I agree that this is a huge mistake. It’s a real skill knowing when to keep sticking around and when to suck it up and fold, and there are a lot of factors to take into account - the board texture, the opponent who is betting, stack sizes, other players in the hand and of course your specific cards. In general here there are many players who are just looking at their own cards and deciding from there - “well I have top pair so I am calling down”.
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This is close to something I wanted to ask about. Every once in a less frequent than a blue moon we’ll say, I get into a unique situation where I am considering both a fold or an information bet. As I very slowly turn the pages of the “invisble poker bible” we’ll call it, I will look more into equity and try to learn what’s good and bad…but does anyone have any general guidance or a rule of thumb or suggestions what to study when faced with this situation. Keep in mind I’m not good and as novice as it gets, so I perhaps should not really ever be in this position in the first place. Any suggestions/feedback is appreciated.
It might be helpful to be more specific about the situation you mean. In general, information betting is not a part of good poker strategy. There are some situations where you can bet to get value from a small number of hands, knowing that you will fold to a raise, but in general you want to call when you have a hand with showdown value (differs based on action and board texture, but let’s call it a medium strength hand like top pair weak kicker). If you bet for value with strong/made hands, check-call with medium hands and drawing hands, and fold weak hands then you should be doing alright from an ABC standpoint (before considering the need to add bluffs or more advanced plays).
Based on the type of situation daffodil gave, if what you mean is raising preflop with KK (club and diamond) and then betting huge on a A9T all heart flop and again on the turn before facing a check-raise, well that is a spot where you should definitely be folding. Calling with what start out as good hands that end up in bad situations is called entitlement tilt, and it’s what happens when your emotions block you from folding when you know you should. Another example is if you have AA and the flop comes A49 with 2 hearts (and you have none), the turn is another heart and someone bets huge and you call and the river is yet another heart. Your hand started out as the nuts, but now you lose to the 2 of hearts so it’s time to fold (unless of course you think they could be bluffing, but that takes a certain opponent).
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@lad44 Is there a particular hand you can describe or link to where you had one of these spots where you weren’t sure what to do?
Well if u are on an open ended straight draw or flush draw with the nuts and looking at the board knowing those 2 hands if u would get would be the high hand to win the pot than if blinds are relatively low then i bet the blind or minimum amount so i can see another card to get that straight or flush with paying the minimum amount possible to see another card, if u dont do this then u will most likely have another player bet the blind or minimum or more than that amount, especially if 3 or 4 or more players are in the hand. if u do this u are more likely then not to see every extra card u need at a sales price instead of a possible premium price, which in that case u might wanna fold unless u are very high stacked and wanna go for the gut shot to hit your hand. players that have a flopped pair will most likely just call ur minimum bet, if u are low stacked and they raise your minimum bet big then u can can always fold, mainly if u are in a tourney and dont wont any risk to be knocked out early before at least placing. if u have a lower pair with higher flopped cards such as A,K,Q and blinds a sill low than u could do the same thing to try and hit trips or better. Basically it is card chasing at the best sales price to see another card to make ur top hand get the pot but once again there are other factors to consider such as stack sizes, how many are in the hand, the blind amounts and where u are in the tourney. in rings its more simple to utilize this but in tourneys there are more factors to consider. the minimum bet should show the other players that u have something when u are actually bluff chasing on sale or at a discount to get your winning hand, if they raise u big then u know they are probably ahead of u after the flop and then it becomes a how much do u wanna spend to catch a card scenario, this also sets u up to bluff better if u see the right opportunity after the turn or river if u cant catch ur card and feel they havnt gained a higher hand then what they had after the flop. I wouldnt really call this betting for information but betting more so to get more information for yourself ( another card ) on your possible winning hand at the cheapest price. You also will get information from them too on how they respond to your minimum bets. if u do hit your card then depending on the player and how many in the hand and stack sizes then this is one of the best times to check/raise to hook/line/sinker them so to speak to get and win the highest pot possible knowing u have the highest hand, usually doing this after the turn and not the river because checking could become a check around from all could occur at the river and u end up with a smaller pot. Most of my biggest pots come from this strategy and i think it is a big mistake for others not to see as many flops as possible with whatever cards they are dealt but only at a discounted price to see them which is when blinds are low, mainly the 1st 3 levels max. how many times have u said, 'i wish i would never folded that cause i would had this or that and won". This strategy allows u to do that more and u may lose many hands doing this but the one or 2 u hit will make up for that 10 fold.
