“Calling a late position raise with a suited connector when you have the button is a good example [of implied odds that don’t depend on making a strong hand]. Since the pre-flop raiser probably has a wide and not particularly strong range, you can’t count on winning a big pot on the rare occasions that you make two pair or better. Because his range is so wide, though, you will often be able to steal the pot when you flop a weak draw or even a scary board texture. Whether you want to call it implied odds, bluff equity, or something else, this is as much a justification for taking slightly the worst of it on an early street as is drawing at a monster hand.”

Read more about this and other misunderstood aspects of implied odds in the 2+2 Magazine!

“In other words, in two nearly identical situations, featuring two players in the same positions with the same pre-flop ranges and the same community cards and the same number of bets going into the pot, one of those situations is +EV for the Hero and one for the Villain depending on how the betting goes. If Hero bets flop, checks turn, and bets river, he is in a profitable situation. His opponent has given him information and also given up control over when and how money goes into the pot.

However, if Hero checks flop, calls turn, and finds himself facing a bet on the river, then he is the one who has given up information and control and now faces an unprofitable situation. This is a choice not about how to play top pair with a medium kicker but about how Hero ought to play most of his range most of the time.”

Enjoy!

Your perception of an opponent’s possible holdings should influence everything from whether you bluff to how you size your value bets, sometimes in rather subtle ways.

This article will move quickly through the basics of calculating your equity versus a range of hands and then examine some of the more complicated ways in which the ranges you assign should influence your play.

If you find this helpful, have a look at my archive of older poker articles as well.

If you enjoy this article, my older publications are archived on my website.

Neither of these was against a calling station, but I wanted to post these two bluffs from Sunday tournaments, and this seems an appropriate place to do it. Here’s the first one, from the WCOOP Main Event:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t600 (9 handed) Hand History converter, Courtesy of PokerZion.com

SB (t50870)
BB (t18475)
UTG (t17787)
UTG+1 (t28701)
MP1 (t16041)
MP2 (t22315)
MP3 (t40259)
Hero (t33800)
Button (t21492)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Qd, Kh.
3 folds, MP2 raises to t1775, 1 fold, Hero raises to t3800, 3 folds, MP2 calls t2025.

Flop: (t8500) As, Jd, 2d (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero checks.

Turn: (t8500) Ah (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero checks.

River: (t8500) 5c (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets t3500, MP2 folds.

Final Pot: t12000

This isn’t a reraise I make very often. Basically the opener was rather aggressive and raised quit often when the action folded to him in middle position or later. So I wanted to punish him for that and take the initiative in the hand. I also didn’t want to give him a free flop in the event that he had a worse hand than mine.

In a reraised pot, I often check Ace-high flops with or without the Ace. This is because the strength of your range when you’ve reraised is kind of polarized when the Ace hits: either you loved that card and made top pair with a good kicker or you hated it and are worried your QQ or KK is no longer good. I’ll often bet the turn if checked to, but when the A pairs, I don’t think many better hands are folding.

I could be good on the river, though I think hands without showdown value often take a shot on the turn. Regardless, against a smart player (and this guy seemed to fit that description reasonably well), this should fold out better hands about 50% of the time. A small bet like this on the river, after I passed up two opportunities to take a shot in spots where I’d probably have more fold equity, is almost always for value. And in fact my hand could easily be JJ, QQ, KK, or even AA. I would expect my opponent to fold anything worse than a pair of T’s to this bet. But maybe not and I was just good all along.

The point is that this works because my opponent is thinking on a certain level. He’s thinking about my hand range when I reraise, he’s realizing that I passed up a good bluff opportunity on the flop and somewhat on the turn as well, and then he’s seeing that I’m making a smallish bet on the river. If he can read hands, this will look quite a good deal like a hand I’m betting for value.

