Knowing When To Fold

Replay Poker Poker Strategy
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Sometimes in poker the best thing you can do at the tables is fold. Sure we all wish we could win every hand but then it wouldn’t be much of a competition and it would get tiring after awhile.

There have been many instances where I’ve seen players continue calling bets when they’ve should have folded. When players are calling these bets they are chasing flushes and straights most of the time.

In Hold’em a lot of my decision making is based on what happens on the flop. If I don’t hit anything on the flop and all I have is a high card I’ll play it safely unless I have a history with my opponent and have a feeling that if I bet my opponent will likely fold.

I’ll try to check it down and see if something hits on the turn or river. If an opponent bets I’ll likely fold. You should be playing the percentages and not chase something that’s not likely going to hit. When you do that all your doing is throwing away your chips unless if you have a history with an opponent and you know they’ll probably fold or if your a good bluffer and are often successful bluffing.

When do you know when it’s the right time to fold a hand?

-Marc

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Usually one second after I have been rivered - again :heart_eyes_cat:

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Yeah, that’s my usual time, too.

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Folding is one of the three decisions you can make in poker (the other two being call and raise), and folding specifically is mostly a math problem. If you have just a flush draw and somebody goes all in for 100x pot, you probably are not getting the right to call and can’t raise. But if villain bets 1/2 pot, you should almost never fold.

I fold when a) I don’t think it is a good spot to bluff, b) I am not getting the right price to continue, c) I do not think I am ahead of enough hands villain is betting for value, and d) I have better hands to continue with in my range.

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In the vast majority of instances, it’s pretty easy to determine your likelihood of having a winning hand after you see the flop. But people do strange things that make absolutely no sense.

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Folding Station 3

I folded so often that someone complained.

I’ve obscured the player’s name, because I don’t want him to get a warning, even though he used bad language. I understand the complaint. Folding was pretty much all I did at that table. I can appreciate that it must have been irritating. I can appreciate that others may have thought I was trolling. But I wasn’t. I was folding all the time because I was getting garbage hands all the time. Folding a lot is not actually unusual for me, but it’s the first time anyone’s complained.

On the other hand, I’m entitled to fold as often as I see fit. There are, as far as I know, no rules compelling one to play, other than posting blinds. If I receive junk cards - all the worst ones (7/2, 8/3, etc.) - I will not play. If that means folding 19 in every 20 hands, so be it.

I’m a nit. I know garbage when I see it. Nits are just a part of the game, just like donkeys, fish, bingo players, maniacs, etc. While nit-play has obvious shortcomings, nits make rational decisions and they should, assuming they possess modest skills and are prepared to take calculated risks, be able to achieve sustainable profitability.

I’ve played nearly 70,000 games of poker here. That might not sound many compared to some players, but still, 70,000 games is a reasonable amount of poker. I’m wise enough to know that 8/3, 7/2, 9/3 is not going to win. One might, very occasionally, flop an eights/threes full house or even quads, and while it’s disappointing when that happens, the savings made from always folding garbage are vastly greater than any winnings one might achieve from the very occasional, freakishly lucky flop.

Moreover, the person who complained has (to put it charitably) a very modest number of chips in his bankroll, despite having been on the site for longer than me. His bankroll is 2% of mine. He obviously doesn’t realize, but if he folded more often, he’d win more chips.

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i seem to lose alot of money off of pocket aces and two pair and stuff like that so i am learning to fold some of my hands that are “good” but might not win, when an opponent raises high for example. My main issue is being greedy for chips and that will result in my losses, imo, so if i am not greedy for every single pot then things seem to go more smoothly

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Hi i get good hands all the time but i lose tons of chips in the long-run. At this point i am definitely ready to learn from others and not just go at this on my own. thus far ive lost alot of chips. what are some basic tips for knowing when to fold, for example? any other advice would be helpful here too

I understand i might be asking for some obvious advice that i should already know but perhaps there is something that i missed along the way

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This is a huge question that no one can answer in one simple line.

It depends on what cards you have, your position at the table, the street that you are on, the size of the blinds, the size of your stack, the size of the pot, the number of opponents still in the hand and their position relative to you, the action to you, the tendencies of your opponent(s), are you on tournament pay bubble. probably a couple more things that I can’t think of right now.

It sounds like you need to learn some ranges. Ranges are what hands you are willing to play in certain situations.

The best one to start with and to build upon later is your pre-flop range. That is, which hands are you generally willing to pay to see a flop with, and of course this goes with how much you are willing to pay.

A standard pre-flop range is usually about 30% of all hands.

I will explain this. 100% of all hands means literally any two cards (we are talking about hold’em with a 2 card pocket, as opposed to Omaha with a 4 card pocket - I will ONLY talk about hold’em because it is what I know). So someone who plays 100% of range will play AA (the best hand) just the same as 72o (the worst hand) and anything in between.

So to play about 30% of all hands means to play only AA down to about J9o or T8 or thereabouts. Someone more knowledgeable please correct me. This means that if we get 64o or 83s or other ‘garbage’ we fold. When we get QJo or KTs, we can bet (or maybe call a bet) to see the flop.

Someone who plays say 50% of all hands is considered ‘loose’ and someone who plays 25% or 20% of hands is considered ‘tight’. If we play against the same player for 50 hands and we notice that he sees the flop 35 times or more, this means that he is playing very loose because it is nearly impossible to be dealt cards in the top 30% of range 70% of the time. So if we play tight at say 25% range, when we see the flop against him we usually have a better hand. ; ) This is called range advantage. However, if we are too tight, we just won’t play enough hands to make any money, and when we do, opponents will know that we have something good and they won’t pay us. : ( That is why we want a balanced range not too tight and not too loose.

