A Weak Play Exposed - Gone Fishin Part 3

There are many different things that combine to make a “fish” in poker, even predators like “sharks” can become “fish food” if they start to swim in the wrong waters. In this months article, I am going to concentrate on my specialist game which is limit hold’em to highlight a very particular type of error committed by our “fish” friends. One of the biggest catastrophes in poker is to lose a pot that you really should have won. This event is an absolute poker disaster and creates major negative fluctuations in your bankroll.

Most of the time in limit hold’em, the pots that players miss out on are quite subtle and many players are not even aware that they have even made a mistake at all. There is a very old saying in poker that goes “if you can call then bet”. This can be taken a stage further by saying that if you can call then raise. Let me give you an example sent to me by one of my online students of an error that cost an entire pot.

This game was played at the Bellagio and was at $20-$40 hold’em. A player in early position raised and it was folded around to our friend who we shall call “Dave” so as not to embarrass him. “Dave” had the J-J in middle position and called the raise, the player on the button called as did the big blind. The flop came down As-8d-4h. The pre-flop raiser checked and “Dave” sensed correctly that he should bet here because his jacks could be best and if no-one had an ace on this ragged rainbow board then the pot would be his.

“Dave” bet $20 into the $170 pot and the button raised to $40, the big blind and the pre-flop raiser folded and “Dave” called despite fearing an ace. The turn card brought the Ks, “Dave” checked and folded to his opponents bet, his opponent actually showed him the As-6s. On a ragged rainbow flop like this one, getting raised nearly always means that your opponent has an ace unless they are an absolute maniac. “Dave” could have folded on the flop as a $230 pot is much too small a pot to merit chasing a two outer which is a 23-1 shot.

But that was not the real mistake here, for that we have to go further back to the play before the flop. “Dave” should have re-raised with the J-J, many players do not like to make this play because they either fear an overpair or A-K. The point is that re-raising here would have almost certainly got the button and the big blind out of the pot unless they were very loose players. Getting the pot heads up will dramatically increase the chances that your pair of jacks will win. Here is another important argument in favour of raising, If your opponent has raised and you have re-raised then any further aggression by them from that point onwards goes an awful long way towards defining their hand.

Let’s take a closer look at this, try to put yourself into your opponents mind. He has seen you re-raise an early position raiser. He knows that you know that he must be strong to raise from such a position ( I am assuming a decent level of player in this $20-$40 game) and yet you have still raised him. Therefore in his mind, your hand must be a real powerhouse, a premium pair or A-K maybe A-Q. Because your re-raise has planted these thoughts inside your opponents head, if they continue with an aggressive posture then this starts to indicate that a big premium pair is possibly out there.

It is precisely this pre-flop aggression by you that can save you a much greater amount of money later on in the hand especially when the bets double on the turn and river. Remember that you were going to call the raise anyway, but just look at the extra power of the third small bet that you put into the pot. That one extra small bet that was used to raise instead of call has not only increased your hands chances of winning the pot but it has also may have saved you a lot of money as well if your hand happens to be behind from the get go. That in my book makes that one solitary small bet, an absolutely excellent investment !!

This article was produced for BLUFF EUROPE poker magazine and has been reproduced here with their kind permission.