Daragh Thomas Articles

Pre–flop. Position Position Position!

Hold’em is very much a game of position. The better position you are in, both pre and post flop, the better you will be able to play a hand. So the position you are in directly affects the profitability of a hand. Obviously for great hands like aces or AK, the value of the hand far exceeds the drawback bad position brings. However the key to playing pre–flop is knowing in what position mediocre hands become profitable.

So the best pre–flop strategy is one that makes you play very tight in early position, and gradually becomes looser until you get to the button. Being on the button, and on the cutoff to a lesser extent, is such an advantage that it makes playing even sub par hands profitable. Many mid and high stakes winners will open–raise from the cutoff and button with more than 50% of hands. A normal opening range would be (+ means "and all better hands")

UTG: ATs+, AJo+, 55+
UTG+;1: A8s+ ATo+, KQo+,QJs+,22+
Cutoff: A2s+ A8o+, T9o, 56s+, 22+
Button: A2s+ A2o+ 78o+, 34s+, 22+

So now we have an idea of roughly what hands to play. What should we do with those hands? Well assuming no–one else is in the pot yet, we should raise with them. 6 handed play is all about winning as many blinds as possible. Its who wins the majority of the small and medium pots that wins big in the end. When you raise pre–flop you give yourself the best chance to win the pot. Either you win it pre–flop (if no–one calls), or you win it on the flop with a continuation bet. (And sometimes you will even have the best hand!)

So if it’s folded to you, you have two choices. Raise, or fold. However should someone (or some few) have limped before you, you now have a third choice, calling. This is a much more difficult decision and will be dealt with in a later article. The most important factors to pay attention to are: position, the players’ likely hands and their skill level, your image, and your own hand of course. For example, if you know someone is only raising premium pairs from UTG, then you can fold trouble hands like AQo and "set mine" with all low pairs

Remember, whilst thinking about a pre–flop strategy, that it pays to be unpredictable. For the majority of the time you should stick to the recommended starting hands I have outlined above, however, if you play every hand by those rules you will make your opponent’s life easier as they will be able to correctly gauge the strength of your hand from your position. Don’t forget your opponents will only see a showdown from you in a very small number of hands, and will make assumptions based upon that showdown. So doing things like raising 78o utg from time to time can be valuable, as this will lead them to make unrealistic assumptions about your range.

Playing from the blinds brings up its own set of problems. Now you know you are almost certainly going to be out of position for the hand. If it’s limped to you, you should seriously consider folding most hands from the small blind. The positional disadvantage is so great that it makes up for the attractive pot odds. Even the most successful cash game players struggle to break even from the small blind and the multiple of bets saved by not calling can be significant at the end of a session. When on the big blind you will often get to see the flop for free. This isn’t as great as it seems and you should often consider raising the unraised pot.

Deciding which hands to raise with from the blinds is a difficult conundrum. On one hand it can be very hard to play hands out of position, so it makes sense to keep the pot small. On the other hand a pre–flop raise will make it much more likely that strong starting hands like TT, JJ or AQ will win after the flop. By bringing down the number of opponents (not all of them will call your raise) you reduce the chance that your hand will be outdrawn and can proceed to fire a big flop bet with less risk. The only solution is to experiment and come up with a range and style that suits you.

One move that all players should make, however, is very occasionally making a largish raise from the blinds with absolute rags. If everyone has limped it means it’s unlikely anyone has a good hand. This also has the benefit of confusing your opponents and weakening their implied odds when you do have a real hand in this position. It’s better to raise 52o here than A2o, as the chance of making a good but second best hand is lessened; and its very unlikely you will get to a showdown unimproved, so the ace high has very little value.

What to do when someone raises and you have a good hand in the blinds is a complicated subject, and one best left for another article. Best of luck!

Glossary

T (as in KT) = ten
o (as in KTo)= off suit
s (as in 78s) = suited
the cutoff = the position to the right of the button
"set mine" = playing small pairs, knowing you are behind, hoping to hit a set (three of a kind). The plan is to throw the hand away if you miss the flop
limp = entering a pot without raising.
"open–raise" = being the first person to bet in a hand and doing so by raising. Similiarly "open–limp" refers to entering the pot first with a call rather than a raise.