This works less well against opponents who are just playing their hands with regard to the size of the pot and the size of the bet and not really thinking about what you might have:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds, 50 Ante, 9 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

MP1: 9,097
Hero (MP2): 11,040
CO: 20,426
BTN: 6,163
SB: 3,812
BB: 7,336
UTG: 34,790
UTG+1: 36,760
UTG+2: 10,477

Pre-Flop: (1,050) As Th dealt to Hero (MP2)
4 folds, Hero raises to 1,090, CO calls 1,090, 3 folds

Flop: (3,230) 2s 9s Qd (2 Players)
Hero bets 1,900, CO calls 1,900

Turn: (7,030) 5c (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (7,030) 9c (2 Players)
Hero bets 3,000, CO calls 3,000

Results: 13,030 Pot
Hero showed As Th (a pair of Nines) and LOST (-6,040 NET)
CO showed 4s 4d (two pair, Nines and Fours) and WON 13,030 (+6,990 NET)

I actually don’t mind my opponent’s river call, but pre-flop is pretty questionable given my stack size, and the flop is quite bad, especially if he’s going to check the turn. If I paired either the 9 or the Q, his equity is shot, and if I didn’t, I could easily have two overcards and a draw. Or maybe I’m just bitter.

And here’s a Fixed Limit Hold ‘Em hand from the Stars $200 HORSE:

PokerStars Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind t100 (7 handed) Hand History converter, Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Hero (t2029)
UTG (t2417)
MP1 (t5061)
MP2 (t2709)
CO (t4276)
Button (t1913)
SB (t5595)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2h, Ad.
1 fold, MP1 raises, 3 folds, SB calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (6 SB, t600) 4c, 5c, 8d (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, MP1 raises, SB folds, Hero calls.

Turn: (5 BB, t1000) Td (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks.

River: (5 BB, t1000) 7s (2 players)
Hero bets, MP1 folds.

Final Pot: 6 BB (t1200)

I’m not sure what possessed me to lead here, I guess I felt like I could often fold out the pre-flop raiser and possibly set up a bluff on a later street to get the other guy. I’m also not sure it was correct to call the raise, though I was getting 9:1 with probably 7 outs. Anyway, when my opponent checks the turn, he can’t have a very strong hand. There are too many draws out there. So I figured he’d fold to a “value bet” on the river. Then again, it’s possible my A2 was good all along.

This is the fourth article I’ve published with them, but it differs substantially from the other three, which were all about strategic concepts in tournament play. This article focuses instead on how to decide which tournaments to play, discussing factors like blind structure, payout structure, and bankroll requirements. Hopefully this is a useful contribution to literature on tournament poker, but it wasn’t particularly enjoyable to write, so I think I’m going to return to strategy for my next article.

I’d greatly appreciate comments on my latest article either here or in my thread in the Two Plus Two Internet Magazine Forum.

In case you missed it, here’s my March article: Attacking and Defending Dead Money in Tournament Poker.

The editor has indicated that he would like me to keep contributing regularly, so I’m starting to think about my next article. Ideas I’m currently considering:

-Tournament Selection. This would be a discussion of the factors that go into choosing which tournaments you will play regularly: structure, field size, skill level, the strengths and weaknesses of your game, your bankroll, taking shots, satellites, etc.

-Reverse Implied Odds. I don’t see these discussed much in the MTT forum, but they are very important. Their influence on late game play seems particularly under-theorized.

-Stack sizes and moves available. How to evaluate a situation or a particular bet based on the size of your stack and those around you. Some of the material I had in mind for this already appears in “The Last Bet.”

Feedback on these ideas and any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The article itself is good but not great, in my opinion. It was my suspicion, and the feedback that I’ve gotten corroborates this, that it would be a useful and clearly written introduction to some advanced tournament concepts, but would not containt much information that would be new to even a moderately successful tournament player. I’m working on a follow-up article to submit for consideration for the April issue that will address these concepts with greater depth and sophistication.

If you’ve got any comments on the article or thoughts about what you’d like to see in the future, please leave me a comment here or on the 2+2 Magazine Forum.