When you play against a weak competition on a poker table, you can afford to play what is called the "fit or fold" poker and get some success. But when you mount limits and the other (more numerous) regular play as you, your style will no longer work.
The only money exchange that will remain will be coolers and periods where other regulars will tilt. You can still expect to make a profit by systematically playing your A game, but the variance you will probably to wear. You'll be break even and surely discouraged from playing cards.
This is why you need to be aggressive and creative by incorporating several new games in your sessions.
Today, I propose to introduce a game that could be called "out of the box". It is based on another article published on PokerCollectif on the semi-bluff.
It is just an example among thousands of games that you can do to be less predictable.
Play position
Important first point and it is a cliché to say (all poker players know, or almost), but to make your games 'out of the box', it will be desirable to be in position. In position, you earn more when you have the best hand, you lose less when you have the 2nd best hand and you're bluffing much better and easily.
A high boards
If there is something that does not change in poker is that players who have raised preflop, cbet flop at an extremely high frequency (often too high).
And this is even more true on the board A high. Even if it is a mistake to cbetter 100% of the boards has high as preflop raiser, the majority of players will cbetter between 95% and 100%.
And it is not for nothing, because players will folder much more often on board A high only on boards of type 8-9-Q for example, with a flush draw. That being said, let's take an example between naughty (UTG) and hero (MP).
Caller with a suited connector in position
A single hand. You are in MP with Jd - Td. A player that opens 15% of hands UTG opens $ 3 in a part of a $ 0.50 / $ 1 (100 big blinds deep). You decide to caller with your speculative hand. All other players fold and the flop comes:
Ad - 9 s - 6 h
The player UTG cbet 50% of the pot (it will probably do with 100% of range).
What do you do?
Several players here will folder. Before deciding the game to do with our JTs (caller, folder or raiser), let's look at a few details together. Immediately say that hope hit a flush, a full or 2 pairs with our JTs to continue in the hand will be a loser in the long term as you douterez.
If you have calle your JTs to hit something, tell yourself that you rarely hit a big hand. A simple quick glance at Flopzilla will convince you:
As you can see, 65.4% of the time, you don't hit anything. And even when you hit (small pair, medium pair and same top pair), if your opponent is aggressive, it will be difficult to go to the showdown in a profitable way.
For this reason, you must be aware of two things:
1 - Caller JTs in this position to play "fit or fold ' is EV-.
2 - To make this call, you need to be aggressive and creative.
Now, let's look at the range of our opponent and the % of the time that it will hit the board in question (to put in relationship with his range of cbet which is 100% on this board).
Here is the range of 15% that can give our naughty to open UTG.
Let's see now how this range is going to perform on the board in question:
What to do now with our JTs?
About 35% of the time, ugly will be air and only about 25% of the time a hand that will support the action (a set, a good top pair, two pairs). According to statistics from "fold to cbet" your opponent, to make your call with JTs, it would be a great idea to raiser. Several points justify this raise:
1 - Your opponent will have only a sufficient hand to caller one raise approximately 25% of the time.
2. If your opponent has a high % of "fold to cbet raise", it will still be a better idea.
3 - Your opponent is out of position and will have difficulty playing the rest of the hand. For this reason, it will be probably more tight and cautious.
4. If your opponent call, several cards on the turn will give you the opportunity to bet again (giving you an opportunity to do folder).
5 - By relaunching JTs here, you swing your range as the fact only raiser strong hands will make you too easy to play.
6 - If you have a tight player image, naughty would have another choice you give credit and folder one very large range.
Therefore, when you restart, your opponent will often folder. Is it call, as outlined above, several cards on the turn will give you a great opportunity to bet (a Q, a 8, no matter what tile). Note also that if your opponent is stubborn, it is not impossible that a T or a J on the turn gives you the best hand (on these cards, it will be best of checker rather than bet). So you'll still 6 outs more when you're behind.
It is worth noting that many players refuse to fight without an excellent hands on a A high board and will be charged to be very honest (especially versus a relaunch and out of position).
The goal is not here raiser 100% of the boards with JTs in MP versus one raises UTG, but to think about an alternative to always folder (as we say in English, you saignerez money to do that). Here the board is interesting to raiser because you have several backdoors and a lot of fold equity (in addition to being in position).
By restarting in situations of the kind, you'll be more profitable when you callerez with your suited connectors and you will be more difficult to play. You, you will become more often pay your big hands when you raiserez them because you won't have one % of raise flop of 2%, which means the nuts every time.
If you have other examples of somewhat less conventional games, you can post them on our discussion forum: aggression and creativity so made him gold fold poker
You can also read the PokerCollectif article to introduce you to Flopzilla.
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Laurence Grondin meets Jared TendlerNext >
