As regular visitors to Netbettor know, we're not scared of tackling some fairly abstract concepts in our weekly articles. How to play ace high, when to check raise the turn-all of this is ready grist for the Netbettor mill. Once in a while, however, we're going to mix it up and dissect a hold 'em hand which I found interesting; the idea being that exploring the actual play of a hand will better help our readers incorporate the concepts we discuss into their play.

The hand we'll look at this week played out as follows. I had the A K in late position, and all folded to a player on my right who raised pre-flop.I'd played with this player a few times, and found him to be a reasonable yet aggressive poker player-in other words, the type who didn't made wild plays for no reason, but who also had a tendancy to occasionally go to far with a hand.  I made it three bets, and all folded to the original raiser who called. The flop came A K 7. The original pre-flop raiser bet, and I called. The turn brought the J-again he bet, and again he called. The river brought the 9, and he checked. I bet, he called, and my hand was good.

"What!!", you're saying, "You frickin' JUST CALLED with top two pair in a heads-up pot on the flop AND the turn??".

Well, yeah-I did. But let's look at why.

First, his flop bet came as a bit of a surprise, since he knows I'll bet this flop upwards of 100% of the time if he checks. So the flop bet is unusual. Furthermore, in my experience a player who bets this kind of flop has one of two hands-either a very mediocre hand, which he's betting in an attempt to 'find out where he is', or a monstrous hand, which he's betting with the hope that his opponent will go off with him for multiple bets. Note that if he has a mediocre bet I don't want to raise and give him an excuse to fold. And if he has a big hand, like a set of aces or kings, or even the same hand that I have, then raising him does no good.

So, I called. My plan at this point was to bet the turn if checked to, or to perhaps raise the turn if he bet. But then the turn brought a jack. If my logic on the flop still holds a raise doesn't do me much good here either, since I can now add another hand that he would likely raise with (in this case JJ) that I can't beat. To look at it another way, I'm probably either way ahead or way behind-and in a case like this raising doesn't make sense, since you'll get three-bet by the hands that beat you, but the hands that you would like to stay in contention will fold. This is the concept that's critical to understanding this play. When he bets the turn there are 5.75 big bets in the pot. With a pot that size I want him to stay in with hands like QQ, or TT, or AT, since he's not getting the proper pot odds to beat me. Yet QQ and TT might fold if I raise. If he has AA or KK I'm nearly drawing dead, and would hate it if he three-bet me. About the only hands he could have which are worse than mine that would pay off a raise on the turn and a bet on the river are AQ, AJ and AT. Since he raised in such a late position, however, I have to expand the possible range of hands that he could be holding-and since this range probably includes hands like 88, K9 suited, etc. etc., there seems to be a good chance that he has a hand that I don't want to give him an opportunity to fold.

I also know that my opponent, like most players, has a tendancy to feel 'pot stuck' if he makes it to the river with a marginal hand, and will often pay off bets with below-average holdings, since he figures that since he's already 'gone this far' he might as well see the hand through to the bitter end. So, if I raise and get him off a bad hand I lose not only the opportunity to have him bluff at the river, but also the opportunity to have him pay me off if he checks. If the pot was bigger I would probably raise the turn, since at that point there are plenty of hands that he might incorrectly fold (hands like QQ, or QJ, and so on). But with a pot this small it seemed prudent to risk the small chance that he'll outdraw me on the river if my reward was collecting an additional bet.

The river play speaks for itself. When he checks I just have to bet, as there's a whole world of second best hands-KQ, TT, etc.-that will feel obligated to pay off a bet on the off chance that I'm bluffing.

What this hand demonstrates is this-when the pot is small, and you're likely either way ahead or way behind, it often behooves  you to play the hand passively, as this will allow you to collect the maximum those times that you're ahead, and lose the minimum those times you're behind. You may or may not agree with the way I played this particular hand in this particular spot, but the concept that guided my play is a powerful one, and one that every top-flight poker player understands.

Return to Exclusive Netbettor Poker Articles

Other Poker Strategy Articles:
Three Mistakes on the Turn
Three Mistakes on the River
AK Out of the Blinds