I believe all your regular visitors know how things get going when betting on the flop if they raise preflop. Well, I’m your fan and I visit your site regularly as well. But still I don’t totally understand some things regarding betting on the flop if a preflop is raise.

Typically, I play 25$NL, and whenever I bet on the flop, more often than not I get several calls with really high cards. I don’t know why but it takes place oftentimes. At some point, I thought maybe it was because other players are mislead. Maybe they thought it was a just a typical “bet on the flop after raising preflop” strategy.

By the way, if I may say, it’s easy to play if I caught something, but if I haven’t caught something and I have a few callers, etc. it’s already a different story.

I do hope this is sensible as I don’t like to mess up here in your site. And by the way, have you encountered similar situation as the one I’ve shared with you? If yes, how did you do it, survive the challenge and much better take home the pots?

Thanks!

Smith

Smith,

Part of your betting on the flop may have to do with the size of the bets you are making. If you are making a minimum bet, then most players will have odds to call your bet. If there is a potential straight or flush on the board, you may not be betting enough to force them off their draw. You may also have calling stations on board. Also, part of the problem may arise where they are thinking you are just using a continuation bet. Without more specific information, it is hard to tell further.

At some point, everyone folded except a middle position player with about $5000 stack size making it $1800 to go. Well, I’ve been playing very tight since the start of the s&g, while he was occupied with quite some hands on the flip side. To mention, he was leading earlier with about $10000 chips, but eventually his chips melted down to about $5000.

Confidently, I called the $1800. Then the flop came 9d 3h 6d. He placed a bet all in ($3200) with $4200 in the pot. As a result, I placed over him an overpair, not so much trips.

At that point, I don’t believe he had aces as the preflop raise appeared very high. I thought actually that he might just be bluffing preflop, or hitting a pair on the flop instead.

But what do you think, should I just have called his bet considering that I might share the lead with roughly $10000?

Thanks!

Hunter

Hunter,

Let’s look at this from an odds standpoint. You had to call 3,200 to win a pot 7,400. You bet call would represent 42% of the pot. Now let’s look at your outs. You have 9 outs to make a flush. If you assume that your opponent does not have aces, this adds 3 more outs to your hands. You have at least 12 outs. This gives you a 48% chance to make your hand at the river. If your opponent has a lower pair such as 10’s or jacks, then you have 3 queens as outs too. This would give you 15 out with at 60% chance to make your hand by the river.

You either had a 48% chance or a 60% chance to hit your hand and it would only cost a bet of 42% of the pot. You had pot odds in this case. You should have called.

I’m sure on what I’ve laid down. But I have some doubts. At some point I thought whenever someone who’s extremely short stacked moves all in, and you hold a low pair, I’d say call. But how about whenever the short stacked gets called before me? Well, maybe the odds will increase. But I’m not sure.

Similarly, say you will have two people with two over cards against you, which would imply 4×6=24 outs preflop. For an instance the caller was also short stacked, what do you think they will be looking for?

How about sharing of an ace by all in player and the caller, what’s your say about this? And if in case this happens, will the odds be much better compared to the potential winning?

By the way, I’m curious if how you’ll gonna play low pair against two short stacked all ins. Can you give me an idea? And what do you think, are the pot odds better than against just one, or was it a no-brainer lay down?

Just an information, these stuff were in a ring game. Do you think things have been different if they were in a cash game?

Thank you.

Mark

Mark,

I’m assuming that you are telling me that this was a tournament as opposed to a cash game. A ring game is typically another term for a cash game. In your scenario, your opponent went all-in and was called before you even acted. This is a no-brainer fold in my opinion too. If he was short stacked, and the call would not have been for much, you may want to take a card off and see if you hit your set. However, if you don’t hit your set then you are likely behind to the other player.

If you were the only person to act and they were short stacked, then you could call unless you were running low yourself.

Cash games don’t really make much difference with this scenario. He was all-in and called. You can’t believe sixes are good in any case.

While a six did hit the flop, when you play a pocket pair, you only flop a set 11% of the time. Do you really want to put a big portion of your stack up for 11%?

In my experience, the community cards have something to with player 1 with an Ace and and player 2 who has 5 and 7.

A friend of mine believed at some point that the pot should be given to him as he has the extinct advantage already. But I disagreed because I know poker isn’t just about playing the hand that we are dealt, but also about strategy of playing through betting and playing the odds. I also know that having a stronger hand in poker even at the start will not always entitle you to a win.

Am I right with such things?

Please, any advice? Thanks in advance.

Kyle John

Kyle,

From the example above, it appears that the board cards are 10-J-Q-K-A. In this event, both players would hold an ace high straight. The player with an ace in his hand does not hold an advantage since both players have the same five card hand. The pot in this case would be split.