Daragh Thomas

Part II of Daragh Thomas’s examination of 6 handed cash game play

Its crucial that your opponents are unable to get information from the size of your bet, so you should make the roughly the same size bet for every continuation bet you fire. Around a 2/3 sized pot bet is usually ideal, but this can change according to the texture of the flop and the tendencies of your opponents. You should be aiming for a raise which is just big enough to dissuade your opponents from calling, but small enough to make the process as profitable as possible. The smaller a bet it takes to make your opponents fold their hand, the less you lose when they call you (since most of the time you don’t have much of a hand!). Knowing exactly how much to bet is an art more than a science, so you should experiment and find a formula that suits you.

That’s the ‘how much’, now we will consider the ‘when’. Of course if you actually have a real hand (like top pair, a set or overpair) you should usually continuation bet. Here we will look at what to do when you have no hand, ie one that is unlikely to win in a showdown.

In hold’em, its difficult to make much of a hand on the flop. If you start with two unpaired cards, like TJ, you will only make a pair on the flop about a third of the time. Some portion of this time your pair will not be the top pair. Since the preflop raiser has already shown strength, normally the caller needs at least top pair to continue with the hand, so you can see how profitable it is to make a continuation bet against one player. However for each extra player in the hand, the chance of someone having a good enough hand to call, or raise you with, increases exponentially.

So against a single player you should continuation bet most of the time. Against two players you should be more cautious, and also take into account the board texture. A board like Q22 rainbow is a good board to continuation bet against two players. The only hands that can call your bet are a 2, which is unlikely given the preflop action, or a Queen. A bad board to continuation bet is something like 78J with two hearts. Here there are innumerable hands that will call your bet. In general the less coordinated the better. And it also helps if there is a easily identifiable hand that you can represent. On the Q22 board you are representing AQ.

Against three players or more, Its rarely advisable to fire a continuation bet. There is just too great a chance that someone has a hand good enough to play on with. An important point to remember however is that good, thoughtful opponents will be conscious of how many players you are firing a continuation bet into, so remember to take this into account in those rare times when a few good players call you!

There are also three smaller points to consider when deciding to fire your continuation bet. Firstly, what hand do you have? The less likely your hand is to win in a showdown the more inclined to fire you should be. This brings us to the second point, when in position you should be inclined to check behind from time to time, especially when you have a hand with showdown value, like an ace or a pair.

Checking behind from time to time makes you look less aggressive and makes you harder to play against. (Your opponents can’t depend on being able to check raise you.) And that brings us to the last point, always be aware of your image. The better your image the more chance a continuation bet has to work. And conversely, the worse it is the more you will be looked up.

Next week I will talk about managing the size of the pot, and follow up from some of things we touched on here. Best of luck!

Managing the size of the pot

This will be a short discussion of why, and how to control the size of the pot having raised pre–flop.

In the last two articles we discussed how to play preflop, and after the flop. In this one we will focus on the turn and river, and how best to play those streets. If you follow the advice given in those articles, you will find that you are often in a situation where you have raised pre–flop, continuation bet the flop and then get to the turn, in position. Playing in spots like this out of position is very difficult, and is one of the main reasons you try to avoid raising out of position.

First Ill explain what pot–control is. Pot Control is about playing the size of the pot that suits you. There are two big mistakes that many experienced no limit players often make in this area. One, they bet too much and too often with vulnerable one pair hands. Two, they bet too little, and not often enough, with big made hands that will nearly always be winning.

To look at two extreme examples, let’s take a player getting black aces on the button.

A few people limp and he raises, they all call. The flop is 456 all hearts. Here, the unsophisticated player will normally bet close to the full pot. And if called he will bet again on the turn, often pushing all in. The problem here is that most hands that people will call or raise with, are at least a coin flip against aces, and many have them crushed. Against any hand containing a pair and single heart, aces will win only half the time. Certain hand that your opponents may hold have aces crushed, such as KJ of hearts, 44, 55, 66 or 77 (with the 7 of hearts). (77 with the 7 of hearts is a 60% favourite over AA on this flop as it includes a flush draw and an up and down straight draw to its outs) Simply put, if you get a lot of action you are often beaten. In fact, the more money that goes into the pot the more likely you are to be beaten.

