Internet Texas Hold'em: Poker Concepts II (pg 51-72)

[uw_madtown]

RAISING / CHECK-RAISING

- Five reasons to raise in Hold'Em
- Raising forces mediocre or drawing hands to either fold or call without odds to do so
- The nature of bad beat hands (sign of bets being earned when opponent does NOT make their hand)
- Reasons to check-raise vs. betting or check-calling
- Check-raising requires confidence that an opponent will bet behind you
- Benefits of check-raising
- Internet considerations



Reasons 1 and 2 are fairly intuitive. Raising with a hand like top pair, top kicker has both these goals in mind -- you usually have the best hand, and if there are draws, you want to force them to make a mistake odds-wise to stay in the hand. I think Hilger's 3rd reason (good pot odds to try a bluff or semi-bluff) is a concept that is less applicable to internet play, especially flop play. A raise on the flop, even heads-up, is less likely to fold a better hand.

In fact, thinking about it, I think his reasons can be boiled down to two scenarios. Reasons 1 and 2 apply to good, made hands -- you want to get money in there if you likely have the best hand without much draw, and also want to force draws to make a mistake by calling. Reasons 3-5 apply to weak hands and draws. Reasons 3 and 4 especially applies to 3-handed or heads-up flop play with, say, a four-flush. Raising with this hand, you may force someone betting overcards like AK to fold to your semi-bluff (not applicable to a multi-way pot -- SOMEONE will call 2 bets, unless you're at higher limits). Also, if the person calls your raise, you still can usually take a free river card if the turn leaves your draw unimproved.

Reason 5 applies to second pair (something like JJ on an AT3 rainbow board). If you raise on the flop, then a reraise signals aces or better. A weak ace may simply go into check-call mode, in which case you can bet the turn and maybe the river, depending on your read (will this player fold a weak ace to strong betting? would this player call a river bet with just a pair of tens?). Your read may dictate checking behind on the river is best -- the ultimate question to ask is, is a weaker hand going to call my bet? Original point being, by raising the flop instead of check-calling down, you allow yourself a cheaper way out against an ace, and may steal the pot from a weak ace (or, if not, you are only going to end up losing an extra SB from the extra aggression).

I feel as though I should refrain from discussing check-raising too much, as it is easily the weakest aspect of my game. Most important though is to make sure someone has shown aggression and will bet out if you check. For example, a pre-flop raiser. Secondly, do you want to drive people out, or trap people for bets? If you're driving people out from early position, you want this potential raiser to be in late position (on your right). If you're trapping for bets, you want this raiser to be on your left. If you imagine how a check-raise would affect flop betting with the bettor being in each of these positions, it should make sense.

I think the benefits of internet tells is usually overvalued by most beginners. However, the insta-raise can be enough of a tell to make a questionable call into a fold. But don't be folding something like JJ to an insta-three bet or AQ to a insta-two bet preflop. The amount of weight you give internet tells should be tempered quite a bit.



A reply to this thread, containing commentary on Deceptive Tactics, will be coming shortly.

"Test Your Skils" questions will be available in web-format here in a few hours.

Discuss!

[MEbenhoe]

just thought I'd bump this up in case all you ITH book club readers missed this post. Otherwise has support died out this fast?

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
In fact, thinking about it, I think his reasons can be boiled down to two scenarios. Reasons 1 and 2 apply to good, made hands -- you want to get money in there if you likely have the best hand without much draw, and also want to force draws to make a mistake by calling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just thought I'd address this statement. This really isn't that correct. There are very few situations in the hold em games that you will find online where a player is making a mistake by calling with a flush draw or OESD. These types of draws being the ones that most people consistently will play all the way to the river I think its important to correct a misleading statement such as this. Lets use an example to illustrate this idea:

You are holding A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] UTG. You limp in and it is folded around to the SB who completes and the BB who checks. There are 3 SBs in the pot. The flop comes J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] The SB checks, BB bets and you raise thinking you have the best hand. At this point there are 6 SBs in the pot and it is 2 SBs to the small blind to call. Now if the small blind was on either a OESD or a flush draw what do you want them to do here? Well according to you you raised to make them make an incorrect call. That is wrong, in fact anyone who would fold in this situation is losing money. You're getting 3:1 immediately on your call and its almost guaranteed the big blind will call so basically 3.5:1. You're about 5:1 to hit your flush draw on the next card or about 6:1 to hit your OESD on the next card so you know for this to be profitable you either have to be able to make up 1.5 BB or 2.5 BB when you hit. This is incredibly easy to do in a 3way pot so calling here is profitable for the SB.