In my experience, I would recommend that a new player start a bit tighter and only play 25% of range. Better cards are just easier to play with, easier to read the flop with and know when you are ahead. Then as you gain experience and skills, you can ‘widen’ your range - get a little looser, gradually.

Also, against bad players, it is usually more effective to play on the tight side, as bad players tend to play too loose and you can easily have that strong range advantage against them.

But before you try this, though, you need to know about position. Here are the positions at the 9-seat table:

SB BB UtG UtG+1 +2 LJ HJ CO BT

Small blind (SB), big blind (BB) and under the gun (UtG) are considered early positions. +1, +2, lowjack (LJ) and ususlly hi-jack (HJ) are considered middle positions (or MP), and CutOff and BuTton are considered late positions.

And these are the seat at the 6-max table.

SB BB UtG HJ CO BT

SB and BB early, UtG and HJ middle, and CO and BT late.

the late positions (CO and BT) are the BE$T positions $$$$$. There is a big advantage playing in these seats because we get to see everyone else’s actions before we decide to check bet raise or fold. ; ) The early positions are the worst, and the middle positions are the middle but more similar to the early than the late.

What this means that we will play TIGHTER in early and mid positions to make up for the disadvantage of acting first, but looser in late positions because our decisions get much easier going last. So if we play 30% of all hands, we might play only 15% from early, 20% from middle and maybe even 35 or 40% from late. ; )

But this is all very very basic and there are many details that might make you alter your range and make you decide to fold a hand that you would otherwise play, and this would make a very long response.

I would love for someone with more experience to refine or clarify anything that I’ve said, yet hopefully keep it rookie simple for now.

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I am wondering nap (may I call you nap), should I address this comment or should I let it be.

Hmm, could use a little nudge here one way or the other. :slight_smile: :innocent:

Thanks in advance.
Angie

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The problem with asking advice is you will get most of your answers from new players, players from whom you don’t need any advice. Actually, not just Poker, in every game novices are the most talkative. The reason old timers won’t give advice, is because they know you can only learn thru playing. Put in the time, watch some games on youtube perhaps, but mostly put the time.

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Biggest thing is not get completely caught up in your hand and piece together the full picture. Pocket Aces is a great starting hand but by the turn it could be hopelessly behind. Have to be able to read the board and your opponent’s betting pattern to let you know if those Aces are nothing more than a bluff catcher. But people have a hard time letting go of aces even though by the river it is just one pair.

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Start with this very simple rule - try and get as much money into the pot as possible when you have an advantage, as little as possible when you don’t. That means you need to know whether or not you have an advantage, and that should be the first thing you ask yourself at every decision point.

Learn preflop ranges - this will ensure you start most hands with an advantage, and you don’t need to be exact, just have a rough idea of what cards you should open in what positions. Be tighter than ranges suggest if you don’t think you have an edge post flop.

Position is huge in poker. Typically a much bigger advantage than any skill edge, and that’s even more true at lower stakes.

Re-evaluate whether or not you think you have an advantage after every action. If you’re facing a huge bet or raise from your opponent, don’t think about how good your hand is. Think about what kind of hands you would do that with in your opponents position, and then ask yourself if your hand is better than that. If not, fold. (Hint: it’s almost always going to be better than one pair, so if that’s all you have, fold.)

Here’s an example. Lets say you open Ace Five of diamonds from the button and the big blind calls. The flop is Queen Hearts, Six Spades, Two Clubs. Big blind checks to you - do you have an advantage?

Yes. You don’t have a very strong hand, but it’s unlikely the big blind does either, and you have position. If your just thinking about how good your hand is, you probably don’t bet here, but if you’re thinking about how good your situation is compared to the big blinds, then you’ll be aware that you can.

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@snakey1234

Well, remember this is just my opinion (JMO). I usually play tourneys so when assigned to a table, since it sounds like you’re new, first look around and note who you are playing against and how they are betting, calling and raising. A few rounds should be enough because everyone wants some action in tourneys.

You will be able to get a sense of when someone is or is not strong.

This next part is not about when to fold but how to improve your game. Focus on a weak player at the table and always try to knock her out of the tournament first. The more knockouts you make, the higher you’ll climb the Leaderboard ladder.

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the best time to fold is if you check call your range on the flop and then fold the turn

if your hand didnt improve.. note that your hand rarely improves on the flop.

your range consists of, pairs, draws, and over cards… the only time i ever play to the

river are flush draws with my backdoor, all over cards that are flush… depending on

your opponents bets size. if the guy is min betting, im going all the way to the river

with my flush draw, if i dont hit a flush by then, i throw my hand into the muck… NEVER

VOLUNTARILY SHOW YOUR HAND

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In tournaments, players often chase flush draws, openended str8 draws, or the two combined by shoving on the flop. They have two shots at catching and the odds are good they will. Folding leaves you vulnerable to quickly rising blinds.

That said, I’ve seen players do it on the turn, when the odds aren’t nearly as good.

I’ve also seen players call down to the river with draws, costing them a boatload of chips. At least a shove on the flop gives the opponent the choice to fold.

As to when I know to fold, usually an opponent who bets big without showing an excessive propensity for doing so is a clue. So is an opponent betting when I have two pair on a tight board.