In example two, the same player gets aces on the button. In this case though, the flop comes up AKK with two hearts. It’s checked to him and he checks. The turn is a Q, and it’s checked to him again. Here he makes a tiny bet, about 1/6 of the pot size. The problem with this is that there are plenty of hands that may call a bigger bet, and may in fact call a bet on the flop. He has lost money against these hands, because he has failed to build the pot. The aim should always be in these spots to build the pot big enough to get all in on the river. A guy with a weak ace may call three streets, and you will often find that draws will call. This is a fantastic situation to be in, as they are drawing dead. A big mistake that beginners make is that they think they need to keep draws in hands like this and check (where they have a house or quads), but in fact you should bet, as often the draw will just check fold if it misses. So betting is the only way to get money out of them! In fact when you have a very strong hand, you should be looking to get as much in as possible before the river. This will allow you to river bet all in. The only time you should consider slow–playing is where the pot is already so big that it’s only going to take one or two bets to get all in. Otherwise you run the risk of winning a small pot where you could have won a much larger one!

When playing against normal opposition without any history, it’s unlikely that your opponents will be happy to put most of their stack on the line after the flop with one pair. If you raise preflop, bet the flop and then bet the turn most players will fold any marginal hands. The turn bet, which most unsophisticated players do consistently, is the big mistake. When you check behind the turn from time to time with good one pair hands, you will find your opponents call bets on the river with very marginal holdings. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, your hand looks like a bluff. Why would you check the turn if you had a real hand? Second both from a game theory perspective, and a psychological one, the river bet is much easier to call, because they know it’s the only bet they will have to call. A turn bet however brings with it the probability of another, bigger bet on the river. A good example of this is calling a raise preflop with 99. The flop is 27Jo. Not a bad flop for your hand, so you call a bet. On the turn your opponent bets again. Now your hand doesn’t look so good. However if your opponent checks it’s quite easy to call a bet on the river.

As mentioned above, playing in spots like this out of position is very difficult and is one of the main reasons you try to avoid raising out of position. It is much harder to control the pot out of position because you can’t check behind. Often times when you check an opponent will automatically fire a bet. Occasionally, however, this can be better than betting yourself, because when you bet you make it much harder for your opponent to bluff you. However when you check, he doesn't know you are intending to call a bet and will often bet with a bad hand sensing weakness on your part.

Hand Reading and Bluffing

Hand reading is one of the most important skills in a no limit game. It is the ability to process all of the available information to come up with a likely hand range, or sometimes even a specific hand, for your opponent.

To be able to put a player on a hand, you first need to know a few things. Firstly, what type of player are they? Are they too loose? Too tight? Aggressive? Very aggressive? Passive? Luckily poker players tend to play in roughly similar styles, so at low stacks games against bad opposition you can usually categorise players into groups, and use that to gauge their hand strength based on their actions. This means taking time to analyse player’s play and to see what information they leak with their actions, especially bet sizing.

After each showdown you should check how the player played the hand, and use the opportunity to build up a profile of him or her. A lot of information can be gotten from big pots, however don't ignore the small ones. A player open–limping on the button with 67s and then checking it to the river and not winning a showdown tells you a lot about a player. A player like this is probably quite loose (though not necessarily) but is definitely passive, and doesn’t bluff much.

Once you have built up a profile of a player, you should have some notes stored describing how they play some situations and anything unusual about their play. An example of a note might be “Passive Pre–Flop, Aggressive on the flop with draws and single pairs, (called my raise with J8 and went broke on J hi board). This tells you a lot about a player and will stand you in good stead the next time you encounter him. The next step is to use that information to read their hands. This is usually a process of elimination.

For an example we will use a very tight aggressive player raising from the button after it’s been folded to him. Ok, so here whilst he is tight, his range is still quite large. He could have anything from 89s to AA (although he is more likely to have a better hand than 89s.– these types of players wont raise 89s every time it’s folded to them).

The big blind then re–raises the pot, and the button calls. Now the button’s range is much tighter, a tight player is nearly always going to have at least AQs or a pair here (and most will often fold AQ). When the button calls the re–raise, he will sometimes have a monster, like AA or KK that he is slow–playing, but he is more likely to have something like QQ or JJ.

