6
Put Pressure on Your Opponents
In no-limit or pot-limit poker, the bets can become very big and apply a great deal of pressure on anyone having to face those bets. During a hand, there is a single point where the greatest amount of pressure can be applied. It is at those points that money is made or lost in big bet poker. The person applying the pressure is usually at an advantage forcing the other player(s) to make a tough decision under duress. Therefore, knowing how to apply the most pressure at the right time gives you a huge advantage over your opponents.
This post will give you a new way to view the anatomy of a big bet poker hand. In big bet poker, the amount of each bet increases as the hand progresses because there is more money in the pot to be won and bets increase accordingly. If this doesn’t make sense, consider betting $0.50 into a $20 pot, or $2 into a $1000 pot; the bet is inconsequential, and is effectively ignored by opponents (if not outright laughed at). Bets should typically be close to the size of the pot.
As bets continue, the amount of pressure on each player increases until they are pot-committed and then all the pressure declines. This is the peak point of pressure for the hand. The biggest difference between winning and losing players are the decisions they make under pressure; when the pots are large. Decisions are the toughest when you’re facing a big bet and you need to decide if you your hand is good enough to continue. If you force your opponent to make these hard decisions, you’ll be better off than if you’re the one making all the hard decisions.
An example will help clarify the point:
In a $5/10 NLHE game, you are dealt 
.You raise to $35 and get called only by the big blind. The pot is $75.
The flop is 
. The big blind checks, you bet $75 on the flop and the big blind calls. The pot is now $225.
The turn is a 
. The big blind checks, you bet $200 and the big blind raises another $700. You have $1000 left and your opponent has you covered (has more chips than you).
The pressure applied to you, with this raise on the turn, is the peak pressure point of the hand. You are forced to call $700 knowing full well that you’re playing for your last $300 as well. $700 and an implied $300 is the most pressure (money) applied during this hand. You only have $300 left, so you cannot apply more pressure to your opponent than they just applied to you. The $700 raise is the peak of the pressure during this hand. If stack sizes were $5000, there is plenty of pressure (money) left to be applied, and you could create a new peak by raising.
The shorter the stacks, the earlier in the hand the pressure peak will be simply because of the lack of ammunition to be used later in the hand.
Ideally, you should be able to get two things before you reach the peak pressure point in the hand. First, try to get information about your opponent’s hand; and second, try to put yourself in a position to be the person making the pressure bet instead of your opponent.
Once you hit the pressure point of the hand, the person forced to make the decision is the person who will make or break the hand for both players. If you are the one put under the pressure, you’re going to want as much information about your opponent’s hand as possible to make that decision correctly. If you play the hand in such a way that you don’t gain much information from your opponent, you’ll have less information than you want when it comes time to make a tough decision.
Forcing your opponent to be the one making the hard decisions is a big advantage, but you can optimize the situation even further. What if you could get your opponent into the situation of making a hard decision without a read on your hand? Now you’ve kept your opponent for the two vital advantages in a hand: knowing something about your hand and being the one to make the pressure bet.
You want to know as much about your opponent’s hand as you can before you decide to put pressure on your opponent. Making a big bet into the nuts isn’t really pressure; it’s just charity. You need to shrink the range of hands your opponent might have as much as possible and as early as possible when it is still cheap. At the same time, you want to mislead your opponent’s opinion of your cards as much as possible. Finally, you want to manipulate the pot-size such that it is your turn to act when a large enough bet can be made to apply the most pressure in the hand.
Putting the Pieces Together
The value in viewing a big bet poker hand this way is that it describes the reason for doing all of the things that are considered basic poker strategy. Players often justify a play by saying, “I was trying to find out if I had the best hand,” “I was trying to be deceptive with my hand,” or “I tried to put pressure on the other player by betting big”. On their own, these are just tools that any good player has available to them. To use them properly, you need to use them at the right time and allow them to compliment each other.
When an opponent makes a great call on you, it is probably because they had information about your hand. A common mistake I see is a player making an “information bet”, which basically takes the hand right to the peak pressure point and give the opponent the choice of whether to apply pressure or not. When playing against people who are willing to apply pressure with pure bluffs, you risk getting pressured off your information bet and losing the hand, because it’s clear to opponents what you’re doing.
Finding out where you stand is great, but only if it is early enough in the hand to be useful at the pressure point (later in the hand). When stacks are short, finding out more information is a luxury often not worth pursuing. You’ll just have to play the hand with your existing knowledge of your opponent’s range of hands.