So if the Small blind folds here you've actually made money off their mistake, but you also make money when they call just not for the same reason. For this example lets say that while you have A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], the Big blind has A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and the small blind has 8 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on the J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] flop. Given this situation the hand breaks down like this:

cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Js Ah 465 51.50 429 47.51 9 1.00 0.520
Ad Th 65 7.20 829 91.81 9 1.00 0.077
8c 4c 364 40.31 539 59.69 0 0.00 0.403

With your pot equity being so high you're gaining money on every bet that is put into the pot. However you'd actually gain more if the small blind folded because that would change the breakdown of the hand to this:

cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Js Ah 891 90.00 83 8.38 16 1.62 0.908
Ad Th 83 8.38 891 90.00 16 1.62 0.092

In situation #1 you have 52% pot equity in what will be a 9 SB bet so 4.68 SBs, but in situation #2 you have 90.8% pot equity in what will be a 7 SB pot so 6.356 SBs. Also to show how you gain when the draw calls your raise over if you didnt raise, if you don't raise the pot and the small blind calls you still have 52% pot equity but it is now of a 6 SB pot so 3.12 SBs, so you would have lost 1.56 SBs by not raising here.

Now this situation was actually a lot smaller pot than most online pots are at this stage, so you can see that in many situations you actually want draws to make the mistake of folding, not the "mistake" of calling. However, even if they do call you are still gaining from your raise over having not raised due to the fact that you gain on all bets and raises because of your pot equity.

Hope that all made sense and wasnt too drawn out.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In fact, thinking about it, I think his reasons can be boiled down to two scenarios. Reasons 1 and 2 apply to good, made hands -- you want to get money in there if you likely have the best hand without much draw, and also want to force draws to make a mistake by calling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just thought I'd address this statement. This really isn't that correct. There are very few situations in the hold em games that you will find online where a player is making a mistake by calling with a flush draw or OESD.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very nice post, except for your premise. He said "draw", you said "flush draw or OESD". There are many kinds of draws, and many of them should not be continued. Occasionally, flush draws should not even be continued, but there are much weaker draws than that.

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In fact, thinking about it, I think his reasons can be boiled down to two scenarios. Reasons 1 and 2 apply to good, made hands -- you want to get money in there if you likely have the best hand without much draw, and also want to force draws to make a mistake by calling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just thought I'd address this statement. This really isn't that correct. There are very few situations in the hold em games that you will find online where a player is making a mistake by calling with a flush draw or OESD.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very nice post, except for your premise. He said "draw", you said "flush draw or OESD". There are many kinds of draws, and many of them should not be continued. Occasionally, flush draws should not even be continued, but there are much weaker draws than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand that there are other draws, this was merely to show how in many situations this concept is incorrect, and since generally when you say draw these are the two that come to mind first, I felt I'd expand on these. Had he said weaker draws his statement would have been more correct, but merely putting out the generic statement of draws causes a concept that is correct at some times and incorrect at others to be applied to all, that is what I was trying to clear up.

As far as your comment on flush draws, circumstances under which you shouldn't continue on your flush draw on the flop are rare, and pretty much never considering the large multiway pots that make up most online games.

[fred22]

First I'd like to say, I love this book. This is my second reading of it and I'm definitely getting more out of it this time than I did the first time. 18,000 online hands have passed since that first reading, and this second read makes my learning and understanding much better. I'm now thinking I might get even more out of it on a 3rd,4th & 5th reading.

In fact, when ever I see a post from someone saying, "Okay I've read this, that and the other book. What should I read now?", I really think they should try re-reading the books they already have, they might be very surprised. Try to squeeze everything you can out of the books you've got before venturing off to another book.

Anyway, here's a question on the "In Turn" buttons online.
ITH recommends not using the "In Turn" buttons unless you are folding. I've noticed myself that it does seem like when someone is using these buttons on the turn & river and they are called down, they usually do have a big hand.

Do you all see the same thing? Do you use this to aid in your bluffing?

The other reason for using these buttons is for multi-tablers. Guys playing 4 tables probably use these buttons all the time. If some one is using these buttons all the time, then probably not a tell.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
I understand that there are other draws, this was merely to show how in many situations this concept is incorrect, and since generally when you say draw these are the two that come to mind first, I felt I'd expand on these. Had he said weaker draws his statement would have been more correct, but merely putting out the generic statement of draws causes a concept that is correct at some times and incorrect at others to be applied to all, that is what I was trying to clear up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well if we're to be most clear, we should go back to the book and the context of the statement, which is that *one* of the reasons to raise would be to make an opponent make a mistake by calling when there are not proper odds to do so.
This is independent of a "strong" or "weak" draw - it is only related to making it a mistake. It can be a "strong" draw with less than sufficient pot/implied odds, or a "weak" draw with less than sufficient pot/implied odds.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as your comment on flush draws, circumstances under which you shouldn't continue on your flush draw on the flop are rare, and pretty much never considering the large multiway pots that make up most online games.