The flop comes AJ9 rainbow (all different suits). The big blind leads out, and the button cold calls. Again the button’s range has vastly diminished. There is no flush draw so he cant have that, and he is very unlikely to have called pre–flop with TQ or KT, so he cant have a straight draw, (and he would fold them on the flop anyway). Similarly for 8T. So he can’t have a draw, and he is probably folding all hands that do not contain an ace, or a set. So his range now is AA (very unlikely but possible), AK, AQ + AJ (both are unlikely given pre–flop), JJJ, or 999. There is always a small chance he is floating us, and is going to attempt to take us away from the hand on a later street, but it is unlikely. A big raise on the flop may be a bluff, but a call usually isn’t!

If you were the big blind in this situation, you will have been following your opponent’s action and should be able to put him on the narrow range of hands that he could be holding. By assimilating this information you can then proceed accordingly.

The turn comes up a 5. Now you (the big blind) checks, as does the button. Here the button has given us even more information. He has chosen to keep the pot relatively small. A good player will bet with a set here, and usually check AQ or AK. That’s because he wants to build the pot with a set, and control the size of the pot if he only has one pair. Be careful though, because this is the direct opposite to what bad players will do!

So it’s unlikely he has a monster hand, AJ or a set. You cant rule it out, and you cant let this deceive you into calling a river raise, but its likely he has a one pair hand here, AK or AQ.

The river comes another 5. So what should the BB do? Well he should bet if he can beat AK and check if he shouldn't. It’s very unlikely a bluff will work, so conversely a big value bet will. A combination of good hand reading and the button’s tight predictability will allow him to play this river to perfection.

So to sum up, to hand read well you need to have a good idea of what type of player someone is. Then use that information to guess what their actions mean. Practise as much as you can, especially when you aren’t in a hand, and you should see a vast improvement.

Bluffing

I like to categorise bluffs into two simple and discrete situations and handle each very differently. Firstly there are small bluffs. A small bluff is a small bet into a small pot. Typically you want to do this in pots where no–one has yet shown much interest. You aren’t representing any particular hand, you are asking if anyone else has a hand. This includes bets into un–raised pots from any position, or a continuation bet when you are the pre–flop raiser. These should be attempted as often as possible. These type of plays are very successful for a number of reasons. Firstly the chances are that no–one has much of a hand to contest the pot you with. Secondly most players don’t pay enough attention or care about small pots, and will just fold without expending any thought. When you bet most players will throw their hand away if they didn’t connect with the flop, never wondering what hand you have. You will have the most success with this if you can correctly judge when it is likely that no–one has much of a hand. So if there are two limper’s, its better to attempt a steal with a board of 23K rainbow, than J98 with 2 hearts.

The second type of bluff is the big bluff. This is when your opponent has in some way signalled that he has a hand, and despite this, you try and take him off it anyway. These are much more tricky and need to be approached carefully, and attempted rarely. There are a number of factors that I feel are important, and need to be in place before attempting a big bluff.

1. Your opponent’s hand must not be that strong. So if you think your opponent has AA, then a flop is K25 is not the flop to take him off it. Try a board of 789. In fact its not usually a good idea to try take someone off Aces.
2. Your opponent must be capable of folding a strong hand if he thinks he is beaten. There are a lot of players who simply will never fold Aces after the flop. And then there are players who will fold bottom set if they feel they are beaten. Knowing your customer is paramount. Never assume a player is capable of folding until you have seen them do it.
3. Your hand should be clearly represented, and identifiable. A bluff has much more chance of success if there is an obvious hand like a flush that you can represent. Your line should make sense, and your line should be totally coherent. The hand you represent should tie in with your actions on earlier streets. Opponents will take note and call you more lightly if your hand makes no sense. Usually when something seems very strange about an opponents play they are either bluffing or have a monster.
4. You should be able to bet enough to make your opponent fold. It seems obvious, but make sure you have enough chips to make a bet against which it’s possible for your opponent to fold. This means that the earlier in a hand the better it is to bluff; as your opponent has future bets to worry about. Usually I will follow up a bet with a secondary bigger one in order to convince my opponents. Most opponents will be willing to call a single bet to see if their hand is good, but not two.

