#861 – You Hit the Flop – Then What?

I get asked all the time to play in private tournaments on Full Tilt. I try to say yes as much as I can – as a worthy ambassador of the site and because I host private tournaments for charity (the next one is coming in November) – but I get asked so often that I have to say no more than I say yes.

But on this particular occasion, Dom from ThePotKings.com asked if I could play in his group’s 6-handed knock-out tournament and I agreed. I didn’t have plans to leave my office soon, I wasn’t in a lot of tournaments, and I had some plans to play later but not where I couldn’t juggle my other tournament obligations with this private tournament.

It was as small, low-stakes tournament and I won it. I offered to send the online community that put the tournament together my hand history for posting or discussion. They received it and, on their forum, made videos of six hands and asked me questions. You can check out their site or, without much trouble, pick up the details of the hands from my descriptions below and read about my reasoning as to how I played these particular hands.

The first two of the videos involved a similar situation, in which I raised before the flop with an Ace and hit top-two-pair on the flop. The first hand was at the beginning of the tournament and the second was at the final table and I played them much differently. I can’t say everything I did was correct but the pair of hands raised interesting issues about continuation bets and trapping. What follows are my answers to the questions posed by the first two videos.

Video 1

This hand came from the first level of the tournament. The question brings up subjects about table image, aggressiveness, and trapping. It also raises the issue of the central assumption behind the “continuation bet.”

I was in the big blind with Ah-6h. The player UTG, PixelGnome, limped for 30, it was folded to me, and I raised to 105. Pixel called. It was a dream flop (almost too good!) – 4h-6d-As. I flopped top-two-pair, there is no flush draw and not much in the way of straight draws. Unless it’s one of those “perfect storm” hands where the other player has 4-4 (where I can’t do much but go broke), there isn’t even much chance for me to get action.

There was 235 in the pot. I bet 120 and Pixel folded.

Question: Why did you bet out on the flop instead of checking and let him bluff at it?

Granted, it’s almost certain that the only way I’ll get more chips from my opponent is by checking here. That’s why it’s arguable that I should check and why sometimes I will. But this is why I didn’t check here.

I want to establish myself as an aggressive player. I’m going to enter every pot I play by raising (though I’ll frequently flat-call in position) and I’m going to bet most of the time after I raise. I’ll balance this by generally making my raises and bets uniformly on the small side (especially later in the tournament) but I want opponents – especially those in he blind and those limping – that they better hit a flop or give up. Again, this is more important late in the tournament because, frankly, the money in the pot isn’t really worth much – no antes, small relative to the stacks. But I start from the beginning because there are several benefits to having that table image.

First, it encourages opponents to play straight-forward against me. Most players who want to stop me try to make me pay by trapping with their big hands. I want that. If they are passive, passive, passive, passive and suddenly get aggressive, that’s like playing with their cards face-up. I’ll get out of the way when that happens, expecting what I lose before I get out to be the cost of winning chips all the times they DON’T have a hand.

Second, I want to get paid when I make a hand. What’s more infuriating than waiting to get big cards, or hitting a flop perfectly, then having everyone fold? If I can get paid off on a few big hands – either because my opponents have real hands and can’t believe I really have it, or because they are sick of me betting all the time and pick the wrong time to scare me out – then I can even be a net loser in these small pots where I’m raising and betting out.

Third, later in the tournament, when the blinds and antes are big compared to the stack sizes, I want to pick up more than my share of uncontested pots.

That doesn’t mean I never trap but I have to be more creative about it. To me, it’s too obvious to raise then check when the ace comes. If I’m always raising and betting and suddenly stop, doesn’t that seem fishy? Should someone who limps and calls expect the player who raised from the blind to have an ace? And shouldn’t they think that the raiser won’t believe THEY have an ace, having limped? My “trap” is that I bet when I hit the flop and when I miss. I’m not giving anything away when I do that so someone who wants to play against me needs a good hand. Besides, if I’m going to trap, I want to win more chips – getting in cheap in a multiway pot and making a straight or a set, or flat-calling in position (which is a natural “trap” because I haven’t given away much about my hand and I have position over my opponent, who increasingly reveals things about his/her hand by betting decisions after the flop).