@floridajetski What else are you betting the minimum with? If you only play your draws this way then you are very easy to read. This play - betting small with draws - is very common among players here. A player who is paying attention will raise you every time to force you to pay for your draw.
In general betting with your draws is a good idea, but you want to make it bigger so that you have a chance to win the pot right now. It will also give some disguise value if you bet both your made hands and your draws in the same way.
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Im mainly talking about doing this when u flop a straight draw thats not open ended with connectors, most players dont see the draw early on after the flop unless there is a 3 card connector out there, if u have 35 in your hand and an Ace 2 6 flops for example no one is gonna put u or anyone on a draw at that point, they are non connectors and u have 2 connectors in your hand that they have no idea of, it is much about how they view the board, when they see A 2 6 the last thing they are thinking is a draw, they are thinking in that scenario that some one has Aces. You betting the minimum looks like u have Aces with most likely a low kicker when in fact u have a draw. If someone has aces and u bet than they are most likely to call ur minimum bet then raise unless they have AK or AQ, if no one has aces then they are putting u on aces and will most likely call with a minimum bet in the 1st 3 lowest blind levels, so either way they have know clue u have a draw. im not talking about a 234 flopping and u have an ace or 5 and especially not if after the turn a 5 shows up with 4 connectors on the board ( which by the way happens way too much on here ) on a flush draw an example would be u having AJ hearts and a 3h 8d Jh shows. not 3h 8h jh. there are many scenarios in draws and how to play the different scenarios out after the flop, turn,river. Either way u look at if u think u are 1 card away from the top hand on board you are getting a few players to fold with your minimum bet to reduce your competition but not too many because u want to build the pot along the way too. you are also positioning yourself to not have to pay a premium by someone that raises too big to have u chase your hand u want to win the pot with that you are helping build. i wont go into any more details on here with specific hands i do or dont do this with for obvious reasons. Just giving an example of what to do when ur not sure to fold but not sure to bet and and what i feel a big mistake is made by a lot of players, not seeing enough flops to capitalize on winning big pots and missed opportunities from what we call crap cards that turn into the highest hand or winning hand. once again this is only beneficial when u have nothing after the flop but your odds of getting the highest hand ought weigh the cost for you to get that hand, hence doing this when the blinds are the lowest early on in a tourney to get chip leverage early to position yourself to go the distance in the tourney. This is not a strategy for the middle to end of the tourney when it costs to much to do and blinds are eating your stack more.
I don’t disagree with anything anyone has written here, but I do think that in sit n’ gos and multi table tournaments, you have to mix it up a bit so as not to be predictable. If you are playing tight and then raise high with garbage, and you get one caller, then a few different things can happen. 1. You hit a monster, 2. You make something, whether second or third pair, or a draw,3. You hit nothing.
If you hit nothing, you need to examine the texture of the flop and determine whether it is likely that someone with a hand that would call you has a hand. The biggest danger, or course is a pocket pair that makes trips, but that would still be a danger if you had AK and hit top pair. Much more likely is that they have a pocket pair less than 10s and they have not made trips, in which case you need to bet enough to get them off the pot. Of course relative stack sizes and calling ranges should be taken into consideration before you raise. If a medium stack goes all-in at the flop against a large stack approaching the bubble, the large stack is likely to fold if he/she does not have the nuts and fears being relegated to medium stack size, so it pays to be fearless.