For an example, let’s say you call a raise with QJo, in position. The flop comes up TK2, with two hearts. Your opponent, who is tight, bets the flop. You call. The turn is a 5 of hearts. He bets. You raise, (as a bluff, remember you still only have Q high!). He calls after some pause. The river is a blank and you push all in for just more than the pot. This is an excellent bluff. You have managed the pot so that you can make a realistic looking bet on the river that is big enough to be called, and your hand looks exactly like a flush.

Be very careful of bluffing on the river after obvious draws miss. Even mediocre opponents will recognise this as a time where they are likely to be bluffed.

Online Tells – It’s All in the Timing

There is one type of tell that is exclusive to the online arena though, and that’s the timing of someone’s action. Deciphering it is very much an art form and not a science, but I can give some pointers to help you make some better informed decisions. As with many other areas of poker though, there is no substitute for experience.

Some players write off timing tells as unreliable, as you can never be sure that the player is actually paying attention. However this can be quickly dismissed by two points. Firstly, once most players get in a hand, they will be usually be paying sufficient attention so that missed seconds can be accounted for. And secondly the most informative timing tells are when a player takes an action at an usually fast speed. In fact the quicker a response the more accurate a timing tell. If more than a couple of seconds pass, unless its a large decision (for example a decision to call most of a stack off preflop), then there is always the large possibility that the player is distracted elsewhere, usually at another table.

The simplest timing tell is deduced logically. When a player acts very quickly, its because he has little or no decision to make. I will give two examples of when this can help you make a good read on your opponent. Many bad players tend to be passive with their draws. So if you make a bet on the flop or turn, and it is instantly called by a player of this type, its because he has a draw. He is not in the habit of raising draws, so doesn’t consider raising. He is also not in the habit of paying any attention to the odds he is being offered, so folding too is out of the question. So a quick call on a drawy board is nearly always a draw.

Another second example is when a player bets out very quickly when a scare card comes. Against an aggressive player this means there is much higher chance than normal that he is bluffing. This is the type of tell that shouldn’t be acted on solely, but taken into consideration with other factors. A good example of this is a LAG raising pre–flop in position. He bets the flop and you call, with two hearts on the flop. You check the turn, which is another heart. A quick bet here is much more likely to be a bluff. Thats because a LAG here with nothing is desperate to win the pot. He doesn’t want to give up the pot by checking. Had he a real hand, like aces or even a flush, he would stop and consider the implications of the heart. A bet after a pause is much more likely to be a flush. In some cases, the worse the player, the longer a pause the more likely it is he has the nuts. He thinks that by pausing he is under representing his hand, not understanding that a long pause followed by a raise is a sign of strength.

These are two examples that occur regularly, and there are many more out there. However to become an expert at timing tells you need to know each one of your opponents very well. When you get to know a player well you will find that he has his own specific timing tells. Everyone has a natural rhythm to their thoughts. If you expend the time and effort to understand that rhythm, it can be invaluable. The same player will tend to think about the same type of decisions in roughly the same amount of time. The longer a decision the more routes his brain is following. Depending on the circumstances this can can lead you to know more about the strength of his hand, or what level of thought he is currently operating on. Again, its important to know your player and to be able to guess when he is just distracted, and its also important to use in it conjunction with skilled hand reading.

To do it properly you need to fully understand a player, and be conscious of what mood he is in. A tilting TAG will be rushed and panicked, and have very little in common with his play or timing earlier in the sessions. Similarly someone who has just won a big pot will often have their mood altered to the extent that their play and thinking becomes wildly different. If you know the motive for a player playing, you can better understand the cadences of their thought patters. Greedy or tilting players act fast!

At medium or high stakes, very good players will be aware of timing tells and be capable of sending reverse tells. However until you reach $5/$10 this is very much a non–issue.

by Daragh Thomas

One of the reasons tournaments are so popular is that the game changes drastically throughout the tournament. If you are lucky enough to win the tournament, you can look back and see that there are at least three clearly defined passages in which the play is very different.

There is the early stage where the blinds are low. Play tends to be quite loose, and there isn’t much point in attempting to steal the blinds, for their own stake anyway. If you have 100blinds, taking down a pot and getting to 101.5bb makes very little difference to your chance of success.