If you are bluffing, make sure that your bet is large enough to cause more pressure than what has already been exerted in the hand. Applying pressure is great, but if it is minor compared to the pot, it will have less utility.
You will need to put the pieces together in a way that will help you become the one applying pressure. Used properly, applying pressure to your opponents will win you more pots and keep your opponents on their heels. These sorts of thoughts are the key to big bet poker and are what makes no-limit so different than limit poker. Limit poker is about making a lot of correct decisions over time, whereas no-limit poker is more about manipulating pressure at the opportune times to win the big pots.
Three Examples
Theory is really only useful when put to practice, so let’s look at some example hands.
Waiting for the Pressure Point
This example is a four-handed $5/10 NLHE game with all stacks approximately at $1000.
The first two players fold. The player in the small blind (SB) raises to $30. The player in the big blind (BB) calls with 
.
The flop comes 
. The pot is $60.
The SB bets $60 and the BB calls.
The turn is the 
. The pot is $180.
The SB bets $180 and the BB raises to $720. The SB has been put to the test and is forced to fold.
The BB is the player with the opportunity to make the pressure bet. If one of the players only had $300 to begin the hand, the SB would’ve probably still made that turn bet, and the BB could not have done anything except fold. The SB would have won the race to the pressure point, and he would have won the pot as a result.
The SB has very little information about the BB’s hand when he is forced to make a big decision. He has to call off the majority of his stack only knowing that his opponent called two smaller bets on a paired board. The range of hands that the BB could have there is huge!
Notice that the BB waited until the turn to raise, which put him in position to capitalize on the size of the pot. By waiting until the pot was a little bit larger, it eliminates the possibility of the SB re-raising on a bluff, and forcing the BB to fold. By waiting until the turn to apply the pressure in this hand, the BB forces a difficult decision to be made by his opponent—even if the opponent has a nice hand. Anyone that is not holding a Jack will be forced to make a tough decision.
Stack Sizes Matter
You have 
and raise an initial bet made by an early position player. The early position player re-raises your bet, and you put him on a premium hand: pocket aces, kings, queens or ace/king. You have just accomplished one of your goals by narrowing their range of hands from about thirty to four. Whether or not you should continue by calling the raise depends on how far out the pressure point will be. If their raise was an all-in or a large portion of either of your stacks, your opponent is already pot-committed and the hand is basically over. The pressure is on you and you have to make the decision at the peak pressure point of the hand.
If the stacks are substantially deep, the pressure point is still far off and there is plenty of poker left to be played in this hand. For this example, let’s say that the stacks are deep, enticing you to call. The flop comes 
. Your opponent bets again and you still believe that your pot equity is below 50% (he is likely to have you beat, and your number of outs don’t make up for that fact). The decision to call or raise is dependent on where the pressure point of the hand is. If his bet is the pressure point, the hand is basically over and you have to make the decision whether you have the best hand or not. However, if you were to call here and raise big after his turn bet, would that be the pressure bet? If a pot-sized raise here would be the pressure point, you can make that bet.
If your opponent is a calling station, you are going to probably get called by a better hand so you don’t have any folding equity. In other words, if you think you can get your opponent to fold a better hand like pocket aces, you can use that folding equity to bluff and be the one making the pressure bet. If the stacks are too short relative to the size of the pot, your folding equity will not be good enough to attempt a bluff. Having a read on your opponent to assess your folding equity, knowing you probably have the worst hand, and knowing when the pressure bet can be applied, are all important considerations in this hand.
Avoid Slow Playing Yourself into a Hard Decision
Down to the final four of a tournament, a player limps UTG with 
. He has ten big blinds left and the small blind and big blind both have more chips. The button folds, the small blind completes, and the big blind checks. The flop comes 
. The small blind bets and the big blind raises to an amount greater than what UTG has left. I’m sure you realize what the player UTG was trying to do with their aces, but look where it got them! They are suddenly the one that is under pressure, and they know nothing about the other players’ hands. If UTG had raised preflop and been called, there would be a good chance that they would be the one putting in the pressure bet on the flop. If UTG raised and the other players folded, it would have still increased their chip stack by 15%. Putting pressure on your opponents is more important than trapping them. Even pocket aces are a vulnerable hand, and you need to apply pressure on your opponents before you end up donating your chips to them.