Tonight before writing this I won a 60-player multi table and had to constantly adjust tactics. I was among the leaders for most of the last hour and was constantly raising and then folding to reraises. At one point I folded pocket jacks to an all in raise from a stack only slightly smaller than mine and was rewarded when three players called the raiser and two of them were eliminated. The best philosophy is to steal and steal, back off if a usually timid opponent fights back, and don’t call preflop raises from stacks larger than yours unless you have AA or KK. AK is a powerful hand when played over 5 cards against a single opponent, but, not so good when 3 or more players see the flop. I am amazed how many players go out with AK, especially if caller has a suited ace and makes trips with the smaller card, or two pair.
So in summary, the larger your stack, the wider your raising range can be, as you can always back off if you encounter aggression, but you should always play very tightly when calling raises preflop as you are likely to encounter an all in at the flop.
I guess to answer ur question more directly, any pair unless a higher set flops and a player re raises your minimum bet 3 BB or more, its a fold then. also if any 3 same suited cards flop and u dont have 1 of the same suit with A or K. also any 3 connectors flopping and u dont have the higher end connector while he re raises and same thing for 3 suited connectors flopping. Understand that this works best when you have low cards that by the time the turn or river hits they think their top pair or 2 pairs will win and the board minimizes you looking like u have those hands. This is to set up a sizable pot with a disquizable high hand.
For me I generally interpret a minbet as saying “I currently have a weak hand and would like a cheap card” so I am more likely to raise as a bluff. Whether you have a weak ace or a draw you are not going to be happy if I start raising big.
This is what I mean by knowing whether your opponent is paying attention though. If you have a weak, passive opponent who rarely bluffs then this blocking minbet can be effective. Against an aggressive, thinking opponent you are basically telling them what you have so need to mix up your approach more.
@MekonKing Fully agreed on mixing it up, being aggressive and taking stack sizes into account, especially in tournament play. Congratulations on your win!
AK suited is one of the most if not the most powerful pockets to have, i prefer AK suited or non suited than Pocket AA or KK if there are 3 or more in the hand. AK suited gives u the highest possible straight,highest possible flush and highest possible top pair and at the same time have blockers in place. pocket AA is best for heads up 1 on 1 if u play them right and careful, otherwise they can be very dangerouse to play because most players over bet them,at the wrong time, more chips are at risk now because of this, and most players are attached to them and dont want to lay them down because they dont come around too often and they become pot committed at the turn or river. an example is i was busted out of mt league tourney tonight on pocket AA heads up with another player with similar stack and we both were in 1st and 2nd place right before the final table. i raised them 3BB pre flop with around 11 BB stack, we both had each others chips covered, flop shows 2 low suited cards with another suit on 3rd card. i push my aces all in after the flop, he calls and catches a flush on the river. winning that woulda put me in 1st place by far heading into the final table, instead i finished 12th. in that situation theres nothing u can do, he flopped a disguised flush draw and gut shotted his whole stack banking on a spade and caught it, but u have to play AA like that in that situation, at that point its luck of the draw and a coin flip. if i had AK suited my chances of winning that hand woulda been better and even coulda had the nut flush cause my A was a spade so AK spades takes the nut flush and i double up in 1st place and he is busted out instead of me busting out, or a spade doesnt hit the river and my pocket AA wins and i double up in 1st place and he is busted out. another player in the tourney busted out also with pocket AA to a straight. i realize that is a 1 out of 5 chance that would happen. if we woulda went to showdown all in after river then u have so much invested in it that its hard to lay AA down with no straight draw out there and only 3 same suit cards out there with your profit loss ratio too high now to fold them. anyway this is 1 example of why i like AK suited better as a starting out hand with 3-4 or more players in the hand before the flop
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Agree. In my opinion one of the most important things to do is mix many things up and know how and when to do them to throw your opponents off and keep them guessing. so yes, a big mistake that players make is not mixing up their play, or not doing it enough. this is a whole other topic in itself with too many factors and ways of mixing things up to list here.