Then there is the middle stage. Play tends to tighten up drastically, as the average stack dwindles to between 15 and 40 times the bb, depending on the structure. If you have 20 blinds, then adding on 1.5bbs (which is the small blind and the big blind, or all the dead money in an unopened pot) does make a difference to your chance of success. Should you go card dead and not win a pot for 3 orbits, you will go from 20bbs to 16.5. That’s a decrease of 17 and a half percent.

At the 20bb mark, each blind that is won or lost will change your stack by 5%. So its easy to see that those players that manage to take more than their fair share at this stage in the tournament will have vastly improved results over those that let their cards do the talking.

There are several crucial factors that have to be taken into account when deciding whether to attempt to steal the blinds or not.

Your Image The tighter your image the more respect your opponents will show you. If you have shown down a bad hand recently your opponents will loosen up both their calling range and their reraising range. Unless you have a monster this is a bad thing. Always take your image into account. You also need to take into account your last few actions. Have you raised in a hand recently?

Your Position The later position you are in, the less players there are off of whom could have a real hand. When you raise Under The Gun (UTG) at a nine handed table, there are eight players to act after you, all of whom could have aces or kings. By the time it’s folded to you on the button, there are only two players who haven’t acted yet. However there is a flip side to that, the earlier position you raise from, the more respect your raise will be shown. A raise UTG demands a lot more respect than a button raise. This effect is smaller than the positional disadvantage, but shouldn’t be ignored. It also leads to the strange situation where the cutoff is considered by many to be the “sweet spot” to raise from.

The stack size of the players in the blinds If this is very small, 4 or less, many players will play with any two cards. So you should only raise with hands you are happy to show down, and that will perform well against a random hand. Raising with suited connectors here will not only damage your image, but is usually slight -EV. If you are sure of being called, raising is nearly always less profitable than when there is the chance of winning without a showdown.

When the players stack is bigger, from around 5 to 10 blinds, then from a game theory point of view its a perfect opportunity to steal someone’s blind. They can still fold and play on, but if they reraise all in they know that you are almost certainly going to call. This means that they can only push hands they figure to be beating most of your range, and they also are certain to risk their tournament. That is, of course, if they play rationally, which is sometimes not the case.

Once the players stack gets over 10 blinds, but below 20, they will be able to reraise you all in and know that you need a relatively good hand to call with. So be wary of raising an aggressive player with this stack size, unless you plan to call their all in. They will realise they have a certain amount of folding equity, and also that with their stack winning the pot pre–flop is a great outcome for them. With their short stack they have nothing to fear!

As a player’s stack gets bigger than 20 blinds, it gets increasingly less profitable for them to reraise all in with a weaker hand, so you should raise with a higher frequency. This is because there is no way for a player with 20 blinds to reraise without committing himself to the pot. So when he makes it 9bb to go (After your raise to 3bb), he is actually betting his entire 20bb stack to win only 4.5. This is clearly less profitable than with a slightly smaller stack.

The personality of the players in the blinds The tighter and more passive the players in the blinds, the better the chance you have of winning without a showdown. Some players simply refuse to give up their blinds. Some will happily fold without much consideration.

The Bubble No article on blind stealing would be complete without mentioning the bubble. It pays to be aware at all stages how close you are to the money, and how that will affect peoples play. Some players, going for the win, get more aggressive near the bubble. Some get scared and play ultra-passively. Of course it makes sense to attack the later group, and call more liberally against the first.

And finally, you need to take into account your own hand. There is always the slim chance that you won’t be reraised, or win without a showdown. When the stacks are shallow it’s often better to have a high card, like A2 or K2, as these hands run well hot and cold. You will often win unimproved. If the stacks are bigger, hands like 78s or KTo are better because its easier to flop big with them! However the other considerations listed above are often more important than your own hand.

Best of luck in the next tournament you play!

Relative and Absolute Position

Relative position exists as a concept, because of the tendency of pre-flop callers, to check to pre-flop raisers. That means that their checks do not signify the same weakness that a normal check does. Because of this a player in good absolute position to the pre-flop raiser can easily find themselves trapped by someone, or indeed fold the best hand for fear that someone has a better one.

