Andrew Seidman - "Easy Game" - Reasons for Betting Part I

The Importance of Information in the Game

At the very beginning, when we have no experience in poker, we have no idea what's happening around us. We don't perceive information as we should. In fact, we are limited to two main pieces of information – the two starting cards in our hands and the cards we see on the Board. The rest of the information is completely unknown to us – such as the possible range of our opponents' hands, game flow, style effects, player types, tendencies, and so on. The most important thing is to understand the essence – the more information a player can gather and use, the better they are at poker. And vice versa. In the following sections, we will talk about how to gather information and how to use it, what to pay attention to, what it means, and how to find answers to arising questions. The goal of the first part of the book is to clarify the main game strategies and theories that would help you gain an advantage over weak players and also prepare you for playing against more broadly thinking opponents. Each concept complements another, so the first chapter is the most important in this part.

First Chapter: Reasons for Betting Part I

I hope you are ready because we will examine the entire existence of poker. Everything starts with a simple word: why? Poor players never ask themselves the question: why did I make this decision? Average players ask themselves “why?”, but usually get the wrong answers. This is one of the most common mistakes I notice when training students, which needs to be corrected. When a student makes a bet, I ask them, why did you make this bet? The most common answers are: “I am confident I have the best hand”, “I made the bet for information to understand where I stand”, or “I made the bet because I want to protect my hand”. The problem is that these are not reasons for making a bet. Things like information or hand protection are side effects of the bets made, but they are not reasons. So, what are the real reasons for making bets? There are only three. To justify our bet or raise, we need to identify these three (and only these three) reasons.

I'll start with the first two reasons:

1. Value. This is the definition of a bet we want to get a call or raise from a worse hand. Making a bet with the reason that you likely have the best hand is simply not enough to claim that we made a value bet.

2. Bluff. This is the definition of a bet we make to force an opponent holding a better hand to fold. Making a bet just because we can't win any other way is not enough to claim that we bet to bluff.

These two reasons are very simple. They are based on relying on the mistakes we get from opponents. Usually, this is too frequent folding or too frequent calling. Too frequent calling is human nature. By nature, we are curious, so we want to see what hand our opponent holds, what the fourth card will be, and no matter what happens, we want to know if we will hit our flush on the river.

People are more likely to make mistakes by calling too often than by folding their hands too often.

Therefore, reason number #1 should dominate our bets. Bets made for value (value bet) have always been and will always be the best way to make money. In low-stakes games, let's say NL25, almost all players at the table will absurdly often call bets, so reason number #2 becomes more or less useless. In higher-stakes games, such as NL5000, almost all opponents playing at the table will be good enough to avoid the value bet tax, so the benefit of the first reason decreases and reason #2 becomes more important. In general, even regular players in high-stakes games, as a rule, make bad calls more often than bad folds.

What about c-betting? Let's say we raised with KQo from the button and the opponent in the big blind position (a loose-passive style player who almost never folds on the flop after hitting any pair) calls our bet. The flop comes A75r. The opponent checks. This situation is very standard for a c-bet. Why?

Let's think. We can't get a call from worse hands (QJ in this situation is an unsuitable hand for continuing action) even a hand like 86 is approximately a coin-flip against us in terms of equity. So we can't bet for value. Assuming the opponent won't fold any pair, we also can't bluff, even if we have the best non-pair hand. But we still make the bet. Why?

3. To capture dead money. This is the definition of an action we take to force an opponent to fold a better or worse hand and collect the accumulated pot.

Overall, this reason is obviously more complex than the previously mentioned ones. So what makes this mysterious third reason effective?

We will discuss what makes the third reason effective next week.

Stay tuned for the continuation.

The article series is prepared based on Andrew Seidman's poker book: “Easy game”. Those who want to purchase the original, which is in English, can do so at balugawhale.com.