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_an example is i was busted out of mt league tourney tonight on pocket AA heads up with another player with similar stack and we both were in 1st and 2nd place right before the final table. i raised them 3BB pre flop with around 11 BB stack, we both had each others chips covered, flop shows 2 low suited cards with another suit on 3rd card. i push my aces all in after the flop, he calls and catches a flush on the river. winning that woulda put me in 1st place by far heading into the final table, instead i finished 12th. in that situation theres nothing u can do, he flopped a disguised flush draw and gut shotted his whole stack banking on a spade and caught it, but u have to play AA like that in that situation, at that point its luck of the draw and a coin flip.
I would not necessarily agree with this. I would try to avoid playing a hand between the top stack and second stack just before the final table. If you raise and he calls a raise from the biggest stack when he is second stack, then he probably has something powerful and if you cannot take him down with a continuation bet, is it worth risking your entire tournament on the proposition that he does not have trips or two pair and will not hit a flush or straight. If he is on the flush draw and the board is not paired then he has two shots at 9 outs, which is the same as one shot at 18 outs = 18/52 or about one in three. Plus he might have trips or two pairs.
If you bet half the pot at the flop and he reraises all in with this semibluff, do you want to put your entire tournament at risk on this hand seeing that he must realize that you may well have aces or kings and is still willing to shove?
I don’t think there are any right or wrong answers, and ultimately it will come down to what you think of the other player as a player, but Aces is just a pocket pair, and it will beat any other single pair, and it is at a huge advantage preflop over any AK, but in tournaments you always want to steal pots, claim unwanted pots and bully weak opponents. As top stack, or in the leading group, I like to take my maximum time on each bet or fold, because every second towards another increase in the blinds is to the disadvantage of the smallest stacks.
As a postscript, just prior to writing this, I was playing in a small sit’n’go to kill a little time and was doing fine, winning several small pots and building my stack. A player went all in preflop early in the game, I called with Jacks, expecting him to turn over a pocket pair in the range of 7-10, and an A9 offsuit behind me also called. Original raiser showed KK and was beaten by an Ace on the flop, and I was out. I should never have called that bet with JJ–and THAT is the most common mistake that players make on Replay Poker.
Thank you everybody for your responses on this thread. Looking back, I realize how ridiculous my question was given I had no specific scenario to go along with it. I jumped the gun a bit because something I read reminded me of a situation, but I couldn’t quite remember the details. To agree with @floridajetski, when in the situations you mentioned, I agree - it wouldn’t really be an information bet, but more of a bluff or semi-bluff, depending on the situation. I’ve received a lot of useful information by your replies that have helped my thinking in situations where I’m unsure about whether I am going to fold or bet/raise, and hopefully it will pay off. I’ve received a lot of information in general from these forums. Sometimes, just by browsing through them, a question you were half wondering about becomes answered and it really helps your approach at the tables significantly. Thanks to all!
well i was in a position with raising 3 BB and the only way to play AA is to shove pre flop or after flop only in a showdown. no matter how u look at it i had an 80% chance of winning the hand regardless of who bet or called what, he had a gut shot and won, its a coin toss at that time, i woulda folded after the river tho with 3 suited cards on table if he went all in. I just came off a high stake ring table and an ace high straight draw hit the board after the turn, i had 10s and Qs, river shows a Q so i have a full house or boat and shove all in knowing he has the jack for the straight, he calls my all in and the Q i hit for my boat on the river was his Q for his royal flush lol, unreal 1:60,000 chance in beating me, was over a 3 million pot too. so just goes to show u anything is possible and any beat is possible, i thought i had the 3 mill pot, instead he did.