To make things clear, take this simple example hand.

Under-The-Gun (UTG) raises. A player folds, and the action is on you. A benefit to calling here is that you will have the advantage of position over the pre-flop raiser. You have a pair of nines and decide to flat call.

The Button also calls, the Small Blind (SB) folds and the Big Blind (BB) calls closing the action.

So, when the flop is dealt, which in this case is 47Tr, most of the time the BB is going to check to see what UTG does. In this case, UTG makes a large pot bet. You know this player, and you know he is likely to be bluffing here. However, you don’t only have him to fear, you have the button and the BB, both of which have effectively revealed nothing about their hand. You have no idea if they have a ten or a set, so you are forced to let the hand go.

But imagine you are the Big Blind. Despite your terrible absolute position, you actually get quite a lot of information on the flop before you have to act. You check, the pre-flop raiser will normally bet out. Now UTG and the Button both have to act before you. You will have the most information on this street before you act. Poker is a war of information, and the BB will win this battle most of the time! He can check his big hands and get other players to commit before check-raising, and he can also check his marginal hands, in readiness to fold if the action is too thick.

So what adjustments does this mean you should make? Be wary about cold calling someone’s raise when both of you are in early position. If you get multiple other callers, you will be in a bad relative position after the flop. In some cases you may prefer to re-raise rather than flat call. This will mean you will be much more likely to play the pot heads up, with you in position.

Also, when you are in one of the blinds and there has been a raise and multiple calls, be aware that by just calling you will enjoy good relative position after the flop. That doesn't mean you shouldn't attempt a squeeze, but it is a reason not to. Especially with hands that player well multi-way, like QJs or 88.

Another time to consider this concept is to take it into account when you are the pre-flop raiser. When deciding to continuation bet, you need to be aware that checks made by players in early position do not necessarily signify weakness. But also take note that if you bet you put an enormous amount of pressure on the player to your immediate left by betting out if there are players who haven’t acted, and players to your left who have simply checked to the pre-flop raiser.

The most important adjustment you can make, however, is to be aware of the concept and consider it before deciding on a course of action pre-flop.

Glossary

t (as in 47T) = ten
r (as in 47Tr) = rainbow (no matching suits)
s (as in QJs) = suited

Turn Continuation Betting

A common trap that players fall into is playing too predictably. A normal line is to raise pre-flop, bet the flop and then check on the turn if a player has nothing, and to bet if he has a real hand. Anyone paying attention will realise that a check on the turn signifies a weak hand. What this means is that they will get players floating them (by calling with next to nothing) or calling you with mediocre hands, knowing that you will leak information to them on the next round of betting, allowing them to play perfectly.

As should be obvious, it is important to mix up your play so that your actions do not give away the strength of your hand. So from time-to-time you should check if you have an overpair; and it is ever more important to bet sometimes when you have nothing. Before deciding to bet though, you need to think about a few things.

As I mentioned in my continuation betting article, the texture of the board is very important. This is even more so on the turn. One of the reasons that continuation betting is so profitable on the flop is that 2/3 of the time your opponent will not hold a pair. This is not true on the turn. To put it simply, on the flop before you make your continuation bet, your opponents range is very wide and contains hands he cannot possibly call a bet with. Once he calls a bet on the flop, his range gets a lot stronger, so you should fire far less turn continuation bets.

Before you bet, you should think about a few key conditions:

First of all, is your opponent capable of laying down a medium strength hand? A lot of loose and bad players will always call a bet on the turn if they called a bet on the flop. Obviously it is unwise to bet against them (although your ace high will sometimes be good!)

Secondly, does the board texture indicate he might have a weak hand? If your opponent called a bet on an A27r board, it is very likely he has an ace (or a set), so it is normally a bad idea to continue on this board. If the board is KQ5, a bet is much more likely to succeed, as he may have JT, any queen or some type of gutshot, which he will only call one bet with.

Thirdly, what is your image like? If you have a bad image it is unwise to attempt any type of bluff. A great time to bet the turn is if the last time you were in a similar position with this player you gave up and checked. This will signify to the player that you play very predictably on the turn, and so your turn bet here must mean you are strong.