[/ QUOTE ]

But it's not never, especially in the context of the book, which is mostly mid to highish limit games that make up the bulk of the book's hand examples. Certainly, I have folded flush draws because I didn't have the pot odds in some of the games I've played in. But that's not really the point. The point is that you shouldn't play by general principles like "never fold a flush draw". You should play by general principles like "fold if you don't have the pot/implied odds to continue". (Obviously this is more complicated if bluffing or table image are taken into account, but the fundmental idea is here.)

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]

Well if we're to be most clear, we should go back to the book and the context of the statement, which is that *one* of the reasons to raise would be to make an opponent make a mistake by calling when there are not proper odds to do so.
This is independent of a "strong" or "weak" draw - it is only related to making it a mistake. It can be a "strong" draw with less than sufficient pot/implied odds, or a "weak" draw with less than sufficient pot/implied odds.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well part of the reason UWMadtown took over for this book was because I don't own ITH nor do I wish to spend any time reading it. Because of this I was basing my comments off of what he said not what was in the book.

[ QUOTE ]

But it's not never, especially in the context of the book, which is mostly mid to highish limit games that make up the bulk of the book's hand examples. Certainly, I have folded flush draws because I didn't have the pot odds in some of the games I've played in. But that's not really the point. The point is that you shouldn't play by general principles like "never fold a flush draw". You should play by general principles like "fold if you don't have the pot/implied odds to continue". (Obviously this is more complicated if bluffing or table image are taken into account, but the fundmental idea is here.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Like Mason pointed out in another post the name of the book is Internet Texas Hold Em so all the concepts in the book should apply to internet games. The "mid to highish limit" games online are still loose games with multiway pots(as are many of these games in B&M as well), in which it is rarely correct to drop your flush draw for pot odds reasons. Also, I'd really love for you to show me an instance in which your implied odds on the flop are not good enough for you to continue on your flush draw.

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
You're about 5:1 to hit your flush draw on the next card or about 6:1 to hit your OESD on the next

[/ QUOTE ]

My math can be a little fuzzy when I first wake up, this should be 4.2:1 for the flush draw and 4.875:1 on the OESD requiring you to make up even fewer bets in implied odds.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

I've commented many times on these forums that Hilger copied much material from Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players and Middle Limit Poker and gave virtually no credit to his sources. In this section is one of the most flagrant examples. The last paragraph on page 67 reads:

[ QUOTE ]
Let's look at another example. You raise on the button first in with A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and are reraised by an aggressive player in the small blind. The most common raising hands by an aggressive player in this situation are either a pair or Ax. The flop comes A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Your opponent bets and you call. He now checks the turn of 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. If he is the type of opponent who will fold a weak pair if you come out betting and would check-raise strong hands, then a good strategy might be to check the turn. He might try a bluff on the river gaining you a bet. If he checks on the river and you bet, he might call with a weak hand gaining you a bet. On the other hand, if he was planning a check raise on the turn, you save two bets on the turn while gaining the possibility of improving to a better hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now here's what appears on page 88 of HPFAP:

[ QUOTE ]
Here is a second example of this type of play. Suppose you hold A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and raise from a late position. You are reraised by the player in the big blind, and the flop comes A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Your opponent bets and you call. On fourth street, a blank hits and your opponent checks. You also should check with the intention of betting or calling on the river. Notice that if your opponent has a better hand than you have, you avoid being check-raised. Consequently, if your opponent cannot beat an ace, there is a good chance that he will either bet or call on the river when he might have folded on fourth street if you had bet your hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even though the cards are changed slightly as well as a few details, this is the same example. What's interesting, is that there are no other books that I know of where an example like this appears. (It also comes from a hand that I played in a $10-$20 game at the Golden Nugget way back in 1986 when I was originally working with David on hold 'em. After a long discussion, it made our private notes.)

By the way, going back to Hilger's example, he writes

[ QUOTE ]
The most common raising hands by an aggressive player in this situation are either a pair or Ax.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, this is very incomplete. Hilger did change the example from the reraiser being in the big blind to having him in the small blind. Good aggressive players will actually three bet in this spot far more from the small blind than the big blind to knock out the big blind. (See HPFAP for discussion.) Now this fact shouldn't change your strategy of just calling the flop bet and checking the turn. But it does mean that if your opponent now bets the river, you are more likely to see a bluff than if he was in the big blind.

Best wishes,
Mason