I remember Jeffrey Trudeau making a move in the 2018 WSOP Main Event similar to what you described near the end of this post. I think he had Q10 against J5s. Opponent was IP. Flop came J58 rainbow, I think. I forget exactly how they got to the turn. Turn card didn’t help him.
He unconventionally bet the turn and was called. It was a 9 that came on the river and he took the pot. I can’t find the hand to verify the details, but I believe it went like this…or very similar (I know that can make a significant difference lol). If this is indeed how it went, the turn bet seems like a very bad idea as he has a 9% chance to win against his opponent’s 91%, knowing his opponent is very likely to continue based on the board. Maybe it went differently and he had an open ended draw rather than a gut shot. I wish I could find the hand to verify! Perhaps nothing to really talk about…just wanted to throw it out there, I guess.
I beg to differ a little. A gutshot draw is one in which a single card is necessary to complete a straight, so there are 4 outs not 9, so he did not have a gutshot, After the flop arrived you were not still 80% to win the hand, although the odds were still in your 2:1 in your favor, or a bit worse if he had paired the non suited card on the flop, as that would give him 2 more outs. On the other hand, you could hit a third ace, or make a flush if you had the Ace of his suit.
The question remains, at this stage of the tournament, even if you were 80% to win the hand, was the 20% chance of being eliminated and taking only 12th place money sufficient odds against the amount of (play) potential money you might win if still in the tournament?
There is no right and wrong, only winners and losers, and you might play correct poker all the time and never win a tournament. The last multitable tournament I played in I won from 60 players. The one before that I finished 5th out of 130, but my thinking after the 5th finish was not that I was unlucky to get rivered, but whether I could have made a different decision and won the tournament.
Clearly in the world of real poker the same top players persistently win much more frequently than you would expect in tournaments with hundreds of players, given the ever present possibility of getting into coin toss, or getting rivered when ahead in a horse race. Clearly these players avoid putting their tournament future on all-ins against larger or equal stacks as much as possible. The smaller your stack and the larger the stack of the opponent, the greater chance there is that he/she will call your all in raise and river you out. Thats why it is always better to be a preflop raiser than a caller unless you have a premium hand. If I am in the final stages of a tourney, I may have a better than 80% chance of winning a hand with J3 suited if there is a 75% chance that I will not be called when any potential callers risks elimination if he does not win the hand, and you only have 20% of your stack at risk.
It was a gut shot flush draw, he needed one more spade to complete that hand just like u said, there were 2 on the flop and 2 in his hand. so i think u misread what i said. i was either gonna eat the 3BB i raised if he folded my all in or might have won with my AA so had either happened i was trying to position myself going into final table with more than double the stack of the player in 2nd place because he would be out and was in 2nd.place, anyway it was a better decision than me going for a different gut shot, its over and was only a 100k tourney. towards the end of tourneys you are faced with much harder decisions and that is what i chose to do. i am more concerned about the royal flush hit on the river that beat my boat for 3 mill chips lol , absolutely cant control that one with the odds of a royal but i would play that same way on that hand any day in rings.
Well, OK, we can disagree about the meaning of gutshot. So in your opinion, the moment you were dealt AA in that hand, you were doomed to crash out in 12th place. I was just trying to explore if there was any way you could have still won that tournament. With only a few seconds to decide how to play a hand on Replaypoker, we have to make snap decisions. Also I think that in the final stages of a tournament, players hearts are beating a little faster, nearly everyone is down to a few big blinds, and no one will win without a bit of sheer good luck at some point. I will certainly risk going all in sometimes on a flush draw, especially if I also pair the non suited third card on the flop, because at certain stages of a tournament, with certain stack sizes and blind increases approaching, it may be the only option. The interesting thing in the hand you cited was that the villain didn’t have to call an all in on the flop, but I guess he was thinking if he took you out he could take a breather while a few more players were eliminated and almost guarantee a high finish, whereas, if he folded he would be in a crapshoot with several other stacks and you would have a big lead.