Fourthly, if your flop continuation bet is called in more than one spot, you should fire a turn bluff very rarely (or basically never without a good read on both your opponents).

Because your opponent’s range gets tighter each time he calls a bet, you should fire bluffs on each street to a much reduced degree. When I’m playing well I fire a lot of continuation bets, turn continuation bets (when heads-up and against a tight player) around 20 - 30% of the time, and river bluffs hardly ever. If a player has called a bet pre-flop, on the flop and on the turn, he has shown a significant amount of strength, and it would be rare that attempting a final barrel is wise.

Glossary:
r (as in A27r) = rainbow (no matching suits)
T (as in JT) = ten

Daragh Thomas

A Beginner’s Guide to Heads Up No Limit Cash games – Part I

Offline, the costs of a paying for a dealer and table prohibit this type of poker from being played anywhere except at the highest stakes, but the Internet has changed all of that. Paddy Power Poker has its own Heads Up section, which is situated at below the No Limit Hold’em tables in the poker software. You can play any limit between $.01/$.02 and $100/$200. It might be a good idea to get some practice at the lower limits before jumping straight into the $100/$200 game!

Playing Heads Up is a great learning tool for any other form of No Limit Poker, because it forces you to analyse your opponent and adapt your strategy to beat theirs. Typically I would spend the first few hands of a match trying to feel out my opponent and get a feel for how his strength and weaknesses. I would then try and prey upon his biggest weakness. Usually this is something as simple as an unwillingness to fold, or playing too tight, but sometimes better players require a more advanced strategy. In all forms of poker it pays to be aware of your own image, but none more so than whilst playing heads up. Always remember that your opponent will be reacting to you, just as you are to him. Try and stay one step ahead of him.

An example of this would be against a reasonably good aggressive player. You get to the river of a big pot and check, and then call his bet so fast it was so clear you had no intention of folding. He is going to realise that you were tying to induce a bluff from him, so it’s very unlikely that if the same action occurs again he will bluff you as he will recognise what you are tying to do. A big bet in the next couple of hands after that action will tend to be a very strong hand.

Luckily the basics of a good strategy are easy to implement. Most successful Heads Up players never limp on their button. If the hand is worth playing, it’s worth coming in for a raise. If your opponent folds, then that's fine, you take down the blinds. And if he calls, that's fine too, as he is calling a raise out of position, making it easier for you to stack him, or to take down the now bigger pot with a continuation bet. Because it is Heads Up, you can play a much wider range of hands than you would 6 or 9 handed. Whilst on the button, you should aim to play roughly half your hands. You can adjust this depending on your game plan for the villain. Sometimes if I want to force the opponent to play back at me I will start to open 100% of my buttons. This forces your opponent to start three-betting you and can be useful to force the action from tight players.

When you are on the big blind, whilst you should be aware that you are going to be out of position for the rest of the hand, you are going to have to play a certain percentage of hands. If he is raising a lot, you need to work out a balanced approach, folding most of the time, calling some of the time, and three-betting some of the time. Be very glad if your opponent is regularly limping into pots! All limping achieves is gives a random hand a chance to win the pot.

One way in which Heads Up is very different than 6 handed is that your three-bets are going to get called most of the time, so to make life easy for yourself I would recommend that you polarise your three-betting range. Polarising a range just means that it will contain very strong hands and very weak hands, but not hands of medium strength. A good example of this would be a hand like A8. If you three-bet with this it can be very hard to play after the flop if you flop an ace. But a hand like AK is much easier (obviously), as is a hand like 52s. If you flop a pair with 52 and get any action you can be reasonably certain you don't have the best hand!

Use those medium strength hands, like A8 or JTo, as your calling range. Turning a profit with your calling range is all about knowing (or more realistically, guessing) how many bets your opponent will make on any given board. Some bad players will continue to fire bets into a pot even when they have a hand with a certain amount of showdown value. However most will play their hand predictably. So again, it all comes down to watching your opponent closely and trying to predict precisely how he will play. In general, in a raised pot players will fire one or two barrels, never three. It usually takes a very bad, or a very good player to fire that third barrel on the river.

I will discuss post flop play, game selection and other Heads Up related subjects in a further article.

Daragh Thomas