantage, as many good players get this area of the game wrong.

Our action on the hand

Going back to the  hand on the  board, we have now decided that we are not going to pass the hand.

This means that the spots in which we are beat (most likely by ,  or ) actually now become irrelevant to our thinking. We have decided that we have to pay these hands off (if we do not outdraw them), and so the action will run its course against these hands.

Critically, this means that the only hands that are relevant to our thinking are the ones that we can beat – in this case  and . This means that we are effectively playing the hand completely for value.

In fact  is far less likely, for two reasons – our opponent would be overplaying his hand if he did hold , and of course we have two of the kings ourselves. Let’s simplify our thinking, and just consider that our opponent has .

The crucial thinking is that we should now act completely as if our opponent does have . We are far from sure that he does, but we should act as if we have a dead read on the hand, because we cannot control the other eventualities.

What should we do, given that we are “reading” our opponent for ?

Remember, we are now playing 5,850, and there is 3,400 in the pot.

• It would not be wrong at all to move all-in. We will have created what is always a good situation in poker; if our opponent calls, he does not have the odds to do so, and if he passes we win a good pot.

However, when you find a good choice in poker, it does not mean that you have found the best one…

• Given that we are playing our  for value, we can maybe go one stage better, and ‘milk’ our opponent for all the possible chips. A min-raise now would admittedly look suspicious, but at the same time it would be very difficult for our opponent to get away from his good hand.

• However, we can do even better yet. Our logic has told us that we might as well read our opponent for , and so let’s use this to maximum effect. We can combine getting value from the hand with getting away from the hand if the turn and river cards come to have us beat.

So, here’s the best strategy- we’ll flat call the raise on the flop, to see the turn card. Most likely, it will come a blank, and now we can make a medium sized bet which will be very difficult for our opponent to pass.

If the turn comes an  or a , we know that we are almost definitely beat. Let’s say the board becomes  , and our opponent bets again. There is no hand that we can beat. If we get away, we are much better off than we are if we have the flop all-in called, and suffer a bad beat.

A recap

This part of poker thinking is both tricky and strange, and it is something that very few players get right. What I have claimed is the best action will sometimes have you betting into a massive hand, like a flopped set. However, players who refuse to make their decision on the flop will find themselves paying off these big hands anyway. This is why we come to the seemingly strange decision to read our opponent for a particular hand, even if we are not sure what he has. It is so important to be clear and reap the other benefits of putting your opponent on a precise hand.

Example #2

You hold , with a 9,000 stack, and a raise to 400 gets two callers. The flop comes . This really is a bad flop for aces. You bet 1,000, the first opponent passes, and the second opponent, who has position over you, raises to 3,000. What do you do?

We will not discuss specifically what to do, as it will depend a lot on your read of how aggressively your opponent plays. However, there is one thing that you should not do, and that is to flat call. Once again, you will build up a range of possible hands that opponent has, and not feel too sure where you are in the hand. Some hands have you well beat, some are drawing strongly against you, and some like  are hands that you have well beat.

However, the crucial thing to realise is that you have to make your decision now. This is the only similarity with the previous example, as this time you cannot safely call to see what happens. You are out of position, will have invested too many chips to pass if you do flat call, and cannot afford to give your opponent free cards with all the possible draws available.

Many players would rightly feel scared about the possible hands that have them beat, and would feel unsure whether it is right to pass or to move all-in. However, this does not mean that the in-between option of calling is a good compromise.

Example # 3

You hold , and again your raise to 400 has a button caller to see a flop of  . You bet out for 700, and your opponent makes it 2,100. You are playing a total of 10,000, which your opponent has covered, and so a flat call would still leave 7,900 to play for.

Again, the range of hands is inconclusive, and includes all the following

• Genuine hands that have us beat, e.g. a set, two pair, most likely of which is , or an overpair.

• Genuine hands that we have beat, e.g.  or .

• Drawing hands that are dangerous, but we are beating at the moment, e.g. , .

Once again, unless we have a great read on our opponent’s play, we cannot be sure of the right decision. However, the difference in this example is that we do not have to decide yet. Our 10,000 stack versus the 2,100 raise leaves enough chips in play to be able to flat call and see what happens.

One of the big advantages of flat calling will be that our opponent’s next move is likely to be honest. This is because our flat call actually disguises our hand, and makes it look like a drawing hand. If the board on the turn becomes    and we check, our opponent will only make a decent bet if he has made his hand. If he does bet, he almost definitely has us beat, and so we have saved chips that we could have lost had we re-raised on the flop.

Conclusion

This example shows that there can be times when it is right to make the delaying call. The stacks generally need to be deeper, and the information you are going to receive needs to be honest information.

These three hands bring together one crucial skill in poker- being able to think clearly, and establish whether or not you have reached the decision point.

All the best and see you at the tables – Stuart “TrickyRock” Rutter