Finally, I want to mention that my style of play relies on the conventions of the continuation bet. Generally, a continuation bet is the bet after the flop by the pre-flop raiser. (Chris Ferguson in his definition adds “… when the raiser is expected to bet.”) As I mentioned before, I want to pick up chips without showdowns. To do that, I NEED the continuation bet. If I’m the guy at the table who raises most often, I don’t want to have to hit my hand and win a showdown to take the pot. Therefore, I want opponents to know that if I bet before the flop, I’m almost-for-sure going to bet the flop. They won’t be able to pick up any information on the strength of my hand and I hope, in the likely event they don’t hit something big on the flop, fold.

Video 2

Dom did a great job of picking hands for commentary. Although the tournament lasted 342 hands and the first video was from the first level of play, Dom found a nearly identical hand for Video 2 when we were four-handed at the final table. This time, I played the hand in a completely different fashion.

With blinds of 120-240 and a 25 ante, I was dealt Ac-9d under the gun. I raised to 600 and the big blind called; there was 1,420 in the pot. As in Video 1, I flopped top-two pair: 9h-6c-Ah. The big blind, jonny696, checked and I checked. He bet 720 after the Qc came on the turn and I called, making the total pot 2,860. Jonny checked the 6h on the river, I bet 720, and he called. My two-pair won the 4,300 pot; jonny had Qd-10h for a lower two-pair.

Question: Why did you raise pre-flop, then check the flop with a flush draw out there, then bet the river when the board paired?

If you compare this with the previous hand, it definitely would have been smarter for me to slow-play the first hand where the board was so “dry”, than this hand, where I checked the flop with a flush draw on the board, and bet the river with a flush and a pair on the board. If the hands had been played in the opposite order, that’s probably what I would have done. But the first hand came early in the tournament when I wanted to establish my general practice of entering pots with a raise and continuing to show strength after the flop.

I still want to do that when short-handed and/or at the final table, but I have to start varying my play. With the blinds and antes much higher, there is not as much room to maneuver later in a hand. I can’t afford to raise and bet and then throw away hands very often. Therefore, I want to introduce a check on the flop occasionally. This was pretty early at the final table and I figured if I tossed in a check in an obvious betting situation, it could pay dividends later by giving me the option of checking when I feared I was way behind on the flop, as well as checking an A-high flop in the future and getting respect when I bet the turn that I was “trapping with an ace.”

This was not an ideal situation because of the flush draw but I was playing against the two random cards in the big blind at a short-handed table so it was a calculated risk.

I imagine there was nothing unusual or controversial about my calling jonny’s bet on the turn. I suppose I could have raised, but that’s only a good play if I think he is betting a draw. In fact, it turned out I created (lucked into) the ideal situation: I had shown enough weakness to persuade my opponent I did not have an ace and he hit well enough on the turn to make the second-best hand.

After jonny checked the river, I knew I was taking a risk by betting. I can’t say for sure that I was correct to bet. My usual play in this situation has been to check the river, forgoing a bet at the end to prevent a potentially disastrous check-raise.

I have recently started making small value bets on the river. Note that this bet of 720 was one-quarter the size of the pot. The best I can say in defense is that I felt comfortable that I would not get check-raised by a bluff or second-best hand, and that I would swallow my pride and let jonny swallow my chips and fold to a check-raise. (Although maybe that’s easier said than done.)

I believe that I have been giving up value by checking too often in marginal situations on the river, so I defend betting for value. But I would probably not recommend doing it in this situation. The only losing hand that will call me is a worse two-pair, and I got lucky that my opponent had exactly that. I had some inkling that my opponent did not make a flush on the river because he bet the turn. I put him in the position of making a bet that that might be difficult for me to interpret, but I just didn’t think he would bet the flush draw then check if it hit. I was, however, taking that risk.

I’ll let you know if any of the remaining videos upon which they asked me to comment raise other interesting issues.

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